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The first time it happens, Taehyung thinks he imagined it.
They've been dating four months and three days — not that Taehyung is counting — and this is the sixth time Jungkook has slept over. Taehyung knows this because the first five times, Jungkook slept on the couch by choice, insisting it was "more comfortable" in a way that was so obviously a lie that Taehyung's roommate Jimin had laughed about it for two weeks.
Tonight Jungkook had fallen asleep mid-movie, head tipping slowly toward Taehyung's shoulder like a building giving up. Taehyung had watched it happen in real time — the way Jungkook's grip on the remote loosened, the way his breathing changed — and hadn't moved for forty minutes because he didn't want to wake him.
Eventually he'd maneuvered them both horizontal, which Jungkook had somehow slept through, which said something about how tired he actually was.
So Taehyung is lying in the dark, not sleeping, listening to Jungkook breathe.
And then, quietly, into the side of Taehyung's shirt:
"...the blue one."
Taehyung goes still.
"The blue one is better," Jungkook says, with some conviction, "obviously."
Then silence. Jungkook's breathing evens out again.
Taehyung stares at the ceiling for a long time. Then he picks up his phone and opens his notes app, because he is, apparently, this kind of person now.
Nov 14. 2:58am. "the blue one is better. obviously."
He falls asleep smiling and doesn't fully understand why.
--
By February, the note is long.
He doesn't plan entries. He just lies awake sometimes, which he's always done, and occasionally Jungkook says things. Taehyung started writing them down. It's not weird. It's fine. Jimin would say it's weird but Jimin once ranked all of their friends by how they'd do in a zombie apocalypse and presented his findings in a PowerPoint, so.
Nov 22. 3:41am. "don't let the fish be sad." (we don't have a fish)
Dec 3. 4:07am. "hyung, you have nice kneecaps." (I have thought about this one a lot)
Dec 19. 1:13am. "'m not scared. 'm just... yeah." (he said this after a nightmare he claimed not to have)
Jan 8. 3:30am. "stay." (I stayed)
Feb 2. 2:55am. "you're so—" [trails off] (I will never know how this sentence ends and it will haunt me)
--
"You're quiet today," Jungkook says.
They're at the kitchen table. Taehyung is making coffee with the kind of focused dedication that has nothing to do with coffee. Jungkook is sitting backwards on a chair, chin on his arms, watching him the way he sometimes does — careful, like he's reading something.
"I'm always quiet," Taehyung says.
"You're always talking," Jungkook says. "There's a difference."
Taehyung hands him a mug. "Deep."
Jungkook wraps both hands around it and doesn't look away. "Did I do something?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Jungkook."
"I just—" He stops. Sets the mug down. Picks it back up. "You get this look sometimes. Like you know something I don't."
Taehyung looks at him. I do, he thinks. I know that at 2:58am you have very strong opinions about the color blue. I know that you said stay on January 8th when you were not awake to mean it and I rearranged my entire morning around it.
"You're imagining things," Taehyung says, and turns back to his coffee.
--
Jungkook finds the note in March.
It's not snooping. Taehyung's phone is just — there, on the bed, open, because Taehyung had been reading it and then gone to answer the door. Jungkook wasn't looking for anything. He was just waiting. And then the screen was in front of him and the title said jk sleeptalks and his own name was right there and.
He reads the whole thing.
He's still reading when Taehyung comes back.
Taehyung stops in the doorway. Looks at Jungkook. Looks at his phone. Does the math.
"Jungkook—"
"Nice kneecaps," Jungkook says, voice strange. He's not looking up. "Nice kneecaps, hyung, what does that even—"
"I don't know, you said it, not me."
"Don't let the fish be sad—" Jungkook looks up now. His ears are red. "We don't have a fish."
"I know," Taehyung says. "I noted that."
Jungkook stares at him. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Since November."
"November." He looks back at the phone. Scrolls. Stops. "Stay," he reads, and his voice does something complicated. "January 8th."
Taehyung doesn't say anything.
"Did I—" Jungkook clears his throat. "Did I actually say that?"
"At 1:30 in the morning. You were mostly asleep."
"And you—" He stops. Swallows. "You stayed."
"I rearranged my whole morning," Taehyung says, which he's never told anyone, which he maybe didn't mean to say out loud right now.
