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Yoongi woke up coughing.
He spent a little while curled up pityfully in his bed like a shrimp while his lungs tried to dislodge itself and make a bid for freedom. There were a lot of fluids involved which, frankly, he didn’t want to process. He caught them in the sheets and made a mental note to change the sheets as soon as he could move without coughing.
He suspected that might be a while.
The coughing eventually subsided and he lay there on his side, eyes closed, not willing to try moving and risk starting the entire thing again.
He was ill, he hated being ill.
Reluctantly he groped on his bedside table where he’d left his thermometer. It took his questing fingers a moment to find it and he jammed it under his tongue, only unearthing a small cough in the process. He hit the button then lay there until it beeped.
He blinked at the digital reading, a little surprised. His fever had gone down.
That was good. Maybe that meant the worst of it was over?
He hoped it was. He’d spent the last few days feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. Feverish and coughing and sneezing and he was pretty sure he’d started hallucinating somewhere in there because he was pretty sure he remembered someone stroking his hair back from his forehead and telling him it was going to be okay and shoveling medicine into him.
Which, alright, someone in the company could easily have stopped by and done some of those things. Hell, he thought a few of the people they’d worked with for years might even have sat there and stroked his hair if he was really pitiful. But this absolutely must have been an hallucination anyway because he remembered the deep voice that had told him it was going to be okay, Hyung. He remembered the familiar hands. He remembered blearily and probably tearfully telling the hallucination that he loved it more than anyone else in the world and Kim Namjoon’s voice saying me to Hyung, I love you the most too.
Which was frankly ridiculous. He and Namjoon had a great professional relationship, but it wasn’t that kind of relationship. Of course they cared about each other, respected each other. They were brothers in spirit, just like Yoongi was with all the other members.
Or maybe not exactly like Yoongi was with all the other members. Or, more accurately again, he was just like all the other members to Namjoon. To him, Namjoon was…
He couldn’t even put into words what Namjoon was to him. Particularly not while lying in bed, still shakily recovering from the worst flu he’d had in his adult life.
But the point was, Namjoon saying those things, absolutely not something Namjoon would ever say. Yoongi hallucinating Namjoon saying those things to comfort himself as he sweated through a fever, absolutely something he’d hallucinate.
Somewhere in the apartment, a door closed.
Alright, good, so he hadn’t hallucinated the entire thing. There was someone here. Someone from the company, hopefully, and not a stalker who’d broken in. Though he’d take the stalker if they brought him cough syrup.
Thinking about his throat again was enough to draw his attention back to its tingling, which was enough to set off the coughing, great coughs shaking his entire frame, unspeakable substances peeling themselves from his lungs and splattering on his already ruined sheets. Fuck, he hated existing in a body.
And then the door to his room opened and Kim Namjoon came in.
Which, what the fuck?
He was wearing an oversized t-shirt and a beanie and carrying a grocery story bag. He was also wearing a mask which was good as it definitely wouldn’t help either of them if he caught whatever Yoongi had just been coughing up.
“Hyung, you’re awake,” Namjoon said, hurrying into the room, holding out his bag like a talisman. “And kind of disgusting."
Yoongi snorted at that, which started another round of coughing. He had to lean over for a while and press his head into the blankets, focusing on the feeling of his own breath and the burning in his poor raw throat.
He hated being ill so fucking much. How did it even make sense for his body to feel this bad?
“I brought cough medicine,” Namjoon said. He’d come right up to the bed now and was taking stuff out of his bag. “I think I got the one you like. And some of those sweets that make your throat go numb. And I got soup too, if you think you can eat. And I got some pain killers and shit too. I was going to get more cooling pads but I think your fewer went down, yeah?”
Yoongi nodded, then held out his hand. Namjoon obligingly put something in it. A cup. He turned his head and, yes, a little medicine cup. He pulled it closed and drank it cautiously, hoping that it did at least some good.
“This next,” Namjoon said, and when Yoongi reached his hand out again a throat sweet was placed into his palm. He brought it up to his lips, taking a breath, then had to stop for a minute to cough again.
Fuck, he hated this.
Once the coughing stopped, he managed to get the sweet into his mouth and held it on the back of his tongue, letting it dissolve. Letting it numb, at least for a little while. He lay there with his eyes closed, listening to Namjoon moving around the space, setting up his little pharmacy on the bedside table and picking up things from the floor.
And okay, Namjoon was there. That didn’t mean he’d been there earlier. It didn’t mean he was the one who’d been taking care of Yoongi. It certainly didn’t mean they’d whispered I love you to each other while Yoongi was sweating to death.
Because that was an impossible thing.
“Feeling better?” Namjoon asked. Yoongi opened his eyes enough to give him an unimpressed look. “Okay, stupid question. Want to use the bathroom? I’ll change the sheets really quickly while you do.”
