tender like a bruise

by petricholour

Summary:

"For years they’ve touched carefully, in ways that got compacted into ritual even before Jimin realised; Yoongi’s hand on the back of Jimin’s neck petting absently at the side (allowed), Jimin’s leg hooking over Yoongi’s thigh if they’re sitting (allowed), slinging an arm over each other’s shoulders (allowed), holding hands on stage (allowed), or for a stupid game (allowed) and – the shower boner (an aberration). Just loneliness, probably."

OR i love you. aww, me too. no, not like that (The Fic)

Notes:

This is largely canon-compliant with liberties taken with the timeline between the start of Yoongi's alternative service and Jimin's enlistment for *waves hand* plot reasons. I needed enlistment era canon Yoonmin fic in this world, and the only way ahead was to, er, write it.

Chapter 1

Notes:

many thanks to jiminssweetbussy for beta-reading this chapter!

 

 

“Yoongi hyung? Sorry I’m late. Do you want me to put the wine in the fridge?”

Yoongi pokes his head out from behind the kitchen entryway. His house smells like galbi, he must’ve marinated it in the morning, or maybe last night. Jimin toes off his shoes and shoves his feet into the pair of small slippers Yoongi keeps in the shoe rack for him.

“Just open it now, Jimin-ah. I haven’t had anything to drink yet.”

Jimin complies, marching into the kitchen with the wines his friend had sent him, looking about for a bit of empty counter space. Setting the bag down carefully, he walks over to where Yoongi is, looking over his shoulder at the meat sizzling in the pan. He smells like onions.

“One bite?”

“Ah, fuck off, it’s not ready yet,” Yoongi says, even as he sets his cooking chopsticks down to grab a knife, even as he carefully slices off an end from the cooking meat. He holds the piece out, speared on the end of the knife, towards Jimin. Yoongi doesn’t make eye contact. Jimin delicately takes it from the end of the knife with his teeth.

“Ouf – fff – it’s hot,” he gasps.

This time, he gets a withering look sent his way. Jimin huffs out a laugh as he chews, bracing a hand on Yoongi’s right shoulder to reach up to the cabinet, one of three, where Yoongi keeps his glasses. No use: so he generates a bit of lift and hoists himself up to put his knee on the counter in between the chopped onions and a colander of greens.

“Yah! You’ll break something!”

Jimin ignores Yoongi’s protests and fishes out two glasses. He smiles down at Yoongi, who’s glowering at him in his Kumamon apron with a hand on his hip, just like his mother. “Give me a lift?”

Sighing aggrievedly, Yoongi puts the knife down to grasp Jimin’s waist. At this point, there’s really nothing Jimin can do than let his weight fall heavily into Yoongi, who holds Jimin aloft for a microsecond before depositing him (and the glasses) safely on the ground.

“They’re crystal,” he mumbles.

“As you’ve told me ten thousand times, hyung. Relax.”

Yoongi grumbles in that way he has, where it’s more noise than words. Jimin smiles at his back, busying himself with pouring out the wine. Not Yoongi’s favourite, but Jimin likes this wine and likes that Yoongi let him pick something to drink this time, even though he’s tired from his day at the office and would probably prefer whiskey. “How was work?” he asks as he walks a glass over to Yoongi’s side.

“Enhh.” Yoongi stirs some more, nearly done with the galbi. “It’s nice,” he says, tipping his glass at Jimin, who clinks his against it. When it becomes clear that nothing else is forthcoming, Jimin sets to clearing the counter as best he can. Yoongi doesn’t like backseat cooking, but he grunts to indicate that he appreciates the clean-up. When there’s enough space, Jimin hoists himself up onto the counter.

Yoongi’s in his work clothes, which means he’ll probably shower after this. Despite the autumn chill, there are two tiny patches of armpit sweat darkening the blue fabric. Rolled-up sleeves, the cuffs awry. Yoongi scratches his head in that unselfconscious way he has, and Jimin watches his forearms flex. They’re bare of any bracelets at all. Wonders –

“It’s just ridiculous that I have to send an email to ask if I should go ahead and send an email. So fucking slow?” Yoongi bursts out. His train of thought interrupted, Jimin nods vigorously. “That Ju-Won fellow in Personnel just keeps smiling and smiling at me but that fucker won’t let me send a single direct email without being CC’ed. Isn’t that outrageous?” He looks over at Jimin, his eyes as big as they get. “It’s an email! You’d think he got taxed every time I send one!”

He listens to Yoongi’s workplace drama and nods and frowns and interjects in the right places. Yoongi’s a good storyteller, not the kind that dwells too long on the set-up, and he finds himself laughing before too long. They set up the table as Yoongi talks, and Jimin realises how long it has been before anyone’s been telling Yoongi what to do. He says so.

“It’s been a long time since you had to answer to anyone for little things, hyung. I’d be annoyed as fuck too, so it makes sense that you’d be mad. I get it, y’know.”

Yoongi jerks his chin at him in appreciation, settling into one of the chairs at the dining table and swinging his legs up onto another. Jimin pushes Yoongi’s car keys and wallet to the other end as he takes the chair adjacent to him, thinking about how patient Yoongi is, how assured of himself, how professional. If Yoongi’s this annoyed every evening after work, what’s going to happen to him? He’s a taped-up human being, and he’s afraid of everything. More and more, these days.

Yoongi tires himself out speaking, and they slip into a silence so comfortable Jimin barely notices it outside his own thoughts. The table is solid walnut, and seats twelve. Once they’d all gotten uproariously drunk at this house before they announced the hiatus, and he remembers Taehyung laying down on it shirtless, insisting they all take shots out of his bellybutton. Jungkook had done it, and unexpectedly, so had Yoongi. Jimin feels a sudden jolt picturing it now, Yoongi’s loose-lipped laugh as he accidentally bit Taehyung’s stomach in his hurry, the vodka spilling out over his chin goofily. Everything had felt solid, then.

“Aish, this knot. Jimin-ah, I can’t get it undone, c’mere,” Yoongi twists uncomfortably as he tries to undo his apron while slumped in the chair. There’s an edge of impatience to his voice that signals real tiredness. Jimin goes over and makes him sit up.

There’s a quiet clink as Yoongi sets his glass on the table out of sight. His back is warm against Jimin’s fingers as he unties the knot. A sigh. Jimin feels, uncannily, like Yoongi wants to slump back against him but won’t. He knocks the top of Yoongi’s skull with his knuckles and sings something nonsensical, giving Yoongi permission. To what? He doesn’t know, he never knows.

He straightens up and bonks his head against Yoongi’s for good measure. Yoongi scoffs, and Jimin sits back in his chair. He smiles at Yoongi reassuringly over the top of his glass, and Yoongi looks down at the table.

“Let’s eat”, he says suddenly.

The taste of Yoongi’s cooking is more familiar to Jimin than his own mother’s, he suddenly realises, as Yoongi waddles off mid-meal to get the extra hot kimchi for Jimin that he stores in a separate container in the fridge. Jimin makes grabby hands as Yoongi returns. “I love that you eat dinner every evening now. Which means I get to eat your dinner.”

“Pest.” Yoongi grouses.

 

 

They finish the first bottle, and then the next. At some point Yoongi disappears into his ensuite bathroom to take a shower and emerges, his hair still damp, very pink all over. Jimin asks him, “Movie?”

“I do have work tomorrow, Jimin-ah.”

“Yes, but how many hours are you sleeping at a go now?”

“…Fine. One movie. Short.” Yoongi goes back into his room to do his skincare, and Jimin can hear his voice echo through the flat. “Something we’ve seen before.” He comes out of the room, moisturizer dotted over his face like a motion-capture actor and points an accusing finger at Jimin. “Not Boss Baby.”

They end up spending so long arguing about the movie choice that Jimin pulls up a Run BTS episode eventually, one of the recent ones. He gets up to do the dishes as it plays and finds himself laughing hard enough to get dish soap in his eye. Onscreen, he falls over a chair.

“Jimin-ah, wasn’t that the day when – wait, what happened to you?” He can’t see Yoongi, but he hears the shuff-shuff of his slippers getting closer. He comes to stand silently next to Jimin, who’s whipped off his gloves and managed to rinse his soapy face. Jimin turns a face of dramatic suffering in Yoongi’s general direction, and Yoongi reaches out to rub the back of his neck, chuckling. His hand is large, and warm.

“Leave these, I have a dishwasher now.”

He puts on a funny American accent, “Who are you, Yeonki Min?”

“You forget I don’t live with four human dishwashers anymore.” The side of his mouth goes up, comes down. His thumb absentmindedly scrapes through the small hairs on Jimin’s neck. “Now, come back here.”

 

 

Outside Hannam-dong, the night is quiet, and Jimin feels the usual creep of comfort that pulls him lower and lower into the couch. He’s careful not to jostle Yoongi as he leans against the arm and stretches out as far as he can go. It’s getting late and he should probably be getting a move on, but he can’t seem to want to leave. He looks down his legs towards Yoongi, who’s texting someone furiously: if he’s taken notice of Jimin making himself comfortable, he hasn’t said anything.

Jimin likes this house. He likes the ceiling, which Yoongi had painted black in the throes of his nerdy interior design excitement at getting his own place. “This looks rather…dramatic, no?”, he’d wondered at first. Yoongi had launched into a whole explanation of how darker colours made walls and ceilings recede, his eyebrows doing as much talking as his mouth. Now, he’s learnt to appreciate Yoongi’s quiet competence at this, as anything else. He likes the heavy crystal tumblers in the cupboard, and the cheap die-cut kitty coasters Yoongi insists he put them on.

He likes himself when he’s here.

Ever since they all moved into their own homes – or own bare apartments, in Jimin’s case – Jimin feels a bit untethered. Not that he doesn’t enjoy being able to walk around naked after a shower without Seokjin nearly maiming him with a pillow, but it’s a strange kind of privacy. Life as an idol feels oddly compressed and elongated all at once, the months and days running in short album-tour-awards-season bursts, such that it always feels like he needs to push through just a couple of weeks more. And then he looks up and a year has passed. Or ten. At least he could go curl up in Tae’s bed whenever he felt out of time and place, as if through proximity alone, Tae’s steady sense of self would pull him back into orbit. It’s not like he doesn’t do it still, but it’s harder with them all on separate schedules all the time, and Hobi hyung gone. Jimin feels himself drift. He worries sometimes about being a little paper boat pulled into the members’ currents, following them where they go – Chicago, LA, Paris – airport and hotel non-spaces. Pursuing them just to feel like they want him there. Need him there.

“Hey.”

Yoongi’s voice has gone gravelly with sleepiness, but he’s now sitting up to peer at Jimin. A hand touches his shin, and then wraps around it, squeezing. “Are you about to fall asleep, Jimin-ah?”

He unpeels himself from the leather, a little embarrassed. Yoongi tilts his head to the side. “Stay, then.”

“No, no, I’ll get going. I’ve a shoot in the afternoon, I think?” He digs his phone out from between the couch cushions and pulls up the texts from his manager. He swipes the other unread notifications away with a vague sense of guilt and stands. It’s been one of their quieter nights tonight, and it’s getting quieter.

In the glow from the TV, Yoongi’s eyes glimmer wetly. There’s a long beat where he just looks at Jimin, unhurried, and Jimin feels oddly like he’s watching one of Yoongi’s lives. The ones where he just sits and breathes in front of the camera, looking at it as much as it is looking at him.

Jimin shakes off the ripple in his gut. He blows out a big, dramatic breath for something to do. Yoongi keeps looking at him. There’s a beep from the air purifier in the corner, and it startles Jimin.

“Really should get going, hyung.”

He spins around looking for his things, though there’s really nothing but his bag and his hat.

Yoongi’s quiet through this all, although he does get up to walk Jimin to the door. He doesn’t seem as sleepy as he was earlier, but almost watchful instead. Jimin puts his slippers back on the shelf and turns around to hug Yoongi at the door. Yoongi’s usually a back-thumping, awkward hugger at the best of times, but tonight Jimin feels Yoongi’s chin hook over his shoulder.

“Don’t think too much, Jimin-ah. Goodnight.”

There’s a dry brush of lips against his hair, and Jimin inexplicably feels tears rush hot into his throat. He turns away. “Goodnight, hyung.”

 

 

On the short drive back home, Jimin finishes the bottle of cold green tea that has been rattling around in the cup holder since afternoon. Thinking is an uncomfortable sensation these days. He’s been sleeping long, long hours to avoid it. When did this begin? Yoongi’s really only been going to his social work job for a couple of months, and at first his visits to Yoongi’s flat in the evening were partly to give him moral support, partly for the joy of trading gossip. And partly because it was surprising how much he missed Yoongi's quiet presence when they all started living separately. They'd always been close, but, he missed the proximate calm of him. He couldn’t always call, it was just easier to go hang out in person, and suddenly it became a routine. No time at all, and yet, forever.

Hobi texts him, of course he does, angled selfies with his cap pulled low over his eyes, looking like a different person. But the explosion of emojis has become restrained now. He’ll send Hobi longer texts when he can’t sleep and tells himself to be patient about the brief but affectionate replies he gets. Jin has taken to sending him voice notes, and in the background, he can always hear the murmur of other voices. He imagines the men in the barracks, the smell of kimchi in the mess hall, the cold air in their noses during the morning drills, but he can never quite imagine Jin hyung’s squeaking laugh in those buildings. He thinks of Jin’s soft pink pullovers and wonders how it feels to not be his Jin-self there.

He could never ask him directly, of course. They simply haven’t had enough time to talk. Besides, Jin will slide away with an inscrutable laugh. After all these years, the hyungs have perfected the art of not having a tell, at least not until they’re truly in private. Still, he seems happy. Maybe Jimin just lacks imagination, or the right kind of imagination? Instead he wonders -  

Jimin wonders when he started thinking of himself as being on the outside, anyway.

His house does not smell like cooking when he enters. He trails his own noise after himself, retreating to the bedroom just to lie awake in bed till dawn.

 

 

 

The next week finds Jimin shuttling between studios and HYBE as his schedule fills up with the release of his documentary. Being busy feels…good. There’s less time to sit and think, although it does mean he’s getting very little sleep in between his late nights and fairly early mornings.

“Please tell me you have the shoes, Jimin-ssi.”

“Er, er, one second – could you hold, Soonyung-ssi,” Jimin rummages about in one of the closets that line his entryway. It’s the fourth place in his house he’s looked, and he’s going to be in serious trouble with his team if they don’t turn up. “Okay, found them.”

There’s a sigh of relief from his manager. “Ah, I’m glad I won’t have to tell Dior we lost those”, she chuckles.

“No indeed. What time do I get picked up tomorrow?”

“Be ready by 3. I’ll send the usual driver, you know him?” Jimin hums in response.

“Will you be there or will we meet at the studio?”

“I’ll see you at the studio, but I’m sending one of the newbies to pick you up as well. She’s only been with us for two months, and she’s rather nervous.”

“I’ll be extra nice.”

There’s a smile in Soonyung’s voice when she says, “I never doubted that for a second. But please don’t sleep too late tonight, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Jimin nods, both of them perfectly aware he doesn’t mean it. His team is patient, and he gets along with them wonderfully. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss Sejin hyung and the others sometimes. The pandemic made change feel weird, like it wasn't real, so even as the staff around them switched names and faces Jimin had the strangest feeling: like waking up one day to find all your furniture swapped with the neighbour's. As if it was all a dream and could be undone with one more nap.

None of his alienation is rational, or even shared with the others. The hyungs are flourishing with the change, Tae's living his best life in Paris, and Jungkook's working on a new album. Even though he's working too, Jimin feels a secret fear that everyone else will be mad at him for resenting the changes. Maybe he just needs to stop living in his head so much. 

Flopping down on the sofa with his foot dangling off it, he dials Taehyung. He picks up on the third ring. “Jimin-ah.”

“Mmm. What time is it in Paris?”

“I don’t know, someone stole my watch, and I don’t know when I am.”

Jimin chuckles. “Come back to Seoul, it’s boring without you here.” After a beat, he adds, more jealously than he intends, “Stop forgetting me because you have new friends now.”

“Jimin-ah,” Tae tuts, his voice going serious for a second, “don’t be silly.”

“I know, I know. Oh, wait, did I tell you what I just heard from my manager about you-know-who?”

They devolve into trading gossip, Jimin doing little voices for the people he’s talking shit about, richly rewarded by Tae’s laughter down the line. “And then, they find him in the bathroom, just stuffing three airpod cases down his pants-”

An hour passes before Jimin’s phone vibrates against his cheek with a text. He puts Tae on speaker to read:

            Yoongi hyung -_-

            home now. coming?
            [6:41 pm]

i’ll be there in 15, he texts back. The screen and Tae’s voice are both warm against his cheek as they hang up, laughing and promising to call soon. There’s a persistent smile on his face that doesn’t go away when he disconnects the call, the way it usually does. He hums to himself even after he stubs his toe turning around too fast. He feels weightless, like his edges are fuzzy with golden strings that wiggle outwards, connecting him to the people who love him. He’s expected elsewhere. The evening is young.

 

--

 

Yoongi’s doorbell sings Jimin’s arrival when he’s hunched over on the edge of the sofa answering an email. He doesn’t even realise he’s been chewing the inside of his cheek until a sharp flicker of pain blooms in it, where Jimin flicked his finger against the offending tic. “Don’t do that, you know it gives you sores.”

Yoongi roundly ignores him. It doesn’t work. A second later, he feels the warm pressure of Jimin draping his torso over his head, followed by the liquid pour of his body into the gap between Yoongi’s back and the sofa backrest. Yoongi turns around to look at him. “What’s got you so happy?”

“Nuh-thing!”, Jimin sing-songs. “Just seeing my favourite hyung!” Yoongi fails to fend off Jimin’s tickling, poking fingers and writhes wildly in place, phone forgotten. “You say that to all your hyungs. You – ah! – have no – ffffff – discernment – geuhehe –  stop!”

“I’m going to bite you for that,” Jimin declares, and then actually manages to bend his body inwards enough to clamp his mouth lightly around Yoongi’s flank.

Yoongi jumps like he’s been electrocuted. It feels funny; part tickle, part burn, and he stares at Jimin giggling like a maniac in the spot he’s vacated. They almost never horse around, that’s always Jimin and other people. Rarely him, beyond the odd neck squeeze or slap on the thigh. They always touch each other fondly, but carefully. “Weirdo”, he complains. Jimin must be missing Jungkook too, who’s in LA recording his album. His side still feels twitchy somehow, and he soothes it a bit self-consciously with his fingers, hoping Jimin won’t notice. At least he’s in a better mood than last week.

“Why are you still in your work clothes? Those chinos makes you look like your dad.”

“I just got home, Jimin-ah. Its been a long day. I might have gotten into a mess with that idiotic supervisor, and I don’t even know what…” He trails off and sighs, making his way to the kitchen. “Want anything to drink? If you want a cocktail make one for me too, I’ll go get changed.”

“How about some fried chicken and beer tonight?”

Yoongi’s empty-ish fridge doesn’t hold any objections to that.

The compressor hums when he stands slouching over the refrigerator door. He needs to meal prep and order groceries; the week got away from him quicker than he realised, and it’s only now that Jimin’s here, humming upside-down on his sofa, that he’s stopped to take stock. Even the dining table has acquired a sediment of random detritus, and it upsets him. He suddenly misses his personal assistant, and then cringes at himself for being a celebrity. At least there are beers in the fridge. He ignores how the voice in his head sounds like his father. “Yeah, I think we should go ahead and order.” His scalp itches. “Sorry, Jimin-ah. I’d wanted to cook.”

Jimin’s upright in a flash, frowning at him over the back of the sofa. He foregoes words to roll his eyes exaggeratedly at Yoongi. Yoongi sticks out his bottom lip at him.

“You’re being very stupid, hyung. Go bathe. I’ll order. Shoo.” He feels the tension go out of him as quickly as it had come, and the space fills with the sound of Jimin appropriating his Xbox.

He shuffles into his bedroom hallway, shrugging off his blazer and tie, dispersing the rest randomly across his bedroom. Yoongi turns the shower to the hottest it’ll go. He feels tempted to run a bath instead, but it’d be rude to keep Jimin waiting. So instead he stands there with his head bowed as the stream of water pounds into the back of his neck, absently groping for the bar of soap.

He must forget himself for longer than he realised, because there’s a knocking at the bathroom door, followed by “Hyung? Did you drown in there?”

“Oh. Sorry, just gonna be a bit longer.”

Jimin drums his knuckles against the door in a cheerful staccato.

“You weren’t even singing. You okay? Need me to come scrub your back for you?”

Yoongi raises his head slowly and the water hits him in the forehead. Maybe it’s the long work week, but finds himself saying, “Sure. Door’s not locked, come on in.”

There is silence.

He panics. “Wait, hold on. Hold on -,” at the same time that the door handle turns with a muted click. Yoongi sees the open door as a smudge through the frosted shower stall. This was a mistake. His brain is moving too slowly to come up with a good deflection, and his body seems to move on autopilot.

“Um”. Jimin pauses, a lighter smudge superimposed on the dark, open doorway. “D’you need a towel?”

God. He pokes his head awkwardly out the shower stall and drips water onto the bathmat outside. “Yes, uh. It’s on the – oh, thank you.” Jimin’s holding his towel out to him, and Yoongi ducks back inside with it, quickly wrapping it around himself. It’s okay. It’s okay, they’ve all seen each other in various states of nudity before, this is fine. Why did he even open his mouth? He’s stupid.

“Decent?”

Yoongi chuckles awkwardly, getting the sponge ready to hand it to Jimin who comes in, rolling up the bottoms of his jeans. Thankfully he has to turn his back to him anyway, and Jimin starts up a tuneless hum as he plucks the soap from its niche and lathers up the sponge with it.

His touch is business-like, one hand braced on Yoongi’s left shoulder as he scrubs with his right. Yoongi startles involuntarily when Jimin asks mildly, “Did you see your physiotherapist this week?” seemingly from right next to his ear.

“Yeah, on Sunday. She told me it’s a bit inflamed from hunching at a desk all day.”

Jimin snorts, “But you’ve been half-human half-shrimp forever, why’s this new?” They go back and forth for a bit because it’s a perfectly normal conversation they’d have over beers and fried chicken, and it’s easy to keep talking, to ignore that Jimin’s now put the sponge aside to dig his thumbs into Yoongi’s soapy back, making him groan with pleasure. Yoongi flushes.

Jimin keeps talking, talking, his fingers kneading into Yoongi’s slippery skin, and just when Yoongi feels his brain unclench, he steps back abruptly and says, “Okay. The food should be here, finish up!”

The shower stall door opens, closes, hitting Yoongi with a blast of cooler air that raises goosebumps. Underneath the towel in his white-knuckled grip, Yoongi’s hard. 

 

--

 

Two steps forward and one step back. Jimin feels so strange when he comes out into the living room with the murmur of Yoongi’s shower in the background, that he whips his phone out to text Tae.

so I was helping Yoongi hyung out in the shower and we –

He deletes it.

how can I tell if someone I’ve known for a long time feels –

Delete, delete.

I think I –

Delete.

Years ago – a lifetime ago – they’re filming Run BTS and Yoongi is holding a stupid worksheet they’ve filled out about each other. Yoongi wears that hat he likes literally all the time. Smugly declares, “My intimacy with Jimin is 100%, I can answer all these correctly.” Hobi hyung rolls his eyes at Jimin, who’s beaming stupidly by Yoongi’s elbow.

Later, Tae narrows his eyes at Jimin. “Yah, how come he’s always scolding me but he’s so nice to you? We’re the same age! He won’t even hug me but he’s always holding your hand?”

“He won’t hug anyone Taehyung-ah, he’s just like that”. Secretly, he’s pleased. He buries his face a little in the meat of Tae’s arm.

Tae kicks him in the side and turns big eyes at him. “No, he doesn’t like me. He only likes you. And Hobi hyung. Namjoon hyung and him fight all the time, and Kook is the baby. But you’re his favourite!”

Jimin crowds further into Tae, squeezing him into a hug. “But you’re mine.”

“I am? I better be.”

Jimin bonks his forehead against his best friend, persuading him silently to sway side to side with him in an inane dance. Tae giggles, and all is okay.

But later, in Hawaii, Jimin smiles to himself when Yoongi resolves to hold Tae’s hand whenever they argue. And Tae, not knowing what to do with the sudden affection, buries his entire face in his free hand. Jimin likes being Yoongi’s favourite, but not if it makes his best friend like him less. He’s so relieved when Yoongi comes back home and puts the matching necklace into one of his many boxes of memorabilia (he has four, Jimin counted), and Tae beams with quiet joy.

He decides not to text Tae at all, because he has no idea what to say. That’s a first. Mercifully, he's interrupted by the doorbell ringing. He sprints to the front door, at the same time as he hears the shuffle of Yoongi emerging from his shower.

A knot of panic pulls on every sentence he practices in his mind, but Yoongi’s voice cuts through. “Oh, it’s here.”

“It’s here,” Jimin echoes. He busies his hands with the fluff of plastic bags. Yoongi grunts and sets out plates on the coffee table. Jimin darts a quick glance at him, but he looks…fine? They scoot onto the sofa, appropriating an arm each, a wedge of silence between them as they eat, broken only by Yoongi’s occasional, “Pass the Buldak,” or a sigh of satisfaction.

Jimin should say something. Anything.

“So uh, the documentary comes out tomorrow”, he begins.

Yoongi gives Jimin one of his encouraging head bobbles, eyes fixed on his drumstick. “I’m actually not nervous at all this time around, not even for the fan meeting.”

“It’s going to be good. Of course you’ll be good.” Yoongi finally slides his eyes towards him. “You always used to like fan meetings.”

“I just – yeah. The album’s too, I feel good about it. Yeah.”

Yoongi puts his food down. “Like Crazy topped the Billboard Hot-100, Jimin-ah, and you’re working on the next one already. You've earned this.”

Jimin squirms a little. “Hyung, you don’t have to-”

“My word is final.”

“Fine.” His chest feels warm.

Yoongi offers him a small smile and gets up to fetch more beers from the fridge. They talk sporadically as they finish up, and Yoongi sprawls on the sofa in his sweatpants and rubs his hand through the short hair at the back of his head. 

Just like that, Jimin realises, they’re back where it’s safe. He doesn’t even know if anything happened, really. What counts as a happening anyway, between them? It’s hard to parse their intimacy. He’s watched porn with Jungkook. He’s slapped Jin hyung’s pert, naked butt with a wet hand, kissed Hobi hyung very passionately on a memorable birthday. Yoongi has grabbed at his dick many times, mostly in jesting revenge. He’s seen five (?) of the others’.

Never Yoongi’s though.

Never Yoongi, who will wear the tiniest shorts that ruck up into the crease of his thigh, yet who will cover his nipples if he’s in a wet t-shirt. Body shy, pink all over. Probably. Jimin’s still shocked Yoongi let him in today.

But if he’s honest with himself, really honest, he’s still thinking about the steam rising from Yoongi’s back. How he looked over Yoongi’s shoulder and down his front, how he saw the unmistakable tenting in the towel. How it made his mouth dry with sudden hunger. 

 

--

 

After Jimin leaves, Yoongi sits on the couch, staring unseeing at the TV screen. Eventually, he gets up, gathering whatever him and Jimin didn’t clear away earlier. Should he turn on some music? It feels strange to thumb at the buttons, and stranger still not to quite care what playlist he’s pulling up on his Spotify. What now?

Yoongi growls in frustration and mashes at his forehead with his hands. Something’s wrong with him. It’s the change perhaps. The office. Its substituted all his comfortable, intimate friendships with distance and wariness. That must be it. Having to begin from square one somewhere else. With many someones. There’s nothing between him and Jimin, he's checked and checked the evidence.

This – now – is absolutely the wrong time to be stupid about something he has known for years.

And really, it hasn't been so bad.

Debuting had a way of making everything so urgent that the world settled into a high electric whine, taking away the luxury of time for romance. Wild success only made it worse. Besides, dating in the group was stupid anyway, so he managed it nearly away. He fucked other people, mostly producers, even got close to love a few times – got some good writing out of them – and that was it.

Years and years of therapy have to show up somewhere, and it’s here: he never pursues what he can’t have.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

Jimin’s phone rings at 8am. He rolls over and grabs for it on the nightstand, barely making out who’s calling. “Hello?”

“Jimin-ssi, can you be in the office by 9.30? It’s urgent, we might go into a lawsuit over the next single.”

“Good morning, Sunyoung-ssi,” Jimin rasps. That’s unexpected, he thought he’d start recording soon. Apparently, it’s a surprise for his manager as well; she sounds agitated.

“I spoke to your lawyer Mr Hwang, and he’s flying to Japan later in the day, so I need you to come in now.”

“Oh, okay – yes Sunyoung-ssi, I’ll be there. Maybe sooner than that.”

“Okay. Thank you. Also, please eat before you come, this might be a long one.”

Jimin smiles. “You too, Sunyoung-ssi, have you had breakfast yet?”

“Grabbing it now, actually. Thank god the cafeteria’s open.” He hears the soft rumble of voices in the background. “I’ll let you get ready then, bye.”

“Sure, see you soon.”

He lies there for five minutes staring at the ceiling, waking up slowly. The worry hasn’t hit him fully yet; he knows the legal team will handle this, like they always do, but that doesn’t keep him from missing Namjoon. Or Yoongi. Anyone more practiced at this than him.

Fuck.

He does get himself ready at record speed, meets Sunyoung on the 10^th floor and gratefully accepts the extra breakfast she presciently grabbed for him. He makes a mental note to buy her something nice, along with her yearly bonus.

The meeting grabs him in its wake, the stress ebbing and flowing each time a problem is presented, batted away by either his lawyer or one of the company lawyers. About forty-five minutes in, he starts to feel himself recede into being a little useless pop star surrounded by people with more words than him. The new team around him is solid, built up through personal references and years of knowing many of them in junior positions, or back from successful stints in other companies; it’s not their abilities he feels skeptical about. It’s his.

When the seven of them would crowd into meeting rooms like this, he’d occasionally speak up, buoyed by the fact that they all had an equally acute sense of their own powerlessness. Us and them. It helped. He got better at it as the years went by. Namjoon’s excitable yet articulate voice, interrupted by Yoongi’s low rumble, and their insistence that they all learn to read a contract. Success changed the number of yeses he hears now, but he can't shake the anxiety of being isolated from his pack.

The bottle of sparkling water sweats in Jimin’s hands. 

“Jimin-ssi?” Mr Hwang looks at him over the top of his glasses.

“Hm?” he starts.

Mr Hwang repeats himself, and Jimin gets pulled back into the flow of the discussion. They disperse an hour later and Jimin feels better, a lot of his unease appeased by being reminded that he has more than a modicum of control. It helps that the meeting ends on a good note; Mr Hwang’s no longer scowling. The parting handshake he gives Jimin is positively cheery.

Sunyoung is at his side a second later. “Well that looks like it’ll be sorted, then.”

Jimin studies her, her long black hair, the way she rolls her shoulders back to stand straight. “Sunyoung-ssi, when did you start your first job?”

She turns to look at him in surprise. “Why – uh, that was on my resume when I-”

“Oh no, no, you’re great!” He bumps her gently with his shoulder. “That’s not why I was asking, I just. This is what I’ve always done, who I’ve always been.” They start walking, and Jimin tries to find the best words. “I started training when I was in school, and I’ve never learnt another profession. I don’t even know if I could do your job. Or anyone else’s, for that matter,” he finishes in a low voice.

Sunyoung is quiet for a bit, probably wondering what’s the right thing to say. Jimin feels bad for springing this on her, but she recovers. “You’re smart. Weren’t you top of your class in school?”

“Eh,” he shrugs.

She continues. “You’d have done well. You’re great with people. You’d have gotten into a good university, done all the extracurriculars. You just never had the time, Jimin-ssi. You know what I think? You would make an incredible head of HR. Or started your own talent management agency.”

“You think so?”

She squints assessingly at him, and Jimin feels a wash of affection towards her for taking his question seriously. He’s going to buy her two of something nice.

“Yes, Jimin-ssi. What’s got you thinking like this anyway?” She drums her acrylics against the clipboard she's holding. “We can’t know what our lives would’ve turned out like if we did this or that differently, but you’ve pretty much maxxed out every score they judge an idol’s career by. And you’re nice, to boot.” Jimin feels a bit small next to her solid reassurance. “You know, my sister still can’t believe I work with you. Thanks for the stuff you sent her, by the way.”

That’s nice and distracting. He grins, “Did she like it?”

Sunyoung sighs and tosses her hair over her shoulder. Leans conspiratorially in towards him, “Turns out my brother-in-law is an even bigger fan. Apparently one of the photocards mysteriously showed up in his wallet!”

“I’ll send him one too!” Jimin giggles. The thrill of drawing the eye of a straight, married (!) man always makes him feel powerful.

“No! Marriage is all about discovering the mysteries of your partner. Let him simmer! My sister’s actually thrilled, by the way. Guess that’ll be two tickets for 2025, huh?”

“Oh is that what marriage is about, huh, Sunyoung-ssi?”, he teases.

She teases him right back. “Yeah, I imagine it’s like being in BTS – you sign a piece of paper, live and earn money together, and learn something new about each other every day – only you also have sex.” 

She stops and slaps a hand over her mouth, turning to Jimin, who bursts out laughing uproariously.

“Oh, Namjoonie hyung would love that, I need to text him.”

Sunyoung begs with her eyes, so Jimin relents. But he can’t help imagining the group chat, especially after the uproar that him, Taehyung and Jungkook keep causing by sharing stuff the fans make. The edits and the art and all of it. Namjoon, bless his soul, understands very well the content moderation his life needs if he has to keep his sanity, but this little equivalence would make him chuckle. Yoongi would be nonplussed, but he – Jimin doesn’t know that he knows what he’d think, actually. 

Around them, the corridors hum with the voices of employees passing by, often shyly ducking their heads, or waving hello.

