Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

jungkook holds his hand as they navigate through the busy train station. takes it after some idiot apparently has to barrel right through the narrow space between them, almost knocking them both over. and then keeps holding it.

“that’s my brother,” yoongi mumbles, nodding towards the silver kia on the parking lot and the man smoking at its side. jungkook doesn’t let go. in fact, he squeezes a little bit tighter, like an act of rebellion, and yoongi feels so fucking fond and absolutely devastated all at once.

the realization creeps up on him: it’s started, the game, the pretend, and yoongi doesn’t even have time to inhale.

junki gives a subtle quirk of his eyebrows at their intertwined hands, and that’s it. that’s essentially what yoongi was expecting of him. his brother is not vocally supportive of him, but he’s not the worst there is, and yoongi’s never asked him to stand up for him when things get flammable at family functions. and just like the rest of yoongi’s family members - they are not very close.

it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he stabbed yoongi with a screwdriver once. that actually brought them closer momentarily.

junki flicks his cigarette to the ground - a habit he’s had since eighteen - greets them with a nod that might seem cold and distant but is really just characteristic for him. he gets into the driver’s seat and pops the trunk for their luggage.

“he doesn’t look like you much,” jungkook observes in a low murmur behind the car, “or you don’t look like him, i suppose.”

“i don’t look like any of my family members,” yoongi mumbles, numb fingers snagging on his mask, “i don’t have any evidence but i’m pretty sure my parents just found me under some bridge.”

they both scoot onto the backseat because the front seat is occupied by a poinsettia. yoongi lets his head fall back against the headrest, feeling something akin to motion sickness. jungkook’s hand sneaks out to touch yoongi’s beside his thigh, thumb caressing the side of his index finger gingerly. yoongi casts a glance at him; jungkook blinks pretty eyes behind the glasses, mouths, are you okay?

yoongi nods, and squeezes his fingers.

junki doesn’t talk until halfway there, which is when he adjusts the rearview mirror, eyes lingering on it before focusing back on the road. says:

“jungkook, was it?”

jungkook perks up a little bit. yoongi finds himself following the interaction with a degree of caution, even though he knows junki is not the one to be cautious about.

“jeon jungkook, yes,” jungkook confirms. “and you’re the one who stabbed my boyfriend with a screwdriver in the past?”

um. what goes on here.

the word boyfriend rolls off jungkook’s tongue so easily. too easily. it sounds so natural yoongi’s in pain. he also wasn’t expecting jungkook to be so blunt with his brother right off the bat, to attempt to joke with him. and junki - he’s silent for a befuddled beat, and then he laughs, which makes everything even weirder. just once, just a short hoarse exhale type of thing, but it’s still more than yoongi was expecting.

jungkook looks pleased. he gives yoongi a determined little thumbs up. yoongi shakes his head, but thinks he’s smiling.

he realizes, all at once, that he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. he looks at jungkook looking out the window, looking at the same sceneries yoongi used to see daily growing up, and feels like he’s been thrown into some alternate reality.

/

“what the fuck is that,” yoongi whispers frantically, seizing jungkook’s arm behind the open trunk as they unload.

“it’s just a bottle of wine,” jungkook replies defensively, “i felt bad about not bringing a gift?”

“you’re not supposed to make them like you.”

“do you really think a bottle of wine is going to be the game-changer that makes them go, oh, i think it’s alright that our son is dating a man?” immediately after saying this, jungkook’s mouth snaps shut and his eyes widen. “i’m so sorry, that was really insensitive, obviously i wish it would go like that, that they would learn not to be dicks -”

yoongi lets out a tired, husky laugh.

“it’s okay. i know you didn’t mean it like that.” i know you. he knows jungkook is not an insensitive person. he knows he is sometimes polite and considerate to a fault. he knows how much he cares; for and about things and people, and while he’s not exactly a people-pleaser, it doesn’t sit well with him to have someone hate him, especially when he’s done nothing to deserve it. which is one of the reasons yoongi didn’t want to bring him here. but it’s useless to dwell on that now, because this is happening. yoongi drums fingers against the trunk lid and eyes the seasonal red wine jungkook pulled out of his backpack. “you do have a point. bringing them a gift will be like dizzy punching an opponent at best.”

“are you talking about pokemon?” jungkook blinks. “are you talking about when your attack confuses the opponent?”

“what if i am,” yoongi says and closes the trunk. jungkook shakes his head.

“you nerd.”