Fuck, new sheets sounded good. The current ones were a war zone. And the bathroom sounded good, too, not that he thought about it. He could piss, wipe his face, hopefully be a bit more human. Not that he needed to be particularly put together around Namjoon who had already seen him in every state imaginable but he liked to think he could do better than slowly dying on the bed.
He climbed to his feet very slowly, managing it without coughing or collapsing into Namjoon’s arms, as tempting as that last one was. He shuffled off to the en suite and used the toilet, then he came to lean against the sink, looking at himself in the mirror.
He looked like something out of a horror film. His hair was limp, his skin pale, his eyes bloodshot with bags under them. He looked like he’d just been through hell.
He did not look like someone Kim Namjoon might impulsively confess to.
He did, however, look like someone who might be hallucinating. Which basically settled it. He was going mad and Kim Namjoon was not in love with him. Nothing new to see here.
He managed to wash his face at least before the next wave of coughing hit. He leant against the sink until it passed and, when he left the bathroom, wasn’t that surprised to find Namjoon loitering by the door, looking anxious.
“You okay?” he asked, eyes cautious, hand making its way to Yoongi’s shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Yoongi lied. “I think I need to lie down.”
“Yeah, probably,” Namjoon agreed, his hand sliding down Yoongi’s body to cup his elbow. Yoongi shivered at the touch but Namjoon didn’t pull away, just guided him back through to the bedroom where the bed had been re-made - for some value of re-made. Namjoon hadn’t tucked the sheets in and most of Yoongi’s pillows and blankets were still on the floor, which probably made sense actually. He was going to have to hire some kind of biohazard team when he was done.
He crawled onto his mattress, collecting up one of his remaining blankets and wrapping it around himself. Sleep, he needed to sleep.
If he slept long enough, maybe the world would start making sense again and he wouldn’t have to work out if he’d actually hold Kim Namjoon he loved him.
Kim Namjoon annoyingly persisted in being real. He climbed up onto the bed too, sitting up against the headboard and stretching his stupid long legs over Yoongi’s mattress. Legs that looked like they’d be just perfect to put his head on as he slept.
“Shouldn’t you be getting out of this plague pit?” Yoongi grumbled, ignoring the impulse and pulling his regular pillow closer instead.
“I’ve got a mask,” Namjoon said with a casual shrug.
“Namjoon-ah,” Yoongi complained, then had to stop a minute to fight down a cough. By the time he had it under control, Namjoon had his kindle open on his phone and was apparently settling in for the long-haul.
“Sleep, Hyung,” he said without looking up.
Yoongi thought about grumbling, protesting, but it hurt to talk and, well, it was good to have Namjoon there, after all.
And perhaps it was an hallucination, or maybe there was a hand gently resting against his hair as sleep finally came.
*
When Yoongi woke up again, Kim Namjoon was asleep next to him in the bed.
In sleep, his mask had slipped. He was snoring lightly, lips parted, face slack. His phone was on his chest, as though he’d fallen asleep in the middle of scrolling. He might have. Idiot.
Yoongi loved him.
He loved him completely and unreservedly, like a fool. Had loved him from the moment that he realised this Kim Namjoon every one was talking about was not only as clever as everyone was saying, as sharp with a rhyme and as quick with a comeback but was somehow, also, kind. Sweet. A great big dork. Prone to being distracted by passing animals, to losing everything he owned, to forgetting to eat if he wasn’t taken care of and coaxed.
He’d loved him for years. He’d loved him through late nights in the studio, through arguments when they were all overworked and tired and crammed into a tiny dorm, through the highs of award ceremonies and the lows of public shame.
He had loved him. He did love him. He would love him.
He drifted back to sleep lying there next to him, his hand outstretched, the tips of his fingers brushing lightly against Namjoon’s arm.
*
On the second day of his recovery Min Yoongi kicked Kim Namjoon out of his apartment.
He told Namjoon it was because Namjoon was hovering and he needed some peace. He lied, but the real reasons were too much to explain. The creeping sureness that, while he’d been completely out of his mind, something fundamental had shifted between them. Nothing overt, but there was something in the way Namjoon look at him now, a weight that hadn’t been there before.
Or he imagined there was, at least. Which was worse. They’d settled so easily into familiar domesticity. He hadn’t been so physically close to Namjoon since they’d all bought their own houses and moved out of the dorm but they’d lived together for years and it had been comforting to settle back into each other.
Once he was alone in the house Yoongi cleaned. Because Namjoon had been very sweet and read to him and filled him with cough medicine but he was not a cleaner. He had to stop a few times to cough and once to lie down and gather some strength but he really was much better.
Once his room didn’t look so much like a plague pit, he took a very long shower. The water helped, and so did the warmth.