At some point, Sunyoung leaves him to go to a meeting with Dior. There’s always a million things to do even if he’s in early for an emergency meeting, and the next few hours disappear in a blur of approvals and concept meetings. Before he heads home, he runs into a few of the TXT babies, squeezes Beomgyu tightly in a hug and trails after them into a practice room, buffeted about by their chorus of “hyung, hyung!”. They’re so tall, Jimin muses like always, and growing surer of themselves as the years go by. He goofs around with them for a bit before he notices their choreographer beginning to look antsy, so he gives them one last round of hugs and leaves, promising to film a dance challenge with them soon.

His footsteps echo in the parking garage, and he returns a wave to the familiar guard at the exit. The late October evening nips at his face as he rolls down the window in his car, and he suddenly realises he hasn’t texted Yoongi all day.

He cringes from the thought of yesterday. Even though it’d been fine in the end.

Nothing that hasn’t happened between them has ever been a tipping point, just as this one isn’t. There's plausible deniability here: wildly inappropriate boners are a stock-in-trade for a boy group, and none of them has ever wanted to spring a semi during an interminable awards show or while on stage, and yet a dance belt has been the only thing protecting them from being labelled idol perverts. So that explains what he saw.

Just a guy being a dude.

He passes the turn heading to Yoongi’s house and decides this is only happening because he’s anxious and weird, and spending so much time one-on-one with Yoongi, not buffered by Namjoon’s company, or Tae’s, and a million bottles of soju. In this shiftless time of his life where he feels so useless. All these slow, syrupy evenings where he melts into the couch after a bout of Yoongi’s cooking, clinging to him for a sense of safety. There is no doubt in his mind that Yoongi loves Jimin with a ferocity most evident in his protectiveness, but that’s all it is.

And Yoongi’s direct. 

That cinches it, of course, because he’s never known Yoongi not to pursue someone if he’s interested, in his calm, rational way.

He could sit and count all the instances, like Yoongi's immediate but brief entanglement with Yijeong upon meeting him, or his quiet acceptance when Soohyun said no thanks, she doesn't want to graduate from backing vocals to dating an idol. Jungkook literally said "Okay I'll do a Suga hyung" right before he DMed Justin Bieber. Yoongi was proud.

Sometimes he envies Yoongi when he watches footage of their interviews fromm when they went to America for the first time. He finds himself unbearably servile and eager to please, but Yoongi’s face pinches closed if he’s uninterested by the questions. He remembers how Yoongi's fuck-off aura drove the reporters' mic towards more smiling, friendly faces. Jimin could never be that honest. 

So yes, the sun rises in the east, Min Yoongi does not fear rejection. 

And he remembers liking Yoongi right away, oddly reassured by the abrasive bluntness that Yoongi must mean his compliments – hard-won, but sincere.

“Yah, Jimin-ah. You need to put your laundry away. It sets a bad example for Jungkook, and Taehyung’s been looking for a shirt his grandmother gave him, and I think it might be in your pile. Sort it out and give it to him once you find it.”

Jimin lifts his bleary face from the sheet. He’s plonked face down after practice, and his entire body hurts. All he’d been able to manage was a shower. “Okay hyung. Just ten more minutes and I’ll be up.” Yoongi thumps the door frame with his hand lightly as punctuation. He doesn’t turn on the bedroom light, silhouetted by the lit doorway.

“You, uh. I heard the melody you made. Pdogg played it for me earlier. You did good, I think it’s the best one we have yet.”

That wakes Jimin up. “Really?” Yoongi nods short and sharp.

“Nothing else was working, really. You’re good at this.” Jimin smiles, helpless. “Now get up and fold your laundry. Or you know Hobi will give you hell for it.”

Jimin groans and lets his face sink into the darkness of the sheets.

“Did you eat after you came home?” Yoongi’s back again, closer this time by the sound of it.

Jimin shakes his head, pulling the sheets taut one way, then the other. He needs to lose weight, more than the others, quicker than the others. The awareness beats at his every waking hour. Yoongi’s stubby finger pokes him in the back, and he hates that he’d noticed Jimin skipping a meal.

“I made rice. It’s on the counter. If you want, I’ll stir fry that chicken I marinated yesterday.” Jimin won’t eat that, too many calories in the marinade probably. Yoongi continues, “And there’s a smoothie too, in the fridge, you know the bottle with the red lid?”

“Mm. Thanks hyung.”

Yoongi pointedly does not leave. “Yah, don’t waste my time, Park Jimin. Get your ass up and eat. Go back to the studio after you’ve eaten, I need that melody finalized. Don’t hold out on me.” The finger pokes him again, right in the kidney.

Jimin sighs and pulls himself up with invisible marionette strings. He’s sure his face is creased and puffy. Yoongi’s is impassive as he looks down at him. Then inexplicably, he taps Jimin twice on the cheek. “Cute”. And walks away.

 

 

 

It’s the fact that Yoongi hasn’t texted (why hasn’t he asked Jimin to hang out?) that convinces him that the gap in communication, however slight, is a seam they can both feel with nervous fingers. He thinks about his photocard in Sunyoung’s brother-in-law’s wallet and curses the mysteries of the BTS marriage.

It’s a Friday morning when he pokes at the weirdness that is forming.

me

<attachment: image>

 

Yoongi hyung -_-

who is that?

 

me

you, at the office, fighting with your supervisor and spitting paperclips

 

Yoongi hyung -_-

I can’t believe Korea’s Billboard chart-topping No 1 idol would do this

is that Ju-Won’s head on a stick?

Im reporting you to HR for this horrible drawing

me

whose HR? The state department or HYBE?

Yoongi hyung -_-

typing…

you’re uninvited from my work party

me

you’re having a work party????? :O

Yoongi hyung -_-

more like a dinner for a couple of people from work, it’s a long story
                                                                                        

me

explain please

Yoongi hyung -_-

so a coworker I quite like, Jiwon

her brother was in D-Town with me

and he’s visiting from Daegu with his wife and kid

so I’m having them over for dinner tomorrow

 

Jimin holds the phone at arm’s length and looks at it. a coworker I quite like, Jiwon. dinner. Yoongi’s popular. Yoongi has friends Jimin doesn’t know. It shouldn’t surprise him, but it does; Yoongi was always good at socializing with other producers, writers, singers, the occasional actor or two in their circles, but always because there was work to be done, a collab in the offing. Work supersedes all hesitations. All his social anxiety disappears, replaced by an oddly charming, sometimes pushy chattiness. 

coworker I quite like. Huh. What do they talk about? Work? What’s work to Yoongi when it isn’t music?

Another lifetime ago, Jimin and Yoongi at two opposite ends of a car seat, a producer pointing a camera at them over the passenger seat. “I quite like Jimin,” Yoongi declares, part-smile, part-sulk flashing through his face, “but he doesn’t seem to like me as much”.

The camera swings to Jimin, “Ah, hyuuung. Of course I like you too,” he slides over and burrows right into Yoongi’s side, canting his face up as if to kiss him.

Yoongi blocks Jimin with a sharp elbow. “Ew, get away, get away!” But he’s smiling, appeased. a coworker I quite like-

Yoongi hyung -_-

hello? Jimin-ah?

you’re invited, obviously

me

so when were you going to text and ask if I was busy tomorrow

are you only inviting me cz I texted you today?

I’ll be there at 7

 

           

Saturday goes by in a blaze, somehow, then its evening. 

He fights the urge to cancel. Imagines debut Yoongi, sharp and fragile like a glass knife, vibrating with anger and ambition, presiding over that big walnut table in thirty-year-old Yoongi’s apartment, serving wine and sharing anecdotes where Jimin doesn’t belong.

He remembers how it felt to be desperate to earn everyone’s respect, but Yoongi’s especially – who seemed to know exactly who he was and what the hell he was doing as a trainee. So sure, even under all his Daegu hick prickliness. Meanwhile Jimin just drove himself to the brink because there was nothing else to be done; he might as well make the most of leaving Busan.

There was one sticky summer morning right after Jimin joined the prospective team (again, after being kicked out the last month) where they were all on the brink of rage because the power was out, even Jin hyung snapping at Namjoon for leaving a door open and letting the mosquitoes in. Jimin doesn’t remember what he and Yoongi fought about, what they’d even said that escalated so badly that Yoongi’s usually impassive face was suddenly screwed up tight with cruelty until he said, “Fuck, that’s rich coming from a coaster like you. Doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s doing in Seoul except dragging himself through every class hoping something will stick. Figure it out!”

Namjoon, who’d been standing behind the sofa with his arms out like he could physically stop them arguing, dropped them in shock. Jimin doesn’t remember if he cried, but he remembered the awful, hollow ring of truth in his stomach. Yoongi stormed out then, into the shimmering heat of the day.

He’s right, of course, Jimin thought. He actually knew how to do this, and Jimin – everything about him was wrong, slow, too different.

Contemporary dance didn’t quite translate to the sharp formations of a hip-hop idol group, no matter how much Hobi hyung encouraged him. Bang PD would take his decision back to have him on the team any day now, replace him with another real rapper. Or someone as transcendentally gifted as Jungkook.

But he’d barely spent an hour since the fight when his phone pinged with a text from Yoongi, asking him to come to the roof.

The door to the roof swung inwards in that inconvenient way, forcing him to go one step down just so he could get it fully open. Yoongi was already there, squatting next to the doorway with a lit cigarette dangling from his loose grip.

“Shit. I’m trying to quit. Hold on.”

He stubs it out (carefully, probably saving the rest for later) and stands up. Jimin hovers at the threshold, unsure and rapidly beginning to sweat.

Yoongi looks up at him, once, and seems to decide it's too much direct eye contact. “I’m sorry. None of what I said is true. I shouldn’t have made up mean shit to say because I could”. He turns his body sideways, suddenly bending down to pick something off the ground. An iced tea, condensation beading extravagantly on it, dripping down Yoongi’s bitten-raw fingernails. It’s pushed towards him, and he takes it. Their fingers touch, and Yoongi lingers, bringing his other hand up to squeeze the tea and Jimin’s fingers in a quick motion before he drops his hands awkwardly to his sides.

This apology is unexpected, but then again, they’ve never fought with each other before. Yoongi’s sharp-tongued, but even-tempered, usually getting wound up very, very slowly, over hours. Jimin’s own anger is explosive, and he’s usually ashamed afterwards, so his first instinct is to nurse the feeling of quiet truth in what Yoongi said.

After all, his wrath is more considered.

“Jimin-ah. I really am sorry,” Yoongi says into the silence. “You work harder than any of us. You – you slept two hours a day all of last month and you don’t seem to be stopping. What I said isn’t true, at all. You’re so talented.”

“Okay.”

“I’m just on edge what with what they’ve been telling us about financing.”

“Yeah.”

Yoongi makes another effort to look up into Jimin’s face. He seems to be out of words for now, clasping the back of Jimin’s neck instead, his fingers rubbing at the side. His hand feels dry and heavy on Jimin’s skin. “Do you like it?”

The tea. It’s pear flavoured, his favourite right now. He wonders if Yoongi asked Tae before he bought it. But Tae’s not here, though, he remembers, because his parents are making one of their long trips to see him and took him out for lunch. Maybe Yoongi did notice, after all.

“Yes, thank you, it’s nice.” The sun beats down on them both. He thinks of something to say. “Hyung, how did you know you wanted to do this, and nothing else?”

If Yoongi expected a different question, he doesn't show it.

He shifts his weight away from Jimin. “Well, at first I just thought it was something cool to do on the side. Like basketball. It came easy. Then I found others like me, I made friends. Those hyungs made me want to commit. I got better and better and, well.” He shrugs expansively, holding up his hands in the universal gesture of puzzlement. “I don’t know if I’m really good at anything else anymore. And so, so I burned all my bridges, you know, back home…”

Jimin nods hastily, saving Yoongi the discomfort of repeating what they all know. There aren't that many secrets when ten boys are squeezed into a one pyeong room. “It makes me feel good about myself,” he finishes quietly. “I’m going to be the best at this. To make up for my mistakes. To make up for me.”

Jimin considers this quietly. He's too sheltered and insipid to know what to say, so he settles for a mumbled "I see".

Yoongi has what Jimin lacks. Purpose.

It must be cool to have something to fuel his legs, his fingers, his late nights at the studio. So even when he's nearly at the bottom of the monthly evaluation list, PD-nim looks at Yoongi and sees what Jimin sees: raw talent overlaid with naked ambition. It makes even the meanest producers a little nostalgic and soft at the edges. Gossip flies fast between the trainees, and they all know Yoongi's nearly been cut off from his parents, that he disappears into seedy Itaewon dance clubs with Hoseok sometimes, that he has a friend in jail on a possession charge. A sheen of Real Life coats Yoongi in such glory that his voice carries through their noisy testosterone-loaded dorm with ease. A lot of guys want to earn his friendship. Even though he's a weedy little guy, and so very provincial. Meanwhile Jimin's got one leg in this group and one leg out the door, and he's not sure anymore that grinding hard work has the same allure as pure audacity. 

 

 

In hindsight, he’s very grateful to Yoongi’s immediate instinct to apologise; that attitude seeps through the trainees, and Jimin can’t stop noticing that he’s always at the scene of a fight, right alongside Namjoon. A tiny portal of civility opens up thanks to them, where Jimin can lick his wounds in peace after getting eviscerated for not losing weight fast enough or singing in key enough. When he catches Yoongi's eyes in the practice room mirrors, he smiles at him sometimes. 

A couple of nights after that fight, Yoongi’s phone flashlight swings out in a blinding arc in the mosquito-thickened air. They’d all woken up at that, infected by Yoongi’s frenzied irritation.

Tae, a line of drool running to his chin, clings to Hobi, but Jimin holds on to the railing of his bunk like it’s a ship in a storm, staring at Yoongi with sleepy confusion. After Namjoon rallies the troops with the swatters and rolled-up magazines and deems the operation enough of a success, everyone slots themselves back into their bunks. Only Jimin remains awake, the adrenaline of being suddenly woken from deep sleep keeping him from relaxing again. Maybe he should quit. The walls and ceiling look awfully close. Distantly, he realises he's hungry. There’s a brown splat of dried blood on the wall next to him. Despite the rising warmth in the room and snuffling of sleeping boys around him, he feels like the only person in this world.

“Hey, Jimin. Park Jimin.”

It’s Yoongi. He twists to the side to look up at the lump on Yoongi’s bunk.

“What?”

“I like your voice. I quite like it.”

“It sounds like a girl’s,” he sulks. “You all keep saying that.”

“Exactly."

"So?"

"So, can you imagine what that vocal quality would do in an arrangement?”

“I guess.”

“I'm telling you for sure."

"Okay hyung."

Yoongi pushes himself further out the edge of his bunk to point at Jimin, like a wild-haired drunk on the subway. 

"Well I want you on this team, Park Jimin."

He flushes. “Okay hyung, I’ll try.”

 

 

 

--

 

Chapter 3

Notes:

A longer chapter this time, and the dreaded dinner party.

 

 

He checks himself out in the rearview mirror before he gets out of the car. Jimin doesn’t remember being this nervous in a while. Not even at the fan meeting recently, where him and three hundred-odd strangers squeezed into a large studio and he kept getting caught off-guard by a couple of cheeky fans. That was easy, by comparison; he knows how to play to that crowd because he knows what they see in him, and he loves them for it. So. He’s cool enough to hang out with Yoongi’s underground rapper friends, he’s… well. The point is that Yoongi wanted him here tonight. In the mirror, he notices a defiant set to his chin and laughs a little at himself.

For a change, he rings the doorbell instead of letting himself in, holding the whiskey out in front of him like an offering. The door swings open to reveal Yoongi holding a kimchi-stained plastic glove in his left hand. He's alone.

“You’re early.”

Jimin grins a bit helplessly at the sight of him. “I am? That’s shocking.”

"I'm flabbergasted." Yoongi’s already walked away by the time Jimin shuts the door behind him and takes his shoes off. “You can put the whiskey on the bar counter.”

He watches Yoongi circle the dining table but there's nothing in his loose-limbed, grandfatherly shuffle that indicates nerves.

Instead, Yoongi starts to talk about Dae-Jung, explaining that he works in consulting in Daegu now, but they lost contact a few years after BTS’ debut. "We've texted, to make these plans, and," he rubs his stomach with one big hand, "it was unexpectedly easy. I wasted too much time being bitter about people I'd more in common with than some of the snakes in HYBE." All Jimin can offer him is a sympathetic smile.

“How long until they get here?”

“Another half an hour, I think. Jiwon said they’re all coming from Dae-Jung’s place together and they have a child in tow and all that.”

“Wow. A child, here.”

Yoongi shoots him a quick look.

“No, I mean, it’s nice, you know I like kids. But we do,” he hoists himself onto a clear bit of counter space as Yoongi arranges the food in serving dishes, “tend to mix with the same sort of folk. I just thought of it. Seok-joong hyung always has a babysitter, so we don’t see the kids that much.”

Yoongi considers this for a moment. “True. I offered to get them a babysitter, but they said no.”

“Ah, you didn’t want to insist.”

“Everyone has their pride.”

“Fair. Besides, a child here would be…new, huh.”

“Yah, its not like this is a den of iniquity or something, Jimin-ah,” Yoongi complains.

Jimin laughs. “No, I think you’re very uncle material, don’t worry!”

Scoffing, Yoongi doffs his apron and gloves, and Jimin helps him set things up.

Thank god he got here early to help Yoongi get the big serving dishes out of one of the less-used cupboards as Yoongi grudgingly admits that his mother was right to insist on him keeping a set. He laughs at Yoongi's little scowl; he feels more settled now. Like a unit. Yoongi-and-Jimin, as if they lived here together, Jimin in the slippers Yoongi picked out for him. Everyone around them keeps growing up for real, babies and all. He knows Yoongi’s parents keep asking about his plans to get married, like his do. Must be worse since Geum-jae hyung’s wedding. But the slippers, this reaching around Yoongi to help him lift a bowl of kimchi jjigae without a word being exchanged between them, these tiny islands of certainty make him feel so solid, like he could wave his parents' worries away with one vivid example. And he knows Yoongi doesn’t like to talk about this, which is quite convenient.

He doesn't have to tell him what he's half-dreaming.

When the doorbell rings, Yoongi disappears and Jimin’s nerves return. There’s a booming voice at the door that cries “GLOSS!”, and a strangled grunt Jimin recognises as the sound of Yoongi being pulled into a hug that’s tighter than anticipated. A woman laughs. Yoongi’s guests round the corner into the living room, and Jimin gets up to bow. There's a tall man in a beard, holding what looks like an enormous fruit basket, and two women, one of whom audibly gasps and slaps a hand over her mouth.

“Oh my god, you didn’t say Park Jimin-ssi would be here! Oh my god. I can’t believe this.” A little girl clings to the man’s – Dae-jung’s – leg.

Yoongi chuckles a bit awkwardly and wrests the fruit basket away to go put it away. Fucker left Jimin here to settle the guests in – he sweeps his arms open and ushers everyone down to sit, moving out of the way for them, but they all just stand around the couch, staring a little at Jimin.

“I’m so sorry to be so forward, but you’re even better-looking in person,” the first woman says, “I’m Jiwon, I- ”

“-work with Yoongi hyung, I remember.”

The coworker he quite likes, of course. She gives a delighted little clap and reaches out to shake Jimin’s hand. She's pretty, with a lovely upside-down smile that reminds him a little of Tae.

Yoongi reappears with the world’s largest serving tray, loaded with bottles and glasses. Almost like he’s hiding behind it. Thankfully he takes over the introductions once he sets it down, bowing politely to Dae-jung’s wife, Minjee, and insisting that everyone sit down.

Dae-Jung watches Jimin with open curiosity, dangling his daughter on a bouncing leg as she shyly says, “HellomynameisSeyoon.”

Her mother gently prompts, “And tell everyone how old you are?”

She puts one hand in her mouth and puts the other one out with three fingers splayed.

“You’re three?” Jimin gasps, “Oh my goodness, that’s almost as old as me!”

Seyoon is not impressed, but Minjee laughs.

Yoongi interposes, holding out a hand for Seyoon to shake. Very seriously, she withdraws wet fingers from her mouth and clasps his first two fingers. “Seyoon-ssi, would you like to eat?”

Minjee starts, “She ate before we came, but her dad will put her to bed soon if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, hyung told me, you can take my bedroom if you’d like. I’ll show you the way. A round of drinks first?”

Dae-Jung is still watching Jimin, a little more subtly now, from behind his daughter’s ponytail, but Jimin smiles brightly at him. He’s even taller than Namjoon, but more slender. There’s a small, pierced hole in his left ear where an earring would have been; Jimin can’t glean anything else that screams ex-rapper at him. He's attractive, with a body that seems lived-in and assured; his beard is groomed but not fastidiously, and the double chin that appears when he ducks his head at his daughter serves to make him look reliable, somehow. Seyoon turns to her father to say something that makes him "Oh?" encouragingly in surprise, and Jimin knows its not rational that this man's ease rankles him, as if he slid back into Yoongi's life with the entitlement of knowing him from another reality.

Yoongi talks to everyone as he pours out drinks and passes snacks around.

Jimin fetches more ice from the fridge. With a glass in their hands, all the adults settle down. Seyoon slips off her father’s leg to go explore the living room, and Jimin and Jiwon shadow her. He’s a bit worried about the sharp edges of the dining table not far away from where she’s running her hands over the grooves of a wooden cabinet.

“So, Park Jimin-ssi. It’s really an honour to meet you, and I just wanted to say, I love your new album. I would’ve brought it with me if oppa told us you’d be here. But I don’t want to impose, sorry.”

Jimin’s not sure which oppa she means but he says, “That's alright, thank you so much, really. Besides, you’re the guest! And honestly I could send you a signed copy through Yoongi hyung." God, it's always so awkward when he says that. He tries to change direction. "Tell me, what’s hyung like at work?”

“Oh!”, she seems surprised. “That interests you?”

“Absolutely," he smiles conspiringly at her, “you know things I don’t.”

She meets his provocation with genuine earnestness. “He’s great. Really calm, really easy to work with. He picked things up very fast, you know.”

That feels unsurprising. Yoongi feels like an extension of him in the world, a whole different person sprung from the same root of their friendship. He feels silly about his nervousness in hindsight. Nothing could throw him off.  

Except maybe Dae-Jung, who comes up to Jimin and Jiwon as they chat and scoops his daughter up. He's so tall. He smells good. “I should say hello properly, sorry. I just got so excited to see him – it’s been so long.”

“Oh no, I understand, hi. I’m so glad hyung’s office brought you two back in touch again. It’s a small world?” He wants to be cool about this.

Dae-Jung surprises him. “You probably don’t remember me, but I met you in 2012, Jimin-ssi.” 

“Ah, really? I’m sorry I-”

Dae-Jung continues right over Jimin, “Yeah I was in Seoul for a gig and met Yoongi outside your dorm, and you came out with him and talked to us for a bit before you went to singing lessons. I remember. He talked about all the boys, but he talked about you the most.”

Jimin flushes.

“I teased him about it. But then again, I teased him for everything, back then.” Dae-Jung looks over his shoulder at Yoongi, who’s looking at something on Minjee’s phone. “Not everyone in D-Town took his, uh, betrayal well.” Jimin stiffens. “You know. He came to Seoul, suddenly he was singing, and dancing, and getting to look real pretty, and the rest of us were still where we’d always been. He was the maknae of the group, but he had the ambition of men twice his age.”

Jimin smiles tightly. “Hyung’s always had the talent to match his ambition. And it was hard for him, too.”

Jiwon looks warily between her brother and Jimin. “Should I put Seyoon to bed?”

But Dae-Jung holds out a hand pacifyingly, then draws it back to place it on his daughter’s head. “There’s no bad blood, Jimin-ssi. We were young and broke. Made us a bit insecure, you know how it is. We just ran as hard as we could in the direction we picked, and well, this was just the direction you and him picked.” 

Jimin is quiet.

Dae-Jung takes it as an opportunity to clarify, “We just missed him. Well I missed him.” He shifts from one foot to another, and says suddenly, “I think I’m going to put this kiddo to bed.”

Jimin and Jiwon stand there a little awkwardly in the tiny vacuum that conversation leaves.

She rubs the bottom of her wine goblet and begins, “So, what are you planning - ”, at the same time that Jimin says, “How’s uh, how’s Ju-Won-ssi?”

Jiwon gapes at him. “You know him?”

“Oh no, Yoongi hyung…talks about him sometimes, so I know the name”. He takes a sip of his drink and looks at her over the rim.

She throws a sympathetic glance at Yoongi and then whispers, “Yeah he’s a bit odd about Yoongi-ssi. I’ve been working there for five years now, and he was never really a difficult boss, but he changed a bit for the worse since he heard about Yoongi-ssi being deputed to our office.”

Jimin frowns.

“Please don’t tell Yoongi-ssi that. I think he wouldn’t like to know he’s being singled out, neither for favour nor mistreatment. Ju-won oppa will relax in a few months, I know,” she flaps a hand in front of her face. “Because Yoongi-ssi will be with us for a while, and he’ll win anyone over with time.” Her gaze softens as she looks at Yoongi. “He’s so sincere.”

“Ha, yes, that’s true. Hyung’s a hard worker.” He grips his glass a bit tighter and finds an excuse to go back to the little group around the couch.

He’s a bit stung, not by her goopy regard for Yoongi, but by how she presumes to know him. What he would and wouldn’t like. She means no harm, and probably neither did Dae-Jung, but he feels prickly all over like a cat that’s been petted the wrong way. He just wishes he was alone with Yoongi instead and feels a bit guilty for wishing it.

Yoongi looks up as Jimin comes to stand over him, placing his hand at the small of Jimin’s back. He rubs lightly back and forth. Minjee pauses a bit mid-sentence and just looks at them. Feeling self-conscious, Jimin sits down next to Yoongi, careful to leave an appropriate distance between them. They're not on stage, where it's safe. Jiwon joins them soon after and starts up some funny story from the office that makes Yoongi’s shoulders shake with laughter. At some point Yoongi flaps a hand at her and says, “Yah, just call me oppa, it’s fine.” The hand disappears from his back, leaving a ghost impression of warmth on his skin.

He helps himself to the charcuterie board Yoongi laid out, and chews, and feels himself merge into the couch. Thinks about all the versions Yoongi is to everyone around him, and the unknowable texture of their personal histories. It’s not fair to think of Yoongi proprietorially, even if he feels it descending over him like a sheath of defensiveness. He wrestles silently with himself until Dae-Jung returns from Yoongi’s bedroom and they all troop towards the dinner table.

“That’s quite the spread, damn,” Jiwon exclaims. She turns to Jimin, “Did you know Yoongi oppa’s lunch boxes are the best in the department? And he always shares.”

Yoongi scratches his head and chuckles self-deprecatingly.

“Please tell me you share yours too, Jiwon-ah, the poor guy will go hungry,” Minjee reproaches.

“Eating Jiwon’s food would be a punishment, Yoongi-ah, you’ll never recover!” Dae-Jung laughs. His sister smacks him on the arm.

Jimin looks at the tableau they all make, struck by the plausibility of this whole arrangement as a family; Yoongi and his pretty co-worker, their shared history, Dae-Jung and his family. Yoongi would fit right it, as adaptable here as he is in the studio, or on stage, or in an office cubicle. Jimin’s not sure a dysfunctional louche like him belongs anywhere but on a stage, where sociality is at its most intense but most ephemeral. The lights go out, and he goes home. Fans are like family, but its not like they can come home with him. They have lives to live.

He looks up to find everyone looking expectantly at him. He’s the only one still standing, and Yoongi says, “Hello, earth to Jimin-ah. Do you want dinner or not?” Yoongi’s big hand clasps Jimin’s wrist and pulls him into the chair to his right.

The food is fantastic, a mix of Yoongi’s cooking and some catering, and Jimin eats and laughs and interjects in the right places as best as he can.

Yoongi asks Dae-Jung many questions as they eat in his single-minded way. What exactly he does, when did he start, where is such and such member of their crew now, how this one’s mother is doing and whether the other one really moved to America. Dae-Jung answers it all and laughs, “I’m really on Suchwita now! You should get the cameras out for the best episode ever!”

Jimin narrows his eyes at him, thinking of their earlier conversation and wondering if that was a jab, but Dae-Jung looks genuinely pleased, relaxed, and open. So's Yoongi, who's firmly hit his garrulous streak after a few drinks. 

“One last question then, hyung. Where did you manage to even find a girl who would tolerate you, let alone such a pretty one?”

Jiwon ooohs and Minjee hides her smile behind a ringed hand. Jimin covers over his own surprise by joining in the oohing with Jiwon.

“No seriously,” he turns to Jimin to explain, “D-Town, we were so crusty and desperate and goofy, we got such shitty gigs - ”

Jimin stomps on his foot under the table before Yoongi puts it in his mouth. Seriously, what’s with everyone tonight? “He says the same thing about BTS in our early days, pay him no mind, Dae-Jung-ssi,” he hurries to explain, “What Suga hyung probably means is that he was the crustiest one of them all.” He glares at Yoongi, but Dae-Jung smooths it over with a good-natured laugh.

“He’s not wrong! Shit, I only met Minjee after I quit the crew and started working full-time.”

“Fun fact”, Minjee interrupts, “I did actually see him perform. You too, Yoongi-ssi. At Club Heavy, you guys used to perform there sometimes, I think I saw you there twice? Thrice, perhaps?”

“I don’t consider that ‘meeting’ me, by the way,” Dae-Jung argues, “it was dark as fuck, and I couldn’t see anyone in the audience. Besides, its not like you came up and said hi.” Jiwon sighs and rolls her eyes like she’s quite familiar with how this goes.

“So anyway, imagine my surprise when the cute guy from the rap crew shows up at the office one day, all nervous in a dress shirt and tie! And I was his senior, of course,” she winks. “It didn’t take me long to put two and two together, but it took him forever to make a move.”

“I thought I was telling the story!”

“Of course you are, babe.” Minjee ruffles his hair, and there’s a moment where it looks like she very much wants to kiss her husband but can’t.

Jiwon grimaces, “Well, that answers your question, Yoongi-oppa. Hyung had to Pokémon evolve from rapper to salaryman before he finally found love, and all that. Guess the struggling artist life and romance don’t really mix.”

“That they don’t,” Yoongi laughs.

Jimin quietly swirls the whiskey in his tumbler, and starts when he feels Yoongi’s hand on his knee.

“You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. Isn’t that right, Jimin-ah?”

 

--

 

Yoongi’s in the kitchen insisting on giving Minjee and Jiwon two large containers of leftovers, complaining that a bachelor can’t possibly finish all this food, even as they argue right back at him. Dae-Jung finds Jimin on the balcony where he slipped away for a bit.

“Jimin-ssi.”

“Oh, d’you need me to come back inside?”

“Oh, no, no. I think they’re going to go on like this for a bit.” He chuckles. “It’s nice to see Yoongi hasn’t changed a bit from the old days. He was always a good kid. A bit angry, but good.”

Jimin ducks his head, and smiles, not sure how to accept praise on Yoongi’s behalf. Dae-Jung leans his elbows on the railing next to him. “I also wanted to say sorry, for earlier. I think I may have said the wrong thing.”

“It’s alright.” He thinks a little before he says, “I don’t know if its my place to share this, but Yoongi hyung struggled a lot with being called an idol. Even beyond what he’s said in his interviews and music. He lost friends overnight, and it took us all time to be as close as we are now, so.”

Dae-Jung has the decency to look guilty. “Yeah, I remember that radio interview with B-Free where he just tore into Yoongi for wearing eyeliner.” He shakes his head. “There’s nasty shit like that getting said all the time in the underground scene, even in the bigger hip-hop scene, it’s not like we never did it too,” he gestures beyond the sliding door to the kitchen, to Yoongi. “Differentiating yourself as a ‘real’ rapper was everything.” Jimin nods. Dae-Jung continues, “He was such a stubborn mule of a guy, but he stuck it out when I couldn't. He wanted to be successful more than he wanted to chase clout from other rappers.”

“Like a big fish in a small pond.” Like himself in 2012.

“Exactly. It takes courage to make a big change. And look where it got him. Successful, rich, and prettier than ever.” He chuckles and drums his fingers on the railing. “And he’s got good people around him.” Jimin feels Dae-Jung’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t return the glance. “Who’re protective.”

They stand there looking out into the night before Jimin finally musters the courage to ask, “You said you met me before. That he talked about me. What’d he say?”

Dae-Jung’s puffs out his cheeks as he exhales. “Well, to be honest at first I thought you were a girl, because of your name." There's something furtive about his manner. "And he went on and on about your voice and how hard you worked, and so on. And then, to be honest, I was a little jealous."  Another meaningful pause where Jimin feels like he's supposed to connect some dots. "Because I saw you and I understood.” 

“Oh. Understood what, exactly?”

“Why he was so intense about you,” he says, before someone raps on the glass door. 

It’s Jiwon. There is a wash of drunk pink across her cheekbones, it’s very becoming. “We’re heading home, it’s late.”

Beyond her, he sees Minjee laughing and shaking her head as she lifts a bag filled with Tupperware. Yoongi’s wearing a quietly victorious face and holding a still-sleeping Seyoon. His sleeves are rolled up, and her open mouth drools onto the collar of his shirt. Jimin’s heart squeezes at the sight. He feels like he might cry. Jimin turns back towards the balcony to slide the doors closed with more ceremony than usual. His reflection against the glass looks wary. 

Dae-Jung wraps an arm around Yoongi in a hug, and gently extricates his daughter from his arms. They all file out into the hallway, chattering softly so as not to wake Seyoon up. Yoongi walks them all to the car, and Jimin stays behind, clearing all the glasses except his and Yoongi’s.

 

He thinks of a conversation they had a few years ago, somewhere in the US. Wash of warm yellow lamplight. Being young and drunk post-concert. Bubbles under his skin. He doesn’t remember how the conversation got to-

“But I thought Namjoonie-hyung would be your type?”

Yoongi’s quiet, but a considering sort of quiet and not the kind where he’s ignoring a tease.

“He’s tall and he can actually grow a beard. And he reads”. Jimin slides his elbows forward on the table, nearly tipping over his glass of wine, which Yoongi catches just in time. “Sometimes when you guys fight it’s just like in a drama.” He mimes sudden grab of someone’s shirt and starts laughing. “When we were younger, I thought you’d just kiss!”

He lays his head on his arms, feeling wine-drunk and silly, staring up into Yoongi’s face across him.