“that’s rich coming from someone who immediately got my pokemon reference.”

a series of shrill barks cuts through the air as junki goes ahead and opens the front door, the poinsettia tucked under his arm. by the car, yoongi stares at the doorway until it looks less like the doorway to the house he grew up in and more like the mouth of hell.

jungkook moves close. his hand slips into yoongi’s so smoothly it’s like wind against his palm.

“oh my, is that - is that a five-dollar bottle of wine,” he says into yoongi’s ear, keeping his voice hushed, “now that i think about it, maybe it’s not so bad that my son is into dudes. headlines read, jeon jungkook ends homophobia.”

yoongi screws his eyes shut, mouth stretching into inaudible laughter.

“why does my mother sound like kermit,” he wheezes.

“i was doing your father,” jungkook quips, and a millisecond later realizes what he just said. “oh my god. oh. oh no. please forget about that. i was not doing your father. i did not say that. stop laughing.”

yoongi straightens up from where he had doubled over, the back of his free hand still pressed to his mouth to cover up his laugh, a habit persisting from the time he was the most insecure about his smile. he glances over at jungkook, who’s watching him, looking like he’s proud of himself for making yoongi laugh. yoongi tugs his bottom lip into his mouth, gives his hand a squeeze, and it means thank you.

“let’s go,” he whispers, and the anxiety that momentarily dissipated is already seeping back in through his pores.

“i don’t have to try to make them hate me, right?” jungkook mumbles as they near the porch, cold fingers threaded. “like, there’s no need to go the extra mile, right? they’re going to hate me anyway.”

yeah, the plan’s changed, now, the plan’s been obliterated to hell. because jungkook is not some random guy from craigslist here for the free food. jungkook is not someone yoongi’s going to shake hands and part ways with at the end of this. jungkook is everything yoongi told himself he’d never bring to this house simply because yoongi gives a shit about him. jungkook is his someone and he wants his parents to like his someone but is not naive enough to believe that is going to happen.

yoongi’s fear of losing jungkook and the subsequent urge to turn around and lead him away by the hand are currently threatening to override the need to upset his parents by living life and being in a happy committed relationship, and he’s sure it’s going to change many times over during their stay here.

“they don’t hate you,” yoongi tells him, “they just hate the fact that you exist.”

“fantastic.”

yoongi’s mother knew about jungkook two weeks prior, which is generally the unofficial deadline to let her know about plus-ones.

(that was a fun phone call. it went like this:

“i’m bringing someone with me to dinner.”

“oh. you’re bringing… your…”

“my partner.”

“your partner… is a…”

“a guy. i’m bringing my boyfriend.”

a prolonged pause, a pause yoongi knows all too well, knows the nuances of this particular type of silence. it’s terribly loud for a lack of sound.

“i’m just not sure that’s a good idea.”

“you’ve been waiting for me to bring someone home for the past three years. so i’m finally bringing someone.”

“yoongi.”

“mom.”

“is it even… how long have you been together?”

“for six months. it’s serious. and i didn’t realize there were all these requirements we had to meet.”

“yoongi -”

“you never asked hyung that question when he brought his girlfriend.”

“your grandparents and your aunt will be there.”

“and?”

“why do you have to act out? are you trying to make some kind of a point?”

“i’m trying to bring the person i love home with me.”)

yoongi was in fact trying to make a point but that point was that he shouldn’t have to be making a point. his mother failed to come up with a way to tell him not to bring jungkook without saying because he’s a man and so here they are. in the mouth of hell and jungkook is handing her the wine with a deep polite bow while she looks exactly like an opponent after a dizzy punch.

“i’m jeon jungkook. thank you for allowing me into your home,” jungkook says.

“how long will you be staying?” his mother says. directed at yoongi, not jungkook, like he isn’t even there. yoongi already feels his blood boiling, and it’s just not good. it’s so not good. it’s barely been five minutes.

“you can leave your stuff in my room,” yoongi mumbles to jungkook, tugs him along. leads him up the stairs, realizes at the top he’s holding onto his wrist maybe a bit hard, and lets go.

his old bedroom is the second door on the left. he clicks the lights on, quickly scans the room; it hasn’t changed since he last visited here four months ago. in place of the desk he took with him to college, there’s his father’s old work desk that clashes with the rest of the furniture. boxes of random garbage shoved under the bed. but other than that, it’s pretty much the same it was ten years ago.

he hears the door hitting the frame behind him, not quite closing, and jungkook setting down his backpack, laptop bag, and camera bag.