Still, he had been very ill. Once he was cleaned and shaved and wrapped up in his dressing gown he crawled back into his bed. He closed his eyes, trying not to think how much nicer it had been when Namjoon was there. How Namjoon hadn’t actually held hands or stroked his hair but how his hands had floated around Yoongi, stroking his shoulder or patting his arm.
He slept fitfully and woke a few hours later to a coughing fit.
He needed medicine again.
The medicine was on the far side of the bed. Namjoon’s side. Though he couldn’t think of it like that because it wasn’t Namjoon’s side, not in any meaningful way. Not in the way he wanted it to be.
He crawled over and took the bottle of cough syrup. He ignored the neat little medicine cup Namjoon had been using and took a swig from the bottle instead, chasing it down with another throat numbing sweet. It was hard to believe it but he was getting better. He really was.
He lay there on his side for a while, head on the pillow he was very intentionally not thinking of Namjoon’s.
Had he really said something?
He must have said something. But those words. I love you. Had he really said them? When he’d held them back for so long, locked them up inside of himself, was it really true that all it would take was a cold to knock them free? Just that brief of a lapse of judgement?
Even if he had, Namjoon wouldn’t have understood. Not really. He’d think it was brotherly love. Of course. Because Yoongi could say it to the others. Could say I love you all to the table, as though each of them was exactly equal in the light of his love, cherished in exactly the same way.
I love you, Yoongi would have said, the words bleeding out of him.
Of course I love you too, Namjoon would have said, meaning I love you like a brother. I want to be your best friend.
That’s how it must have been. Not like he half remembered. Not Namjoon holding his hands, telling him he loved him the most out of everyone in the world.
He’d been ill. He’d been halucinating.
He’d been wrong.
*
It wasn’t that Yoongi had forgotten that he’d had a phone, it was just that he’d been wallowing, drinking too much cough medicine, feeling sorry for himself, running the half memory of Namjoon telling him he loved him over and over in his mind, each pass becoming more distant, more unreal. More like something he could live with without breaking.
When his phone did start to ring, he had to dig it out from under a pile of used tissues that had congregated since he’d last had the energy to clean.
It was Namjoon calling him.
He thought about not taking it, about letting it go to voice mail. But he was a fool and he wanted to hear Namjoon voice.
He accepted the call.
“Hello,” he said, throat rough, then immediately started coughing again. And, of course, once he got started he couldn’t stop and had to lay there longer that he’d like, holding the phone away from his mouth so he wasn’t coughing directly into the mouthpiece at least. His ribs ached from the coughing, though it was at least slowing down.
Once the coughing eased, he lifted the phone back to his ear.
“Hello, Namjoon-ah.”
“Hi, Hyung,” Namjoon said, a tension in his voice. “I called to see how you were doing but… I’m coming over, okay? I’ll be there soon.”
Yoongi thought about protesting about that. About telling Namjoon that he was fine, that there was no need to fuss, that he really was getting better.
But then he thought about carefully measured out cups of cough syrup at regular intervals and hands in his hair and someone besides him to absorb some of the horribly tedious chores of being sick and, well, why shouldn’t be let Namjoon do that for, him, since Namjoon seemed to eager?
“Okay,” he said, voice rough. “Let yourself in.”
“I will, Hyung. I’ll be there soon.”
Namjoon said, then the call end and Yoongi was left lying there with the phone in his hand.
Throat having subsided for now, he sat up and actually checked his neglected messages. He skimmed back through the group chat, sent his parents a message to let them know he was alright. Someone, presumably Namjoon, seemed to have told them he wasn’t well but was being taken care of. He was glad for that. He dismissed most of the piled up notifications. Anyone who wanted him that badly would try again.
Then he flipped to his outgoing calls.
He remembered himself, more than half delirious, calling Namjoon. Which he had to have, since Namjoon had known to come to him.
The calls were there. Three of them, close together. The first one missed. The second and the third picked up.
What had he said?
I love you more than anything.
Had he really said that.
Had Namjoon really said it back.
He needed to know. He was going to drive himself mad with questioning if he didn’t just find out.
He dragged himself out of bed, changed his clothes, and managed to be in his kitchen making tea by the time Namjoon slammed into his apartment. Namjoon headed straight for the bedroom, down the hallway away from the kitchen. Yoongi listened to him go, listened to him pause, then turn and come back, slowly emerging into the kitchen.
“Hyung,” he said, a little cautiously.
“Hi,” Yoongi said, waving. His voice was still rough but he’d taken medicine since Namjoon had called and honestly, other that the cough and the aches caused by the cough, he was almost recovered.
“Hyung,” Namjoon said, visibly sagging. “You’re okay? I thought, with the coughing…”
“My throat’s still shit,” Yoongi said, picking up when Namjoon trailed off. “But other than that I’m not too bad. Tea?”
“Yes please,” Namjoon said, heading over to the table and slumping into a seat. Yoongi watched him out of the corner of his eye as he finished making the tea. Namjoon looked tired, he was carrying a bag which he set down on the table. He slumped over, head on his arms, letting his eyes drift closed.