Yoongi sucks in a breath. “Perhaps. Once, perhaps. I’m not saying he’s not my type but- its everything. We’ve argued too much. We’ve written together, and that takes away a lot of the mystique, you know, when someone’s giving you feedback. He knows too much about me.” Yoongi takes a big gulp of his wine. “We’re closer than close.” The corner of his mouth quirks up, down. “I think… so much so that I don’t even quite see him sometimes, from the outside, you know? When the fans yell for Namjoon then I realise, oh yeah, he’s not just the guy who picks his nose sometimes even when he knows one of us is looking.”

Jimin giggles. “God, that’s almost depressing, if it weren’t kind of endearing.” Yoongi also rumbles with quiet laughter. “So, you’ve lost your taste for tall hunky dudes?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s your type now, then?”

Yoongi’s gaze slides off to the corner of the table, and back towards Jimin.

“Something else.”

 

---

Chapter 4

Notes:

(i know, i know, but they won't stop circling each other like dogs)

Yoongi hears Jimin shuffling about in the living room when he closes the door behind himself and stands in the entryway for a moment.

“Hyung? Are you back?”

Yoongi grunts in reply. There’s silence as he changes into slippers and pads into the house. Jimin is standing in front of the couch, his face like a question. How badly Yoongi wants to say, thank you for dinner, for tiding me over the awkwardness of hosting my ex and his wife and his daughter and his sister, I couldn’t have done it without you. Instead he says, “Ah, you haven’t left?”

Jimin’s face shifts like shadow. “Oh, I didn’t have a plan…”

Yoongi nods sharply, knowing it’s a non-answer. But he doesn’t know what to do next, the awful embarrassment of last week creeping up on him now that they’re alone again. He pours himself a whiskey. “D’you want one?” he throws over his shoulder.

“Sure.” Brushing past Yoongi’s rudeness, as always, always giving him the benefit of the doubt. A pause. “Then I’ll head back. Sunyoung just texted me a to-do list with twenty-eight items on it. I have,” Jimin looks at his calendar, “just over a month and a half to do it all.” He chuckles ruefully to himself.

Yoongi winces. He’d allowed himself to forget the date of Jimin’s enlistment creeping up on them. Why didn’t he ask Jimin to stay the night? He wants him to. He feels clumsy.

He slumps into one end of the couch. Jimin sits at the other end with his back against it, phone in one hand and whiskey in the other, creating a generous silence even though Yoongi knows he’d much rather be talking instead.

Seeing Dae-Jung has Yoongi even more out of sorts because the last thing he said to Yoongi as he hugged him was “I like Park Jimin now that I’ve properly met him. It’s been a decade now? You guys are good together.” Then he’d clapped Yoongi on the shoulder and driven away in the car with his family while Yoongi stood there stupidly in the fluorescent wash of the basement.

Yoongi takes and Jimin gives. It must never happen. But he’ll do what he can.

“It’s Sunday tomorrow,” he begins.

“That it is.” Jimin answers. Ice cubes clink as he swirls the glass. “But I’ll be in the studio with PDogg hyung and the others in the evening. We had a small legal hiccup, but it got sorted, so.”

“Okay, but you’re not going anywhere in the morning, are you? Then stay.”

Jimin gives Yoongi a look. He laughs a small ha! as if he’d made a joke.

“You’ve never stayed. Not even the night we had the party. You went home.” Yoongi’s voice sounds mulish to his own ears, and he knows he’s doing it again, chiding Jimin, when what he wants to say is –

“I live fifteen minutes away, hyung,” Jimin says, so low that he has to strain to hear it.

“Yah, are you saying the guest room isn’t good enough for you? Jungkook’s stayed over a bunch, so has Hobi. If it’s clean enough for Hoba it’s good enough for you,” he accuses.

“Why?”, Jimin says, even quieter than before.

“What?”

“I said,” Jimin says, louder, “no, maybe not this time. I’ll finish this up and get out of your hair.”

Yoongi stiffens. Jimin downs the last of the whiskey in two big gulps and starts to get up with an air of implacable finality. As he brushes past Yoongi on the far end of the couch, he doesn’t pat Yoongi’s head or tap him under the chin as he’s wont to do.

Jimin strayed outside the script. Yoongi licks his lips and says nothing about the dishwasher when Jimin starts rinsing his glass.

 

--             

 

                                                                                           

“We used to be a thing.” There’s a dull clink as Yoongi puts his glass on the cat coaster. “Me and Dae-Jung hyung.”

Jimin’s whips around to stare at Yoongi.

“Just a couple of months, right before I got into BigHit. Actually even through the Daegu auditions. No one knew. No one knows.”

“Oh.”

“It just happened, one day.” He ducks his head to scratch at the back. “I looked up to him so much already, and I didn’t fully understand myself but, we were going by his place to get something and- and so we were alone and uh-,” Yoongi stutters.

“I see.”

“He was the first man I kissed. And uh. More.”

Jimin leans back against the counter and crosses his arms. “You weren’t out then, though? Not till a year or two after debut?”

Yoongi nods. “Yeah no, of course, you remember. But that’s just how things were back then. When he came to visit me in Seoul, we – we talked a bit, and ended things.”

“He’s gay?”

“No, he’s like me. Obviously.” He gestures with a hand to indicate Minjee’s general existence.

Jimin nods at the floor. He thinks back to 2012 Yoongi, with his nearly vertical hairdo and matching scowl, before the apology and the iced tea. Imagines that Yoongi bent backwards against the door of a small apartment with Dae-Jung’s hand down his pants. Imagines Yoongi’s big hands grasping at Dae-Jung, croaking “Hyung-,”

The room seems to narrow until it’s a tunnel with him at one end and Yoongi at the other. He can’t move a muscle.

Yoongi clears his throat. “Seeing him tonight was a big deal, for me. So, thank you. Thank you for being there. It helped.”

Jimin releases a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

This is not where he feared this conversation was headed.

The tunnel widens.

“I was nervous about meeting his wife. I don’t know if she knew. Who’d I’d be to her. To them.”

Jimin unsticks himself from the counter and takes one of the dining table chairs. He thinks of something neutral to say. Yoongi watches him. “They all loved you. I was a bit worried he’d be ragging on you for being an idol, but he was proud.”

“I noticed you two had a bit of a moment.”

Now its Jimin’s turn to be defensive. “Well, I’d misjudged him. He’s nice.”

“You’re nice, too.”

“I thought I wouldn’t be cool enough to hang out with one of your underground rapper friends.”

“He’s not a rapper anymore,” Yoongi interrupts. “Also, why would you think that?”

“No, I know that now. That’s beside the point. But you have history. A whole other life before BTS. And he’s known you longer than I have. More,” (intimately than I have, he wants to say), “deeply than I have”, he finishes. Dae-Jung’s actually seen every inch of Yoongi’s body, probably.

Yoongi’s small frown flashes across his face. “That’s not true.”

“Well, you fit. You just do. With his family. With Jiwon and the office and everything. You fit everywhere. Then and now.” Why is his voice cracking?

“I don’t know what that means, Jimin-ah.”

“I mean, you’d be good as an underground rapper, still. You’re great as an idol. You’re great in the office. I bet you’d have been great with Dae-Jung hyung.”

Yoongi looks at Jimin like he doesn’t follow. That’s fair. Jimin feels all knotted up inside. And he knows he’s not making a lot of sense. He’s spiralled all week, all night, and now here’s another piece of the Yoongi puzzle he didn’t even know he’d been missing. His face feels tight.

Yoongi picks at the sofa upholstery and doesn’t look at Jimin. “I just wanted to say, thank you. Stay the night please. It’s really late.”

Jimin exhales shakily. Low-hanging fruit. “For you, maybe.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll stay.”

Yoongi’s smile is pink and gummy.

 

Later, when they’ve loaded the dishwasher and Jimin feels less liable to burst out of his skin, Yoongi gives him a set of pyjamas. They both tend to sleep nearly naked, but Yoongi can be oddly traditional as a host. He even shows Jimin around the ensuite bathroom rather formally, and Jimin teases him for it.

They both laugh at each other, glad to be back on even ground, no more statements heavy with half-said meaning.

Yoongi takes another shower before he heads to bed (Jimin doesn’t think about it. He’s not allowed to think about it) sometime past two am. He pokes his head around Jimin’s door. “Well goodnight then.”

“Goodnight.”

He doesn’t go.

Yoongi’s short haircut these days makes him look so young, like in his middle school pictures. His big blunt fingers are pale against the dark wood, the right thumb and its odd, bobble shape. Jimin’s heart twists with fondness even as he whines a “What? What now?”

“Don’t sleep too late.”

Now it’s Jimin’s turn to roll his eyes at him.

“Mum got me those pyjamas, you know.”

“Oh? They’re very nice.” Jimin looks down at poodle pattern. “I wish I had time to go visit them.”

Yoongi waves it away. “They can wait. You’re still her favourite. You’re everyone’s parents’ favourite.”

“Not your dad’s, though.”

The door creaks a little from Yoongi putting more weight on it. He scratches the back of his head again. “Sorry.”

Jimin shrugs. “It’s not your fault.”

Yoongi winces. He picks at the door.

“Anyway, you should sleep, Suga-ssi. I don’t need my beauty sleep quite like you do.”

“Yah, Park Jimin! What if I maim you, huh?”

Jimin giggles and rolls over onto his stomach. He crooks a finger at Yoongi. “Come here and try.”

Yoongi reddens. He gets smaller, suddenly. There’s no more Yoongi at the door when his voice comes drifting in, “Knock it off and go to sleep, Jimin.”

Jimin lies there smiling for a long time.

Meeting Dae-Jung and remembering that one wine-soaked night has made him feel like someone stirred him with a big spoon and brought up things he hasn’t examined in nearly a decade, but it’s going to be fine. “Two tiny twinks, they match”, someone had meanly, but not incorrectly, remarked at a party. He knows where they stand; his role as the fun provocateur, Yoongi as beleaguered hyung. They have a dynamic as familiar as the back of his hand. 

After all this time, he doesn’t have to fuck Yoongi to know he loves him.

 

 

The smell of eggs and rice wakes him. Yoongi is humming in the kitchen. His stomach growls. He could eat some breakfast if he works out afterwards, he reasons, he’s just so hungry right now. At home, he skips meals, but a) it’s Yoongi’s cooking and b) he can skip breakfast tomorrow.

By the time he brushes his teeth and emerges, Yoongi’s tapping away at his laptop on the dining table. There’s a pair of headphones around his neck. And a mic on the laptop.

“Hyung, are making music right now?”

Yoongi starts guiltily and says very cogently, “Uh.”

Jimin comes around the table to take a peek but Yoongi’s quicker than him. He clicks save, shuts his laptop, and stands, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“New song?”

“Maybe. Let’s eat, Jimin-ah.”

These distraction tactics work on him purely because he’s hungry, but Jimin makes a mental note to circle back to this. Yoongi made some doenjang jjigae, fried eggs and rice, and Jimin digs in with relish.

He looks up after a solid five minutes only to realise Yoongi’s still nursing the giant cup of coffee that’s surgically attached to the end of his arm. He’s watching Jimin, the steam from the jjigae in front of him making the bottom edge of his glasses a bit foggy. Jimin stares back.

The sun slants into the room as a big oblong stretch of light that ends right at their feet. It lights Yoongi up like he’s being photographed in a studio, picking out the undefined and compelling shape of his top lip, the underside of his soft chin, the individual hairs in his eyebrows as he raises one and says, “What?”

Jimin shakes his head, knowing Yoongi’d stonewall if he said he looks beautiful. Instead he says, “I see a booger inside your nose.”

Yoongi blinks. “I’ve been gently tending to it for thirty-one years. Thanks for noticing.”

“Aren’t you going to eat too?”

“I think the booger will suffice.”

“Tch, hyung.”

Yoongi cracks a smug little lopsided smile. But he does get himself a helping and chews in his usual open-mouthed way, the chopsticks limp in his hand.

In a little more than a month, he won’t get to do this for a long, long time. No more Yoongi’s performatively brusque manner of putting down a bowl of rice for him with a thump, gesturing with the end of his chopsticks to shut up and fucking eat. He should try and consciously enjoy it.

“Thank you, hyung, it’s really good.”

He pokes Yoongi’s shin with his big toe.

Yoongi only grunts in response. So he pokes twice and twice as hard, grinning determinedly. Surprisingly, Yoongi retaliates, and a contained scuffle ensues under the table, and before either of them are aware, Jimin’s foot slides up the entire length of Yoongi’s shin to land at his knee. His heart stops. The fabric of Yoongi’s loose pants are tightly gathered at Jimin’s ankle, and he distantly hears himself making an awkward heh-heh sound. The knee is so bony; so warm.

Yoongi flattens his mouth and knocks Jimin’s foot away.

He continues eating, the chopsticks loud in the sunlit room. Jimin laughs it off and picks up his phone for something to do.

 

 

For years they’ve touched carefully, in ways that got compacted into ritual even before Jimin realised; Yoongi’s hand on the back of Jimin’s neck petting absently at the side (allowed), Jimin’s leg hooking over Yoongi’s thigh if they’re sitting (allowed), slinging an arm over each other’s shoulders (allowed), holding hands on stage, or for a stupid game (allowed) and – the shower boner (an aberration). Just loneliness, probably.

In the dorm he learns some things very quickly – Hobi loves physical affection just as much as he does, Jungkook and Tae weave cuddling and fighting and dancing and sleeping together as deftly as a litter of puppies, Jin hyung is increasingly amenable to being drawn into it, but Namjoon and Yoongi struggle with being touched.

One day, very drunk and visibly fighting tears, Namjoon complains that he’s jealous of his little sister for being allowed to clamber all over his dad, how he didn’t understand why one day his parents decided he was too old and too male for a little kiss on the forehead. A wail of sympathy emerges from the rest them and Tae immediately pours himself into Namjoon’s lap, pinching his cheeks and cooing Namjoonie-Namjoonie at him. Like a dam breaking, the rest of them follow, piling boisterously together. Except Yoongi. These days Namjoon is more relaxed, less reactive when Jungkook rubs his thigh, or Jimin squeezes his sweet, egg-shaped face. Every new kind of touch between Yoongi and the others is only born of dire need, like the first time Jimin holds him. Only Tae cuddles him insistently like a recalcitrant, elderly cat.

He sees Yoongi cry a month before debut after a phone call with his parents.

“Hyung?” Yoongi twists his head away at first to hide his tears, but somehow the act makes him cry harder.

Fascinated yet concerned, Jimin watches Yoongi’s mouth form a terrible, upside-down grimace that bares his bottom teeth, as he cries soundless tears that make his shoulders shake.

“Shh”, he finds himself whispering, reaching out to touch his shoulder experimentally. Yoongi doesn’t react.

He doesn’t seem to want to be held, but Jimin brings his free hand up to Yoongi’s other shoulder and pulls him close. He keeps crying in his gasping, triangle-mouthed way. “Shh,” Jimin soothes, “It’ll be okay.”

Yoongi’s so skinny he feels like a bird in his arms. They fit together awkwardly, loosely, until Yoongi quiets. There’s a sharp, damp sniff, and Yoongi pulls out of the embrace to stalk to the washroom. He stays inside for the next ten minutes.

Jimin worries he’s offended him somehow, but when he’s lying in his bunk later playing Anipang on his phone, he feels the crinkle of a plastic wrapper under his elbow.

“What’s this?” he asks Yoongi’s retreating back.

“Thank you.”

 

--

 

Yoongi sits at the dining table long after he finishes breakfast, fucking around on his phone but barely even seeing it, willing his boner away with a ferocity he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. This is exactly how it starts; he forgets to be careful, even in the privacy of his mind.

Jimin eventually rises gracefully from the table, scooping up both their bowls and managing to twist a crick out of his neck at the same time. It’s freakish, the muted pop of his vertebrae as his neck jerks from one side to another like a marionette doll. It’s also bizarrely attractive to him. He wants to scream with frustration at himself, so he settles for opening his email and answering four long-overdue ones.

Maybe it’ll be good to see Jimin off.

Wait, why the fuck would he think that – Jimin’s been silently terrified of serving for years, it’s the entire reason he’s using the buddy system – Yoongi hates himself.

He texts his therapist to ask if he can move his next session up.

 

--

 

 

Chapter 5

 

 

 

Jungkook’s return to Seoul is a relief. When his big black bucket hat appears in Jimin’s doorbell camera, his eyes peeking out under the rim, Jimin’s being ripples with euphoria.

“My beloved baby Hot 100 sex machine, welcome home!”

He sweeps his arm out towards the bare living room. Jungkook’s hug is tight around him, and he sighs heavily into Jimin's ear. His hand automatically rises to pet Jungkook’s hair; short and destined to get shorter soon. Adequately held, Jungkook peals off towards the kitchen, more familiar with it than Jimin himself, gleefully rattling the glasses about as Jimin fetches the cold beers.

Despite all the empty space, Jungkook chooses to half-sit, half-squat on a stylish chair Jimin ordered after a burst of Namjoon-esque inspiration. Maybe he should worry that Jungkook will scuff it, but there are more important things to know right now. 

“So?”

“What ‘so’?” Jungkook grins. His face creases with a million thoughts a minute.

It’s best to wait him out, he’s learned, or he’ll take the opportunity to completely zone out and forget what he was going to say earlier. Jimin elbows him affectionately. Jungkook starts - “It might be good.” At Jimin’s sarcastic eyebrow raise, he amends himself, “It will be good. I really love the album.” He tosses the beer bottle from his left hand to his right as smoothly as a hockey puck.

“It’s going to blow the roof off the American market. Brave man – you’re the only one of us to really commit to that jump, huh?”

He gets his forefinger under Jungkook’s chin for all of two seconds before Jungkook tries to bite it. “No, I’m serious. I’m so proud of you.” Jungkook submits to Jimin lunging across to smack a kiss on his cheek. Jimin draws back to point at him. “Did you talk to Jin hyung?”

“Yes! Yesterday, as soon as I got home.” Jungkook splays his legs out happily. “He’s picked up new swear words in the army, so he cursed at me lots,”

“-which means he missed you” “-me”, they finish at the same time.

They clink their beers in smug victory.

Jungkook catches Jimin up on everything from Good Morning America (and the cute PA they both noticed in 2018 now being one of the producers) to how badly he’s snoring because of the stress of a new album coming out in five days. Whatever melancholia clings to Jungkook's edges seems to have been blown away like cobwebs by all this; there's a steady self-confidence that underlies his giggly excitement at doing the American pop-star act.

It suits him. Hobi used to worry about Jungkook, whether being an idol fucked him up for life, whether they'd all left their dirty fingerprints on his soul and committed a sin they'd never shake off. But the man crouching on Jimin's artsy chair seems very much the master of his own destiny.

“Hey, play me that one, the one you sent me a snippet of?” Jimin hums a bit of the song.

“Ahh, Please Don’t Change?”

Jimin dances along to its velvety beats; its his favourite so far. Jungkook plays almost all the others afterwards and sings along a little proudly (as he should). He's in peak form. 

The more they talk, the more they move around the whole house in an aimless drift, Jungkook's restless body like an ocean current that pushes and pushes. And whatever they're talking about punctuated by Jungkook roughhousing with him, very gently and very tiredly, almost on autopilot. Quick as a fish, he wiggles away when Jimin tries to pinch or tickle or trip him, but not far enough to end their increasingly silly war.

At some point he’s chasing Jimin around to mock-beat him for making up goofy moves to Shot Glass of Tears. Jimin laughs so hard he can’t see – together like this, oh he missed this so much, the physicality of it. He feels silly and fantastic. He never, ever, ever wants it to end, wants to hold on to this feeling forever, where his body can collide with another and there are no unexpected feelings. No hunger. No obsession.

It makes him ache for Jin and Hobi so much that he wrestles Jungkook into making an elaborate skit video to send them both where they make up outrageous rumours about them on banana-phones. It takes them at least three tries, Jungkook’s focus fading with each attempt, so he texts them both all three attempts. Jimin’s phone lights up with Jin’s reply; it’s a picture of him rolling his eyes and flipping them off with both hands.

"Oh he has his phone!" Jungkook immediately dials him, gets as far as “Hey-” when Jin picks up on the first ring, only to be interrupted by a spectacularly realistic fart noise from the receiver. And then Jin hangs up.

They both fall over each other laughing.

At some point they end up in Jimin’s spare room-turned-gym, hammering away at the punching bag. It helps, the rhythm of the repeated motion, calms them both down. Jungkook talks haltingly about some of the awkwardness of being in the US. Some gossip he heard about himself, that he has no hope of ever countering, because that would mean addressing it in the press. This needs Jimin’s full attention, but he’s fairly drunk at this point. They shuffle back and forth over the large mat. He listens.

But he drifts, because the somatic repetition of the punching bag layers people on top of each other to his tipsy brain.

 

Earlier in the year, when Yoongi is preparing to tour, their long nights sometimes end at Jimin’s place.

He teaches Yoongi to box.

Such as he can. He’s learning through Jungkook-osmosis thanks to all the videos he gets spammed with. He shows Yoongi how to wrap his fists, balancing his big-knuckled hand in his own smaller ones. A pink-skinned bird that keeps fluttering against the cage of his fingers. Yoongi grumbles constantly at Jimin’s dubious expertise, but his heart’s not in it, curiosity winning out over teasing.

When Jimin steals a glance at him, its at the angle Yoongi hates seeing captured on camera, with his marginally uneven front teeth peeking out under his thin upper lip that he sometimes gets filler for. It's Jimin's favourite, right up there with Namjoon's slight underbite. He keeps his hands busy so he doesn't do something embarrassing like point this out to him. 

“Here, try. Try hitting it like this,” Jimin demonstrates, and Yoongi’s arm flies out.

Jimin might be hot-tempered, but he’s patient when it comes to Yoongi. And he's not bad at it, either. Yoongi's small, and built with far less muscle than Jimin, but his hands are much, much stronger. He remembers Yoongi cracking a walnut in a white-knuckled grip on a live once. Namjoon’s reactions thankfully diverted attention from his own little gasp of awe. And Yoongi submits humbly to Jimin’s directions for all his complaining. 

When Yoongi comes back every now and then for some more boxing, restless from rehearsals and brimming with energy to spend somewhere other than drinking, he lets himself into Jimin’s barren flat and tuts at the furniture Jimin hasn’t gotten around to assembling. Like the fancy wooden chair he forgot to order at-home assembly for. And then Yoongi comes to box and just happens to assemble it, piece by piece, muttering under his breath or singing to himself all the while he bosses Jimin around.

His flat gets marginally less barren.

They box. Jungkook actually replies on the chat when he gets a video of Yoongi making funny “yah! pah!” noises with each punch. Yoongi’s knuckles bruise; blooms of dark pink that turn yellow, and Jimin thinks of Yoongi’s exhausted redness under their stage makeup, the flush in his knees when he plays basketball.

How Dae-Jung’s seen it all.

 

“Jimin-ssi. Jimin-ssi. Hello?” Jungkook leans against the bag and sends it careening into Jimin, who apologises for zoning out and pretends like he’s just a bit drunker than he is. Jimin’s body, honest from all the play and tumble Jungkook brought in with himself, squirms at the small lie. “Are you worried about leaving soon?”

Jimin looks up at that. “Uh, yeah always.”

He’ll take it.

It’s the next-best honest thing to talk about.

Jungkook, god bless his soul, doesn’t offer any platitudes. He bumps up against Jimin and sticks a wet finger in his ear (with affection). He knows. They don’t talk openly about Jimin’s fear, slowly thickened over a lifetime of you know what they do to pretty boys like you in the barracks. 

It’s not even true, maybe. Seeing his hyungs adjusting helps, it really helps. But it comes back sometimes. They’ve talked about BTS’ future, sales, concerts, making content, managing relevance and expectations, but they talk around this. Even the BTS marriage has its secrets.

His little brother doesn’t seem worried that Jimin’s leaving, Tae’s downright excited, Namjoon is grimly determined. Jimin can tell, because he’s not talking about it back and forth like he does for literally everything else. Meanwhile  Jungkook, sweetheart that he is, immediately offered to enlist together the very first time Jimin broadly hinted at it.

He looks at Jungkook, truly looks at him. He’s neatly readjusting the bag, wiping down a beer splash, his muscular back silhouetted in his gigantic, loose hoodie. His loyalty is unstinting; he doesn’t need to interrogate the depths of Jimin’s psyche to throw in his lot with him. Sweet boy.

Jungkook wanders back to the kitchen whistling Seven, and Jimin hears the rattle of pans that promises one of Jungkook’s impromptu noodle dishes. But Jimin feels the urge to dissect it all (again) rise like bile, and for all his earnest, guileless kindness, Jungkook’s not the right person for it.

He misses Yoongi. 

Jungkook nearly stays over, but he’s so busy with the upcoming album that he staggers home at 3am because he has work the next day. He leaves his motorbike at Jimin’s place and piles into a cab, round eyes nearly closed with drink and sleepy exhaustion. Jimin kisses him on top of his head and trudges back upstairs after an unsteady goodbye. He wishes he could talk to Yoongi about Yoongi. It's disorienting. He falls into bed, and dreams of knuckles.

 

 

 

He wakes up to a flurry of texts from Sunyoung the next morning. He rushes out, hungry and a little hungover.

A whole week goes by like this.

Tae’s back in Korea after shooting in London, and Namjoon wants Jimin to feature on the new album. They’re leaving before him and Jungkook, and he’d drop everything he’s doing to squeeze in one more second with them. There’s a million things to do, and Jimin has that sense of being caught up in a current bigger, deeper, and faster than his own productivity and he does what he’s best at – being drawn into other poeple's lives. The pop machine churns.

Yoongi’s texts sit heavy in his phone. Monday – hey where did you put my buldak mayo? its not in its usual spot and I can’t find it. Tuesday – back home a little early. i’m making spaghetti. bring some beer if you’re coming by. Wednesday - <attachment: image>. It’s of the black cat Yoongi was fostering last November. Yoongi sends two more of Jimin holding the cat (and holding his breath so his allergy doesn’t kick in). It had, Yoongi stuffed him full of antihistamines and sent him back home alone). Thursday – nothing.

Jimin’s relieved. Jimin’s on edge. What’s he doing? Why? It makes no sense; he’s closer to Yoongi than he is to his own brother. Is this like – like having a crush on a therapist? Wrong, perhaps, but compelling.

Maybe they could have been together, in another life. The charismatic ordinariness of Yoongi, the solidity of his slight body, even its slight gracelessness as Yoongi danced with unconsciously splayed hands ruining the line of his otherwise competent moves, it's oddly hypnotic. With hindsight he even understands how some of the fans get about him, almost accusatory that Yoongi's tricked them with some stealthy charm. 

When Yoongi came out to them all, serious and flighty all at once, declaring “I’m bisexual,” firmly in the middle of dinner even as he looked like he was going to make a run for it, Jimin had…hoped. But then in a manner very Yoongi-like, he immediately told them all about the guy he was seeing. Then he said some more stuff in a radio interview. And his lyrics. He’s been telling the fans for years. But, yes, Jimin’s put any hope for himself aside. And it’s not like any of them is hurting for sex.

Yoongi’s type in men is tall, stubbled guys, and Jimin’s type is anyone who’s into him, and Yoongi is not. He offers, of course, “Suga-hyung, would you like to kiss me? You’ve got to get this on camera.” The room erupts in cheers, Yoongi squirms away loudly.

It's safe.

 

 

Before the punching bag - the first time he gets COVID, Jimin’s miserable. His body hurts half the day, and he’s bored and unfocussed the other half. He wants to do nothing other than call Yoongi. So he does. Jimin doesn’t question his need, all their friendships ebbs and wane in intensity according to a pattern he’s never understood. Whatever, he’ll take the comfort any of them offer him.

“Wae.” Yoongi always whines. "What now?" 

Yoongi's voice comes with him on little errands about the house as he does his dishes or plays videogames with half a brain, and Jimin finds a newness in his distant company. For example, he finds: Yoongi actually loves his therapist. He's ironically become less fastidious about his coffee now that he doesn't have to argue with anyone else about what brand to buy. He wants to adopt a cat and debates himself endlessly about it. He refuses to use the PR boxes of cosmetics he gets sent and has been offloading them on Jungkook all this time. To this, Jimin strongly protests. 

And Yoongi's quiet breathing on the other end of the line draws Jimin out, and things come up that he hasn’t talked about in years. His first girlfriend, his bitter falling-out with his arts school best friend, his almost-guilty anger at having to go hungry, stay hungry, all the fucking time. Yoongi makes scathing assessments of anyone that bothers Jimin – a different loyalty than Jungkook’s – and Jimin delights in his bitchy dissections. It feels glorious to earn Yoongi’s nearly silent laugh that sometimes erupts in an enunciated ha! ha! 

That one week becomes two, then becomes a month. 

Jimin finds slivers of time to go occupy Yoongi’s couch and stare at his dark ceiling. It's easy to be in his company. Sometimes he looks at Yoongi, who looks back at him with a wry smile, and he feels both maligned and understood. He calls on the days he can’t be there. He confesses to his phone one night, “And I don’t want to go. I’ve never wanted to.”

Yoongi doesn’t need to ask for context. “My mom used to say the war would be over when I grew up. Just turned out to be the longest war in the world instead.”

“I don’t want to go to war.” His voice trembles. Drops to a whisper spoken close into the tiny microphone. “I don’t want to shave my head. I don’t want to learn how to load a gun, I don’t want to – any of it.”

His stomach swoops. “I don’t know why Tae’s so excited and I’m not. I feel terrible about that.” Jimin digs his toes into the mattress and looks up at the ceiling. The planets splashed across it are steady.

“Love doesn’t guarantee sameness, Jimin-ah. And I’d tell you to try the online forums that’s just thousands of guys with the same complaint, but I think you should avoid looking us up in relation to enlistment.” In the background, Yoongi plays half a scale on his keyboard. Interlude for his fears. “It’s okay not to want to go, almost no one does, if they’re really being honest.”

He picks at his scalp. Tries to believe Yoongi. Worries for him. “I saw some of the posts about your alternate service.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I saw them too.” Another half scale. “I think dad was more upset I couldn't join the army than anyone else in the world was.” Jimin’s careful not to spit something mean at the mention of Yoongi’s father. Instead he bristles in silence. Yoongi continues, as if he heard anyway. “He’s piped down now, don’t worry. But yeah. I’m sorry this is happening.”

“It’s happening to us all.”

“Not similarly, though.”

“Perhaps.”

It feels safe.  

Time seems to expand; Yoongi’s voice grows as warm in his ear as his phone gets against his face. He hears the smile in Yoongi’s gravelly voice when he pretends to complain. The same one that lurks on the (bad) side of his face when he pretends to be massively put-upon by Jimin's general existence. And Yoongi sinks into him like sleep, overtaking him without his awareness, until he needs him every day. Every night. “Hyung”. His answering grunt.

 

 

When he goes to bed at night, he swipes to look at Yoongi’s unread texts and puts his phone away. He’s scared to even try answering those questions. His body is like an object rolling downhill through the path of least resistance. It wants to go back to Yoongi’s big walnut table and dark ceilings and his cooking but then, he’ll be talking to Yoongi, and he’ll do something stupid, like touch Yoongi. Something new skitters across his skin every time he does that these days, and it won’t go away.

That one night. That shower.

Is Yoongi just lonely?

Is he himself just bored?

He should reimagine a night where that doesn’t happen, where it all goes like it’s supposed to. But he needs to try something that’s worked for him before. Feed his hunger in the privacy of his mind. .

When he’s eighteen and trying to lose weight, Jimin sometimes hallucinates an entire meal and eats it. It takes a lot of concentration. Maybe he'd read it somewhere online on a diet forum. He smells the spread, touches the hot bowls, sits down, and slurps the soup. Imagines eating the rice bite by bite, two full bowls of it. Delicate weight of the chopsticks in his hand. The hunger howling in his teenage body retreats, and he can have another day admiring the cut of his jaw in the practice room mirrors.

It’s good enough.

In the hushed darkness of his room now, he imagines sliding his foot higher up Yoongi’s leg, imagines hooking his chin over Yoongi’s shoulder and reaching for the towel.

A bit further perhaps.

He summons the memory of Yoongi’s bony shoulders, thanks to thirteen years of looking at that pale sweep in a tank top. His mind hesitates.

The shower plinks, and Yoongi with his back to Jimin, waits. Right.

He can to do this. Fuck, he wants to do this; digs right into the hot bowl of rice, Yoongi’s scapula soapy under Jimin’s hands. He opens his mouth and bites down on his neck. Yoongi hisses in pain (oh, he remembers exactly what that sounds like, fuck) and Jimin slides his soapy hand down Yoongi’s chest, down the undefined softness of his stomach. Down under the towel, where his hand disappears.

His stomach twists with real hunger and his hands disappear down his own pants before he’s quite aware of it.

It’s quick. Oh, it's very quick.

His first thought is panic.

He wipes himself down with his own soiled boxers and flings them away, lying naked under the comforter. His second thought is whether it worked. True, his hunger came with shocking force, but it’s probably fine.

Food, sex. A passing craving.

He doesn't know what to do with himself, so he curls up with his hands between his knees and lets the post-orgasm exhaustion pull him into sleep.

 

--

 

Jungkook’s solo concert is incredible.

He’s so happy on stage, flirting with the fans and calling on Namjoon in the audience like the most obnoxious high-schooler with a crush, and Jimin’s heart fills with fondness. And bitterness. Just a few more weeks, now.

Jimin streams most of it but he comes out to celebrate with Jungkook and his team. Yoongi can’t come, of course, and Jin and Hobi leave an aching void, so Tae sends lots of pictures on the group chat. A big crying sticker from Hobi, followed by an angry emoji (and a heart) from Jin. Yoongi doesn’t reply. It’s been ten days at this point.

Jimin’s leg won’t stop bouncing up and down.

Namjoon looks at him across the meat sizzling on the grill. His buzz cut makes his eyes look especially round, like Jungkook’s. Maybe the fans are right, perhaps they all do look like each other under a certain light, and Jimin’s a bit susceptible to signs these days. Namjoon jerks his head upwards in the universal gesture of what’s up? Jimin shakes nothing. 