“damn.” yoongi turns to him. he’s looking around, a pure, genuine grin on his face, his eyes quite literally shining. it’s such a good thing to see right then. it’s like seeing the sun come out from behind a wall of clouds. “this is where a tiny yoongi lived? tinier?”

yoongi half-heartedly kicks him in the ankle.

“as you can see,” he gestures at the walls, “michael jordan. epik high. nas. music and basketball and that’s pretty much it. it’s not very interesting.”

his old keyboard rests on the far left wall, still and lifeless like some old forgotten relic. he was going to sell it and buy a better one, but then he went away to college and got lucky with several part-time jobs, and didn’t need to in order to afford it. now he sort of wishes he had. sold it or given it away. it looks sad, all alone and unused.

jungkook gravitates to it, presses down on a dusty key. not plugged in, it doesn’t make a sound.

“it’s interesting to me.” he says it like he means it. not looking at yoongi, but down at the keys where his own slender fingers ghost. yoongi watches his profile, the delicate lashes against his cheeks, the slightly upturned curve of his mouth, until he has to look away.

looks out of the window instead, the greyish noon, the view that was always sort of dull. he never even had a tall tree underneath his window that he could’ve climbed down to sneak out of his room and he’s frankly offended by that. not that he ever did much sneaking out anyway, it’s just the sort of thing he saw a lot in american family movies.

he goes to sit down on the edge of the bed. it’s a double. his brain plays the dora the explorer theme song.

“so that was my mother,” he says, raising a thumb to his lips and nibbling at a hangnail. jungkook turns to him. “that was min yeongmi. her sudden blind spot is unfortunate yet unsurprising. i’d say she’s going to be acting like that the entire time we’re here. like you don’t exist. that’s most likely how the rest of my family’s going to deal with it, too. makes it easier for them. i’m -”

“i want to make one thing clear.” jungkook crosses the room in decisive strides. he sits down next to yoongi, sits so close that when the mattress tips their thighs touch. gently, he touches his fingers to yoongi’s wrist, doesn’t even apply that much pressure, but it’s enough for yoongi to realize another habit resurfaced. he drops his hand. “you don’t have to apologize on behalf of your family. it’s not your fault. i wanted to come. because i wanted to be there for you. i knew what i was getting myself into.” makes one of us, yoongi thinks. jungkook looks determined. “if they refuse to see, we’ll just make it difficult for them to ignore us.”

the statement rings so ominous to yoongi, but he says nothing. it would be weird to say something. this was the name of the game all along, after all.

the blood in his veins is prickly. it’s needles. he fixes his eyes down on jungkook’s hands in his lap. still feels like apologizing, but if jungkook won’t let him apologize for his family, he’ll apologize for gripping him too hard in the stairs. he brushes his fingertips against jungkook’s wrist.

“sorry,” he says quietly, “didn’t mean to be rough.”

“huh? wha- oh.” jungkook huffs out a short laugh. “i didn’t think you were being rough. i barely felt it, really. i don’t think you could hurt me if you tried.”

he means it as a joke and yoongi is trying his hardest to think of it as one. he nudges jungkook’s shoulder.

“what about that time i knocked you over on the basketball court and you got that huge ass bruise on your hip?”

jungkook looks offended.

“i knocked myself over. because i chose to do that. and that bruise was a completely unrelated incident. definitely sex-related. yup, it came from having sex too vigorously and not from getting ankle-broken on the court and then running into a pole and then tripping over a shoelace.”

“that was such a good day for me,” yoongi muses.

“ugh,” jungkook says, and gently shoves yoongi off the bed. yoongi is perfectly fine with going down. he rasps out a laugh, and rolls onto his back on the carpet, knees bent and arms spread. stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about how the patterns in the wood always looked like a galaxy - with stars and spaceships and planets with names he’s long since forgotten - or like eyes watching him, depending on how he was feeling.

he hears jungkook slide off the bed. his knee presses against the side of yoongi’s thigh as he settles cross-legged on the floor.

“your brother didn’t seem so bad,” he starts softly.

“did you forget he stabbed me in the stomach?” yoongi asks the dozens of eyes staring down at him. jungkook huffs out a laugh.

“right. i’m sorry. do you want me to take revenge for you? is that my duty now, as your boyfriend?”

yoongi closes his eyes. the ones on the ceiling follow him into the dark like they’ve been burned into the backs of his eyelids.