Jungkook is quiet for a long time. Long enough that Taehyung starts composing an apology in his head, something about privacy and overstepping and he knows it's strange, he knows—
"I didn't know I said things," Jungkook says finally. "When I sleep."
"You do."
"What kind of things?"
Taehyung gestures vaguely at the phone.
"Other things," Jungkook says. "That you didn't write down."
Taehyung pauses. "Sometimes it's just sounds. Or half-words. Nothing I could transcribe."
Jungkook nods slowly. He sets the phone down, face-up on the blanket between them. He's looking at it like it's evidence of something. Like he's trying to figure out what it proves.
"You're not mad?" Taehyung asks.
"No." A pause. "Why would I be mad?"
"I don't know. Privacy. It's a bit—"
"Hyung." Jungkook finally looks at him properly. His ears are still red, but his eyes are steady in that way they get when he's decided something. "I said stay and you stayed. And you didn't tell me. You just — did it."
"Yes."
"Because I asked."
"You were asleep."
"But you still—" Jungkook stops. Rubs the back of his neck. Looks away. "I don't know how to say things," he says, to somewhere near the window. "Like. The big things. I know I don't. I kind of go—" He makes a gesture like static. "In my head. And then I say something stupid or I make a joke and the moment's gone."
"I know," Taehyung says softly.
"The fish thing is probably about Tamagotchis," Jungkook says. "I used to have one."
"That tracks."
"The kneecaps thing I can't explain."
"I've made peace with it."
Jungkook laughs, small and quick. Then he goes quiet again, and this time it's a different kind of quiet — the kind that means he's working up to something.
"The last entry," he says. "February 2nd."
Taehyung waits.
"You're so—" Jungkook recites from memory. Then he stops, same as the entry. But this time, he keeps going. "You're so easy to be around. I don't have to translate myself." A pause. "I meant to say that. When I was awake. I just." He shrugs. "Didn't."
The room is very quiet.
"There," Jungkook says. "I said it."
Taehyung looks at him for a long moment. Then he reaches out and takes Jungkook's hand from his lap and holds it, and Jungkook lets him, and neither of them says anything else for a while.
Later, Taehyung will add one more entry:
Mar 11. 7:02pm. "you're so easy to be around. I don't have to translate myself." (he was awake this time.) (I think that's the whole story, actually.)
--
They don't talk about it again that night.
Not because it's awkward — it isn't, somehow — but because some things settle better in silence, like sediment in water. Taehyung has always known this. Jungkook is learning it.
They order food. Jungkook steals Taehyung's spring rolls without asking, which he always does, and Taehyung lets him, which he always does, and at some point they're back on the couch with the TV on and Jungkook's legs are across Taehyung's lap and it's just — normal. Easy. The way it has been for a while now, if Taehyung is honest, the way it's been since somewhere around January 8th.
"Hyung," Jungkook says, during a commercial.
"Mm."
"The kneecaps thing." A pause. "I think I know where it came from."
Taehyung mutes the TV. This feels important.
"We were at Yoongi-hyung's thing," Jungkook says, very seriously, staring at the ceiling. "And you were sitting on the floor and your jeans were kind of — I don't know, rolled up. And your kneecaps were just." He waves a hand. "There."
"My kneecaps were there," Taehyung repeats.
"They're very symmetrical."
"Jungkook."
"I'm just saying." He's going red again. "It made an impression. Apparently even my subconscious—"
"I'm putting this in the journal."
"Please don't."
"Kneecaps: origin story confirmed," Taehyung says solemnly, reaching for his phone.
Jungkook lunges across the couch and grabs it first, holding it above his head with the kind of grip that reminds Taehyung, occasionally, that his boyfriend can deadlift a significant amount of weight. "You have enough material."
"I really don't think I do."
"Hyung."
"Give me my phone."
"Say you won't write the kneecap thing."
"I'm absolutely going to write the kneecap thing."
Jungkook looks at him. Taehyung looks back. This is, Taehyung thinks, what people mean when they talk about being happy — not the big moments, not the ones you frame, but this. A Tuesday. Spring rolls. A boy holding your phone hostage over something genuinely stupid.
"Fine," Jungkook says, and hands it back.
Taehyung writes it immediately.
Mar 11. 8:44pm. kneecap origin story: yoongi's thing, floor, jeans rolled up. "they're very symmetrical." I'm going to think about this forever.