When Namjoon goes out for a smoke break he tugs, once, on the arm of Jimin’s jacket. He follows Namjoon out into the November chill.  

“Your face doesn’t say it’s nothing.”

“Just stressed.”

Namjoon gestures with one long-fingered hand. “About?”

Jimin rolls his eyes at him. “The obvious. You and Tae leaving. Finishing that fan song. Leaving.” Yoongi. What I did. Why it didn’t help.

“Did you and Yoongi hyung fight?”

Jimin gapes. Namjoon’s prescient, but he’s not supposed to be that prescient. “Did he say that?”

Smoke uncurls from Namjoon’s mouth as he shakes his head, “Not exactly. I’d called him for something else and you came up. You know, your feature.”

Jimin wipes at his nose. “…Okay.”

“He said you’d vanished on him, but he sounded odd about it.” Namjoon imitates Yoongi, “Not ‘aish, that bastard won’t answer my texts, that Busan jerk,’ like usual.”

“That tells me nothing, Namjoon hyung.”

“Ah, but it tells me something.”

If Jimin avoids thinking when he can, Namjoon luxuriates in it, like Yoongi. Namjoon’s just more confrontational. It makes him a fantastic leader, of course, canny and authoritative at the same time, and deeply kind, but also very gifted at emotional sleuthing. And he’s rarely wrong.

Jimin can either lie (a temporary reprieve) or just come clean (with something he doesn’t have the words for). Maybe Namjoon can help.

“Fine. How much time do you have?”

The restaurant door opens behind someone leaving and washes them with the noise of celebration.

Namjoon raises one eyebrow. “Oh? That bad?”

“Not bad, we didn’t fight.” He chews on his lip and tries to think of the most accurate way to describe this feeling of gradual acceleration, of feeling like he’s falling downhill towards something. “We – have these moments sometimes.”

Namjoon hmms encouragingly.

“And they’re – Monie hyung you have to promise you won’t say anything to anyone-,” Namjoon holds up a pinkie solemnly. “They’re different. Our dynamic is – look. We all flirt, right?”

Namjoon tilts his head and frowns. “Speak for yourself.”

“Oh, and you don’t wind Jungkook up because it’s fun when you’re a bit drunk?”

There is a guilty silence. Namjoon looks shifty. “I’ve never…”

Jimin waves it away. “Between us. There’s all these wobbly bits, right, we’re like brothers, like – like spouses. That’s what Sunyoung said, by the way. BTS is a marriage without the sex.” He ignores Namjoon sputtering. “A lot of the fans think we’re fucking, I mean, they think we must be, because who could love us better than someone who gets all of it? We have chemistry. Even beyond the fanservice. We know we do. Don’t you feel the lines shifting sometimes? Don’t you think – but what if it was real?” 

Namjoon doesn’t respond. He looks a bit stricken, instead, and steals a reflexive glance backwards at the door, as if he can see Jungkook through it.

Jimin will think of that later but now, “And I’m not even sure if they are shifting, it’s just that I’ve become…aware of what it would be like to cross that line.”

At that, Namjoon looks at Jimin. “What do you mean cross, what did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“I’m not accusing you, Jimin, but; fuck. Did he?”

“No.” Jimin feels sullen. “No he didn’t.”

Yoongi never anything. That's the whole point, maybe.

Namjoon backs up until his head thunks against the brick wall. “So neither of you did anything. To each other.” He holds up his hands appeasingly at Jimin’s indignant squawk. “I’m just trying to understand. We know this happens in idol groups; folks want to hook up. It’s a lonely job. We’re human.”

“That’s not it,” Jimin urgently insists.

“Has this ever come up in the last, pfft, thirteen years?”

“No!” Maybe. Something rises to the top of all the sediment in him. That sweaty night in Yoongi’s childhood bedroom in Daegu. He shakes his head. “Or at least not like now. Monie hyung, I swear I didn’t notice. Before.”

Namjoon looks contemplative. He lights another cigarette. Jimin joins him against the wall. Its not like he feels any more at ease. But telling Namjoon makes it feel like real, not just something he's worrying himself about in the echo chamber of his head.

“Like marriage without the sex, huh?” He takes a long drag. “I know I’ve seen more of you than my family, and I know I wouldn’t want to fuck you. No offense, you’re very hot, and all that,”

“None taken, and likewise, obviously.”

“But when we’re that close… I was reading this book, right, and the author says that love is born from familiarity, but largely from novelty. All lovers need a little magic. What could be novel after thirteen years together?” he muses. “We’ve always loved and fucked outside Bangtan,” draws a little circle with the cigarette, “but the circle’s getting bigger. Looser, which we all decided we needed.”

Jimin nods. “Maybe I’m seeking familiarity. That could be it.” Namjoon knows he has complicated feelings about it, but he also knows Jimin agrees with the principle of the thing. 

“Could be. But why suddenly? If the result of a stable chemical process suddenly changes, that means a new variable has been introduced. What changed?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses miserably. I don’t think it was me.

“Of course, I only have half the equation-,” he gestures towards Jimin.  

“Fuck, you swore you wouldn’t tell.”

Namjoon continues like he didn't interrupt. “- and conversely, there’s a lot of change around us. The same elements but in a different environment. Could be that opens up new possibilities, new futures. Maybe it changes things between us. Maybe we need to hold the old lines on new territory? Or fail to.”

“You sound like him with the fucking Maginot line.”

Namjoon bends over laughing. “We’re mixing metaphors but you get the drift, right?”

“Like continents.”

“What?”

“Continental drift.”

“Wow, Jin-hyung, I didn’t see you there. You shrank?”

Jimin smacks Namjoon hard on the arm. And then pulls him down into a hug. He whispers into his ear, “Thank you.” When they pull apart, they see Jungkook. Namjoon starts a bit guiltily, probably remembering what Jimin said earlier. 

Jimin waves Jungkook over.

Oddly enough, Jungkook hesitates, says, “I just came to see what was taking you guys so long. I’m headed back inside.” And he turns around and leaves.

Jimin realises Jungkook was carrying smokes. Namjoon still looks a bit guilty. Shifting lines, indeed.

 

--

Chapter 6

Notes:

Thank you for the comments, you guys. I read each and every one and giggle and kick my feet. Will reply after I finish this fic <3

Also - I made a mistake while uploading and accidentally left out the end of this chapter. Sorry; but maybe there's more chapter per chapter?

 

 

Jimin would recognise Yoongi’s mother anywhere.

It’s almost disorienting to stand next to her mirror image on the doorstep of the house in Daegu, Yoongi huffing under the weight of their bags, while Jimin balances a giant fruit basket in his arms. They sang along with the radio the whole way and Jimin’s still riding that wave of euphoria, but he notices Yoongi stilling, nearly imperceptibly.

A small ball of brown curls dashes out, barking around their ankles as Yoongi’s mother cries, “Aigoo, Holly, you’ll trip them!”

Jimin bows quickly, deeply, and hands her the gift basket. “Happy Chuseok, eomeoni.”

“Ah, you shouldn’t have. Mangoes? Oh, thank you Jimin-ah.”

“Thank you for having me.”

“Oh nonsense, how could it take you so long to finally visit?”

He chuckles awkwardly and looks at Yoongi for help, but he’s already heading inside.

It’s soon after breakfast, but the house already smells of lunch prep. Almost instinctively, Yoongi drifts towards the kitchen once he puts their bags away, but his mother chases him away with a long spoon for daring to leave a guest alone. “And get the extra towels for Jimin, you know where they are?”

“Yes, mom,” Yoongi sighs aggrievedly.

He beckons Jimin deeper into the smallish house, passing a short corridor lined with pictures, including one of the seven of them, until they come to Yoongi’s room. Yoongi opens the door with nonchalance and stands at the threshold, which means he wants Jimin to go in. He does.

“Ah, the birthplace of a genius! I can’t believe I’m really here.”

Yoongi pulls a face at him. “Mom wants to know if you need her to get the extra mattress out or if you’re okay sharing with me.”

“Sharing with you, of course, Suga-ssi,” he leaps to hug Yoongi’s stiff arm, and he pulls it away with a noise of disgust.

It’s the day before Chuseok, a Saturday, so Guemjae is home from his university, but Yoongi’s dad has a half day at the office. He’ll take the train to Busan directly from here tomorrow, so he needs to stay in a good mood. Maybe relax a little around Yoongi’s dad, try not to feel too aggravated.

“Allan Iverson?” he points at a huge poster behind the door.

Yoongi blushes, and bustles over to his old desk. There’s remnants of Sellotape browned around the edges that mark missing posters and cards. Jimin points at them too. “Redecorated?”

“Uh, my parents did. The Great Purge of 2009.”

Jimin sits down heavily on the chair.

Ah yes, when Yoongi’s parents burned all his lyrics, threw out some second-hand equipment. Beat Yoongi. Yoongi shuff-shuffs along the tiny room, ferreting out boxes of memorabilia he’s squirrelled away. He leafs through a yearbook, excitedly pointing out faces as Jimin tries to unclench his fists.

Yoongi seems to have made up with them, especially his mother.

His parents even came to their concert earlier this year, and Yoongi – god – Yoongi got down on his knees and sobbed in front of thousands of people. Jimin heard the hoarse wrack of Yoongi’s uncontrollable tears through his in-ears and fought the urge to cover Yoongi’s entire body with his own. It is not his place.

He’s a guest here. A friend. A co-worker. He has no opinion that matters. His anger is forbidden.

“Holly-ah! Baby-baby-baby-baby, aigoo, comeherecomehere -” Yoongi cries and picks up Holly from where he’s yipping over their feet.

Yoongi’s face creases with endearment like it’s made of paper. And his mouth seems to be speaking some strange, growly baby language consisting of various unprecedented noises. None of these words are in the Korean dictionary. Jimin’s not sure they’re words at all.

The poodle seems to want to burrow inside Yoongi’s skin, butting at his chest, his chin, his arms; Holly's whole body is wiggling side to side with the force of his wagging tail. Yoongi giggles breathlessly, even as he keeps up a patter of nonsense, his hands as big as the poodle itself, but so, so gentle.

Would Yoongi notice if he took a video right now? This would do excellently on the group chat. 

His hand creeps towards his phone on the end of the bed when Yoongi topples over entirely, to let Holly lick at his face. He’s not still used to the sensation of animal tongue, clearly, as he squirms even as he tries not to.

“Gah! Guehehe – yah!”, Yoongi babbles, bullied by a beach ball.

Fuck it, he’s making a video. He’ll take the risk of being maimed.

They’re interrupted by Geumjae, who barrels into the room, distracting Holly from eroding Yoongi’s face, slapping Jimin enthusiastically on the back, and managing to smack a kiss on Yoongi’s cheek. And blow a raspberry on it.

“Disgusting,” Yoongi declares.

“Impressive,” Jimin admits.

 “So, how’s the less-handsome second-born?”

Yoongi says, “Not bad actually. We made some money this quarter.” Geumjae high fives him.

They talk for a bit as Holly turns his attention to Jimin, then Geumjae turns to him and says, “Did you know, when the neighbours heard that one of the Min brothers was going off to Seoul as an idol trainee, they thought it was me, not him? Since I’m clearly better-looking.”

Jimin’s heard this story before (from Geumjae) but he indulges it because he knows someone else with the same tendency. So he grins and asks, “Hyung, can you rap? Actually never mind, you should call PD-nim, and see if he’ll swap Yoongi hyung out for you.”

“What if I throw you out on the street, huh, Park Jimin?”

They goof around until Yoongi’s mother calls from the kitchen, and Yoongi shuffles out of the room like an old man. Jimin and Geumjae trail behind him and Holly, who keeps weaving between Yoongi’s legs. 

Jimin likes Geumjae; always has.

Underneath his easy smile, there’s a streak of fierce protectiveness towards his little brother. He’s learned that Geumjae would come to Seoul to forcefully lend Yoongi money whenever he found out that he was utterly broke, even without Yoongi ever saying a word. All this time Jimin thought he was just bringing them leftover practice food he’d cooked for culinary school. Unlike Jimin, Geumjae did get to have an opinion on how the family treated Yoongi, and he exercised the hell out of it.

Forget like, Jimin loves Geumjae.  

Mrs Min stands over the stove in a plume of steam with a hand on her hip. Yoongi stands, taller than her, but in the identical posture. He prods at the pork belly. Jimin suppresses his urge to take a picture.

Instead he tries to help, offering to wash, strain, chop, but Yoongi’s mother is insistent in waving him away until he protests, “Ah, but Yoongi hyung taught me how to do all this! Even my own mother says I’m more useful now.” Jimin grins winningly at her, “How can I show you what a good teacher your son has been, huh, eomeoni?”

She peers at him with Yoongi’s eyes. “Quite the charmer, aren’t you? Fine. You can boil and drain those potatoes. Can you chop garlic very fine?” Jimin nods.

He gets a little out of the way with the chopping board and tries not to be too obvious about staring. The two brothers weave around their mother in a dance of intuitive understanding, never bumping into each other once. They’re making bossam, and what seems like about a million side dishes.

It’s quiet in the kitchen except for a murmured word here and there, the muted thud of a pot, or the clack of chopsticks. Rather nice; a silence that he doesn’t feel compelled to fill up or dispel. They’re not a very affectionate family, but he notices Yoongi’s mother poke his cheek with a knuckle, leaving a smear of gochujang on it. Jimin doesn’t realise he’s been humming under his breath until Yoongi’s mother demands, “Louder, then, Jimin-ah. Let’s hear it.”

Yoongi meets his eyes. Smear of red on one cheek, he gives Jimin one of his secret smiles. And Jimin sings.  

His garlic must pass muster because Yoongi’s mother adds it in without saying a word. But when he finishes one song, she requests another. And another. She makes Yoongi drain the potatoes because she doesn’t want Jimin to stop singing.

She likes a lot of ballads.

When they take a break, and she beckons Jimin out to see her garden. Yoongi makes as if to follow, but she shoos him away. Jimin gives him an apologetic look and steps out. 

It’s a riot of green.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, eomeoni.”

A large, sun-drunk bumblebee heads straight for them, and she gently wafts it away. It’s a very small garden, that too shared with the neighbour, Yoongi’s mother explains, but apparently, she’s entirely in charge because the neighbour’s happy to have a pretty garden to look at.

She takes him by the wrist, gently pulling Jimin behind her. On one end there’s a stand groaning under the weight of large tubs overflowing with kitchen greens. There isn’t an inch of empty space, with cucumber vines sprawling over other summer vegetables. Jimin shields his eyes from the midday sun with the other hand as treasure after treasure is revealed, like a small hibiscus shrug thickly covered in pale pink blooms. She plucks one and gives it to Jimin, who tucks it in behind his ear. On the other end, there’s a nested pair of small plastic stools. Jimin hastens to pull them apart, and gestures for her to sit.

She smiles up at him; a small one, sincere but quicksilver.

“I don’t bother with things like foreign roses. I want things I know, things we can eat. Things that belong here.” She touches a bell-shaped yellow flower hanging from a rambling vine on top of the fence. They stand there in silence and his eyes go slightly out of focus amidst this wash of green, as if his retinas had been dying to relax. It smells of earth.

“You should visit again.” Her hands rustle among the chilli plants. A few are tipped into his hands. “I heard you like food spicy, like my son. These should be hot.” She casually wipes one chilli with her sleeve and bites into it. “Hmm. I was right.”

Her matter-of-fact confidence is so reminiscent of Yoongi that Jimin has to focus on the chillies in his palm so as to not inadvertently say something sentimental. He has a feeling she would scoff. As they sit together, he watches her with his peripheral vision. She's very different from his own ebullient mother. She makes Jimin feel quiet. But it’s a feeling that’s familiar.

When they go back inside, still a bit sun blinded, Jimin collides with Yoongi. Mrs Min quietly slides past them. He tuts at Jimin and waggles a bottle of sunscreen at him. Jimin gives in to the sudden, unbearable urge to hug him. Yoongi stiffens at the contact, but he tolerantly pats his back. His hair smells like boiled pork.

Jimin draws back a few inches to look him in his impassive face. “I think you need a shower.” Yoongi’s lips quirk up at one end. They’re very pink.

Geumjae appears out of seemingly nowhere to flick Yoongi’s ear. “Get a room.”

Yoongi flips him off.

“Min Yoongi, I saw that!”

“Sorry, mom.”

--

Yoongi’s father is a loud man. Jimin gets up to bow, get thumped on the back and answer a few questions about how his own family is doing. Mr Min’s eyes wander to the flower behind his ear that Jimin had nearly forgotten about. Then he turns to Yoongi and peppers him with a thousand questions about the other members, how much they’re (finally) making after they broke even, and why he doesn’t come home more often.

Jimin slinks off to the kitchen counter where Geumjae is helping his mother. Puts the flower in his pocket.

Lunch is a less quiet affair than making it was, the conversation mainly dominated by Mr. Min’s booming voice. Jungkook does a flawless impression of it. If only Jungkook was here. He’s so easy to love. Not like Jimin, who’s trying not to insult Yoongi in a misguided flourish of loyalty.

There’s enough conversation that he can retreat, mostly laughing at Geumjae and Yoongi’s bickering, or just answering questions from Yoongi’s dad about his own parents.

But Yoongi’s animated, clearly in a great mood. He brightens under his father’s attention, and he glows with satisfaction when his dad praises the concert. And this means that Yoongi keeps putting food on Jimin’s plate, or a hand on his knee. Perhaps Jimin, ironically the one with the least claim to resentment, is the only one stuck in the past? Yoongi’s hand on his knee – here and gone again and returning like a bird on a branch – is warm and reassuring. He looks at the emerald chillies in a bowl in front of him and remonstrates with himself.

He quite likes Yoongi’s mother now that he’s spent some time with her, what’s one parent more?

Later, when they’re doing the dishes, Yoongi bumps Jimin’s shoulder with his own. “I wanna show you around the neighbourhood a bit.”

So they spend a couple of hours wandering around in the afternoon glow.

Yoongi points out the church his parents like to go to, and the three - no, four – houses where relatives of their family live. The convenience store where he used to buy smokes, and later worked at while he was running around with his D-Town hyungs. He bemoans the fact that he's finally quit, apparently suffering from some intense pang.

They take the 724 bus, because Yoongi’s feeling inspired, and Jimin teases him about the song he wrote for his mixtape, all thrumming anger, resentment, boasting, and betrayal. "You're such a tortured poet, hyung, you've honestly outdone Rapmon hyung. Do it, wear the crown. And then maybe you should stumble into some rain so you can say, 'oh, these aren't tears'."

Honestly his Yoongi impression is second only to Jungkook's, but Yoongi tries to shove him into a sewer for his artistry.

They wind their way to Yoongi's music academy, and he tells Jimin about a piano teacher who also ran a small, but pretty serious card gambling ring on the side.

"Wow, it's like you Daegu folk came straight out of a movie," Jimin laughs. Yoongi's secretly flattered. Jimin knows he would be. Nerd.

By the time they trudge back home, the sun’s begun to sink.

Geumjae accosts them outside, with cigarettes. “Dad just fell asleep in front of the TV. We have ten minutes, let’s go, go, go!”

He chivvies them along to a playground tucked away behind the row of houses, and Yoongi finds a basketball somewhere, shooting hoops as Jimin gossips with Geumjae, laughing with his brother when Jimin takes a drag and starts hacking up a lung. Yoongi hoots, “A yo, hip-hop warrior Park Jimin!”

Jimin puts his hands in his pockets to strike a mock-cool pose and his fingers brush the flower. He restores it to where it was, sagging a little behind his ear, he checks in a passing reflection, but still a bright, blush pink.

They sneak back into the house, giggling like schoolchildren.

When Yoongi leads Jimin back down the corridor, he reaches a hand behind himself blindly, and Jimin takes it.

He’s glad to be here, alone with Yoongi. It's fun. 

This time when Mrs Min is cooking dinner, she doesn’t protest when Jimin offers to help. Yoongi’s right there by his side, needing no instructions at all as he navigates the kitchen, surprisingly nimble despite his old-man gait.

 

 

 

“Did you get Jimin the extra mattress?” Yoongi’s dad suddenly asks in the middle of dinner.

“Oh we discussed it already, he’s okay sharing with Yoongi-ah,” his mother responds, helping herself to some jjigae.

Mr. Min frowns. “Why? They’re not little boys to sleep cuddled up like puppies. We have an extra mattress.”

“It’s fine, we’re used to it, dad.”

“No, I don’t care what you get up to there, in Seoul. This is home.”

Jimin, sat next to Yoongi again, feels the exact second his body tenses for a fight. He shoots out a hand to land on Yoongi’s thigh, digging his fingers in. Yoongi draws a breath. He speaks, very slowly and very clearly, “You didn’t say that when Hobi visited. Or Jungkook.”

Yoongi’s father puts his chopsticks down and says, equally clearly, “Well, I’m saying it now.”

Geumjae pipes up, “Honestly, shouldn’t it be up to them? Bed was big enough for me and Yoongi to share.”

His father doesn’t respond, but he does glare. Jimin makes fleeting, accidental eye contact with Yoongi’s father. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle. His hand spasms on Yoongi’s thigh.

“I think you should know when to defer to your elders.”

Yoongi scoffs. Jimin whispers, “Please, hyung. Please, it’s okay.”

Yoongi mutters mulishly under his breath “Why should I defer to nonsense?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath before his father shouts, “Speak up!”

“I said, fine!”

“That’s better. After all, we don’t want guests to feel like we’re not equipped to host them. Geumjae, get the mattress out after this and put it in the room.”

Jimin swallows thickly. When he draws his hand back, it’s a bit sweaty, so he wipes it on his knee. He pretends to fix his hair and plucks out the flower from behind his ear the second time that day. He feels like a flaming pillar of wrong. It was so fun and then he - he knows he did something. Indefinable, perhaps, but he just knows. When he gets up to clear the table after dinner, he fumbles two bowls with suddenly clumsy hands until Yoongi grabs his wrist and wrests them away from him.

His face is a mask of purposeful blankness. Jimin searches it for answers, but Yoongi won’t meet his eyes.

 

 

“Jimin-ah, Jimin-ah. Come here.” Yoongi’s mother beckons him after he dries the last dish Geumjae washed. Yoongi’s kind of disappeared after dinner. He hesitatingly walks over to where she holds the garden door open.  

There’s a streetlight right outside that floods the garden with yellow. In the deep shadows it casts, Yoongi’s mother tucks herself into one of the stools, looking even tinier than she is.

She sighs. “Come, sit here. Next to me.” Jimin obliges. He’s not sure what he’s in for.

“Jimin-ah. It’s been difficult for us, you know. To come along with him. I think maybe can’t, maybe we’re too old, and stuck in our old ways of thinking.”

He wraps his arms around himself.

“He’s always been…different. Mothers know.”

He nods, to show he’s listening.

“He took the biggest gamble anyone in our family, no, even our friends’ families, has ever even dreamed of.”

Jimin says softly, “He kind of won, though.”

Yoongi’s mother chuckles. “You have a long road ahead of you still, Jimin-ah. But yes.”

“I know it was hard for a lot of parents. It’s a hard industry. My own mother, she- ”

“Yes, but that’s not quite it. He’s different than us. Me and his appa, we don’t always understand, so I don’t know if we can always be a lot of help. I know he’s angry at us, I listen to his songs. He’s convinced we won’t ever understand him.” She takes Jimin’s hands in her own. He looks into her face, the same jaw, the same eyes, the same mouth shape when she says, “I don’t want to lose him some day. Would you help, Jimin-ah?”

“With, with hyung?”

“With him,” she insists. “He didn’t used to be a secretive little boy, but these days… He doesn’t tell us things. He doesn’t fight with us, but he also doesn’t say anything. If he’s having a hard time. If his differences are easier to bear, in Seoul.”

“I think he tells Geumjae hyung.”

“But Geumjae is here, and you’re there, with him, every day. You see what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Did he quit smoking?”

Jimin gapes.

“Tch, I’m old, not stupid. Now tell me.”

“Yes, he did.”

She pats his hand, seemingly done for now.

“Jimin-ah, I asked you because Yoongi admires you.”

Admires you?

“You’re different, like him, no?”

Jimin is rooted to the little plastic stool. Should he tell her he has a girlfriend? He laughs awkwardly.

“Mothers know.”

 

 

 

Jimin drifts back inside the house after Mrs. Min. There’s the sound of laughter from a variety show on the TV, casting big blue shadows across the living room. He can’t see Yoongi’s father, but he hears him murmur something to his wife about the pretty Busan boy, and he ducks into the corridor leading to Yoongi’s room to avoid any confrontation. 

He trips over a mattress on the floor as soon as he enters, going down with an “oof”. Yoongi squawks. Jimin’s fallen right onto him.

“Fuck, ow, ow, ow.”

“Why’re you lurking like that?” Jimin accuses. His funny bone is twanging so badly from hitting some angled bit of Yoongi’s body. Not to mention he’s all angles anyway.

"It's my room?"

One sniff tells him Yoongi’s been smoking. “I literally just told your mum you’d quit.”

“What’re you spying on me for?”

“Spying!?” Jimin sputters.

Yoongi scoots backward on the small mattress, and Jimin sits down and shuts the door behind him. It’s completely dark now. Jimin wants to ask why didn’t you turn on the light or what’s wrong, but he realises he likes the dark. There’s something comforting about not having to manage his face. No eyes.

“I’m sorry about my dad.”

Jimin doesn’t want to talk about it; there’s a weird shame slithering through his body. He says its fine. But he feels it grow larger to fill the dark, the thing they’re both not saying, how Jimin’s instigated this, somehow. Pissed Mr Min off.

Presciently, Yoongi rasps, “You’re not to blame, Jimin-ah.”

“I very clearly am.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything.”

His eyes burn with unshed tears. Yoongi's defense of him makes him feel even guiltier.  

Fabric bunches up under his shins as Yoongi scoots closer. A hand high on his thigh. Withdrawn.

“Fuck, I can’t see anything.” Toes on his shin. They press against skin. “Yah, Mini Jiminie.”

The endearment makes him break into a sob. “I’m sorry, hyung.”

“What for, you idiot?”

Jimin feels miserable. Wordless. He feels sixteen and stupid again, inexplicably inadequate no matter how hard he trains. He cries as silently as he can, feeling even worse for doing this, now, here, on vacation in Yoongi's childhood bedroom.

Yoongi is a silent witness in the dark. His eyes have begun to adjust, and he can see Yoongi’s silhouette right in front of him. It's a blank outline like a cardboard standee. He wishes Yoongi would hug him, but he knows that’s not something he’s comfortable doing. During the Red Bullet tour when Yoongi had a full-blown panic attack backstage, he remembers crouching in front of the closed bathroom door, palm on the wood like it could be a distant touch.

Yoongi's here, that's enough.

He makes a valiant effort to collect himself. He wipes his runny nose on the sleeve of his t-shirt and gets on his knees to stand up when Yoongi grabs at his shoulder and pulls. Unsteady, he careens right into him again. Yoongi’s stronger than he seems, and Jimin’s pulled right into his cross-legged lap, knees and all. They’re the exact same size, so the whoosh he feels in the dark is Yoongi’s breath on his cheek.

Well now he has his hug.

He turns his face away to put Yoongi on his right just in case Yoongi panics at the proximity and changes his mind. Based on previous experience, he has about ten seconds until Yoongi does exactly that, so he closes his eyes and hooks his chin over a bony shoulder. Yoongi’s a small furnace. A rumble against his chest resolves into words.

“Jiminie – don’t – don’t cry.”

Fresh tears well up in his eyes at that. Yoongi must feel the wetness against his shoulder, but he doesn’t push Jimin away. It’s definitely been longer than ten seconds, but surprisingly, he feels a second arm snake around his upper back and pull him more firmly into Yoongi.

Jimin doesn’t remember what he’s crying about anymore, only that it feels good to do it, as the fat, silent tears keep coming up from some deep well in the dark. It feels so good to be held. He burrows his face into Yoongi’s shoulder and inhales. Soap. Smoke. Sweat. It feels so good to be held.

It's still warm this month, and Jimin starts feeling a bit hot. A two-boy water cycle, his breath condensing against Yoongi’s shoulder, Yoongi’s palm against his back both condensing warmth. He doesn’t mind at all, actually. The sweat settles him. It’s like dance practice. He folds his knees from where they’re awkwardly digging into Yoongi’s lap and sweeps his legs up until he’s ensconced in Yoongi’s lap like a large toddler. The thought makes him stifle a giggle against the shoulder he's been crying on. 

Maybe it’s the dark, like a secret dimension out of time and space, but Yoongi doesn’t let go. Jimin’s just…hanging out here. It’s cozy. He turns his face towards Yoongi at the same time Yoongi does.

Yoongi's eyes catch the faint light from beyond the door, and Jimin thinks, a little wildly, that they glow like a cat’s. Yoongi breathes out a little shakily, and it smells like their dinner.

He’s so very close.

The dark thickens with waiting.

“I,” Yoongi begins.

Yoongi’s thighs tense up under his. It’s probably gone on too long for him. He pats Yoongi’s back reassuringly. “Hyung, I’m okay. It’s okay.”

He extricates himself gently, one buttcheek at a time, from Yoongi’s embrace. The arms around him drop away. Holly scratches at the door.

 

--

 

Yoongi wakes up first the next morning, startled from sleep by a very vivid dream that he promptly forgets as soon as he opens his eyes. He’s a little stiff from sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and he suppresses a hiss when he rotates his left shoulder. It’s early, the windows like glowing pink eyes beaming into the little bedroom. Jimin is dead asleep. He looks like a schoolboy, open-mouthed and on his back, his right hand curled on his abdomen. His left hand hangs limply off the bed. Holly is curled at his feet. Yoongi’s careful to not to wake either of them as he makes his bed.

Something pink falls out of his blankets. The flower. It must’ve fallen out when Yoongi held him last night.

When he nearly kissed him.

He must have been mad, anxiety and anger and arousal rolling in his stomach like a cocktail of recklessness, because Jimin had to be the one to do the sensible thing – pull away. Yoongi folds the sheets and tries to put his mind in order. The evidence clearly suggests that Jimin’s not interested. Not like that, considering how he pulled away, and that worst of all, he almost preyed on Jimin’s need for comfort like some kind of creep. Plus he's a bumbling idiot. A creepy idiot. Maybe he grew up wrong or something, but he never learned how to touch people in the casual way that Jimin has. It's all or nothing. And now he's stuck like this. 

It takes him a swift second to decide what to do with the flower.

In his still-unpacked bag, there’s a new notebook, and he presses it between the last few pages. It feels like stealing. Like one of those relics, sanctified by memory. An ugly memory. His dad, then him, a one-two shot overwhelming Jimin. He doesn’t know how to apologize deeply enough.

Jimin thankfully, spares Yoongi the agony of bringing any of this up.

Yoongi drives him out to the station, and Jimin looks at Daegu out of the window.

He’s quiet, but then what’s Yoongi to say about that? It’d be rich coming from him. Dongdaegu is a bit busy on Chuseok morning, and Jimin gives him a quick hug before he hurries to his train.

It lingers on his skin like a raindrop.

 

--

Chapter 7

 

 

The car taking them to the airport turns towards Jungkook’s house. Jimin only has a minute or two before they’re at the doorstep. He pulls his phone from his bag and types.

me

hyung, I’m sorry I took so long to reply.

can we talk when im back from Japan?

hope you found the mayo

i miss Poko too

There. Hopefully the flight and the paparazzi will distract him from anxiously checking his phone every two minutes, because Yoongi’s the type to reply to texts as soon as he gets them. Perhaps this trip to Japan to film a travel vlog gives him some time to mull over what Namjoon said, decide what he wants, and be a fucking grown-up about it. Good sake will fill him with courage. Hopefully.

 

 

Sapporo is great.

He sinks into the hotel bed like it’s a snowbank.

Jungkook, in the next room, also sleeps ravenously. They barely film anything that first day. A skeletal staff has travelled with them, and he insists they go out and enjoy themselves while the two of them sleep.

The outline for the show is very faintly sketched, as Jungkook had requested, so they have plenty of leeway to improvise plans. He’s made an itinerary (of course he has), but it’s brief, because Jungkook takes a pen and scratches out most of it to scribble DRINKING + KARAOKE on top. Sunyoung raised her eyebrows when she first saw it.

Jungkook handles most of the filming, and Jimin handles most of the translation.

On their second last day, they hike Mount Moiwa.

Barely anyone else is on the trail with them today, except a couple bickering about who forgot to check the weather forecast. They don’t recognise either of them, which is a relief. The fallen leaves underfoot are a little treacherous and Jimin goes down heavily with a loud oof. Jungkook laughs, but not unkindly. It starts to snow on their way down, little flurries that land on Jimin’s eyelashes, and by the time they return to the hotel, Jimin feels deliciously loose-limbed and kind of quiet.

Oddly enough, so is Jungkook. Usually, it’s the opposite – Jungkook’s downright garrulous post-concert, post-workout, post-anything intensely physical. Emotional, too, but talkative, above all. He asks Jungkook if something’s wrong, but he just shakes his head, and Jimin can’t really see his face, hidden away behind his mask and a wool cap pulled low over his eyes.

He gets quieter over the next two highballs they drink in Jimin’s room, once they return, giving him absentminded, insincere answers as he grows increasingly pensive, even refusing the ebullient staff members who swing by to ask if they want to go to karaoke. At this point, Jimin pulls on Jungkook’s jacket with two fingers, forcing him to look up at him. Jungkook takes a big breath, growing larger with it, like a raven puffing itself up for warmth.

But his eyes dart away when he finally asks, “I want to know something.”

Jimin frowns. “Okay, of course.”

Jungkook’s stress pulls tight between them.

“That night, when we all went out.” He stops. Takes a sip. Jimin waits. Nothing else is forthcoming for an unnerving amount of time. Usually, Jimin would ask if he’s lost his train of thought, but there’s something about the way he’s holding himself that makes Jimin wait.

“Did you kiss Namjoon hyung?”

Shock freezes Jimin in his chair. His mind sifts rapidly through what? and why on earth would I do that? and is that what you’ve been thinking this whole time? but what he finally says once his jaw unlocks is, “Outside the restaurant? In public?”