“i take my own revenge. don’t need a boyfriend for that.”

“i thought so.”

“he isn’t so bad,” yoongi agrees, pressing his thigh against jungkook’s sharp knee more firmly as if to anchor himself, as if it’s a port in the dark, a safehouse, somewhere the eyes can’t reach him. “we’re just not close. when i came out… and long before that, i started feeling so alienated. and it’s like… when there are already walls up… it’s not enough that you’re not actively building them. you have to make an effort to tear them down.” he slits his eyes open, blinks slowly against light, and gives a glance up at jungkook at his side. “in other words. i needed someone to tell me it’s okay to be who i am. to just… show some kindness. and no one here ever did that. so that’s why we’re not close.”

jungkook looks like he’s deep in thought. his fingers are moving languidly and ceaselessly against and through each other in his lap. yoongi sits up step by step; elbow elbow palm palm his spine off the floor vertebra by vertebra until his chest meets his knees. he reaches out slow and careful as if he were trying not to frighten a wild rabbit, and tugs at a strand of dark hair.

“what goes on in here,” he murmurs. “penny for your thoughts and all that.”

“my thoughts,” jungkook repeats. he licks his lips and looks at yoongi. “honestly, i was thinking that i’m sorry. but i know you don’t want to hear that. you don’t want people to be sorry for you… so i won’t be. instead of that… i’m just happy i know you now. i’m happy we both knew namjoon-hyung. i’m happy i walked into that coffee shop when you were working. i’m happy we have a sort of shitty apartment in a pretty okay neighborhood. i’m happy things are mostly alright. those are my thoughts.”

yoongi, randomly, thinks that this is one of those moments he will remember always or at least for a long time.

how it was noon and they were sitting on the floor of his childhood bedroom. the way their bodies were touching and how it felt to be close. the dust on jungkook’s glasses and the soft peach on his lips. everything he said and everything he was trying to say and everything he trusted yoongi to hear between the lines. how it felt like they were too big for this room but there was also an inexplicable sense of belonging; maybe because they were together. maybe something like home is where the...

it’s a strange feeling and difficult to explain. but everything looks so sharp and clear for a moment.

“those are good thoughts,” yoongi says quietly. jungkook smiles with his eyes and gets a little bit pink around his cheekbones. every once in a while the urge to kiss him on the mouth or on the nose or just somewhere on his face gets almost uncontrollable. this is one of those times.

luckily the barks they heard before echo somewhere downstairs again, and yoongi gets the excuse to get up, put space between them.

“okay,” he says, “let me introduce you to my favorite family member.”

/

holly is the main reason he visits home more than once a year, to be honest. he loves the damn dog. they’ve had him since he was a grade schooler, and holly was just a tiny puppy, literally looked like one of those robotic toy dogs. it was hard leaving him here when he went away, but technically holly is his parents’, and he wouldn’t like seoul, anyway, wouldn’t like to be left alone for hours on end. he would probably pee on their succulents and eat jungkook’s post-it notes in retaliation and yoongi just doesn’t see it working out.

he nudges the dining room double doors open, and holly perks up underneath the table, greets them with a sharp bark.

“hollyyyyy,” he goes in a high-pitched voice he only uses for holly, slides to his knees on the carpet as holly pads to him, short tail wagging. holly paws at his thighs and yoongi sinks his hands into the soft curly brown fur, feels his heart filling up with happy joyous things for the first time since arriving here.

“holy shit,” he hears jungkook go in a sort of soft tone that makes it sound like he’s witnessing something wondrous.

“this is min holly,” yoongi introduces, laughs and tips his face up as holly attempts to lick it. “you may recognize him from pictures. holly, this is jungkook, whose pictures i have not shown you because that would be sort of weird.”

“first of all - you don’t look at my pictures with holly? that’s just insulting.” jungkook squats beside yoongi. reaches out a hand, and holly sniffs all over it, rapidly losing interest in yoongi. “second of all, of course i recognize him. how could i not. you show me his pictures once a week.” jungkook glances up to grin at him, then back down at the toy poodle who’s enthusiastically nosing at his palm. “hello. hi, sir, did you know you’re sort of a legend where i live? yes, i’ve heard so much about you. big fan of your work. thank you for making these visits better for him. i’m really - oh, no, i don’t have anything to feed you - so sorry - oh, okay.”

jungkook tips back on his heels, butt colliding with the floor as holly bounces at him, clambers into his lap. he laughs, that high-pitched happy giggle that has you smiling with him before you even realize. he’s got his hands full of dog but yoongi’s the one who feels breathless, feels as though his heart’s been punched out of his chest.

he laughs soundlessly when holly licks jungkook’s jaw and jungkook screws up his face. after a minute of watching their pseudo-wrestling, he takes out his phone. the pair is moving too much and all the pictures turn out blurry - but he rather likes them like that. they seem more real that way. this really happened, we were there, and we were happy.