He’d been worried. Of course he’d been worried. Yoongi was his Hyung. Yoongi was his team mate. The entire group was probably on hold waiting for him to be able to go about his daily life without coughing again.
Then the Namjoon’s eyes slid open, watching him, eyelid heavy but gaze steady on Yoongi as he moved around the kitchen and he couldn’t help but wonder.
He finished the tea and took the seat across from Namjoon at the dining room table. Namjoon straightened up. He wasn’t much of a tea drinking but he accepted a cup anyway. Yoongi was sure this particular tea wouldn’t offend, at least. Camomile and honey, for his throat.
He watched Namjoon take a sip.
He needed to ask. He had to know.
“Namjoon-ah,” he said, carefully, keeping his voice soft and low both out of caution and to protect his poor throat. “Hyung doesn’t remember some things from when I was ill but I think…”
He trailed off, not able to find the words to say it.
It had been so long, so many years. How was he meant to just casually ask over a cup of tea? He hadn’t found the courage to do it on the million nights they’d spent together in his studio. He hadn’t had the courage to do it drunk, to ask while on tour, hiding out together in a hotel room, to blurt it out when just off the stage, high with adrenaline. With Namjoon, he’d done some of the scariest and most amazing things in his life and his heart had beat so wildly and been so full of love but he’d managed to keep it in.
How was he supposed to ask now.
He let the sentence die between them. Maybe it was better to not know.
Namjoon stood abruptly, his chair jerking back. Yoongi looked up and Namjoon stalked around the table, then slid into the chair next to his. He sat there, frozen, as Namjoon reached out and determinedly took his hand.
“Do you really, not remember, Hyung?” Namjoon asked, squeezing his fingers.
Fuck.
“I really don’t- I mean- not everything. I mean. Some things. I remember some things. I think I remember some things. I just…”
Namjoon’s free hand, when it touched his cheek, was careful. He let Namjoon tilt his face, let him make Yoongi look at him.
They sat there for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes.
Then Namjoon leant forward and kissed him.
It was brief, careful, just the softest brush of lips. A promise and an affirmation and perhaps the most tender thing Yoongi had experienced in his life. His lips dropped open a little and Namjoon kissed him again, just as tender, just as loving.
Yoongi let his eyes drift closed. He let the hand that Namjoon wasn’t holding drift to Namjoon’s thigh to rest. He let Namjoon kiss him.
Namjoon was kissing him.
He hadn’t been hallucinating.
When Namjoon pulled back, there was an expression on his face that Yoongi had never seen before. Dark and intense and wanting. For him.
Namjoon wanted him. Perhaps as much as he wanted Namjoon.
“Do you remember now, Hyung?” Namjoon asked, thumb stroking along Yoongi’s jaw and making him shudder.
“Yes,” Yoongi said, breathless for a reason other than the cough for once. “But I think you should tell me again.”
So Namjoon did.
*
Namjoon inevitably came down with Yoongi’s flu just as Yoongi was finally over it. The others all grumbled but none of them were truly complaining about a little time off to visit families and friends and to work on their own solo projects.
“I told you that you were going to get ill,” Yoongi grumbled. Namjoon had started feeling unwell in his apartment so was still there, huddled under sheets Yoongi had freshly washed for him. If any of the others asked, it made more sense to just have one plague pit than two. “You brought this on yourself.”
“Worth it,” Namjoon replied. He wasn’t as bad as Yoongi had been, annoyingly coherent. “Hyung, come lie down with me.”
“I don’t want to get it again,” Yoongi said, but he climbed back into the bed, letting Namjoon curl up against him. He reached down and stroked Namjoon’s hair, felt the fever on his skin. “Just rest now, Namjoon-ah, Hyung’s here.”
“My Hyung,” Namjoon agreed, throwing an arm over Yoongi. “Love you.”
“I love you too,” Yoongi said, the words still sounding surreal as that dripped from his lips. Namjoon smiled at that, settling in, eyes sliding closed.
“One day, you’re going to say that to me when neither of us have a fever,” he said, his words slurring lightly as sleep pulled at him.
“One day,” Yoongi agreed. Every day. Any time Namjoon wanted, for the rest of their lives.
He’d spent years not saying it, it was hard to really believe that now he could. Could just tell Namjoon he loved him whenever he wanted and that Namjoon would say it back. Would mean it back in just the same way.
“Sleep now,” Yoongi said, softly. “Hyung loves you more than anything else in the world. Sleep.”
Namjoon made a noise that might have been intended to be a confirmation, but actually just came out as a sleepy grumble. Yoongi smiled at it anyway. He took Namjoon’s hand and gently stroked the back of it, watched his slack, sleepy face.
Namjoon loved him.
How about that?