It is absolutely the wrong thing to say.

Jungkook meets his eyes like a fox in a trap, fear and pain shifting across his mouth. “Oh.” He sounds pinched. Jimin’s brain catches up. 

“No, no I was not.” He holds his hands up in surrender and tries to say something less horribly confusing. “Why would I? I don’t want to kiss him.”

Jungkook de-puffs.

There’s the tiniest nod of acknowledgment.

“Wait a second. Do you?”

Jungkook drinks instead of answering. That’s kind of all the confirmation he needs.

“Jungkook-ah- listen, uh…” he’s not sure how to finish this sentence. It feels surreal. The snow outside, the hunted look on Jungkook’s face. But it is very much happening. He has a responsibility here, especially seeing that he wasn’t wrong about his hunch that night either. He needs to stack his hyung braincells together to put Jungkook out of his evident misery. “Is it okay if I ask you something? Will you tell me the truth?”

Jungkook nods.

“I’m not gonna ask you how you jumped to that conclusion about me and him. Just tell me, is something actually going on with you and Namjoon hyung?”

“No.”

“But you’d like there to be?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

“How long?”

“Long.”

"For real?" It sounds harsh.

"Of course for real, hyung." 

He holds up his hands pacifyingly. “Okay. I see.”

Jungkook pulls on his lip piercing. It’s a new nervous tic doesn’t seem to be quite aware of, but Jimin can see him climbing off whatever ledge he had himself up on in his mind. He gets out of his chair to go squat next to Jungkook. Pets the soft back of his head. “Hey. What’re you thinking?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told. And I was ready to tear your head off. I’m sorry, hyung.”

Jimin rubs Jungkook’s back. Tries to comfort him as wordlessly as he’s always done.

But Jungkook’s a person of impetus; he thrives best when he capitalizes on his forward momentum, and Jimin has a strong feeling that the thing that’d make him feel instantly better would be - “You should tell him. Tell Namjoonie hyung.” Jungkook’s brave enough to do it too, if Jimin can make him feel safe enough.

He turns big watery eyes towards Jimin. “Is that a good idea?”

They leave soon. All of them. Namjoon and Taehyung a day before himself and Jungkook. It’s snowing outside, and he still feels that lingering sense of unreality from earlier. Jungkook’s body betrays a fine tremor when Jimin strokes his back. He feels it in his own body, so wired and despairing over the last few months. 

“Yes. I think so.”

“Do a Suga hyung? Fuck. Okay.” Jungkook breathes in again, and Jimin feels his ribs expand under his palm. His own smile feels wooden. Then Jungkook abruptly stands up, nearly headbutting Jimin and then steadying him apologetically. He nods firmly.

“Okay. I’ll go crazy if I don’t tell him. Gotta think like Suga hyung. I need to do it and I need to do it now.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Jungkook slips past Jimin and scoops up his phone. He’s almost out of the door when he turns right around to squeeze Jimin in a hug. “Wish me luck,” he whispers, and then he’s gone. The hotel door closes behind him with a muted click.

Jimin’s first thought isn’t always the kindest.

There’s an ugly feeling skulking in the corner of his mind. How quickly this all came together, how decisively Jungkook acted. How long? Long. Jimin thought Jungkook was steadily fucking his way through half the world, happy as a clam, but it turns out he was wrong.

He wishes beginnings came announced, a starting line bisecting the now and the future. Debuting did. It was so clean, the sound of that starter pistol going off.

Namjoon would probably offer him a metaphor about things being shaken loose in people like apples off trees, or teeth in a skull, or something like that. The point is, he reminds himself, that people surprise you. Even people he's known for so long they’ve seeded themselves into all his childhood memories, so familiar he doesn’t even gauge their presence as a separate intrusion.

The BTS marriage holds secrets.

How long has it been for himself? Jimin doesn’t know where he’d even draw an opening bracket so he can look at the stuff inside it as evidence. Was it the night with the shower, or the sun-soaked rooftop in Nonhyeong-dong, or the time the dark felt so thick around them? Some random dance practice catching eyes in the mirror when Jimin got stealthily dosed with this awful hunger that’s only sickened him with time? Maybe all of the stuff in the bracket is only evidence of how he feels. Paltry. Yoongi’s dry little reply, less than an hour from take-off, had only said sure.

Why can’t – why must he follow the inane labyrinth of his own mind when everyone else simply asks, is this what I want? And then they just walk out towards the thing. Perhaps that’s why he’s sat here feeling a little resentful when he should be celebrating. Whatever this is, he wants to draw the bracket closed on it. He's never going to know the answer unless he asks. 

Do a Suga hyung indeed. 

Jungkook doesn’t return to his room even after an hour and a half has gone by. So Jimin calls it a night, orders room service, and drinks until long after the food grows cold.

 

 

 

He wakes up to being flattened like a pancake by Jungkook’s dense body. Someone’s clearly happy this morning. He tries to shove his stupidly muscular mass away, but Jungkook only laughs at his efforts, so Jimin lifts his neck and gives Jungkook a full blast of his morning breath.

Biological warfare always works.

When he looks in Jungkook’s face finally, properly, after he wriggles out to brush his teeth and wear his glasses, he looks the same but somehow changed. “What happened next?” Jimin asks as he perches on the edge of the bed to peer at Jungkook, who’s wriggled into the warm spot Jimin left behind. Jungkook’s grin is so big Jimin’s worried it’ll split his face. “What’d he say? Don’t keep me hanging, Jungkook-ah.”

Jungkook disappears under the blanket to make a truly unhinged noise that’s half scream half growl of joy. Ah, so it went that well. Two hands emerge to clutch at the edge, one vividly tattooed, shortly followed by Jungkook’s fringe and eyes. “He said yes. That he feels the same way, but he wasn’t sure. Of me, and of himself.”

Jimin cocks his head with a frown. Jungkook clarifies, “Not unsure of how he feels, but whether I actually, er, wanted him.” He blushes at having to say it in the light of day. But he continues, “Also just that he’s been afraid because he’s never -”

“-properly dated men, yes.”

Namjoon’s one of those sad bisexuals who endlessly agonize over the awful heterosexuality of their dating history as proof that they’re secretly straight or something. It’s rubbish, as Jimin has told him many, many times. Maybe now Namjoon can finally relax. Finally let himself have something he wants, much less well-concealed that Namjoon believes it is. For all of Namjoon’s introspection, it’s ironic that Jungkook was the stealthier one of the two. All despite his very public, very legendary declaration of his crush on Namjoon, repeated enough on camera until it seemed as paper-thin as showbusiness.

People really do surprise you, thank god.

He reassures Jungkook it’ll be fine (because it will) and gives him increasingly wet little kisses all over his face while he protests.

There’s just half a day more before they fly out this evening, and Jimin chivvies Jungkook along to do some shopping, towing him around Sapporo like an ecstatic, lovelorn balloon. He buys something for everyone, especially Sunyoung, but he goes in circles trying to pick something for Yoongi. It isn’t until he’s standing in front of an upscale grocery store that he gets a faint idea. He abandons Jungkook in the sake aisle and heads further in. There’s no point trying to impress a connoisseur like Yoongi with alcohol.

Ah. There.

The jar of premium aged kanzuri is quite small, so he buys three. A tube of yuzu kosho, a jar of sansho-zuke, both in memory of their dinner the night before Yoongi enlisted. But he starts to worry it’s too little as he walks up to the cash register. Too mundane, perhaps. He doesn’t want Yoongi to think he only appreciates him for the cooking, like a hungry college student who comes home for the holidays.

His feet keep following the checkout queue as it shortens, and then the clerk smiles at him over her mask and he’s too awkward to go back now, so he puts it all down in front of her with a mumbled apology.

He worries in the hotel, he worries in the car to the airport, and he worries after he crosses immigration and Korea gets closer. The thought of Yoongi is a fist in his lungs.

Suddenly, his phone vibrates with a message.

Yoongi hyung -_-

get home safe. text when you land.

He takes a shivery little breath of relief. This plane can’t fly fast enough.

 

 

 

A wall of noise and bodies greets them at the airport.

It’s worse than usual. Jungkook trips over his own feet, a bit unnerved by the fans who push through before they get physically rebuffed by the bodyguards. Jimin keeps a hand reached out towards Jungkook and his head down. Japan’s always so much easier on them, but this is not the usual contrast after a trip there and back again; it’s almost like the reality of them all going away soon has sunk in for the fans, and it’s manifesting as frenzy. Anxiety. Their faces, when he glances up and catches someone’s eyes, are a little distraught. He tries not to think about things he's helpless to change, and he wishes they wouldn’t, either. A shared pain that goes nowhere.

It’s horribly windy in Seoul tonight, and he’s glad to be huddled inside the car. The weather promises snow in a few days. In reverse order, they ought to be dropping off Jungkook first, but he insists on going to HYBE headquarters.

“It’s nearly 10pm, Jungkook-ssi, are you sure?” His bodyguard sounds very tired.

“I’ll be alright, Taeil hyung. Don’t worry.”

Namjoon must be working late in his studio then. Jungkook’s knee bounces so rapidly it’s making the floor of the van vibrate as they pull into the parking lot. Jimin follows him out from the car and sweeps him into his arms. “Fighting, Jungkook-ah.” When he pulls back to look at his face, the whites of Jungkook’s eyes shine with fervour, and Jimin would be a little intimidated if he weren’t so massively proud of him.

It’s so much effort to stay still in his seat as HYBE recedes in the rear-view mirror. He watches the city slide by the windows without really seeing it, until he remembers he’s forgotten to text Yoongi. The screen feels as humid as skin when he touches it.

me

landed. on my way home

That feels measly.

And that’s not all he wants.

So he unlocks his phone again to check the date and confirms that it’s a Saturday, then he types,

are you home? are you up?

Yoongi hyung -_-

yes? yes.

 

 

 

It’s half an hour to midnight when he finally lands at Yoongi’s doorstep, and then vacillates at the threshold. He’s taken the quickest shower in the world, put his purchases in a nice gift bag, actually worn cologne, and turtleneck and a pea coat, but he hasn’t stopped to think. Not now, not anymore. Fuck it he chants to himself, he’s owning it, throwing himself head-first into Jungkook's wake. Fuck it fuck it fuck it. He just doesn’t know what he’s going to say. Or do. But he’s here now.

The door swings open.

“Park Jimin?”

"Ah, hyung."

“Aren’t you coming in?” Yoongi’s drowning in a massive black sweatshirt and thick sweatpants that scuff the floor.

“How did you-”

“Is that for me?”

He dazedly hands the bag over to Yoongi and follows him inside, neither of them answering the other’s questions. All of the lights are out except for a lamp in the living room, and he meekly follows Yoongi through the gloom, feeling overdressed and a little idiotic. There’s ten thousand words on the tip of his tongue, the first of them being ‘sorry’, but Yoongi doesn’t give him the opportunity.

“I have that security alert set up, remember?”

“Ah, right.”

Yoongi clicks on an overhead light in the kitchen, and it makes his glasses look opaque, like an anime character. The sweatshirt is so big its nearly slipping off one shoulder, but Yoongi is unaware of it, busy unpacking the chilli paste. He doesn’t say thank you. At least not out loud, but the corner of his mouth quirks up. There’s a loud metallic pop as he unscrews the sansho-zuke and tastes a bit on a spoon. He nods in approval and puts all the jars in his ingredient cupboard. Jimin relaxes. He passed.

“D’you want a drink?”

“Sure.”

"Ice?"

"The usual."

They’ve said these sentences to each other so many times he can already feel himself falling back into the groove of it, even though he’s spreading onto the sofa in a nervous blob. He tries to look calm; he has an objective here. Yoongi seems to have silently dispensed of the need for Jimin to apologise (hyung, I’m sorry, I was actually ignoring you because I recognised something devastating about my need for you). He needs a new plan. If only he could remember how to say the words in the right order.

Yoongi turns off the kitchen light with a bump of his shoulder as he walks back to the couch, marooning Jimin and himself in the gloom. He looms over Jimin when he hands the glass over before he crouches to sit cross-legged on the rug. Their eyes meet over the coffee table and Jimin parts his mouth, but Yoongi says, “Got an interesting call from Namjoon.”

“Ah.”

“Sounds like you’d know about this.”

“What’d he tell you?”

Yoongi sucks in a breath. “Pretty much all of it. He mentioned you, something about Sapporo.”

He’s just letting Jimin know he’s in the clear to talk about it. An old rule of theirs, to keep secrets secret even among themselves.

Jimin nods, and sips at the (really excellent) whiskey in his glass. He came here filled with all this kinetic energy, and it’s slowly leaking out of him now. His drinks up quickly to shore himself up.

“I know Jungkook’s really, really happy.” The truth, then. Not his, but a truth. “Happiest I’ve seen him in years.”

Yoongi nods. He smiles into the rim of his glass and his glasses slip a little down his nose. “Joon too. He cried a little, you know?” He gives a little half-shrug and tells his feet, “I guess when you hold it inside you like that for so long…”

Jimin looks up at that, tries to tell Yoongi that his heart’s crawling up his throat and its going to land in his glass with a big splash any second now. But Yoongi isn’t looking at him. He continues instead, calmly, “I think this’ll be the first official group relationship, now, from what I understand of Namjoon’s intentions. We’re going to have a meeting and tell HYBE at some point. Have the PR machine primed to handle any fallout. Buy off the press.”

Jimin finishes his whiskey in two burning gulps. He goes to pour himself another and brings the whole bottle to the coffee table for good measure, and sits down heavily on the floor across Yoongi. “I guess so.”

“I wonder what this news will do to the rest of Joon’s album. The stuff that isn’t mastered yet, I mean. Whether it’ll change the sound.”

“Hmm.” Jimin finishes his next drink in record time, so he doesn’t have to look at Yoongi. It all feels too heavy, now. Too big and too petty, but as heavy as a black hole. He doesn’t know how to say this in a way that doesn’t look like he’s riding Jungkook’s coattails; it was only the courage he wanted to borrow. He pours himself another.

“He’ll find a last-minute metaphor though, and it’ll be better than whatever he wrote before, that bastard.” Yoongi chuckles to himself, his sweatshirt slipping further down his shoulder, the most beautiful, insufferable confidant a man can have. “But you know, it got me thinking.” He pauses for Jimin to fill in with, “About?”

“Something my therapist was telling me to work on. Well this was a while ago, but uh, I was on one of my rants, you know, the things we can’t do and say, or only half-say, or can’t change, and she said well have you considered changing the way you approach it? Not with avoidance, but with acceptance?” Jimin’s not sure he follows. He swirls the last of the whiskey in his mouth like mouthwash. Yoongi laughs at the frown on his face. “I didn’t get it either, but then Joon was talking about sublimation, pouring restless energy into work, and I’ve done that with my anger. You know that. But he, he said he’d been doing that with – love. Being in love.”

He needs to say something here. Carefully. “Okay. And?”

“And so, I’ve got something for you. It’s a going-away present.”

Yoongi groans theatrically as he gets up and disappears into his room, telling Jimin to stay there. He reappears with his notebook and laptop in hand, “I know I promised you one years and years ago, and it just never seems to work out because everything goes through the company, and all the approvals and everything, but I wanted to keep my word, Jimin-ah. I think I finally have it.” Yoongi sits down next to him this time, their knees touching. It’s when Yoongi opens his palm to reveal a matte black USB drive that Jimin understands.

It’s a song.

Yoongi holds it out towards him like an offering, and Jimin silently takes it. The plastic is warm to the touch. Yoongi busies himself with the laptop, fiddling with it in a slightly self-conscious way and Jimin holds the USB drive and his glass close to his chest. He looks down at them both. He drinks.

It’s not fair.

He can’t take the push and pull of this anymore, making up his mind only to have the words stolen from him by some lovely but badly-timed gesture. Sublimation, love, and so on. It’s his turn now. When Yoongi holds his hand out for the USB drive, Jimin puts his glass on the table with a decisive thunk. Whiskey roars in his ears.

“I love you.”

Yoongi blinks at him. Then his hand lands on the back of Jimin’s neck in a familiar touch. “I love you too, Jimin-ah. And be gentle. You know it’s crystal.”

Jimin’s mind swipes through a thousand reasonable, relevant responses to that in between one breath and the next. He wants to say exactly what he means. He turns to look directly into Yoongi’s face less than a foot away. Those triangular eyes glimmer in the faint light, like a cat’s.

“Then why won’t you touch me?”

It takes Yoongi a second. “I am touching you.”

“Not like this, like this!”

He yanks the big warm hand down from the back of his neck to his chest, over his heart. Yoongi’s eyes flick down to their joined hands. Jimin pulls them lower, towards his lap, towards his crotch, “Like this,” he repeats, quieter. Yoongi startles and pulls his hand out from under Jimin’s. His face shutters closed.

There is the sound of harsh breathing. It’s him.

Oh no. Oh shit.

“Jimin-ah,” Yoongi’s voice cracks.

“Sorry. Shit. I’m – I’m really sorry hyung.” He squirms away, mortified. It’s like seeing his reflection in the bathroom mirror at a party only to realise how colossally, massively stupid he is.

Yoongi lets him put distance between them.

It hangs in the air between them – what Jimin just did. He watches him with that same shuttered face before he looks away. Doesn’t acknowledge the apology.

After one painful minute, Yoongi clears his throat, and beckons Jimin without looking at him. “Alright.”

Alright, what?

“Please. Just – just listen to it.”

Holds his hand out for the pen drive. Jimin extends his arm towards him to drop the USB into his waiting palm, but quick as a snake, Yoongi’s hand closes around his wrist. It’s a light hold, but his heart is hammering.

“Please come here.”

Jimin makes sure their knees don’t touch this time. 

There’s a single audio file on the drive, named ‘miniminiJiminie.jpg’.

“Look, this-,” Yoongi addresses Jimin’s knee, “this isn’t how I anticipated this going, I promise. But you just surprised me, is all.” He looks up at Jimin’s face now and oh. His face is a house with all the windows thrown open. “It’s me that’s sorry, Jimin-ah. I hope this explains.”

He presses play.

Jimin hears a breathless voice counting and five, six, seven, eight! step pah, pah, pah through the speakers. It’s his own. Then he hears himself giggling. Saying, hold on, the line’s disconnecting, hold on, and I’m here. There are a few isolated beats, clear like the drums in talchum. Then his own voice again, rising out of the silence, singing a verse from Kim Kwang Seok’s “About Thirty”, though the seasons return, where did you go, my lost love? It’s not that I let it go, it’s not that I’m leaving. Where did Yoongi get these samples? The plaintive lines fade into strings. Violins? A sustained melody. Yoongi’s voice, then, its husky drawl that resolves into a few bars about revisiting an old friend over the years, so familiar they’re like the face in the mirror, and as untouchable as a reflection. though there’s enough world for us both/ walk with me until there’s nowhere left to go. tender like a bruise/tender like a shadow. The same melody resumes, till the song ends.

Yoongi unplugs the little rectangle from his laptop and puts it in front of Jimin, brusque in the way he has when he’s trying to hide his awkwardness.

Again, he tells Jimin’s knee, “I hope you don’t mind that I sampled some stuff over the years. You’d have to sign some forms, because they’re yours by rights, but I can take that out if you’d like.”

He wants to curl up on the floor right here, he wants to run from this apartment, he wants to lunge at Yoongi.

It’s a skeleton of a song. It’s also the most unnervingly thoughtful thing anyone has ever made for him. Jimin feels small in the palm of Yoongi’s attention.And Yoongi made it despite Jimin’s crassness, his listless drift into everyone’s lives, his ephemerality. He settles for putting his head into his hands. He tries to think more calmly. Maybe Yoongi will forgive his trespass like he’s always done.

He should say thank you. “Thank you.” It comes out muffled and snotty.

There’s a light touch to his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he repeats, hopefully clearer.

“Jiminie.”

He hears the laptop being shut. The clink of the glasses being pushed away. A firmer press on his shoulder.

“Yah, Jiminie. I’m touching you. Look.”

He looks up. That’s true.

“Thank you, but you don’t have to. Just because I asked. I’m really sorry. I won’t do that again.” The hand on his shoulder spasms. Jimin continues before he loses his nerve, “And the song, it’s definitely a better gift that the one I got you, so you win.” He smiles a little to show that he’s okay.

They’re both silent for a while. Then Yoongi says, softly, “I just don’t know how.”

“How what?”

“How to do it right, like you'd want.”

Hope grows large, and then small in his chest. No. Of course Yoongi is endlessly indulgent.

So he will do this once. Just once. 

Jimin leans up and to his right very slowly, telegraphing his intentions as clearly as he can.

He watches Yoongi carefully, the wet black glimmer of his eyes, the soft o of his mouth, the tiny mole on his nose, his left cheek, as he draws closer and closer. Jimin wants him so badly he feels sick with it. He closes his eyes and breathes deep to calm the thing that’s rising in him and all he smells is sweat, soap. Yoongi. Yoongi. Then. Yoongi’s mouth is so soft, oh god, it’s awful, he’s awful. If he doesn’t stop immediately, he’s going to swallow Yoongi whole, he realises, and his hands shake as they come up to settle on Yoongi’s face. Big hands close around his wrists. Just one second more.

All he has to offer is his devotion.

Then he pulls all the way back, sinking back into himself like his entire body isn’t vibrating with the force of his want.

Yoongi just stares back at him, still holding onto Jimin’s wrists. The force of his gaze on Jimin's mouth is a physical thing.

“I’ve dreamed about that since I was twenty.”

Jimin looks frantically from Yoongi’s left eye to his right, searching for any frission of mischief that sometimes betrays when Yoongi's making a joke. There’s none. He pinches the carpet under his body to hold onto the surface of the earth.

Seconds go by and the confession hangs in the gloom of Yoongi’s living room.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Such as?” Yoongi looks miserable. “Let’s quit being trainees, Park Jimin? Yes, I do want to kiss you? Sorry my dad is such a jerk to you because he suspects – and correctly, all this time – that his son’s a little stupid about you? That all the shit he says around you is my fault?” Yoongi’s soft gravelly voice rises. “That I don’t touch you because I don’t think I can do it right, I don’t think I can stop, that I can keep it casual and professional, that I won’t tear the group apart?”

Jimin rolls all the way downhill to the realisation that was waiting for him. 

“You knew all this time? And you planned on doing nothing about it?”

Yoongi lets his wrists go. “I’m your hyung. It’s my job. I could have been wrong about you.” The ghost of his touch grows cold on Jimin’s skin. “Do you remember the first time you visited home?”

Like it was yesterday.

“You let go. I thought I creeped you out – that I was wrong about –”

He feels his eyebrows scrunch together in sudden anger.

“That’s so stupid. And you didn’t think to ask?” Everything he knows about Yoongi feels like it’s in a different language. He grasps for something solid. “You always tell people, you’re so direct - I thought I was imagining things because you never said anything to me, so.”

“You’re not… people, Jiminie.”

He doesn’t understand.

“But Dae-Jung hyung. Yijeong hyung. All those other people. They got… you. And now Jungkook and Namjoon hyung.” An ache opens up in him. “Why not us?” What a waste of all these years. “Why not me?”

In lieu of an answer, Yoongi pushes the coffee table further away. The drag of its legs against the floor is as loud as a gunshot. He takes off his glasses with a sigh and puts them neatly on it. The he sits up on his knees, looming over Jimin a second time tonight. Stoops to Jimin's ear.

“I am going to touch you now.”

Chapter 8

 

 

Jimin’s had a lot of sex in his life.

He likes the tactile animality of it, the way it tethers him to the now. Its pitiless honesty. Like the first time he fumbles around with his girlfriend in high school, getting one hand into her panties and immediately cumming at the first feel of the plump wetness of her cunt. How she’d pulled a face at him and stomped away. Its degradations. Its delights.

He’d laugh in anyone else’s face if they’d said what Yoongi did. But when Yoongi crowds him against the foot of the couch, Jimin falls silent. The refrigerator hums in the background. He forgets the lingering betrayal in his chest when Yoongi cups his face, eyes flicking down to Jimin’s mouth before he sweetly presses his lips to it.

Jimin groans into the chaste kiss. “Hyung-”.

Yoongi chases the word back into Jimin’s mouth.

His tongue is gentle against Jimin’s upper lip, stroking lightly against the surface of his tongue, licking a little unexpectedly at the back of his teeth. Yoongi goes slow, like Jimin had earlier. His tongue is changeable like a vowel, wetly pliant and rigid by turns, and he finds himself clutching at Yoongi’s loose black sweatshirt in desperation to pull the awful softness of Yoongi’s mouth further into himself. What a famous tongue, Jimin thinks nonsensically to himself, its lisp and its drawling satoori in his own hungry mouth now. He’s starving.

They’re still squeezed in between the coffee table and the couch, but Yoongi kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until the tightly-wound arousal in Jimin’s body softens like hot tar. When Yoongi pulls back, Jimin follows. His eyelids feel heavy. They keep slamming shut like he’s been drugged.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself.

“If you want.”

“God, yes.” He looks up at Yoongi through his eyelashes with effort.

Yoongi crooks an eyebrow at him.

His mouth is so obscenely pink and wet.

It says, “But we should probably talk about it, properly.”

“Not now though?”

“Jimin-ah, you’re falling asleep.”

“No I’m not,” he protests with his eyes closed. He lunges towards the sound of Yoongi’s voice less than a foot away, manages to rub his cheek against the rasp of stubble on Yoongi’s jaw, blindly nosing at the fleshly underside of it to land a kiss there.

Yoongi sighs. He wedges a hand between them to hold Jimin off, and says, “Wait, we should talk, wait. Jimin-ah.”

Frustration wakes him a little. Fuck that. Dancing around each other in mirrors, on stage, and around that damned dining table in a decade-long game of cat and mouse.

Jimin holds a hand up between them. “Fine. Later. But I am going to touch you now.”

Yoongi’s mouth opens as if to scoff, but Jimin slides his hand into Yoongi’s hair, dragging his nails along the scalp all the way to the back until he makes a fist. He pulls a little and Yoongi’s mouth drops opens further, soundlessly. Yoongi can’t wear any earrings these days, but bending down, Jimin licks the empty little piercing holes and Yoongi squirms hard in his grip.

He switches to Yoongi’s other ear, mouthing at the odd shape of his attached earlobe, the delicate shell, tracing the bump in the cartilage from an old helix piercing, somewhat aware that he must be panting directly into Yoongi’s ear, but a little too drunk to care. Yoongi hasn’t stopped trembling the whole time and Jimin feels – he feels big. A lake of hot tar.

He winds his free hand firmly around Yoongi and pulls him into his lap with one hand still tightly fisted in his short hair. Yoongi gasps. He’s hard against Jimin.

“I – shit,” he croaks. “Shit.”

“Just this once, hyung,” he pleads. He’s not sure what he means, a little incoherent with the force of his returning hunger.

“Fuck,” Yoongi groans, equally incoherent.

As if dreaming, he looks down at his lap. At Yoongi in it.

The lamplight leaves deep black wells of shadow, so he gropes blindly for the waistband of Yoongi’s pants. Undoes the drawstring. Touches Yoongi through time. In that small bedroom in Daegu, as the steam rises in the shower. For real. He slides his hand over the softness of Yoongi’s abdomen, his unseen hand descending into the wiry hairs around Yoongi’s erection as his hand bumps against it. But Jimin’s the one who moans pathetically as he closes his fingers around the velvety hardness of it.

Fuck, yes.

He uses the back of his wrist to make the opening wider, and in the panting, breathless dark, he spits blind.

It lands against the back of his hand – good enough – he urgently wipes it onto Yoongi’s cock and looks up hungrily into his face. Yoongi’s mouth is a lax pink hole of surprise as Jimin leans in intently to listen to Yoongi gasp and gasp and gasp as he pumps his cock. It’s so hot in his palm and it feels like his own; he hears the squelch of precum against the webs of his fingers, feels like his body is melting into Yoongi’s as his eyes screw up with pleasure; he feels like his voice is in Yoongi’s throat as he cries out, “Ah, fuck-” and cums, shuddering.

Yoongi slumps against him.

When Jimin pulls him in for a kiss, he whimpers a little.   

For a minute they sit there like two commas tucked into one another. When Jimin cups and twists his hand as best he can to scoop up the mess, Yoongi lets him. The elastic waistband snaps back against his stomach. Jimin’s body is still thrumming, so he nudges Yoongi back a bit and shoves the semen-slicked hand into his own pants without pause.

Yoongi’s eyes widen with shock.

It’s nasty.

And Yoongi’s right there, staring at him intently. His sweatshirt is slipping off one shoulder. It’s easy. Jimin cums without any noise, an old dorm room skill, his thighs tensing under Yoongi’s weight, which is the only thing stopping him from floating straight into space.

 

--

 

“Jimin-ah, Jimin-ah, wake up, you can’t sleep here.”

Yoongi taps at Jimin’s plump cheek. His finger leaves an indent in the makeup, and he withdraws his hand guiltily. Noona will have his head. It’s swarming backstage with stylists at MAMA. Jimin’s phone is sliding out of his sleepy grip but Yoongi’s loth to wake him, really. Award shows are so fucking tedious. He plucks the phone from Jimin’s grip before it falls onto the floor when it lights up with a message. Then another and another.

 

Yoo Beep Beep <3

oppa, about the cue sheet

we’re two performances after you so you know what that means

I’ll be watching live

best we can do really T__T

but I have a day off day after tomorrow

so let me know ;)

 

He elbows Jimin in the side. “Yah, Park Jimin, wake up please, your girlfriend’s texting you.” Disoriented, Jimin squints at his phone for a while before he slinks off to a quieter corner of the dressing room to call Yoo Jeongyeon. Yoongi settles into the sofa, ostensibly to sleep, but maybe also watch him a little.

This thing has them all on edge.

The logistics alone are a nightmare; their managers conspire in flurries, trying to keep this out of the press, sometimes whisking Jimin away on their off days like the fairy godmothers of idol dating. Yoongi looks at Jimin with his hand cupped over the phone and thinks only he could manage a proper girlfriend in all this cruel chaos.

Plus he has good taste.

Yoongi likes what he’s seen and heard of Jeongyeon. Great singer, and he thinks she should get more lines, really. When Jimin and her stand side by side, hunched towards each other because they’re still shy around staff, they look a little alike with the same big almond eyes and the same ambiguous boygirlness that lingers in the minds of their fans. That makes Jimin such a smash hit with men, and her with women. Jimin’s just the better dancer. And singer, but hey. Different markets.

As for himself, he had a narrow escape from utter humiliation. Thank god Jimin pulled away that night, when, as it turns out, he was already… something with Jeongyeon. He’d told them all barely a week later. Honestly, he’s not bitter at all. In fact he’s writing heaps, carried by the creative momentum of finally releasing the mixtape. And the good reviews pouring in.

“Ah, hyung are you really going to say, ‘it’s good’ with your own mouth?” Hobi teases, “At least wait for the end-of-year charts, and I promise I’ll throw you a party.”

Yoongi smiles to himself, sinking further into the dressing room couch. The numbers are in. The party’s tomorrow when they all have a day off. When Jimin’s probably going to slip away to meet Jeongyeon at some point. But probably after he’s stayed long enough to help decorate, buy the cake, and pour his really sincere, really warm praises into Yoongi’s ear. The guy’s fucking impossible to resent.

Perhaps AgustD's Billboard chart performance will give him the courage to accept that which he cannot change.

 

--

 

 

“Jimin-ah, Jimin-ah, wake up, you can’t sleep here.”

He’s a mess. And so powerfully sleepy, it’s astounding how the sound of Yoongi’s voice makes him want to never open his eyes, just curl up into his broad rumbly chest right here on the carpet, but Yoongi’s insistent. Jimin surrenders himself into his hands, sagging like an Itaewon drunk, letting Yoongi pull him gently to the bedroom (his), stepping out of his soiled pants and changing into a familiar set of poodle-print pyjamas. Yoongi subtly keeps his back turned by busying himself with the comforter. Jimin crawls into its softness with his eyes drooping.

Falls into the smell of Yoongi, and sleep.   

 

--

 

[Road to D-Day]

 

It’s raining in Vegas.

“What worries me right now is that there’s nothing I want to talk about. Right now, there is nothing… that I’d like to talk about. And that makes me so sad.”

The devices have gotten smaller, but he’s still being flayed on camera.

What I wanted was to keep dreaming. I used to tell the members, “You become an adult the moment you stop dreaming.” I used to say that.

The director’s face is thoughtful.

And I don’t have any dreams now. Now I ask myself, “What do I need to dream of?”

 

 

 

He stays awake a long time in the dark. It’s coming back. Anxiety flutters in his throat. Beware, beware. Of what? Beware. When they moved out of their second-to-last dorm, his mattress had been so soaked with sweat that they had to trash it.

Next to him, there is a touchable dream.

He has half a mind to shake it awake and then just stare at it. Have his fill of it.

He isn’t always honest. Despite Jun-Soo hyung’s magical way of making the camera disappear until he felt like he really was baring his soul, he now knows he’d lied. Joon would say it’s the human condition; that he probably didn’t mean to lie, didn’t even know he was doing it. But of course he still has dreams. Truly audacious ones.

He really tries not to lie to himself. It’s very dangerous. Only a thin membrane separates him from the Min Yoongi the world sees and thinks it knows. He can touch it, but his other-self touches him gleefully back like a parasite. Being honest with himself – with themselves – that is the only true remedy to the insanity of idol life.

Park Jimin is the longest dream he has ever had.

There’s no point in hiding this from himself. That’s dumb. That’s how it gets you. A desire unacknowledged is a desire unchecked, and he’s too smart for that. So it comes, and it goes.

He eases it by saying things that are true. ‘I’m Yoongi and I’d date Jimin’. ‘If hard work is a talent, then you’re a genius’. ‘Jimin-ah, I love you’. Even when his OCD flares, and he calls his therapist at midnight in a panic because his intrusive thoughts sound awfully real, he holds onto his own honesty. Jimin thinks you’re a deranged freak. Maybe so. He doesn’t love you. If you say so. It’s true. No it’s not.

He fills page after page in his journal, bulleted lists, flowcharts, tables, and does all the worksheets Choi Myung-ja suggests. Every time it slips out because he’s not holding the pages apart firmly enough, he nudges the dried, papery hibiscus flower back into its secret groove. At least Sublimation is a change of strategy from fucking journaling. Let Jimin hear it and have it for himself, whatever he might choose to do with it.