“he likes you,” yoongi murmurs. watches on his phone screen as jungkook looks up at the camera. for just a couple of seconds, holly is still, too, and that’s just enough time for yoongi to capture the greatest photo taken since the invention of cameras.

he lowers the phone into his lap and stares at the picture, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. it’s such a good picture. jungkook is, in a word, beautiful. holly is looking up at him like he’s in love with him, too. oh, come on. he wonders whether it would count as some form of masochism if he were to set it as his background.

“honestly, i probably just smell like the sandwich i ate on the train,” jungkook guides him out of his thoughts.

“nah.” yoongi turns off the screen. “holly’s a good judge of character. he likes kind people.”

“pets take after their owners, huh?” jungkook’s smiling in a way that makes his dimple come out. holly’s tired of both of them, waddling out of jungkook’s lap and curling up by the table leg, continuing his nap like nothing happened. jungkook starts laughing. “he’s just like you, hyung.”

“what’s that supposed to mean,” yoongi gapes.

“i’ve seen you fall asleep in seconds,” jungkook grins, bending down to lean his elbows on the carpet, phone aimed at the sleeping dog that apparently reminds him of yoongi. “you even sleep the same way. curled up on your side with your limbs all sticking out like that. oh my god.”

jungkook is wheezing. yoongi’s face is warming up. he jabs jungkook between the ribs.

“stop watching me sleep, you creep.”

“we live together.” jungkook rolls his eyes. “if you don’t want me watching you sleep, then stop falling asleep in the shared living space where i have no choice but to see you sleep.”

“i don’t -”

“the couch. the armchairs. both of them. the kitchen table. the kitchen floor, once. one time i found you sleeping in the tub.”

“i had to pee in the middle of the night. i was too tired to go back to my room.”

“you amaze me,” jungkook tells him, and it’s one of those occasions where yoongi can’t tell whether it’s a compliment or not.

“thanks,” he says anyway. while jungkook is still preoccupied with holly, thumbing at the soft pads of his paws and smiling unnecessarily fondly, yoongi quietly gets up, and unceremoniously slips across the room. in the very back of it, a large window, covered by heavy curtains cascading down in bountiful heaps; and a brown piano, resting by the wall underneath an ink wash landscape.

yoongi greets it by brushing his fingers along the closed lid. ever since he moved out, its main purpose has been a decorative piece and a podium for the flowers on top of it. lilies, today. he finds that this, at least, makes it less sad than the keyboard in his room. at least it has some kind of a life.

he wedges his fingertips under the lid, reveals the worn ivory keys. he can faintly hear jungkook moving behind him as he draws the stool, sits down. he runs his fingers over the keys without pressing down, then plays a short tentative melody just off the top of his head. his fingers settle right into it. it’s never unfamiliar coming back to this, no matter how long he’s been gone.

“is this your first piano?” jungkook asks softly. leans a shoulder against the wall next to the piano, the wine red curtain almost swallowing him. he looks at the piano or maybe at yoongi’s hands, and looks soft in ways yoongi can’t comprehend. yoongi nods.

“it was my grandma’s. i never knew her, but… i guess my mom thought it would be nice if i took up a hobby. she never knew i’d end up pursuing a career in music. she didn’t know i’d love it. it was supposed to be a fun little talent to show off to relatives.” yoongi smiles up at him, just one side of his mouth.

“how wrong she was,” jungkook murmurs, and pushes off the curtain. yoongi swallows, fingers returning to the keys, and plays again.

showing him the piano feels, and is, in many ways, more personal than showing him his bedroom. there’s a loaded, stormy history. it was the beginning of his love for music and it was the end of it, for a while. it’s been a lot more than that. a friend and an enemy and something complicated in between, and ultimately, it’s a piece of his heart. ultimately, it’s his first love as much as jungkook is his last.

jungkook circles around the stool and carefully sits down on the very edge. yoongi makes room and tries not to hyperfixate on jungkook’s body pressed against him thigh to shoulder. he’s used to feeling like he’s slightly on fire whenever jungkook is close.