Jungkook reads it over his shoulder and makes a sound like a dying animal.
--
He falls asleep before midnight.
Taehyung watches it happen the way he always does — helplessly, a little reverently — the slow surrender of Jungkook's body against the cushions, the way the small crease between his brows smooths out when he goes under. Awake, Jungkook holds himself with a kind of coiled readiness, always slightly braced, the way people are when they've spent a long time being the youngest and having to prove it doesn't mean anything. Asleep, all of that goes quiet. He looks younger. Softer. Like the version of himself he's only recently started letting Taehyung see on purpose.
Taehyung turns the TV off. Gets a blanket. Does the thing where he tries to cover Jungkook without waking him, which never fully works—
"Mm," Jungkook says, not awake, pulling the blanket up.
"Sorry," Taehyung says quietly.
"'s fine," Jungkook says, to no one.
Taehyung sits on the other end of the couch with his book and reads three pages and retains none of it.
It's almost 1am when it happens.
He's half-asleep himself by then, book face-down on his chest, the lamp on low. Jungkook hasn't moved except to turn slightly toward him, one hand stretched across the middle cushion, fingers loose.
And then, into the quiet of the apartment, soft and unhesitating and completely unprompted:
"Love you."
Taehyung stops breathing.
Jungkook's chest rises and falls. Rises and falls. He doesn't say anything else. His fingers stay open on the middle cushion, reaching nowhere, reaching everywhere.
Taehyung sits very still for a long time.
Then he picks up his phone.
Mar 12. 12:58am. "love you." (no context. unprompted. just — said it. like it was the easiest thing.) (it probably is, for him. when he's not in his own way.)
He sets the phone down. Looks at Jungkook. The lamp light catches the curve of his cheek, the line of his jaw, the hand still stretched across the cushion.
Taehyung reaches out and puts his hand over Jungkook's.
I know, he thinks. I know, I know, I know.
He'll say it back in the morning. Out loud. On purpose.
He's been practicing.
--
Jungkook wakes up to Taehyung making breakfast and the specific smell of slightly burnt toast that means Taehyung is thinking about something else while cooking.
"You're going to set off the smoke alarm," Jungkook says from the doorway, voice still rough.
"I'm not."
"You did it last time."
"That was a one-time—"
The smoke alarm goes off.
Jungkook leans against the doorframe and watches Taehyung frantically wave a dish towel at the ceiling, and he's laughing before he can stop it, the kind that comes from somewhere low and unguarded, and Taehyung spins around with the dish towel still in his hand and points at him—
"Not a word."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was thinking," Jungkook says, crossing the kitchen, "that you're kind of a disaster."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment."
"I know." Taehyung sets the dish towel down. Turns to face him properly. There's something in his expression that Jungkook recognizes from last night, from the couch, from the journal — that look like he knows something, like he's been sitting with it.
"What?" Jungkook asks.
"Nothing." A pause. "You talked in your sleep again."
Jungkook groans. "What did I say."
Taehyung looks at him for a moment. Then, very simply, like it's the easiest thing:
"I love you too."
The kitchen is quiet except for the tick of the cooling pan.
Jungkook stares at him. His ears go red in approximately three seconds. His mouth opens and closes once.
"I said—" He stops. Swallows. "I said it."
"At 12:58am. You were completely asleep."
"And you—"
"Practiced all morning," Taehyung says. "Said it back on purpose. Intentionally. With my whole chest."
Jungkook stands there in Taehyung's kitchen in yesterday's clothes and looks at him — this person who has been quietly collecting him, piece by piece, for months, who stayed on January 8th without being asked while he was awake, who wrote down kneecaps: origin story confirmed with complete sincerity — and feels something in his chest go very still and very full at the same time.
"You're so weird," Jungkook says.
"You're asleep when you're bravest," Taehyung says. "I'm just returning the favor."
Jungkook crosses the remaining distance between them and hides his face in Taehyung's shoulder, and Taehyung puts both arms around him, and they stand like that in the smoky kitchen for a while, saying nothing, saying everything.
Later, Taehyung will make one final entry:
Mar 12. 8:31am. told him. awake, on purpose, with my whole chest. he hid his face. his ears were very red. I think we're going to be okay. (I think we've been okay for a while.)
--
fin.<3 do follow me on twitter @tkxaurora