But Jimin is the dream that touched Yoongi back.

It should make Yoongi blush like a virgin in the dark, thinking back to the sleepy, intent look on Jimin’s face as he took Yoongi in hand. But instead his heart lurches with an old pain as he turns onto his side to look at the boy next to him, who’s got a hand pushed up under his chin like he’s holding his jaw in place. Yoongi puts a finger on the famed duck-beak pout and presses in, watching the plump flesh give. Cute.

 

 

 

“Hyung. Hyung. Ouch, my arm. Move over.”

At some point in the night he managed to roll over onto Jimin’s outflung arm. He’s a neat sleeper otherwise, no complaints from anyone, but he’s dragged up from the depths of sleep to the surface of dreaming by the feeling of the arm being retracted, then the sound of the flush in the bathroom. Half-asleep, half-awake, he visualizes himself sitting up in bed and saying something intelligent to Jimin as he returns. In reality he slumbers, because when he wakes up next the bed is empty save for him, and there’s a gap in his blackout curtains that’s leaking winter sunshine into his bedroom.

Fresh coffee.

He gropes for his phone on the bedside table and knocks it onto the floor. The noise brings the humming in the kitchen to a halt. But it resumes a few seconds later. A wave of shyness washes over him when he slips into the bathroom and meets his own eyes in the mirror. He scrutinizes his reflection anxiously for any sign he’s turned horrendously ugly overnight, but he looks the same. Well, it’s been some time since he got any filler, but it isn’t as noticeable as the hair. He still feels like a shorn poodle as he rakes his fingertips through the scant inches at the top. Be reasonable, he tells himself, Jimin’s had months to get used to this. Relax.

By the time he sidles into the kitchen, Jimin’s gotten started on breakfast, a pile of diced onions resting on the chopping board as he whisks some eggs. Concentration has brought the beak out in full force.

“Morning.”

Their eyes meet, and shamefully, Yoongi can only hold it for a moment before he shuffles over to the coffee. Every cell of his body feels painfully alert already.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I’m making fried rice. Found some leftovers,” Jimin jerks his head towards the fridge.

“Mmn.”

All of Yoongi's confidence has evaporated, he thinks, as his eyes fall on the laptop and the whiskey glasses abandoned on the coffee table last night. The USB drive’s gone, though. He starts clearing the glasses for something to do. There’s still a finger of liquor left in one, with a tell-tale smudge of Jimin’s lip balm on the rim. He slots them in the dishwasher and then his hands are empty. So he pulls out a chair at the dining table and watches Jimin without trying to be too obvious about it, a practiced skill that has served him well over the years.

He’s still wearing Yoongi’s pyjamas with a borrowed sweater on top, both drooping from his narrow shoulders. The guys share clothes all the time, but today morning is… unprecedented. His stomach is maybe allowed to do a little flip watching Jimin wearing his sweater and frying eggs in his kitchen, opening and closing the fridge. Surely, like he belongs here. Belongs to Yoongi.

Jimin looks back over his shoulder. “Come eat.”

He waddles over. It looks good, and he tells Jimin so. He lights up at the praise but waves it away out of habit.

“It’s okay. Probably not as good as yours.”

“It is good.”

Jimin’s eyes curve into crescents, “Thought I’d return the favour for a change.”

Yoongi jerks his head in a thank you. All the sentences he tries out in his head sound a little stupid, not quite up to how momentous it all is, so he stays silent. 

But it’s a late Sunday morning in early December, and Jimin leaves in ten days. Only yesterday he’d poked his head into the dorm, fresh off the train from Busan, meekly following in Hobi’s cheery wake with his beanie pulled down low over his ears looking like mama’s goodest, most beautiful little boy. Then Yoongi blinks and they’re men. Well, men should take charge, men should be direct, men – a foot nudges his under the table.

“Hyung, I can hear you thinking from over here.”

The foot doesn’t move. Either up or away.

“Sorry.”

“No, I only meant,” Jimin’s face scrunches with uncharacteristic bashfulness, “-what are you thinking about?”

“Many things.”

“Oh.”

Jimin still looks a bit unsure. Can’t be having that. Yoongi nudges back with his own foot.

“Mostly you.”

“Oh.”

It makes Jimin blush powerfully, a slow, visible darkening that creeps over his neck and ears. He suddenly wishes Jimin were sitting in the chair next to his, so he could put a hand on his thigh, or on the back of his neck like he’s always done – with the pretext of comfort.

It’s new and terrifying to ask without pretense.

“Come here,” he asks, like last night, patting the chair next to him with bravado. Jimin comes. Yoongi reaches out for his hand and holds it like a purse.

The mincing awkwardness finally makes Jimin chuckle. “I’m right-handed, hyung. Can’t finish the rest of my rice.”

“Not my problem,” he says gruffly. The urge to bicker is so strong. “I’ll feed you.” And he does, putting every second bite in Jimin’s smiling mouth, still with that furtive sense that he can’t stare too openly.

“You’re doing it again.”

But this time, Jimin’s laughing at him, his eyes like two slivers of the waning moon.

Yoongi prickles with shyness, so he blusters. “Well, Park Jimin, I’ll write you a bulleted list, okay? With all my thoughts-”

“About me?” Jimin asks softly, tilting his head.

Yoongi recognises this Jimin, whose heavy-lidded gaze flicks down to his mouth with a look of promise. It’s flirty onstage Jimin, lithe like a small jungle cat about to pounce, the sequins from his costume reflecting like stars in his dark eyes. Half of a matching set with Kim Taehyung, master of seduction. Shit. It works on him just as well as it does on thirty thousand screaming women. It always has.

“… yeah.”

Jimin’s snaggletooth peeks out of his satisfied smile, scattering the illusion. Yoongi leans in very quickly to kiss him on the cheek before he loses his nerve. It smells like Yoongi's own aftershave. 

But it must frustrate Jimin, because he dispenses with gentleness and yanks him closer, murmuring, “Why’re you being so…”

“Hmm?”

“Is anything wrong?”

Yoongi licks his lips. They’re outside the cover of whatever has saved them the trouble of asking such things out loud for a decade.

“No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just a lot.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s you. You know.”

Jimin pulls back a few inches to study him. “I…don’t, actually. I feel like we’ve gone back in time somehow.” He looks down at his feet. “As if nothing happened yesterday.”

Yoongi considers this. Maybe the song was too big and abstract? He starts again by reaching for Jimin’s other hand. Jimin looks down at his open palm and huffs a cautious laugh. “Feels like you’re asking for Holly’s paw.”

But he complies, and Yoongi holds both of Jimin’s hands as he sits there in Yoongi’s kitchen, smelling like Yoongi's aftershave.

They’re the only two people left on earth.

Jimin’s gaze darts between his eyes.

“I’ve loved you for a very long time Jimin-ah. You said why not us, why not you, right? Last night?” Jimin seems embarrassed to be reminded. “I think it was a very good question. Been thinking about it.”

“Okay.”

“Everyone else I dated, I thought, what’s the worst that could happen? That they’d say no. That we’d break up. When Yijeong and I ended things, it hurt, and it was awkward for two whole years afterwards, but it was survivable.” He pauses. “I’m not sure you are.”

“Survivable?”

Yoongi swallows.

“Yes.”

“That’s not very nice of you to say.”

“I don’t, I mean, not you, you would never, you’re my best friend. Even though I’m not yours. I’m – I’m, you’re in the background of everything. I’ve been a little in love with you the whole time I was with other people, Jimin.”

“How long?”

“2014, I think.”

Jimin’s face is a little slack with shock. “Ten years? Ten years.” His voice drops to a whisper.

Yoongi squeezes Jimin’s hands before he drops them to get the journal from his bedroom desk.

Jimin’s eyes follow him there and back again. Now that Yoongi’s in the thick of it, his heart’s hammering so hard in his throat he’s sure Jimin can see it beating against his skin. He opens the journal on the last page and lays it on the table. The flower looks the same as it has for the past eight years.

Jimin’s finger stops a centimeter from its papery surface like he’s scared to touch it.

“Dae-Jung hyung thought we’ve been together this whole time. Minjee said something about us being great hosts, and I didn’t even correct her.”

Jimin looks up like he’s about to say something but doesn’t. Yoongi doesn’t have anything else to say either, so he turns over more pages in the journal instead, here, here, here, lists, a couple of Venn diagrams in his crabby handwriting. Half-written verses with words underlined or circled over and over in black ballpoint. No longer able to resist the urge to bite his thumbnail, he gets a few seconds of nibbling in before Jimin knocks his hand away without even looking in his direction.

“Stop that, you know it’ll bleed,” he says softly. “Hyung. Look at me.” When Yoongi meets his eyes, Jimin says, “I love you, you should know, but I don’t have anything to give you, not like this. You’re the poet.”

“That’s alright, Jimin-ah.”

He makes Yoongi sit down and pulls their chairs closer together until Yoongi’s legs are bracketed by his. He squeezes Yoongi’s thighs between his own with balletic strength. It kind of hurts.

“But I can give you my word that I’ll make up for it.”

“Make up for what?”

Jimin quotes Yoongi’s words back at him from a sunny roof in Nonhyeon-dong.

“I’ll make up for me.”

Yoongi doesn’t get the opportunity to scoff at how nonsensical that is before Jimin closes the gap between them with his mouth.

One of the chairs creaks threateningly under the pressure of their bodies, but Yoongi’s too overwhelmed with a whole armful of Park Jimin kissing him with the same single-minded intent that made him cum in his pants last night.

Jimin draws back to breathe, darts in again to sniff under Yoongi’s ear and it tickles. He starts to squirm a little but Jimin’s stronger, holding him in place to kiss wetly along his jaw, muttering, “I’m not wasting another ten seconds. Hyung -” he cups Yoongi’s face in his small hands, “I need to text Sunyoung to cancel anything I might have today. Will you wait?”

Jimin leans back to reach for his phone lying next to his abandoned breakfast and manages to fall out of his chair. Yoongi would laugh if he wasn’t so desperately hard.

We’re thirty, he reminds his dick. It’s a Sunday. Relax.  He hobbles to preserve his dignity (dick-nity, Jin cackles in his ear) as he puts the journal away somewhere safe and starts clearing the table. Jimin’s apparently done talking to his manager soon enough, because he drops his phone on the table with a loud clatter that makes Yoongi turn around. He walks up slowly to pin Yoongi against the kitchen counter.

They’re of a height with each other, and Yoongi knows this very well because he’s thought multiple times about how it might feel when - Jimin ducks and picks him up. Oh, fuck.

A slipper falls off his dangling foot onto the floor somewhere, but Yoongi can’t bring himself to care because what’s playing in his head is so unbelievably filthy that he’s nearly catatonic with it.

 

 

One single solid beam of sunlight bisects the bedsheet, and Jimin lays Yoongi down in the path of it and looks down at him with a tilt of his head. Yoongi’s heart pounds with anticipation, but Jimin surprises him by hooking a hand around his ankle first and sliding the other slipper off.

“No shoes in bed,” he says, his eyes smiling again.

Yoongi’s not a slacker in the sheets, but Jimin’s gaze immobilizes him as he crawls up on his knees to cage Yoongi between them. His thumb rubs through the sparse hair above Yoongi’s ankle, dividing his focus between that point of contact and marvelling at Jimin’s face.

He says hoarsely, “Come here, please.”

“I’m here”.

Jimin’s body curves to cover him as he rises on his elbows to meet Jimin’s mouth. They kiss for a long time, because he likes kissing, and Jimin has the best lips on god’s green earth, so he winds his arms around Jimin’s slender shoulders and pulls him down until they’re sandwiched together in a line of heat. He’s distantly aware of Jimin’s erection pressing into his right thigh, as palpably urgent as his own, but he ignores it to suck little kisses onto Jimin’s neck as he half-heartedly tries to writhe away even while moaning.

It becomes a little game between them as Jimin tries to reciprocate, pinning Yoongi’s arms above his head, (“Ah, fuck”), and diving down to lick his sensitive ears. “Yoongi-ah,” Jimin breathes, irreverent, and it makes Yoongi shiver violently, so he does it again, and again with his unerring dancer’s physicality.

Without any discussion, he shifts Yoongi’s pinned arms so that his left shoulder is slacker than the right, and the thoughtfulness of the gesture makes Yoongi want to cry, so he kisses Jimin hard instead.

He loses track of time a little until Jimin sits up to take his shirt and sweater off.

The man is glorious.

Yoongi kicks himself for what he said on Suchwita about Jimin’s shirtlessness not being as good as it used to be, because his stupid brain overcorrected oh my god, your abs never get old in a desperate scramble to keep up a decade-long pretense. Now, at last, he runs his trembling hands softly over the expanse of skin and muscle in front of him, and Jimin’s hands come up to cover his own.

Touch me, his hands seems to say, so Yoongi traces NEVERMIND over Jimin’s ribs as he fights a ticklish shudder, tracing a slow path upwards to a dark nipple.

When he looks up into Jimin’s face it makes his guts twist – Jimin is watching Yoongi look at him. Jimin likes being admired, on and off stage, but now, in the sunny silence of the bedroom he is a predator in the long grass, as aware of Yoongi’s attention as he is of the sharp teeth he’s about to fasten around Yoongi’s throat. The intensity of the desire between them makes his dick throb.

Yoongi licks his lips and Jimin leans down in slow motion to eat him whole. Hands go under and around his shoulders to lift him from the sheets, and Jimin demands, “I want to see you.”

Ah. Yoongi tries not to think too much as Jimin slides his hands under his clothes to peel them away. Jimin balls up Yoongi's discarded shirt and cardigan and – and he sniffs it as he eyes Yoongi’s bare torso.

It makes him feel so, so – he can’t even complete the thought before his hands are pinned to the sheets again.

“No hiding from me.”

There isn’t the slimmest chance of that, not when Jimin’s eyes are roving over him like hasn’t seen Yoongi shirtless before in a million waiting rooms strapping on a mic. Yoongi's painfully aware of what he looks like, his midsection never amenable to muscle definition no matter how much he works out, and no self-deprecating jokes at hand to cover himself with. 

That doesn’t seem to matter at all to Jimin, who bends down to sniff Yoongi from throat to armpit like an animal. 

Jesus.

Yoongi goes a little cross-eyed staring at Jimin’s blond head nudging at his chest, the long hair dragging on his skin as Jimin runs the tip of his nose down Yoongi’s sternum, kissing around each pectoral muscle, licking over his nipples until he looks up at Yoongi through his eyelashes and says, “You’re really pink all over.”

Yoongi sputters, because he is only a man.

Jimin roundly ignores this and clamps his teeth very lightly over the swell of Yoongi’s bicep like he’s weighing the meat of it. He covers Yoongi in tiny kisses like he’s taking small bites of his flesh. The hollow of his throat. His clavicle. The laparoscopic surgery scars on his left shoulder.

He rubs his cheek against Yoongi’s belly like a cat and Yoongi whimpers at the sharp wetness of Jimin’s tongue jabbing into his bellybutton. Jimin goes so slow Yoongi stills altogether, and he feels Jimin lets go of his wrists. So Yoongi drifts up to the ceiling in a haze of tender attention as Jimin switches over to the other side and sucks little marks over his ribs. Part tickle, part burn. 

By the time Jimin hooks his fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants to start pulling them over his thighs, Yoongi is boneless.

He’s probably lost his erection, but Jimin doesn’t seem to care at all. Or be in the slightest hurry.

He crawls up to peer into Yoongi’s face. “Hi.” Yoongi’s tongue feels thick as he says hi back.

Jimin strokes Yoongi's cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes dark and soft. No one’s ever treated him like this before, and Yoongi doesn’t know what do with himself. A tear slips out of the corner of his eye and rolls into his ear canal. Jimin huffs a little laugh. “Wait to cry until after I suck your dick, Yoongi-ssi.” But his actions are at odds with his teasing because he kisses Yoongi deep and slow, rubbing his uninjured shoulder with a warm hand as if to soothe him.

Many minutes pass, but Yoongi eventually collects himself enough to grumble, “Well, get on with it then.”

Jimin teeth are bright in his mouth as he laughs. “You’re so impatient.”

Yoongi’s about to say something devastatingly witty, but Jimin suddenly scoops his hands under Yoongi’s thighs and yanks him down the bed until his feet hit the floor.

Yoongi forgets what he was going to say because Jimin kneels demurely between his legs, his eyes huge as he looks up at Yoongi asking, “Yoongi-ah, are you prepped?”

Thinking of Jimin thinking of fucking him makes Yoongi’s stomach twist so hard he can’t chide Jimin for the lack of honorifics. He stutters, “N-no. Sorry.”

Jimin pouts, “Neither am I, actually.” He rests a hand on each of Yoongi’s knees, stroking them thoughtfully. “Some other day, then.”

With no warning, he pushes Yoongi’s legs further open. Then Jimin does that thing again, where Yoongi hears him sniff at his crotch like he’s a dog in heat, and it makes something hot and ashamed slither straight to his dick. 

Offhandedly, Jimin comments, “You know the first D-Day show you did in the US? I forget the city, but I remember your ripped jeans.” Yoongi’s just watching his mouth move, waiting. “You know how the Americans talk on Twitter, about how they could see your briefs on stage, how easy it would be to slide a hand in...”

He bites his lips as Jimin slides his fingertips under the elastic bottom of his underwear, pushing the fabric up until its rucked up tightly around Yoongi's erection. “Wow, look at that.” Yoongi groans in frustration when Jimin traces the shape of his cock through the fabric with his little pink pout, eventually deciding to slide his erection out of the slit of his briefs.

It feels surreal watch his cock disappear inch by inch into Jimin’s mouth.

He already knows he’s not going to last.

The inside of Jimin’s mouth is soft and wet, and he sucks single-mindedly at the tip as he brings up his hand to join his tongue. Yoongi hears himself moan desperately. He has the bedsheets in a death grip.

Jimin’s head bobs up and down in earnest, spit running down the sides of his mouth and Yoongi’s going to cum, fuck, but Jimin slides off with a wet pop to grasp the base of his cock tightly as if he can tell. His mouth is a bright red.

“Ah, fuck, Jimin-ah, c’mere.”

Yoongi reaches down to cradle Jimin’s jaw, his thumb sliding into the mess of salvia and precum, and then he bends down to slide his tongue into Jimin’s mouth. It’s an awkward angle, but he wants to taste himself on Jimin. Jimin keeps busy, jerking Yoongi off with casual ease, like he’s dancing with him, a quick study of the noises Yoongi finds himself making when Jimin twists his hand on the downstroke.

It is infuriating, and a little humbling, to be known so easily even though it’s the first time Jimin’s gotten his mouth anywhere near Yoongi’s dick. But Jimin seems to have learnt his body, somehow, maybe when he was teaching Yoongi how to feel where his body is in space, studying him in the foggy mirrors of the practice room. It inflames him.

Yoongi releases Jimin’s mouth and puts a hand on his silky head.

“Please,” he begs.

“Yes,” Jimin breathes, nudging at Yoongi’s palm until he makes a fist in his hair.

Jimin’s eyes turn into happy crescents even as he swallows Yoongi down to the base of his cock for a long, breathless moment that melts his brain. Then he pulls off almost all the way, presses a little kiss to the head, then slides Yoongi’s erection into the swell of his cheek. Yoongi reaches down to touch the obscene bulge and then Jimin’s off to the races, filling the room with the wet, sloppy noises of a blowjob that gives Yoongi no time to warn him before he cums in Jimin’s mouth, his feet curling with the force of his orgasm.

Jimin looks up at him, and swallows. His eyes glint. 

Then he rises from the floor in one graceful move and pushes Yoongi, hard, till his back hits the mattress.

Yoongi’s sinking into the warm delirium of post-orgasmic bliss, but he tries to keep his focus on Jimin’s face as it turns a bit wild, as he grabs Yoongi’s hand and makes him palm the hardness in his borrowed pyjama bottoms. Jimin’s eyes roll up a little at it, he lets Yoongi see it, and it sends a lazy thrill through Yoongi to be used like this. It's apparently not enough stimulation, because Jimin hisses through his teeth, and then he shucks off his pants, his cock flushed almost purple, longer but thinner than Yoongi’s.

He hasn’t shaved and that’s erotic, Yoongi thinks, floating a little outside himself. He remembers the first time he ever felt like that about some man's cock he saw in the sauna, soft among its wiry curls, before he snatched his glance away as if his dad and his hyung would recognize his otherness any moment. It curls through him now, and Yoongi looks his fill. 

 Jimin straddles him, kneeling astride Yoongi’s hips touching himself while he watches Yoongi watching him.

Yoongi whimpers as Jimin roughly gropes his spit-and-semen covered dick to slick himself up, a filthy echo of last night, before he pushes Yoongi’s legs up. What?

He drops them suddenly.

“Lube, where’s the lube?”

Yoongi points at the bedside table. Surely Jimin won’t…? Neither of them is prepared for penetration, but Jimin’s back already, his erection glossy as he asks softly, “May I?”

Yoongi doesn’t know what he’s asking, but he trusts Jimin. He nods. Jimin kisses him messily, his voice high in Yoongi’s ear as he groans, “Hyung, I honestly... I want to fuck you… everywhere.”

He then pulls Yoongi’s legs up again, holding them together, and thrusts slow and slick into the valley of his thighs.

Oh.

Oh.

Yoongi’s hypnotized, watching Jimin’s dark, flushed cock fuck in and out of his legs, wishes irrationally that he had tits so Jimin could fuck them too while he sucks at the tip, but here, now Jimin’s face glimpsed through the bend of his own legs is new, as if all his sweetness has melted away.

“Fuck, hyung. You’re so-”

If Yoongi could cum again, he would, because the way Jimin is looking at him is so nakedly possessive it makes his dick twitch with futile arousal. The dark head thrusts in, and out.

“I’m gonna cum, can I cum on you?”

Jimin’s voice is hoarse, and Yoongi throws his arms open so Jimin can crawl up between his legs and bend over him, rubbing himself off with a frantic hand till he comes undone, gasping, all over Yoongi’s stomach.

Yoongi feels sick with love.

He wants to wrap himself around Jimin’s heaving, panting body but there’s such a mess on his stomach, so he gropes among the sheets till he finds a stray piece of clothing and wipes himself down with it so he’s nice and dry when he finally does pull Jimin into his arms.

Jimin’s coming down from the exertion, sweaty and sticky against Yoongi’s skin. He’s seen Jimin like this so often he has the pattern of red blotches on his face memorized from a thousand dance practices. Jimin rests his head on Yoongi’s shoulder and Yoongi stares reverently at him as he cuddles up close, putting a hand over Yoongi’s bellybutton.

From this angle he can see Jimin’s freckles, and he kisses each one while Jimin giggles a bit.

No words feel adequate to tell Jimin about the huge, pulsing wonder in his chest, so he kisses Jimin’s eyelids as they flutter closed, over, and over, until his breathing evens out into sleep.

Yoongi pulls the comforter over them both and hides them from the world.

 

 

 

---

 

Notes:

This was a beast of a chapter to write, and the first that's almost entirely in Yoongi POV. Thank you for sticking with me, I float like Spiderpig following a pie-trail every time I get a comment <3

Chapter 9

Summary:

"Six months later, he winces at how even the funny subtitles playfully calling him an intruder couldn’t quite manage away the suspicion, now confirmed, that the only audience he was really playing for wasn’t Taemin, or the producers, or the imagined viewers on the other side of the camera, but Yoongi."

 

 

 

 

It’s early afternoon when Yoongi wakes up for the second time, his body defaulting to a two-hours-at-a-go sleep schedule like he’s still performing. He gently shakes Jimin awake, worried neither of them will be able to sleep at night when he’s already dreading the work week ahead.

Jimin slits his eyes open, but he doesn’t move. He seems quite grumpy, pretending like he didn’t hear Yoongi at all and wrapping sleepy arms around him again, attempting to pull him down into the warm comforter like a demon of the deep.

“Yah, Park Jimin, you’re making me feel bad about how old we are.” It’s only half a joke, he’s sure his refractory period will make an exception for Jimin. “Also we just had coffee a few hours ago. Up, up.”

Jimin’s face twists into a spectacular scowl. “You make me very sleepy. Very sleepy, hyung. Like drugs.”

Yoongi laughs, “You’re an idol! And sharing a pot brownie with Hobi five years ago doesn’t count as drugs, idiot.”

But he successfully baits Jimin into waking up enough to argue back. “You’re drugs. Smell so good,” he burrows into Yoongi’s chest, making muffled noises. “-feel safe with you. Five more minutes please.”

He draws Yoongi’s hand to his head like it’s a hat. “Just hold.”

Yoongi feels a bit silly. “Are you hold?”

There’s an answering smile in Jimin’s voice.

“I am hold.”

For five, maybe fifteen more minutes, he just sits there petting Jimin’s head because he’s allowed. Scrapes fingernails tentatively over Jimin’s scalp. It’s a first, and if he was any less relaxed than he is, he’d worry his hand was on fire.  

Very quietly, more vibration than voice, Jimin speaks against his bare skin. “I don’t want to get out of bed. Because then the day will pass.” And I’ll have to leave.

“I saved up my off days for you, Jimin-ah, I’ll be there.”

Jimin doesn’t respond except to burrow in a little deeper. Yoongi scrambles to redirect, ignoring the lump forming in his throat to suggest, “Well, we could, you know. Make the best of the rest of the hours we have left. Maybe take a shower. A long shower. And then see what follows.”

Jimin emerges from Yoongi’s chest like a baby chick, blonde and fluffy.

“Can I fuck you?”

Yoongi barely escapes making an undignified sort of noise. He nods.

It’s funny, really, how much the world assumes about Jimin just because he looks the way he does. And how many BigHit executives groused at Jimin’s felid femininity, forcing him to brand himself as a rock-hard gym rat, clumsily moving from one stupid assumption to the next about what really makes Jimin so appealing, on and on until Shin Seon-Jeong put her foot down.

“Or you could fuck me,” Jimin continues. “I’m not picky.”

“Maybe next time?”

“I’ll clear my schedule for the next week.”

He can’t, but it’s nice to hear him say it.

Yoongi kisses Jimin on the forehead and extracts himself slowly from the embrace, blushing a little when Jimin declares this is the longest he’s ever seen Yoongi’s bare body in eleven years, let alone his dick, and is anyone getting this on camera? Yoongi whacks him with a pillow to keep up appearances, and Jimin lets him, even though he’s perfectly capable of getting away.

 

 

The best thing about expensive real estate in Seoul (and it was the biggest purchase of his life) is how quiet it is in Hannam-dong. Sometimes, a door opens somewhere to spill loud music from a party, but the overall lack of noisy neighbours and traffic means he doesn’t regret this apartment. Doesn’t regret leaving behind six other men constantly…there, even if silent or asleep, just perceptible enough to his senses that all his immense love for them wore thin on the days he’d rather be alone.

It doesn’t seem like Jimin’ had quite taken to it that way. Love doesn’t guarantee sameness – he’d said that to Jimin once. He’d stopped seeing his therapist, kept those awful sleeping hours, and Yoongi worried and worried in silence.

Maybe it’s why he didn’t refuse – well, honestly, welcomed – Jimin growing closer. Who’s he kidding, his father’s voice in his head scoffs, it was Jimin. No amount of cooking and furniture assembling and chiding Jimin to sleep on time and telling himself it’s for Jimin’s sake helped him escape that particular gravitational well.

Whichever way you slice it; Yoongi feels vaguely guilty. He tries to picture Jimin right now, naked, wrapped in Yoongi’s comforter, with the slippers Yoongi bought just for him waiting for his feet at the bedside, and is haunted by the worry that he’s a spider. That this apartment is a web, not a refuge.

Because Jimin’s exactly where Yoongi’s wanted him.

No. Not down that path.

He sighs, looks into his vegetable drawer and pantry to figure out what to do for an early dinner, when his phone pings with a text from Namjoon. Leaning back against the refrigerator door, he reads,

Kim Namjoon

you’d stop me from doing anything stupid, wouldn’t you?

me

depends on what you’re planning

Kim Namjoon

run away to Seoraksan

i have a tent

he has a bike

me

and what would you eat? Any idea how hard it’d be to catch a mountain goat?

Kim Namjoon

its fine, we’ll starve

me

[typing…]

Kim Namjoon

why do I only get so little time. I was so stupid before.

me

i know. Try not to think about it

Kim Namjoon

impossible

we will be different people when we return

me

Joon-ah, do not spiral. If you spiral, I spiral. we don’t want to go there.

Kim Namjoon

why would you spiral? not to be cruel but like

you’re already serving

Shit. Joon’s too quick.

Kim Namjoon

Hyung DID SOMETHING HAPPEN?

Even before Yoongi’s able to fight down the shivery feeling of being caught out, Namjoon’s name pops up on a video call. Groaning, he scrubs a hand down his face and retreats to his home office on tiptoe.

He shuts the door behind him softly before he picks up.

“What?” he hisses.

Namjoon doesn’t speak for a moment, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Where are you?”

“At home.”

“Where?”

“My office.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

“In the other - ”

Yoongi slams his mouth shut. He knows he’s turning a dull brick colour; he can feel it creeping up his neck and ears. Namjoon smiles.

“Well congratulations, then.”

Yoongi can see teeth as Namjoon's smile gets bigger.

“Can I just have this one thing without you nosy fucks getting, like,” he stutters into gibberish.

Namjoon isn’t so easily offended into silence with Yoongi’s bluster. None of them are, really, after all these years.

“Hey. Congratulations.”

“Fine. Can we talk about this later?”

“Yeah, I don’t have time for a full emotional debrief, I’m heading to a meeting with the editing team for the music video I shot last month. I’m too busy for your theatrics anyway.”

“You fucker.”

“I love you too, hyung. Say hi to Jimin for me and remember to use protection.” He has the gall to blow a kiss at him, all his existential angst about eloping with Jungkook to a national park apparently forgotten.

Yoongi flips him off and hangs up.

Is this what women feel like when they’re pregnant at the same time as their friends?

Yoongi grimaces at himself. He remembers Jin’s sister-in-law, glowing and giddy and joined at the hip with her college best friend, or texting her, or calling her, every time he ran into her when she was pregnant with their first child. They made a drunkenly happy pair, leaning into each other’s orbits with a protectiveness that he’d always assumed only men had towards their wives. Even now, he always sees them together on her Instagram. Jin was so curious about this phenomenon at the time, but Yoongi waved it away as a part of his hyung’s perennial fascination with the secret lives of women, and anyway, but he really couldn’t relate.

He probably shouldn’t, but he can’t help the slow creep of affection that steals over him thinking of Namjoon and Jungkook. Him and Jimin. Nothing happened for years, and years, and years and then all of a sudden, it’s panic shook loose something honest in them all. He should write about it. Namjoon probably already is.

Yoongi rolls his eyes at the thought and decides to give the office desk a wipe down while he’s here, tidy up the small piles of notebooks and jeez, maybe water the couple of plants Joon gave him.

They’re doing surprisingly well, probably because he’s passively absorbed decent plant care information from Joon, and more likely because he’s actually home every day, making sure to check under the leaves for bugs, or little scaly spots like the little booklet that Namjoon sent him advised him to.

That’s how Jimin finds him a few minutes later, poking his head around the door with a lilted “Hyuuung?”

He’s wrapped a blanket around himself like it’s a one-shouldered toga. Yoongi chuckles at the sight, which makes Jimin look down at himself, and start posing like a bodybuilder.

He comes up behind Yoongi to kiss him on the side of the neck. It tickles, and also…

Yoongi thinks it’ll take him a while not to get instantly aroused at something Jimin still does with the other guys all the time. He hooks his chin over Yoongi’s shoulder. “Those plants look good. You guys look great!” At Yoongi’s raised eyebrow he explains, “Don’t you know praise makes plants grow better? I thought you knew this stuff!”

“That’s because praise makes you grow better, Park Jimin.”

“Mm, it sure does.” Jimin’s smile is crooked, and promising.

Yoongi leaps a foot away at how embarrassingly horny this makes him, crying, “Wait, wait I haven’t showered!” He puts the little plant food spray bottle for the plants on the edge of his desk in a hurry, and it nearly tips off the table before Jimin steadies it with a hand, laughing.

Yoongi walks out of his office and into the shower with great self-possession.

There’s the ghost of a smile hanging about his reflection in the mirror. Sap. He can also see Jimin, who trailed after him into the bedroom, typing away on his phone in one sliver of it, and Jimin looks up like he feels the weight of Yoongi’s secret staring. Old habits. Bad habits. He sticks his tongue out at Jimin and shuts the door with a nudge of his foot.

 

--

 

Jimin’s not sure whose idea it was for him to be on this episode of Suchwita.

One of the producers calls him one day in the middle of recording for FACE, and he’s so caught off guard that he says yes without thinking it through.

Under the studio lights, he watches Yoongi drawing Taemin out. Yoongi’s in a pretty nondescript outfit, but his arms look really nice because the sleeves slide up to expose his lean biceps with every gesture, and there’s an easy territoriality to his smile that makes Jimin unsure if his job is, as described by a producer, to ease the awkwardness of a first meeting because he’s the better friend to Taemin. Yoongi’s doing just fine.

Sook-yin, the AD, gives Jimin a quick up-down glance and whispers, “Really, except for the hands, you and Taemin-ssi look so alike.”

She means it as a compliment of some sort, but it makes Jimin hyper aware of himself as he emerges from the knot of staff to present himself in front of them both, right in the middle of Taemin praising him in the sort of highly-specific, technical terms that would usually have him grinning ear to ear.

Taemin’s delighted, and surprised, of course, and it feels natural that he should turn entirely towards him, trying not to look at Yoongi from the corner of his eye.

He’s not sure if he wants to be Dancer Jimin and risk leaving Yoongi out, or Jimin-and-Yoongi and leave Taemin out so he just blurts, “I’m just here for the photograph, so you guys carry on.”

They all dissolve into easy laughter. It’s all fun.

When Taemin says he’d prefer the soju over the beer, he finds himself immediately quipping “I knew that.” I know Taemin better than you do. When Yoongi says he’ll do the soju too, he’s charmingly rakish and Jimin giggles a little too loud with proprietary pride. He can't help himself.