“can you believe my fingers barely reached the keys when i first started playing,” yoongi murmurs. the improvised melody he plays is slow and sleepy, a simple progression of chords, his fingers gentle and caring on the keys in a way they haven’t always been. the piano is just slightly out of tune. it sounds a little bit haunting.

for the first time in his life, jungkook refrains from making a height joke. he just sits close and watches yoongi play. then he reaches up, and yoongi’s heart trips, inexplicably. out of nowhere, he thinks: he would handle your heart with care. he watches, breath suspended in his lungs, as jungkook touches the keys the way he would touch yoongi’s heart.

he is touching a piece of it.

and yoongi knows - he knows, okay, that it’s just a metaphor; he knows he couldn’t possibly feel it because jungkook is only touching the piano. not his actual heart. but he feels something. when jungkook’s fingers find a chord in the low notes and press down gently like a kiss, yoongi feels something travel through him. feels it intensely, feels it resonate beneath his sternum long after jungkook has let it go. almost like he did reach inside yoongi’s chest just now and tug.

jungkook is so gentle. watching his pretty hands move on the keys - with some kind of tenderness and consideration he’s never had for yoongi’s keyboard at their place or the practice room pianos at college - like he knows he’s handling something that’s so precious to yoongi.

he would handle your heart with care; yes, yoongi knows, he already does it, every day. a part of yoongi’s heart, that part which holds the one secret he keeps, that part where the screwdriver is keeping in a flood; that part may be hidden away from him, but the rest of it. wherever jungkook can reach, whatever he touches, he leaves a little bit better. kinder, gentler, a little more whole. that’s just what jungkook does to him.

three of the most important loves of his life are in the same room together for the first and maybe for the last time.

well. holly has fucked off. but for a minute, there. there was enough love in this room to drown worlds.

/

yoongi shows him the rest of the house. tugs him away from the piano sort of quickly, feeling like he needs to be moving, like he needs to not be sitting all pressed up against jungkook while jungkook splays careful fingers all over the figurative piece of his heart.

it’s a big, old house. his relatives wouldn’t get here until tomorrow, his father is at work, and his mother is certainly as far away from them as she can get inside these walls. yoongi almost feels like he can still hear the dissonant ends of the haunting piano chords echo somewhere in the back of the house; and it does feel like walking through a ghost house, a little bit.

jungkook has sharpshooter vision for everything remotely embarrassing. he cackles at yoongi’s awkward high school photo hanging in the hall and snaps a picture with his phone while yoongi considers the power move of mailing out physical copies to all their friends before jungkook has the chance to blackmail him.

they find holly again in the living room, curled up in an armchair. he doesn’t react to them, but his tiny tail wags against the cushions when jungkook speaks. yoongi thinks he might like the sound of his voice, if that’s a thing.

“hyung.” when yoongi turns to him, jungkook is standing by that mandatory group of shelves where parents collect all the physical evidence that their kids are better than some other kids at some stuff. instead of the high school basketball tournament trophies or the piano recital awards or whatever jungkook is holding a small plaque. it has a gold star on it and it says most responsible.

“i was a diligent second-grader,” yoongi says, “be careful with that. it’s my greatest achievement to date.”

“oh my god,” jungkook mumbles, staring down at the plaque in awe. “tell me about elementary school yoongi, hyung.”

yoongi folds his arms and leans a shoulder against the edge of the shelf.

“elementary school yoongi snitched on park shiwoo and oh daehyun when they lied about going to the nurse’s office to ditch class.”

jungkook gives a toothy grin that crinkles his eyes.

“i think we would’ve hated each other back then.”

“probably,” yoongi smiles.

his mother sees them in the hall. she’s watching from the kitchen doorway, phone held to her ear, mouth making words yoongi can’t hear. jungkook’s fingers graze against his palm. yoongi allows them to slide into the spaces between his own. jungkook holds on tight. his words, we’ll make it difficult for them to ignore us, ring through yoongi’s mind over and over and over like an emergency broadcast.

just for a second, his mother looks almost angry. then she fades back into the kitchen. yoongi feels significantly less at peace than a moment ago.

there’s only subtle christmas decor everywhere. fairy lights on the windows facing the street and toned-down tablecloths fitting the traditional christmas color scheme. it’s very pristine and proper. very normal. carefully put-together shop window display. not just the decor but the people dining here on the twenty-first. his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. yoongi and his bisexuality, yoongi and his boyfriend don’t really fit the kind of image they’re going for, here.

it’s a shame, really. that he can’t stand his own childhood home. that it’s become such a symbol for hatred and intolerance. the longer he stays still, the more unwelcome he feels.