A shot down, Jimin answers Taemin's questions about how he's been.

“Because I haven't left the house for a few weeks, so I was getting lonely -” but Taemin jumps in, “You should've called me, Jimin”, and Yoongi, over him, “Tell me then!” and it’s good television.

A little or a lot later - Jimin isn't sure - they get a touch-up before the taping can go on.

“Do you want to do another take of that?” Yoongi asks him smoothly at one point. Jimin’s nonplussed.

“Oh no, I’m fine, you, hyung?”

“Oh, me too. I think it’s going well, don’t you, Jimin-ssi?”

Yoongi points at the producers with a smug little half smile, “Oh I can tell from their faces this is going to cross, what, 2 million views? What d’you say?”

The producers hide their sharp smiles behind the reflectors and cameras, but Jimin can tell, too. He’s just - he can feel himself being weird. What does Yoongi actually think of Taemin so far? You and Taemin-ssi look so alike. It’s an unnerving, slippery thought to have in front of multiple cameras so he squashes it down. 

The conversation meanders into mutual admiration and Jimin offers up a shared memory, “We’d watch you guys and whisper amongst ourselves, wow -”

Yoongi’s quick to cut in sharply, “Yah, ‘whisper amongst ourselves’ sounds weird so let's say we just talked amongst ourselves,” and Jimin sees Taemin’s eyes shift between them trying to figure out if he’s witnessing a tiff that’ll be edited out later or if that’s just normal for them, and Jimin realises, right, its not just Yoongi meeting Taemin for the first time but Taemin watching him and Yoongi together for the first time too, and he’s not quick enough to decide how he feels about that.

He turns to Taemin to do damage control, but Taemin’s already turned towards Yoongi. “During HARD? Oh, I’m embarrassed,” he deflects modestly.

But Yoongi interrupts Taemin with brusque affirmation in that way he has, “Embarrassed?” and Jimin’s automatically laughing so hard at such a Yoongi-ism, but they’ve accidentally shut Taemin down, who’s so gently hiding his smile behind his be-ringed hand, not sure if Yoongi’s complimenting him or calling his bluff.

But Yoongi’s untranslatable, isn’t he? I know him better than you do.

“You guys can't be friends!”

It leaves his mouth more gleefully than he intends but Taemin’s so smooth over Jimin's raggedness, asking Yoongi what his MBTI is and finding a way to compliment him for it. Yoongi doesn’t think much of personality tests, and Jimin doesn’t get a chance to say that before Taemin pushes cheerfully on, “I think we match well, don’t we, Yoongi?”

Yoongi meets him in the middle, blustering with confidence, “We'll meet two more times! We'll meet up twice where you're not there, Jimin!”

Well. He’s not being fair to Taemin, and it makes his stomach flop with guilt. “I won't get involved in your relationship, then,” because he wants them to get along. Really.

Yoongi picks up on the bit, keeps it goofy, “It's like we're on a blind date and the friend is mediating the date,” he gestures to Jimin with an open hand.

It feels a little too real.

Six months later, he winces at how even the subtitles playfully calling him an intruder couldn’t quite manage away the suspicion, now confirmed, that the only audience he was really playing for wasn’t Taemin, or the producers, or the imagined viewers on the other side of the camera, but Yoongi. 

 

 

“Does it hurt?”

Yoongi grunts, and it could be pain, but he’s got his face planted in the pillow between his crossed arms, so it comes out muffled. Jimin slows down the push of the third finger into him and sweeps a hand over Yoongi’s side soothingly. He nibbles a little at Yoongi’s sensitive ears to distract him, whispers, “I don’t want to hurt you,” and kisses the pierced lobe.

“Mmpf -” Yoongi squirms uncontrollably, pushing back on Jimin’s fingers, and he sounds impatient now. When he turns his face to the side its flushed with breathlessness. “Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Jimin bites his lip and bonks Yoongi’s head with his own, smiling. There is a surge of such tenderness in him he almost feels ashamed of how thought he was going to tear a hole in Yoongi’s flesh just to fuck him through it when he came out of the shower, so pink-skinned and gruff with shyness. So sweet and virginal in his good-boy haircut. Ready for Jimin.

“Yes, but you’re still really tight, hyung.”

Yoongi screw his eyes shut. “Oh go on.” He opens them. “Please.”

“Yeah, alright, yeah”, he breathes, easing his fingers into Yoongi’s body again, feeling how the tight muscle relaxes.

Fingering is a lot more uncomfortable than a lot of guys understand, so he asked Yoongi first if he could do it, after eating him out till Yoongi’s hole was dripping wet with lube and spit running down the cleft of his cheek and thigh.

Yoongi’s not very articulate, but he’s very loud. He grunts and he moans - so shamelessly that Jimin hadn’t even imagined in a thousand years that Yoongi was capable of it. He whines long and high when Jimin pulls the third finger out and then curves the remaining two inside the softness of Yoongi’s body to feel for his prostrate.

“Shh, I have you.”

Yoongi gasps at the first touch to his prostrate, shoving a hand into the tight space between his torso and the bed, grabbing his own cock. “Fuck.” He doesn’t elaborate, but he goes a little still, like he’s focusing on the give of his hole under the wet pressure of Jimin’s lubed fingers and the pull of his own fist. Jimin watches Yoongi’s elbow jerk and it’s oh, it’s satisfying.

“Jimin-ah, ahh, shit.”

Jimin’s so glad they’re the same height. That means he can stretch out next to Yoongi even with one hand in his ass, because Yoongi’s already arching his back into the slow, relentless penetration so that Jimin can put his face two inches from Yoongi’s as he grunts and pants with exertion. He wants to kiss Yoongi like this, so he does, Yoongi’s mouth sticky with spit because he’s been gasping like a fish, and Jimin likes Yoongi’s horny desperation. He sticks his tongue roughly into Yoongi’s slack mouth, and Yoongi immediately tries to reciprocate but Jimin won’t let him, overwhelming him, and pressing further into the soft, wet opening; above, below.

Jimin just circles his fingers gently, intently and it’s happening again, where his body starts fusing into Yoongi’s flesh, feeling the sweet, open ache of Yoongi’s arousal like it’s his own as he finger-fucks Yoongi as slowly as he can bear. Yoongi’s moans are muffled against Jimin’s tongue, and he feels the keening of pleasure vibrate through his own body like its a lash of flame, making him so hard he feels a little dizzy with it.

He releases Yoongi’s mouth a little reluctantly and raises himself on an elbow to watch his fingers go in and out of Yoongi’s dusky pink hole. He folds himself down towards it. He spits generously onto his own fingers, but he needs lube.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Yoongi pants as Jimin slowly withdraws his fingers. He hisses in pain-pleasure.

“Where’s the plug?”

Yoongi’s face is a mottled pink against the white pillow. “Back of the drawer. Silk bag.”

The soft silicone buttplug is black but sparkly with subtle glitter, very much like Yoongi’s microphones, he thinks, as he pushes it slowly into Yoongi’s hole to hold the stretch. There’s low a guttural noise from Yoongi that makes Jimin throb with excitement. He nips at Yoongi’s lower back and is rewarded by a yelp.

Yoongi twists his head to look down at Jimin as he rolls a condom on and slicks it up with lube. His short hair is tufted this way and that with sweat and sex, and Jimin’s heart squeezes with affection even as Yoongi asks, “Are you’re finally gonna put your dick in me, Park Jimin?”

“Yes,” he answers, simply.

Yoongi gets up on his hands and knees, and Jimin draws close over him, cock brushing over the cleft of Yoongi’s ass as he covers Yoongi’s back in biting kisses. He loves him so much.

Yoongi moans, back muscles twitching, and then hisses, “Could you stop fucking about and fuck me?”

“With pleasure.” He takes the plug out and lovingly puts a thumb over where Yoongi’s hole is gaping at the absence.

Remember this, he thinks to himself, resting the head of his cock for a moment against the reddened entrance before pushing ever so slightly.

Yoongi’s hand darts out behind him to grab Jimin’s hip, and he understands. He stays completely still now, holding Yoongi steady by his skinny, wide hips as he pushes back, slowly impaling himself onto Jimin.

It is magnificent.

All the sex he’s ever had before this recedes into the soft void of Yoongi’s body as his hole puckers inward around Jimin’s cock.

It’s a long, hot, squeezing minute, watching himself disappear inch by inch into him. Jimin pants with the effort of holding back the beating, rising wave of frenzy, his abdomen clenching as Yoongi bottoms out with a grunt, pausing only a couple of seconds before he starts to pull himself off again.  

“Yes, yes, fuck,” Yoongi groans.

Jimin looks ahead to see how Yoongi's head is hanging down between his shoulders and is seized with the urge to pull Yoongi’s hair, but this is better, actually, watching the muscles in Yoongi's broad shoulders shift and flex as he thrusts forward and backwards onto Jimin.

It’s as if its that night in the shower again, the night he first became fully aware of his hunger, Yoongi’s back bare and slippery as he kneaded at the muscles, and Jimin’s mouth falls open thinking of what might have happened but before he can get any further there is a slash of pleasure as Yoongi slams back onto him without any warning.

“Hyung, oh- ”

It’s agony; his legs feel weak where he kneels behind Yoongi, because Yoongi suddenly sets a frenetic pace, pulling nearly all the way off to the tip and back again with vicious hunger, hips snapping, moaning so loudly it sends an answering shiver down Jimin’s spine, and he’s going to melt, he’s not going to last, so he tries to gentle Yoongi while he pinches a thumb and forefinger around the base of his own cock so he doesn’t nut immediately.

Yoongi growls in frustration at being held back.

“I’ll cum, fuck, you’re so tight. Wait,” Jimin shifts a little and pushes down on Yoongi’s lower back to make him arch higher, and then he starts fucking Yoongi steadily. “Is that okay?”

“Mmff!” Yoongi’s face is in the pillow again. It’s a wonder he can even breathe, or maybe he likes it like this, and Jimin files that information away for later as he slows down a little to grasp Yoongi’s cock. Thank god for all those rhythm and dancing lessons, because he’s focusing on thrusting and stroking at the same time as Yoongi moans so loudly it sounds like he’s hurting.

Jimin focuses on grinding deep inside him. It must be good, because Yoongi’s not really holding himself up against the force of Jimin’s thrusts, going a little boneless, and Jimin twists his hand the way he knows Yoongi likes and he’s rewarded by a litany of cursing. He’s surprised when Yoongi starts to rise up on his knees, but he nonetheless winds an arm around Yoongi’s chest to help him up till he’s plastered with his back against Jimin’s front.

They’re both sweaty, but he doesn’t care, because he can see Yoongi’s face now. It is screwed up in ecstasy, almost like he’s about to cry, the eyebrows knotting and unknotting with each thrust of Jimin’s hips like a seismograph of sex, and Jimin - he’d do anything for him.

Yoongi’s eyes open and he looks at Jimin, and his face is so vulnerable it's almost shocking that Jimin gets to see it at all. He drags Jimin’s hand on his sternum up to his throat, and Jimin doesn’t know Yoongi's limits yet, so he just holds the flushed cords of Yoongi’s neck lightly. More symbol than sensation. Next time.

Yoongi’s less loud now. He licks his lips and bites them, making little puffs and grunts of noise, and Jimin stares at him hungrily, watching, waiting, knowing he’ll cum soon. He grips the hand on Yoongi’s hip really hard, and he hopes it’ll bruise the pale skin, even as he speeds up and starts pressing kisses to Yoongi’s ear, the side of his face, his sweaty temple. Looks down at where Yoongi’s swollen erection pumps frantically in and out of his fist.

"Hyung -"

Yoongi cums with a guttural noise deep in his chest. His mouth drops open in a soundless grimace, like he’s an animal, all the teeth glimmering in his dark mouth. His semen paints Jimin’s fist, one spurt landing on comforter somewhere but who cares.

Jimin roughly turns Yoongi’s face towards him so he can kiss him, and speeds up, pounding mercilessly into Yoongi until the orgasm he’s been holding off with effort finally washes over him.

He releases Yoongi’s mouth to bite the meat of his left shoulder, hard. Yoongi whimpers tiredly, and Jimin licks the livid mark.

He puts Yoongi down gently before pulling slowly out of him as he hisses from the oversensitivity. Jimin ties off his condom and cleans his hand with the box of tissues Yoongi had the good sense to put on the bedside table, and once that’s done, he hooks a hand under Yoongi’s knees where he’s starfished on the bed, and bends Yoongi in half to lick over his entrance.

Yoongi yelps and sputters but he quiets as Jimin kisses his perineum, his balls, his soft dick because Jimin doesn’t have the words for what he’s feeling; devotion, perhaps, so he uses his mouth like a prayer. He slips the tip of his tongue past Yoongi’s rim, savouring the noise this earns him, and cleans the last drops of sweat and cum around Yoongi’s dick with his mouth.

“Jimin-ah.”

He eases Yoongi down.

“Jimin-ah, please.”

Yoongi sounds a little choked up and it slams into Jimin too, but he doesn’t want to cry, so he crawls into Yoongi’s open arms and puts his head on his sweaty chest. Yoongi’s fingers card through the damp nape of his neck. He feels a kiss land on the top of his head, and he closes his eyes and drifts into a place where the world can’t touch him.

 

Eventually, he has to leave.

 

They shower together, the steam rising in clumps as Yoongi shampoos Jimin’s hair, singing the Kumamon theme song as he scrubs Jimin’s back with satisfying brusqueness.

Jimin makes fun of the fact that the finger of body wash in the bottle is diluted with water to get every last bit out, like Yoongi’s living through a war or something, and Yoongi blisters at him for being a wasteful little rich brat. Jimin suddenly misses Yoongi’s insistence on rolling up the toothpaste tubes to get the last inch of paste out, and he kisses Yoongi for the memory, the bitter suds flowing onto both their tongues.

 

Yoongi gives up on cooking, throwing up his hands in defeat because they’re both already so hungry after sex and nothing he makes will be quicker than ordering in.

“Ah, this eggplant is going to go bad in two days, I really need to figure something out.”

“Sit down, ahjusshi, and stop fussing.” He’s already ordering from Yoongi’s favourite place, ensconced on his favourite corner of the couch, and he holds an arm out towards Yoongi without looking.

Yoongi grumbles, but he slides in underneath Jimin’s arm and puts a movie on.

Jimin looks up at the tv after he keys in his card info. He sighs, “Inception, again?”

“How long will the food be here in?” Yoongi redirects, but he’s already navigated away to a longer catalogue of films, picking at the grooves of the tv remote with his thumb.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“You pick. Honestly, I’d watch anything.”

With you is unsaid.

 

Eventually, he has to leave, but he lingers.

 

The days are so short in December, the sun withdrawing its golden fingers from the apartment before they were even out of the shower, and Jimin watches Yoongi out of the corner of his eye because he’s worrying about what they’re going to do, but for once, Yoongi’s not worrying at all, laughing in his silent, shoulder-shaking way at the old comedy they picked, his legs folded under him, and his entire body folded into Jimin’s side. Jimin can’t really smell Yoongi even though they’re so close.

It makes him a bit sad, until he realises it’s probably because they both smell the same, like two lived-in shoes.

 

After the movie, after their voracious dinner, after the fucking, they kiss, turning towards each other in silent accord. They kiss for so long that Jimin can almost believe he has nowhere else to go, that he lives here, actually, in the silken slide of Yoongi’s bottom lip between his teeth. He hasn’t shaved, so he rubs his prickly chin over Yoongi’s cheek and neck, leaving stubble burn in its wake like a sign that says I was here. Yoongi pulls Jimin tight against himself and Jimin thinks yes, he could go again, his body thrumming like a getaway car with a key in the ignition.

 

They’re interrupted by the chime of Jimin’s calendar alert, the harsh white rectangle of his phone presenting him a reminder about a shoot tomorrow afternoon and Jimin swipes it away, irritated. Yoongi’s face drops into careful neutrality, but he doesn’t say anything. Jimin almost wishes he would, rip the bandaid off whether he really wants to do this on the brink of Jimin shipping off to Gangwon to freeze his nuts off for king and country.

So Jimin begins, “I’m not sure what my week will look like, hyung. I have shoots to finish for the next album cover, some IDs to film, and then when all that’s done, I have to go back home.” He looks down at his hands twisting in his lap. “My mum’s having family over for a big goodbye dinner. Need to get all my documents in order, and – and I don’t know if I can even see you tomorrow, let alone the night before I leave.”

“It’s okay, I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly, now.”

Yoongi’s hand lands on the back of his neck in a familiar gesture, the thumb rubbing back and forth over the skin.

“Jimin-ah, I hope you don’t feel like you have to do this.”

“This?”

Yoongi gestures between them. “You know. Dating. Seriously.” He makes determined eye contact.

Jimin gapes at him, “Have to? Hyung, are you kidding, I want to! I, I was worried you would think it’s reckless to do this right before I leave, because you could spend this time with - ”

Yoongi cuts him off. “No, there’s no one else I’d rather spend my time with.” He squeezes Jimin’s nape. “Like this.”

Jimin leans in to give him a quick kiss for that, but Yoongi starts speaking as soon as they break off. “I have a question, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you very, very sure you’re not talking yourself into this because there’s so little time, and you haven’t thought it through, and maybe you’re trying to cling to this life. Before you go away.” Yoongi’s chin rises defiantly. “You know, like you’re convincing yourself that nothing will change.”

Jimin feels rebuked. “I have thought it through.”

Yoongi’s mouth flattens. “Are you sure? Because I, I can wait. I’ve had a long, long time to practice this.” He laughs mirthlessly. “You haven’t.”

They’re sat so close together their legs are tangled together in their laps but Jimin feels Yoongi pushing and pushing him further.

“That’s – I’m not trying to cling to safety. And you know what? I actually have thought it through. I even talked to Namjoonie hyung about it,” Yoongi’s lips part in surprise, “and if that’s all it was then why don’t I feel this way about anyone else? Huh? We’re all going away from each other. Why you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just because it hasn’t been a decade of, like, neatly journalled time doesn’t mean my feelings don’t carry weight. It’s not a competition.”

“I don’t mean to compare.”

“It feels like you do, though.”

He doesn’t want to fight.

Yoongi doesn’t want to fight.

They fall silent. He takes a deep breath, trying to swim his way to the surface of how hurt this mistrust makes him feel. Yoongi draws his legs inwards and puts his chin on his knees. Jimin feels the loss of warmth, and he narrows his eyes at Yoongi. Why, though? Yoongi’s face is unreadable, but not to him. He knows Yoongi, understands somehow that Yoongi’s just scared.

“Hyung, look. It’s badly-timed, I know. And maybe you’re not sure about me -”

“Oh, I’m very sure about you, how I feel about you.”

He places a hand on Yoongi’s foot, “I do too. Can we not waste time and doubt ourselves just because we’re obsessing about when this is happening instead of the fact that it is happening?”

Yoongi has nice feet. They’re huge, but the bones are prettily silhouetted under the blue veins on the surface, and Jimin brushes his fingertips across the warm skin. Yoongi sighs deeply for an answer.

“Yoongi hyung, I won’t accidentally forget that I love you. Not even once. Will you wait for me?”

He puts a hand under Yoongi’s chin. Yoongi’s eyes are glassy with tears.

“Besides I’ll have nothing to do in Gangwon but runs laps and think about you.”

The corner of Yoongi’s mouth quirks up, down.

“Especially think about you really hard at night.”

“In the barracks with the other guys?”

“If I have to. I did it in the dorms, didn’t I?”

Yoongi raises an eyebrows expressively. “It’ll be a national scandal. Park Jimin, of Blood Sweat and Tears fame, pervert.”

Jimin shrugs with casualness, and Yoongi laughs soundlessly.

The he says, quieter, “Yeah, I’ll wait. Of course I will.”

Jimin scoots closer to him, wrapping his arms around Yoongi’s calves, dropping a kiss on each incredibly bony knee. “I’ll see you on my leaves, you know. Maybe I’ll burst in here unannounced to see if you’ve taken another lover. Then I’ll run all the way back to the border, weeping, my bags swinging left and right in my wake and all that.”

“Tell that to Tae, he’ll do it with you.”

Now its Jimin’s turn to laugh. “I should tell Tae. And Hobi hyung.”

“Namjoon knows. He figured it out.”

“He’s quick on the uptake. The fact that I talked to him about you would’ve been a big hint though.”

Yoongi’s face contorts in a funny little expression until settles on touched, and he says, “Can’t believe you really talked it through.”

“I am very serious about you, hyung. I’ll show you.”

The sentimental smile falls off Yoongi’s face, replaced by flustered shyness. “Yah, is that something to show off about, huh, Park Jimin? Do you mean other people are not serious?”

Oh, he’s the most predictable man in the world. Jimin loves him so.

 

 

 

--

Notes:

We're nearly at the end, guys. One last chapter to go :)

Chapter 10

 

 

So many cameras.

They’re keeping their distance today; even the paparazzi hyungs they know on a first-name basis, the click of the shutters muted by the barricade of cars around them. But the HYBE cameras are still there.

It’s freezing, and too early in the morning.  

He hangs back a little between two cars watching the camerapersons mill about Hyuk hyung as he gives out little goodie bags to Joon, Tae, and Jimin. All the company content first, of course, he scoffs to himself. Jimin’s polite “thank you” drifts over the cold air towards him.

Joon is emitting a sort of nervous excitement that makes him high-pitched, and his family stands around him with the others’, patiently waiting their turn to say goodbye for real. Yoongi shuffles over to join Joon’s sister. She’s cool in a way that reminds him of Geumjae, and she’s known him for far too long to do anything but give him a silent nod of acknowledgement.

Jungkook comes up behind Namjoon to cup the top of his head over his cap, his face wobbly underneath the giant hood he’s trying to veil it with, and Namjoon turns towards him with a brilliant smile. The camera swings hungrily towards them. 

Yoongi hates it. When he hugged Jungkook as soon as he got there, he was stiff in Yoongi’s arms, and it made his heart sour with recognition. He watches them together.

Namjoon pats Jungkook on the back. “Sorry I can’t be there for yours.”

“You should come,” Jungkook replies nonchalantly. His jaw is hard. Yoongi knows it’s not Namjoon he’s mad at.

Tae is plastered to Hobi, who still looks unnerving to Yoongi in fatigues, body corded even more firmly with muscle. Jin’s squeaky laugh draws his attention; he’s somewhere in the middle of a gaggle of staff. Yoongi hasn’t spoken to them properly today.

He feels painfully out of place and there’s nothing real that can be risked saying here. Seokjin briefly glances at him and mimes a phone call. Yoongi offers him a smile before Jin’s pulled away.

“Hyung.”

Jimin hasn’t cut his hair yet. The blond strands show under the bucket hat.

Less than 24 hours to go. “Come say bye. They won’t film you.”

Yoongi stomps his feet against the concrete for warmth. “They better fucking not.”

The cameras swing down towards the ground when he approaches them with all the other family members. At least his own footage freeze protects them all from being filmed as he joins the sentimental wedding party rush towards the boys. Tae is now a little solemn, and Yoongi marvels at the fact that someone’s going to give this guy a gun, with live bullets in it. He can’t find the words, so he settles for holding Tae’s elegant hand as tightly as he can.

Jimin’s hand is on his elbow the whole time; he’s close behind Yoongi, and Hobi cuts a knowing glance at them. Yoongi shrugs. He knows Jimin and Hobi have talked; loyalty goes deep in each Bangtan permutation, and Hobi is always number one for Jimin. It’s fair.

Later, when it’s over, and the gates have closed on Tae and Joon, after Jimin’s mother has asked him a thousand questions in a brave attempt to pretend like she’s not on the verge of crying with anxiety, they all disperse. Jimin peels his mother away from Yoongi as she’s insisting that Yoongi join them all for lunch.

Their eyes meet for a moment. Yoongi’s terrified that something will leak through him, so he says goodbye to everyone as briefly as he can and walks quickly to his Palisade.

His phone lights up with a text once he gets in behind the wheel.

Jiminie

i explained why you can’t come for lunch

me

yeah I’m really sorry. i’ll visit them later

He starts the engine. His phone buzzes again.

Jiminie

5pm. Dressing room on the 10^th floor, you know the one.

I’ll have two hours before I head to dinner with my parents

me

i’ll be there

 

 

 

The door to dressing room 1023 opens soundlessly, but Jimin must feel the shift of air pressure because he turns around at once. He is no longer blond and long-haired.

There’s a hairstylist with him whom they’ve known for a long time, putting away her tools neatly in her bag. Jimin clasps her hand in murmured gratitude, then she’s gone, squeezing through the door ajar behind Yoongi.

And then they’re alone together.

The widow’s peak in Jimin’s hairline is lovely, his eyes, one slightly larger than the other, are lovely, his lips, curling inwards towards his teeth with awkwardness, are lovely. It is a long, cold way to the camp. The threat of eternal war hangs over the world, but especially this small dressing room where Jimin sits, lovely and lithe. His body innocent in the chair.

Yoongi swallows many times till he can speak.

“You look like the Buddha.”

Jimin huffs a short laugh.

There are no cameras here, but Yoongi can’t seem to walk a single step to cross the gap between them because he’s old and useless. A grade four in fitness for service. Consigned to wait and send emails. Helpless.

It is raining, and his body is wrenched in pain on the asphalt, and he hasn’t even met Jimin yet. It is always raining, because therapy is shit. The catharsis of the concert is smoke and mirrors, and he falls through its insubstantial support and crashes here. 

It’s Jimin who approaches him at last.

His liquid walk has been replaced by a tentative one that avoids the mirror like his reflection could hurt him. Jimin is an arm’s, then hand’s breadth away, then he is tucked tight against Yoongi.

Yoongi breathes him in.

Jimin presses his face into Yoongi’s neck like he’s trying to disappear. Yoongi turns to kiss Jimin on the forehead and he presses his lips into the skin and bone like a brand.

Yoongi is, not for the first time, fiercely grateful for Jungkook. He’s sorry for Jungkook. He’s sorry for the whole fucking business.

Two hours.

They forgo every chair in the room to sit with their backs against the wall, murmuring quietly.

 

 

 

Then it’s tomorrow morning.

Cameras again. Jimin’s parents still seem anxious, but they’re not completely unprepared, considering Jihyun already completed his military service. And he’s here today, wearing Jimin’s face, which Yoongi will always find uncanny. At least their voices sound nothing alike.

Jungkook and his brother drift towards them like a pair of molecules, and Jungkook looks… unfamiliar, like he did yesterday. Yoongi understands.

The last point the cameras follow them to is a patch of dry earth, flattened and reedy, a few trees in the distance. Other conscripts are gathering further down the road and Yoongi occupies himself watching them until Hobi arrives.

Yoongi’s knees feel like jelly, but Hobi claps him stiffly on the shoulder, intimidating in the way he is when he’s very serious. Yoongi looks down at Corporal Jung Hoseok’s combat boots and aches for Hoba to come back and fill a room with his cackling laughter.

“Hyung. He’ll be fine.”

When Yoongi doesn’t say anything, Hobi throws an arm around him, making Yoongi sway to side to side. He took leave just for this, because that’s what he’s like. He is a line of warmth in the winter morning. Yoongi bristles, but a bit belatedly.

“I know he’ll be fine. He has better cardiovascular endurance than a whole platoon of conscripts put together.”

Hobi doesn’t offer any other platitudes, but he’s pressing his mouth into a smile that makes his dimples appear.

“That, honestly, all of us do. Yes, even you.”

“I just worry he won’t be happy,” he mumbles to Hobi, who knows all his secrets already. What’s one more.

“Then… that’s how it’ll be, I guess.” Hobi shrugs. “Worry isn’t a prediction, hyung, you can’t know everything. Don’t condescend by worrying about him.”

Ouch.

I’m just going, I’ll finish this well and quickly and then I’ll be back. I’ll go quick and come back quick. In one go. That’s what Jimin kept repeating in his last live. Of course Yoongi watched it, thumb bitten raw as he cradled the tablet against his stomach in the kitchen. Jimin’s parents were with him, or he’d be there with Jimin in his apartment, eking out every minute.

He’s here now, and it’s as far as he’s allowed to walk.

Jimin rushes up to him and Hobi then and pulls them both into a hug. The three of them hang together for a long time, and then Hobi says, “Well, I’ll give you two a moment.”

 

 

 

Jimin doesn’t come back for Christmas or New Year’s, or even later. A lot later.

Yoongi makes the two-hour trip to Busan to see Jimin’s parents once a month instead and has a fight with his own father about misplaced filial loyalty.

 

 

 

miniminijiminie.jpeg

i think one of my nuts is un-freezing because its spring soon

me

charming

miniminijiminie.jpeg

you’re supposed to say ‘can’t wait to have them in my face’

you suck at romance

me

I also suck @ dick

miniminijiminie.jpeg

oh you’re really out of practice huh

also

happy birthday

sorry I can’t be there, but

<attachment: file>

 

 

Yoongi looks around to check if anyone’s hovering near his cubicle before he clicks on the file.

He reads it quickly once, twice, then he’s emailing it to himself so he can save a copy of it on his hard drive. His vision swims a little, so he subtly wipes at his eyes.

It’s a picture of a single-ruled page that has clearly been torn from a notebook. It is full. A bit creased, so its hard to see clearly but at the top it says, in Jimin’s neat handwriting,

jiyoon subunit: lyric [draft one] “tender like a bruise”

 

 

~*~

Chapter 11: epilogue

Notes:

It's officially single digits till Yoongi's home! I'm oddly superstitious, so I'm writing a smutty epilogue and flinging it into the cracks between reality before it hardens. this has NOT been beta-read or copy-edited with care, so please be gentle with me.

dedicated to all you lovely folks who left long comments that made me cry. here's more.

🌸

 

 

April brings cherry blossoms to Seoul and a particular text from Jimin.

Yoongi palms his phone while his co-workers are exchanging notes about the best date spots and why antihistamines are absolutely essential to carry along with a disposable camera because you don’t want to be sneezing mid-click. It’s a slow day at the office, not because the stack of files on anyone’s desks have gotten shorter but because of some irrepressible spring cheer that’s driving his colleagues slowly crazy. Even Youjeen, who’s usually disapprovingly serious, is peering out into the Wastewater Division’s concrete compound with her eyes a little glazed over as she stares at the lone cherry tree in the landscaped garden while the condensation from her iced americano runs down her wrist. Yoongi shoves a tissue at her before he slips into the fire escape for some privacy. The big metal door thunks closed behind him, and in the concrete hush he rereads-

 

miniminijiminie.jpeg

hyung, that three day leave got approved

 

Yoongi can’t pretend his fingers don’t have an almost-tremor. Not a full-on shake, but something is thrilling and skittering in the joints of his hand itself. His thumb hovers over the CALL button. Then it travels to his mouth, and he slowly starts to chew on the nail. Its midday so Jimin obviously won’t answer, but Yoongi doesn’t want to text him. He doesn’t want to punch in dry letters in black and white on the screen, as if it were just another work email instead of his boyfriend’s (holy shit) first visit to Yoongi since he started serving.

He's waited this long. He could wait a few more hours till Jimin is allowed to have his phone. They’ve managed this long, haven’t they, with phone calls every other day and the rare (illegal) video call, and the news he gets from the group chat, and the gossip he gets from Jimin’s mother. Or the - the letter, which – Yoongi’s neck and ears go hot at the very thought of it lying in his bedside table drawer. Best not to think about that in the office. But he wants to call, and he tells himself it’s because it’ll be quicker. He could just try his luck.

And he gets lucky.

“Hyung?” Jimin breathes down the phone, Yeoncheon to Seoul. He’s not supposed to be on his cellphone, but he picked up anyway. Someone is yelling serial numbers in the background. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah everything’s fine.”

“Oh. Okay that’s good,” Jimin seems to hesitate. They’re still feeling out the shapes of the something-more they are to each other now, trying hard not to cut each other with new edges and new expectations. And it means moments like these, where Yoongi wonders if Jimin thinks he’s an inconsiderate man for interrupting affairs of national security. But then he remembers what they both think of serving in the military, and he nearly speaks up before Jimin, “It’s just that you usually text first, and I was going to call you in the evening anyway. Like I do.”

Yoongi rushes to parry the defensiveness being thrown his way, “No, no I knew you would, it’s just that I wanted to hear your voice.”

“Oh.” There are other voices closer now, someone saying, my cousin’s stationed off the coast of Ulleongdo and the squid there is –

“I got your text.”

Jimin’s voice has an unmistakable smile in it now. “So? You free next Friday?”

“After 6 pm, I am.” Yoongi smiles too, “You asking me on a date, Park Jimin?”

“Something like that.”

Yoongi looks up and down the stairwell before he says, “I can try getting home early, like, on time.”

“Mm. If I get there around 7 you’ll have some time to shower, right?”

“Yeah, that should be fine.”

The next sentence Jimin says is muffled like he’s cupped his hand over the microphone. His voice sounds thick and close.

“I’m gonna fuck you on the couch, hyungie.”

Yoongi almost yelps. Like a virgin. He clears his throat instead. Like a world-famous badass.

“You’re very crass, Park Jimin. I should hang up.”

“Hey, you called me.”

He’s still not used to this. He sucks at phone sex. He sucks at sexting. He sucks at taking tasteful nudes. He sucks at being sexy on command. Sometimes he quails at the thought of dating the sex symbol of a whole generation, someone that people pine for and paint portraits of in the Louvre. Sometimes he thinks they’ve only managed to stay together this long – four months – because the shock of novelty hasn’t worn off. Jimin wants to fuck him on the couch, but for now. But the idea makes him hard anyway.

“Hyung, are you there?”

“Yeah, um, you… I’ll let you get back to it, Jimin-ah. I gotta go, bye.”

He hangs up. And he stands there for a while, breathing deeply and thinking a bit nonsensically that he shouldn’t look a gift dick in the horse, or something like that. The phone vibrates briefly in his grip.

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            we dont have to 

            honestly id be happy just to have dinner with you

He’s a grown man. He has a diverse stock portfolio. He can say-

            me

            no i want you to

            fuck me on the couch

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            is typing…

He chews on the inside of his cheek as he waits. The dots disappear. He is sixteen again and trying to drum up the courage to pull his newly-minted girlfriend in for a kiss, and they keep slowly walking up the street towards the pool of lamplight that marks her home. Soon they will be in her dad’s field of vision.

          is typing…

Eventually Jongseo had tired of his waffling and planted a toothy kiss on his mouth. Someone clangs the exit door shut on the floor above and comes thundering down the stairs, and the man’s flying lanyard and frantic feet flap at the same bpm as Yoongi’s heart.

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            were you embarrassed again?

There it is.

Yoongi retorts, no you were

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            ah, thought so

Jimin’s doing that thing again, where he hears Yoongi before he’s even said the words, catching him out on a fib, or calling him out for his imagined slights, or pointing him out to the Run BTS producers when he makes a funny face. He wishes Jimin was just a stranger who didn’t know all his faces even when he’s a hundred miles away.

Yoongi’s heart rate does not settle, but the blood fizzles out to his toes like he’s beginning to be drunk.

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            why’re you embarrassed?

            just go reread what I sent you

            i still mean every word

Yoongi just stares at the phone. He deflects, don’t you have shit to do?

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            like polish my rifle you mean?

            i do, every night

            you know who I think about

His hands type quicker than he can think, which is why he opens up his search bar, types a name and downloads the image he sends to the chat. He could flirt back with his boyfriend (boyfriend!) but he seems to be spiralling further into unfunny territory.

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            no, president yoon technically puts bullets in my gun but he doesn’t make it go off

            me

            you're unbearable

            miniminijiminie.jpeg

            say that to my face on friday, hyung-nim ;)

Yoongi slinks back to his desk afterwards and has to clear his throat so many times Haein leans over and asks if he wants a cough drop. Or an antihistamine.

 

 

Jimin’s been training himself not to flinch at Yoongi’s sudden fits of shyness as an insult.

For twelve years it was always fun to needle him until he was pink with embarrassment, but it was always about something silly and safe for Yoongi to reject. But now that they are dating? boyfriends? lovers? (He settles on lovers) he feels a little chirrup of anxiety every time he bumps into Yoongi’s little neuroses. It feels like Yoongi’s doing the same; he's so careful with Jimin since he came to serve that he’s almost completely stopped teasing him, and it comes off as a little cold sometimes.

Logically, he understands it’s the sex, the change, the new bits of each other like new levels in a video game. But at times like these, slipping his phone back into the tray before anyone sees, he still feels off-kilter. His CO yells at him to round up the other training soldiers and Jimin feels his back straightening with the same mild terror his ballet teacher inspired in him.

A few weeks ago they had a bit of a fight about something similar; Yoongi was sputtering and blustering like a little bonfire because Jimin said something about jokingly about a pre-nup for dating idols, and maybe it was being up here so far away from Yoongi that made Jimin tentatively ask Yoongi if he was mad after a full minute of oof now you’ve crossed the line, Park Jimin. Then Yoongi got mad at Jimin for assuming he couldn’t take a joke. He’s always been like this, why would Jimin suddenly get so sensitive – they both fell silent on the phone call as realisation dawned upon them at the same time. They talked. Jimin ground his boot into the hard frozen ground outside as he forced himself to say things like, “I’m not sure this will work if we keep acting the same old ways, you know, like Tom and Jerry.” His sensitivity to rejection, Yoongi’s reflexive avoidance – it isn’t always a great match. He made himself say sentences that made his core tighten with trepidation, like, “I get nervous you’ll start hating me.”

They are outside the safety of denial, and now honesty is the only way they can map out new zones that say DANGER – DO NOT ENTER.

When other people made him feel small he could always turn to Yoongi for reassurance. He had endless patience for Jimin’s anxious, repetitive questions; yes Jiminie, you did good, no, I don’t think you were awkward, yes, I think its fine not to apologise for that. But now, Yoongi’s who Jimin needs reassurance about, and he can’t quite get it from Yoongi, can he? Can he? Yoongi ended that phone call saying softly, “Yah, Jimin-ah, I love you, you know.” Jimin said he knew. Sudden tears rushed into his eyes.

Yoongi’s deep voice was as warm as an ondol floor. “I love you so much it’s making me jumpy. But we’ll fix it, Jiminie, it’s not a bad thing to fight.”

One phone call didn't fix things.

He’s keeping up with his antidepressants and trying. His apathy lifts for only one thing, like the grey winter clouds being ripped open by snow. One person. Jungkook’s here too, but he sees Jimin every waking hour and he gets it. And when Jimin could feel, it was the needle of hunger.

Twenty men in a barracks, with girlfriends, or wives, or exes, all gleefully coarse and heterosexual, making constant locker room talk in between the drills about tits and asses and pussy. One hand on their dick and one holding a photocard of some hoobae of Jimin’s.

Oh Jimin hyung, Jungkook hyung, could you introduce me to Chaewon (a lusty cheer from the back she’s so cute I want to fuck a girl like her), or Wooyoung, or some other hoobae Jimin hasn’t even met yet because they’re that young. In this soup of aggression and low-simmering sexual frustration where he and Jungkook are treated with both reverence and deliberate disdain, Jimin is walking around with a huge Yoongi-shaped secret. He feels old and young at the same time, overhearing one of the soldiers telling his friend oh fuck yeah it was pink, man, her pussy was so pink as he walked by pretending not to hear, pretending he himself wasn’t instantly thinking about Yoongi’s pink knees, his pink cock.

That first week in training he was convinced his skin smelled of Yoongi.

Thank god it was winter. After the initial apprehension of being in unfamiliar territory died down, it was just him and his hand, quick and quiet.

He laid awake sometimes hating himself for how little time they’d had together before he enlisted. While he couldn’t tell Yoongi, hyung you’re so hot, I want you so bad in the middle of twenty men overhearing his every word, he wished constantly that he hadn’t promised to save up all his leaves until April.

The military made them download a mandatory security app that blocked access to their cameras and USBs, but he could unlock it when he travelled off base. Elections were fought and won and lost on the whether conscripts were too sex-stupid and young to be trusted with cellphones, but the government could not account for the sheer brazenness of twenty-somethings in sneaking around. Even in the army.

He was squatting a few feet off a cliff face with some of his unit, and he suddenly heard yeoboseos start up around him, and sure enough, some of the guys had figured out that they were far away enough to disable the app to make quick calls and take selfies. Very illegal selfies.

Jimin’s heart beat thick and fast. With wind-chilled fingers, he dialled the only person whose face he wanted to see.

Yoongi was driving.

He pulled over, frowning at the camera. He was full of questions the second Jimin said hi, Jimin-ah where are you, Jimin-ah are you sure you can call like this, Jimin-ah, are you sleeping okay, Jimin-ah, did you take the stomach medicine eomeoni sent you? And the whole time Jimin just stared hungrily at Yoongi’s pale neck above his collared shirt, admiring how the buttons sat in the valley between the rise of Yoongi’s pecs on either side. He examined Yoongi’s small, expressive mouth. He answered all his questions, but he could eat Yoongi alive.

Yoongi felt the stare and shifted shyly in the driver’s seat. It left Jimin feeling a bit guilty.

It didn’t get any better the third, or fourth time he made a sneaky call, because Jimin was in love and horny and miles away.

One night he dreamed vividly of Yoongi ten feet tall and naked, splayed on Jimin’s hard bunk in the barracks while Jimin crawled over his body licking every inch of him, leaving a trail of slime over his nipples and bellybutton. In this dream he wasn’t sure who fucked who, or who was inside whom, he only remembered the swelling ache of arousal in his abdomen and biting into Yoongi’s warm flesh with his teeth or his dick like a sweet, gummy hotteok. He came so hard it woke him up.

Half asleep and fully incensed, he slunk into the empty bathroom to change and ended up fisting his now-limp cock with frustration. If he was in Seoul – if he was in the company building – if he was in Yoongi’s studio with the door locked behind them –

At breaking point, he asked Jungkook for advice. He was technically the hyung, but Jungkook’s grown up when Jimin wasn’t looking and now it’s like there was a secret trapdoor inside the boy all along that leads to a big, dark, hidden depths. In retrospect, it was Jungkook’s courage which tipped Jimin over into honesty. Jungkook wouldn’t judge him. Jimin eased himself into the foot of Jungkook’s bunk and nudge at his boot.

“D’you think they monitor our texts?” In response to Jungkook’s i-dunno shrug, Jimin persisted, wanting to know if he and Namjoon really sexted, if Jungkook really did book himself a hotel room in Hwacheon last week and drag Namjoon into it for some debauched sex holiday. Jungkook shook his head and said they just slept together. Really slept. Hyung hasn’t been sleeping. But yes, they obviously fucked on break, and managed that just fine.

“How?” he asked. “How’d you manage this?”

Jungkook removed the arm he’d flung over his face to look down at Jimin. “Hyung wrote to me. On paper. He gave it to V hyung, who gave it to me when I was home on break.”

“Do you have it here? Can I read it?”, Jimin crowded closer. It’s so Namjoon to write letters. Of course, what a simple solution.

“Fuck no.” Jungkook turned a dull brick red.

Ah.

So very like Namjoon to write dirty letters. Jimin laughed and pinched Jungkook’s calf, and he swerved away before Jungkook could kick him in the nuts.

 

 

Soon after that he started writing his own letter, holding the sheet of paper close to his chest like a paranoid third grader writing ‘Jimin <3 Yoongi’ in the margins next to a bad drawing of them kissing. 

They still called each other, but now Jimin had a place to put all the things he wasn’t sure were safe to say to Yoongi’s face. He will, he told himself, say them all to Yoongi’s face someday. All sorts of things were being dredged up inside him. Things he wanted to say and still be loved. It thrilled him a little to write the things he did. Usually, he’d be better at saying them aloud, in bed, right into the ear of whoever he’s fucking. That always went over well, whereas this? This made him feel like a crazed sasaeng. Wrong, and hot. Like writing his own porn. 

Sometimes he just re-read the filth he’d written and it got him going a little. It took the edge off. Like his Yoongi-shaped secret was something he could put his dick in.

 

The smutty letter was the dark twin of the desire he weaponized for Yoongi’s birthday.

He’d already planned his present, consulting the notes he kept on his phone on the stuff his members let slip. A film, a sweater, an impulsive dream. He thought Yoongi would like the pea coat because he used to wear them all the time to the airport when they were younger, and he hopes it’ll remind Yoongi of those days. And he set it all up with Sunyoung who’d made sure Yoongi would get it. But somehow, as the 9^th crept closer, Jimin worried about his gift. It doesn’t feel like enough.

When he thought about the little USB stick Yoongi dropped into his hands that weekend, he felt ashamed of his animal hunger and his humdrum gift.

The audio file lived on his phone, and he listened to it all the time – amazed at the quiet love with which Yoongi had collected fragments of Jimin’s voice over the years, talking, singing, laughing, the intuitive genius of the slow beat, and the melody like an invitation for words. His favourite bar in the sparse verse Yoongi rapped, though there’s enough world for us both/ walk with me until there’s nowhere left to go. tender like a bruise/tender like a shadow. He knew he doesn’t deserve Yoongi’s devotion.

So he started writing again. Lyrics, this time.

He forced himself through every shitty sentence that came from his inarticulate fingers, and he filled the empty spaces of the song Yoongi made for him. The next time he used his camera it wasn’t for the dick pic he was always aching to send.

Yoong was so thrilled he cried. Jimin was so smug with himself at having gotten the first present to Yoongi-as-lover right, that he talked nonstop till Jungkook eventually told him to can it.

 

Soon after, he turned back to his secret letter-diary to Yoongi, and told it more locker-room dreams.

 

A week later, Yoongi texted him a picture of himself wearing the pea coat out to dinner with some producer friends.

It was such a Yoongi selfie, awkward and cute all at once, that it made Jimin’s heart twist. Yoongi’s head was titled a bit to the side and his smile was the one where only the bottom half of his front teeth glimmer under his lip. Still camera shy. It was the stiff photocard smile that ARMY roasts him for, and Jimin thought maybe it’s an inside joke (a little of Yoongi for Jimin, a little of Yoongi for the world) but even though he got it, even though he was happy, he pushed. He texted Yoongi back confidently, right before they had to relinquish their phones;

            me

            how about one with only the coat on

            i havent seen you in so long im reduced to watching fancams

When he saw Yoongi’s text the next morning when he had his phone, it said-

            min seoltangie

            there’s nothing to see

Jimin frowned, confused.

            me

            why not?

Yoongi didn’t answer.

            why not, hyung?

 

When Yoongi’s silent like this it meant Jimin’s hit a nerve.

But it didn’t make sense. Weren’t they getting better at being honest? And he’s put his dick in Yoongi’s ass. Plus Yoongi promised that if he was mad, he’d tell Jimin off. But when Yoongi didn’t text back by the next morning Jimin panicked. If this were anyone else, anything else, he’d call Yoongi to go over every inch of the interaction for answers. Instead he sought Jungkook again after dinner. Jungkook liked being in the kitchen, and Jimin watched his aproned mass stirring the big soup pots with a quiet contentment until he was free.

“Jungkookie. Listen, will you, er, look at Yoongi hyung’s texts for me?”

Jungkook’s round eyes went even rounder, but he didn’t say anything. Jimin was breaking an unspoken Bangtan rule about telling on each other before talking to each other. And Jungkook knew it. Jungkook’s usually not the one Jimin came to for this but Hobi hyung was far, far away. He nodded at Jungkook. Please. So Jungkook hunched over in the bunk and his eyeballs flickered left to right as he read– “only from here to here, Jungkook-ah, please” – the text exchange.

He pushed the phone back into Jimin’s hands and stood up.

“i think he’s just embarrassed, hyung. You know he’s weird about his body.”

Jimin had already considered that, “But he’s shirtless in the HYBE gym all the time?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t even let the trainers take progress pictures, remember?”

“But,” Jimin whispered, “we’ve fucked. I’ve seen him naked already. It makes no sense.”

Jungkook lifted one shoulder. “It’s been a while though, and he’s always been shy. I think he thinks he isn’t hot enough. And that’s really dumb.” Jungkook’s index finger was suddenly in his face, “Do not ever tell him I called him dumb.”

 

 

 

He tried; he really did. He’d done this before.

And that too under big blazing studio lights, surrounded by people on set with flowers glued onto every bare patch of his skin. Sure, he was no Calvin Klein model, but he was in decent enough shape. He ignored Jimin’s why not and focused on doing what he was asked. The heating was on but his flesh pimpled with goosebumps as he stripped down to his boxers and the pea coat. The dark blue wool smelled clean and cold, still clinging to the scent of Seoul right before spring. There was only one full-length mirror in his house, there not by choice but by necessity, and that was where he tried out his poses. He took one picture. Two. Three. He sat down on the edge of his bed and zoomed in to review. Oh, that was a mistake. It looked like he was being photographed in the police station, or being papped outside a club, his chin tucked weirdly and his bare, pale stomach tight with awkwardness. Yoongi thought he looked like one of Jin hyung’s fishes.

He tossed the phone onto the mattress, and it bounced once before it landed, face-down.

Jimin’s body always knew where it is in space. He was preternaturally gifted, his small body proportioned like an anatomist’s model, small hands, small waist, small feet, one is to one is to one. Yoongi’s ratios were all wrong, like his father’s. Jimin understood choreography like an actual language. He was pure sex. Six months, and the casting directors knew there was no BTS without this boy. Yoongi moved as well, quickly and effectively, covering great distances on the basketball court or on stage, but it was pure repetition, not poetry.

“Hyung, just – look, feel the lyrics in your body.”

“I know the fucking lyrics, Jimin. I wrote them.”

He’d seen the footage. He knew what his body looked like because their stage directors, dance directors, choreographers, and producers had picked every flaw of his apart. It’s not personal, it’s just business. And Yoongi was a realist.

If he were Taehyung, he’d know how to twist his pelvis slightly so the dim lights fall across his chest and make himself look like a swathe of silk, or a fall of water, enticingly male and mysterious and sexy. If he was Jimin, he’d know exactly how to undulate such that his coat fell off and exposed one muscled shoulder. Even Namjoon was better, big but graceful, even his shins looked pretty on his Instagram page.

In the end he sent Jimin nothing because there was nothing to show.

Out of shame for leaving Jimin on read, he wrote;

            me           

            sorry jimin-ah

            haven’t been dieting

            i love the coat though

            sorry

 

 

 

Three days later, Jimin’s manager texted him to ask when he’ll be at home. Puzzled, Yoongi told her. When Sunyoung landed up at his doorstep the next day, she was carrying two handbags, and she set one down on the floor to dig around in it, waving away Yoongi’s offer to step inside his house. She emerged with a white rectangle.

“Here.”

“What’s this? A contract?”

She shook her head, and now that he was holding it he saw the neat flow of a familiar hand. 

To Yoongi hyung.

He sat down at the dining table with the letter and a whiskey. He typed,

            you do know emails exist right?

Curiosity won out before he waited for Jimin’s reply.

He couldn’t remember the last time he received a letter that wasn’t from a brand welcoming him to their event, filled out with cheery greetings in a strange hand. This was a real letter from his man. Like a real life army wife. The thought made him grin, and he grabbed the car keys he tossed on the table to use the sharp edge to open up the glued tab. The few pages he pulled out were covered in Jimin’s neat handwriting that looked denser than usual. Jimin doesn’t write often, like Yoongi does, and he was usually extremely self-conscious about showing Yoongi his untidy and imperfect drafts. What could all this be, then? More lyrics?

The letter seemed to have been started and stopped several times over because Yoongi could see many different dates at the top written out in pens of a different colour, as well as whole lines crossed out. Even more curiously, there was a smaller piece of paper that fell out when he unfolded it titled ‘READ THIS FIRST’. He obediently read –

 

            Hyung. If this falls into someone’s hands we’re both ruined but fuck it. You’ll call me crass or shameless or whatever, but I honestly wasn’t going to send you this at first. That’s why it is the way it is, I promise. I know we haven’t been together long, officially, but I’m a bit confused why you seem to think I’m getting the bad end of a bargain. Maybe I don't understand why, and this is the best I can do, so im letting you see the inside of my head when I have a hand down my pants. 

 

01.07

dreamed of Y. he – you were naked in the barracks on my bunk and you were so fucking warm. so pink and i came so hard in my sleep, like middle school. it was a mess and i have no fucking privacy or my phone or I’d send you proof

 

01.09

i remember that book of erotic love letters from western artists RM hyung brought to Switzerland I mean he translated some out for me; one of those guys wanted to fuck the farts out of his wife or something. it was so shocking then but now I think it wouldn’t be so bad. shit. i wanna fuck you in the showers here i don’t even care they see

 

Sweat prickled under Yoongi’s armpits. His eyes crept from one word to the other fervidly, and he found himself hunching over as if to hide the letter even though he’s all alone in his own house. He jumped a little at a musical tinkle from his refrigerator’s ice-maker.

 

01.13

Do you remember when I joined you for a day when you went to Jeju with your brother and his girlfriend in 2017? We left them to their own devices in the hotel and went to Gosan beach to see the sunset? You were whining the whole time about how sharp the rocks were, and I laughed at you until you slipped and cut your calf while smoking. Remember we didn’t have any bandaids on us so I sucked the blood from the cut so it would close up a bit? Be honest, you were a little shocked, but you’d told me why animals lick their wounds so you couldn’t object. Your blood wasn’t anything special if that’s what you’re wondering. Just salty and iron-y, like mine. But I remember how you looked down at me from the rock with your mouth hanging open from the pain, and the cigarette still burning away in your fingers. I confess – I almost bit you. You looked like you tasted good. I was such a fucking idiot. 

 

01.15

im on night duty tonight and the moon’s so bright its like a big spotlight on a football field. I think i sang moonlight three times over as I walked the perimeter. Its so good all your songs are so good I miss you I want to lay you down naked under the moonlight like in Titanic except you’d be wearing the silver links you wore for the D-Day tour. you should ride me in them so they jangle every time i thrust into you

i like your stuff from valentino, it suits you

 

01.26

why is your mouth so hard to draw

The words were in parantheses underneath a drawing of him that left nothing to the imagination. In it, his hair looked cartoon cutesy, the way Jimin likes drawing all of them, and in  sharp contrast to his mouth with (presumably) Jimin’s penis in it.

 

01.27

someone came up to me today with a poster of us to sign it. I’ll tell you about it on the phone but it’s the shoot from Wings where you wore the pink silk pyjamas. i don’t know if you know like we all do, but those pants left nothing to the imagination

lol I was so skinny. I look good, but you look better. we looked good together I understand now why they keep putting us together

you look good in that travel campaign we did last year

I want to fuck you. all the time. I miss the way you listen to me (to everyone, really) with your mouth open, like an absentminded old man, and I always want to stick a finger inside your little triangle mouth. I know we only had that one weekend, but I’ve thought about you every day. Every night. I’m gonna come home to you and I want us to fuck each other like in those greek vases

 

01.31

medical today

i weigh more than you now  im gonna hold you down really hard and i want you to yell at me I want you to say PARK JIMIN then PARK Jimin and then Park Jimin quieter and quieter as I flatten you under me  I wanna suck your tongue when you can barely breathe

In a different coloured ink, it says-

im sorry I sometimes fantasize about hurting you

 

Yoongi couldn’t breathe. Something was happening to him, something more complicated than arousal.

He couldn’t quite absorb the words even though he was holding the sheet of paper in front of his face. None of his girlfriends ever had the nerve to talk to him like this, and none of the men he fucked, not even Yijeong, ever sounded this crazed.  Jimin’s tone of voice in this letter was almost unrecognisable, like something haunched and shadowed that’s been stalking him for miles. A jungle cat whose purr rumbled so deep and low you felt it in the soles of your feet before it ripped you apart. 

There was a small part of Yoongi that wanted to cry.

And another part that wanted to run and hide. That’s the part he listened to, and he got up and took his drink and the letter to the bedroom. The only light he turned on was the lamp by the window, pressing the small pedal switch with his bare toe. Something told him to sit down right here with the lamp above, wall behind his back, and the floor cold under his pyjamas. The next missive was from February.

 

02.14

happy valentines you terrible liar, I love you. you don’t know that chocolates are orange-flavoured and I kept it a secret so there’s one more surprise than you counted. if I was there id eat your ass like a chocolate orange, maybe while I make you hold a whole bar of chocolate in your mouth

02.16

did you ever let dae-jung hyung fuck you? weren’t you underage? fuck, I’ve seen the videos of you rapping back then, you were just a baby. Jungkook showed me one from his tiktok today. there were girls in the audience rapping along bar for bar hyung what the fuck is IN you i don’t understand, you’re so sneaky sexy and I hate that dae-jung hyung figured it out first and i had no idea- cant believe yijeong hyung hit too, did you fuck in your studio or his?

maybe they got to you first but they can’t do the splits on your dick like im gonna

you wait

Yoongi’s mouth went dry. Jimin had written this shit sober. Is this how he had been with all his partners? With Jeongyeon? All this time Yoongi was meditating, journaling, managing the way he felt about Jimin’s sweetness, so close and yet so far, Jimin had actually been this? About Yoongi? Or if he hadn’t always been, he is now? A little shiver travelled up his spine.

02.20

all the shit I wrote makes me sound like a sasaeng. remember those girls in the US and the toilet seat fiasco? im a good boy I promise. ill be good to you

eomma said she was so happy you’ve been visiting when I can’t. I know I’ve thanked you for doing this, but here’s a secret. she told me that when I settle down i need a girl who’s as good to me as you. I wish I could tell her

02.21

hyung i just wanna go home I fucking hate it here. Jungkook’s adjusting better than me. he snores so loud but im glad I have him because he misses Namjoonie hyung too. we’re two sad horny sacks. He’s managing better than me though, which I hate. not him. i could never i know we talked today and I said im used to it all now, and I know you knew I was lying but you let me lie for my sake.

but I want to sleep in your bed for a thousand years. i want you to take me everywhere like your ah-ah. i want to just lie on your sofa and eat your food. and I want to grow fat and happy with you

oh and i don’t want you to look at anyone else. ever

02.25

I’ll never write like you do but im trying. i jerk off thinking about you because that's who i am, but you made me a song. about me! for me! i dont ever want to release it even if I do write the lyrics and you record it. its mine.

im yours, even if im like this

please don’t leave me

 

There was a lump of tears growing in his throat, and he swallowed around it, but he slipped his hand into his pyjamas to rub his cock too. Yoongi almost laughed at himself, because he’s never cried and jerked off at the same time before, but he might actually be about to. He read on.

 

03.09

happy birthday min yoongi min seoltangie min suga min PD min marimo you have the pinkest asshole ive ever seen its so cute I wish I could post it on the group chat with my fingers inside it - for your next birthday I will come down and tie you up; they’ve taught me all kinds of fancy knots here and I’d like to see you thrashing about cussing me out

 

Yoongi’s hand reflexively tightened around his own erection. The next letter was from weeks later. It was the very last one.

 

03.23

i know you, min yoongi. ive seen it before, and i want it. i don’t know how we’ll end up but i do know you. you keep getting the same pimple on your left cheek. you got a root canal last year. you have a mole on the left side of your torso, parallel to your bellybutton.

I want to come over when I finally get that leave and I want it to go like this – I’ll pull you down into my lap, in your shirt and tie and your glasses, straight from your office before you even get in the shower. I know you’ll be complaining, but I will hold you, one hand on each of your asscheeks, in my lap, with your legs dangling on each side as you straddle me, unable to look me in the eye. I think I know why, you’re a little ashamed of yourself, for some reason. I don’t get it. I like your chin. I like your ears. I like your stomach, and the little trail of hairs that goes down it, i memorized it all that day. I don’t know why you get so gruff and shy – im not going to laugh at you. just let me see you.

i just want you to want me.

I want to nuzzle at you like a dog. I want to rub my stubble against your cheek and bump my cheekbone against the hard flats of yours. I want to sniff your temple, your ears, your cheeks, I want to lick over your forehead, your eyelids, down your nose, your throat bitter from the spray of your cologne. I want you to squirm in my lap and feel my hard cock poking up at your soft ass. Has anyone ever put their tongue inside your ears? The small dark holes of your ears? I want to kiss your Adam’s apple. I won’t bite, not very hard - just enough so you know I could, but I won’t. I want to hear you laugh when I lick you, knowing you could simply stand up and walk away, but you won’t. Hyung. something inside me always hurts, but I barely feel it when im with you. ill love you if you never let me touch you again

 

 

It felt like someone had punched Yoongi in the throat. He sat there, clutching the pages in his left hand and his dick in his right, crying. He held the letter at arm’s length so it wouldn’t get wet.

It took him a long, long time to get up off the floor.

He felt an absurd, almost religious urge to kiss the letter. He gave in to that urge, feeling a little helpless and lost, and then he folded the letter away and put in the bedside table drawer because he was worried it might tear if he slept with it under his pillow like he really wanted.

 

            min seoltangie

            come home. please.

 

           

 

The paperwork took forever to process, almost a week and a half, as if they were making an example of Jimin even though he hadn’t taken any leaves at all so far. Jimin felt murderous every time he met Captain Myung-soo’s eyes, until Jungkook bumped his shoulder in the mess and warned him, in a low voice, against letting his Busan temper out. Not a good look for a BTS member.

Because Yoongi was Yoongi, small and intense like a dwarf star, all Jimin got was a text telling him not to call because Yoongi didn’t want to start crying on the phone. So Jimin gave himself permission to feel smug, and he treated Yoongi gently for the first few days, stepping around the letter and saving Yoongi the task of having to praise him or thank him or berate him or whatever was cooking in that brain of his. But because Yoongi was Yoongi, and he knew Jimin would expect an answer, he sent him half of what he owed.

It was a picture of Yoongi, as requested. In just the pea coat, and nothing else.

 

 

 

He’s nervous now that he’s here. He couldn’t decide between his fatigues and his civvies and in the end he was getting late and had to leave in whatever he was wearing if he didn’t want to miss his pickup. He ignored Jungkook’s comically large wink as he walked out to where Sunyoung is waiting with the car. He rocks back and forth on his heels a little, steeling himself to punch in the key code to Yoongi’s apartment.

No one is at the door when he pushes it gently open. It’s dim inside, just like that night he flew back from Sapporo. Isn’t Yoongi home? He offloads his backpack and shoes down in the foyer and rounds the corner to the living room.

Yoongi’s home alright, and Jimin nearly laughs.

“Oh my goodness, you scared me. What’re you doing like this?”

Yoongi’s pulled one of his heavy armchairs out of the couch arrangement and positioned it to face the entrance. The only illumination is the pendant light above the dining table, where Jimin’s sat and fallen in love with Yoongi over a hundred bowls of rice. It limns Yoongi in light, enough to see that he’s sitting with his legs crossed in slacks and a shirt and tie. And his glasses. His hands are loosely crossed over his knees and he’s wearing one of his Rolexes.

Jimin’s laughter is replaced by a fluttering anticipation. “Ah, hyung.”

He doesn't really know how his little DIY porn went over. He's lost his footing the second he came inside, but here Yoongi is: a bit theatrical, and completely unexpected. Stupid of him; In these miserable, lonely months, he forgot that Yoongi is fun. 

His mouth waters. 

Yoongi stands up, drawing himself to his fullest height. He stops half a foot away from Jimin and wordlessly reaches for the belt of his uniform pants. There is a frission around the edges of Yoongi’s unmoving mouth – a smile only Jimin knows is a smile – when their eyes meet over the silent fumble for fabric and metal and leather. Jimin knows he would kill for this man.

In the hushed, dramatic darkness, Yoongi falls to his knees. Still silent, he reaches into the slit of Jimin’s boxers to draw his soft penis out. He looks up once, to check, and satisfied with what he sees, licks his hand. He takes his time, covering the big broad palm with saliva before he takes hold of Jimin again.

He feels more than he sees, and what he feels is a hot soft mouth, with lips and tongue that slide without a shred of hurry across the quickly-stiffening length of his cock.

“Woah. Okay,” Jimin breathes.

The only time Yoongi ever got his mouth on Jimin’s dick was when Jimin drew what he wanted on the letter like a pubescent teen scribbling on the underside of a desk. He sways a little as he feels himself getting hard, and his hands land on Yoongi’s shoulders. He’s been working out.

He’s going agonizingly slow, too, licking thick stripes over the top and bottom of Jimin's dick, laving a flat tongue against the head like he’d do to a clit, before sucking it down. Jimin can’t see much but he sees the glimmer of spit when he looks down, because Yoongi’s gotten him decadently wet. The cold metal strap of Yoongi’s Rolex startles him as it slides against his ass, making him gasp as Yoongi grabs a tight handful of it and pulls Jimin in, in, in, towards the back of his famous mouth.

And Jimin presses in, unresisting, his eyes nearly rolling up in his head when the tip of his cock catches on the entrance to Yoongi’s throat. His knees feel like they’ll buckle, but Yoongi’s mouth is a wet suction now, so hot all along his palm where he grips the base of Jimin’s cock and meets each slow, intent suck with a twist of his hand. It’s brutal, its efficient, it’s beautiful, and of course Yoongi sucks dick like a champion, so good that Jimin cups his face to feel himself bulging through Yoongi’s cheek.

The living room is loud with a sloppy, slapping sound as Yoongi speeds up, spit dripping down the sides of his mouth in long ropes. His knees truly start to buckle this time and he lays a hand on Yoongi’s head for balance, but Yoongi hums in excitement and presses Jimin’s hand further onto his scalp. Jimin fists a handful of his short hair.

Yoongi looks up at him again, not to check, but to beg.

Jimin fucks hard into his mouth and Yoongi whimpers around it, so he does it again, and again and again. There’s a hoarse gagging from below and Jimin almost pulls out but Yoongi’s crushing grip on Jimin’s wrist tells him to keep going. He’s soaking hot velvet around Jimin’s cock, and when Jimin pictures that small pink mouth around his dark erection his whole body seizes up with orgasm.

He barely has time to collect his senses before Yoongi’s pushing him towards the armchair, and he falls into it with a loose thump with his fatigues pulled down to mid-thigh, and boxers smeared with spit and semen. It could be seconds or it could be long, delicious years as he floats in the dark. The next thing he feels is Yoongi sitting down on top of him, a thigh on either side of him. Jimin opens his eyes and looks up at Yoongi this time with effort.

His body feels jammy with orgasm and all his brain cells have been emptied into Yoongi’s mouth.

Yoongi says, “Hi.” His deep voice is even hoarser. He ducks down to kiss Jimin, and Jimin opens his mouth like a shucked oyster. Holy shit, holy shit. Yoongi kisses him sweet and filthy, his tongue inside Jimin’s mouth and his small teeth clamping down on the fat of Jimin’s lips. He draws a little blood, and it jolts Jimin alive again.

Yoongi pulls back with a wet squelch. He smiles another one of his shadowed, secret smiles, like the one he gave Jimin in exchange for a peeled egg once, round and slipping from Jimin’s fingers to Yoongi’s mouth. But Yoongi doesn’t stop, the triangles of his eyes fervent with something as he lifts himself up slightly from Jimin’s lap to undo his belt and unbutton his slacks. Jimin recognises this quietness as planning, and he’s half roused watching the leather of Yoongi’s belt snake through the hoops before he flings it on the floor.

“I want it to go like, Jimin-ah,” Yoongi rumbles, guiding one of Jimin’s hands to slip into his loosened waistband, “I want to nuzzle at you like a dog. I want to rub my stubble against your cheek and bump my cheekbone against the hard flats of yours,” and he makes Jimin keep groping his ass till he puts his other hand in to hold one buttock in each hand. His big hands push Jimin’s fingers further together until Jimin feels the unmistakeable slipperiness of lube around his hole. He gasps.

This isn’t sex. Or only sex. Yoongi recites, “I want you to squirm in my lap and feel my hard cock poking up at your soft ass.”

Yoongi must have already fingered himself open, and he’s giving himself to Jimin, doing every single thing Jimin ever let slither onto paper straight from his dick, and even as the first knuckle of his forefinger slips into Yoongi’s asshole without resistance, he realises who’s in charge here.

He could fight god himself for this one man.

“Fuck,” he moans, instead.

“Yes, please.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

why are text messages so hard to format, AO3???

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thank you for sticking with this story <3