“do you want to go out?” he asks jungkook as soon as they are back at his bedroom. “i’ll show you around. we can go downtown and grab a bite.”

“yes! yes, i’d love to.” jungkook smooths his hands down his hips. “i’ll just change first?”

after reminding jungkook where the bathroom is, yoongi gets changed, too, digs a red and blue plaid and a pair of black jeans out of his duffel bag. he leaves the mask tucked under his chin, shoves his recently bleached hair into a blue beanie. then he checks his message count as he waits for jungkook. it seems to be hobi (3), namjoon (47), taehyung (8). miscellaneous texts from friends and acquaintances like suran, a vocal performance major whose demo project yoongi helped with a while back, telling him she’ll buy him drinks as a thanks after christmas break.

he opens namjoon’s chat to see what the fuck is going on with him. the first few messages are wishing him good luck today in long, thoughtful paragraphs. the rest is harder to figure out with the narrative all over the place but yoongi’s pretty sure he’s got a date with taehyung today.

taehyung seems to be handling it better with only eight (8) messages. or so yoongi thinks up until opening the chat.

taehyung [10:15]
yoo brobin hood good luck today!!! this couldve been us but u playin </3 i hope it goes well. if it doesnt i’ll be faking my own death and fleeing the country under a fake identity out of shame and fear for my life since i orchestrated this <3 keep me updated existential garden table meltdown buddy. D BOYS GOT EACH OTHERS BACKS!!!! DAEGU STREETS 4EVA XXX

taehyung [12:03]
what does it mean when someoen says “i would like to take u out on a date” ? asking for a friend

taehyung [12:24]
after consulting 5 different people and one (1) lizard . turns out it means they want to take u out on a date

taehyung [12:25]
NAMJOOJ WANTS TO TAKE ME OUT ON A  DATE (???????!!!!!!!?????!!???!!?)

taehyung [12:25]
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

taehyung [12:27]
HE RLLY ASKED ME OUT HE ASKED ME TO GO TO THE ART MUSEUM WITH HIM YOONGI IM LOSING IT KIM NAMJON WANTS TO TAKEME OUT ON A ROMANTICAL DATE ON THIS DAY AM I IN A DREAM RN IM GOING TO KILL MY BASTARD BRIAN DEAD IF THIS IS A DREAM

taehyung [12:28]
*BRAIN
I DONT HAVE A BASTARD NAMED BRIAN

taehyung [12:28]
DO I BRING MY LIZARD Y/N?

yoongi [2:49]
no lizard jesus

his phone buzzes with an incoming video call from taehyung ten seconds later.

“oh, god,” yoongi mutters, scooching back on the bed to sit up against the wall, and takes the call.

“before you say anything,” taehyung says, “i know you’re like, totally preoccupied with your own stuff and i’m so sorry for stealing a moment of your time when you’re with your fake boyfriend and your homophobic parents, but i just needed you to clarify whether you meant that i shouldn’t bring my lizard or that you don’t believe in the conspiracy theory that states various influential figures, including jesus, were lizard people sent here by reptilian overlords to control us.”

“i’m gonna go ahead and say both,” yoongi says, frowning, “but mostly the first one. don’t bring your lizard to the art museum date, they will not let you in. you look stressed, are you okay?”

taehyung seems to be pacing one of the rooms of his hunger games arena apartment. his hair looks wild.

“i’m like reeeeally freaking out.” he lets out an entirely unsettling nervous laugh that has yoongi’s eyebrows slowly lifting towards his hairline. “i wasn’t expecting him to ask me - how does one go on a date? i just - i’m blanking. what do you do on a date? should i hire a mariachi band? is that too much? should i bring him roses? marigolds? ostriches? wait, are ostriches birds? they sound like a flower. are you sure i shouldn’t bring my lizard? he likes my lizard. oh, but auguste has like, no manners at all. he would only embarrass me. oh, my god.”

“slow down,” yoongi says cautiously, “just - breathe. i thought namjoon was stressing out, holy shit.”

“he’s stressing out?” taehyung asks uncertainly.

“please,” yoongi quirks a dark eyebrow. “namjoon’s stressed out, like, most of the time. the only times he’s relaxed are when he’s smoking with hoseok or when he’s walked for five hours straight and gotten himself lost in some undiscovered nook of a national park. he’s on a first name basis with most of the park rangers. that’s how many times they’ve had to save him. anyway. he’s the most disastrous person i know and you don’t need to be nervous, honestly.”

“okay,” taehyung mumbles, mostly to himself, “okay. should i bring this skull?”

“should you bring a what?” yoongi asks politely before taehyung lifts a full-sized human skull into view. “holy fuck. jesus god.”

“i think it’s a prop for a production of hamlet,” taehyung muses.

“why would you bring - actually, you know what, i think namjoon might be into that.”

there’s a sharp rap of knuckles against wood - jungkook pushes the door open, enters the room, pointing at the phone in yoongi’s hand.

“is that taehyung?”

“is that jungkook?” taehyung’s craning his neck on the screen like that would actually help him see. jungkook hops to yoongi’s bed and crawls up to him. he - looks even better, or maybe just as good, in a different way. he’s switched back to contact lenses, changed the oversized hoodie into a yellow sweatshirt - it’s secretly one of yoongi’s favorite things he wears, yellow looks good on him. he just - he looks really good and yoongi tears his eyes away and just angles the phone so that jungkook can fit into the frame.

he looks at them, in the tiny box in the corner of the screen, instead of taehyung. them pressed so close, shoulder to shoulder.

“hey, tae,” jungkook greets, “that’s a cool skull.”

“thanks,” taehyung says, “it’s probably not real.”

“i hate your apartment,” yoongi tells him calmly, “i really do.”

“what’s up, tae?” jungkook asks. “you were supposed to… come to daegu, right? with yoongi? but you couldn’t because you were busy?”

“oh, i am,” taehyung assures, “i’ve got a hot date! jungkook, jk, my man. do you have any tips to give me? i’m highkey freaking out here. if you know how to impress namjoon, now’s a good time to tell me.”

yoongi is really, genuinely grateful. that taehyung’s shifting from topic to topic so seamlessly. not drawing attention to the fact that he suddenly pulled out of the plan and how suspicious that actually is. how suspicious it is that yoongi didn’t ask jungkook first. yoongi really thinks he got lucky on that murder balcony. that he found a good friend. that namjoon found something good, too.

“you guys are going on a date? that’s cool.” jungkook’s fingers play with the hem of yoongi’s plaid, his hand rested against yoongi’s thigh so casually. yoongi stares down at it while the two of them talk, trying to will his heart to calm down and stop aching. he only snaps out of it when taehyung asks:

“did yoongi fall asleep?”

he lifts his face and glares at taehyung lazily. jungkook snickers.

“i was telling yoongi-hyung how his dog is just like him. especially when he sleeps.”

“that’s so cute,” taehyung coos, “send pictures, please. of the dog. and i’ve never seen yoongi sleep, so i’m gonna need pictures of that, too, to be able to make comparisons.”

“this is getting weird,” yoongi says, “this was weird from the start but somehow it’s getting weirder. we have to go.”

“where are you guys going? also a date?”

“it’s not - um.” jungkook’s knuckles shift against yoongi’s thigh. yoongi watches him lick his lips on the screen, and looks away, at the pattern of the grey bedspread, listens to jungkook explain it’s not a date, yoongi’s just going to show him around.

“mm-hm,” taehyung says. when yoongi looks up, he has the unsettling feeling like taehyung’s looking directly at him.

“yup, just going to chill out for a bit before literal hell breaks loose tomorrow,” yoongi says, “have fun on your date. it’s going to be fine. just be yourself. i know it sounds like garbage advice, but that’s literally what namjoon likes you for. not your lizard or your… suspicious skull of dubious origin. just… bring yourself.”

“that was nice of you,” jungkook tells him after the call has ended. “you guys… have become close pretty fast, huh?”

yoongi shrugs minutely.

“i think that’s… how you become friends with taehyung, you know?” jungkook hums. yoongi inches off the bed, smooths down his shirt even though it doesn’t really need smoothing down. “and i guess we... relate to each other in certain ways.”

jungkook doesn’t ask which ways, thankfully.

“anyway. that was nice of you. to be so supportive.”

“i’m nice.”

“i know,” jungkook says.

/

taehyung [3:41]
the way u looked at him when he entered the room. how does he not know
i could SEE ur heart go doki doki like it showed on ur face

taehyung [3:43]
i was gonna comment that u guys rly look like boyfriends

taehyung [3:44]
like...u seem so comfortable and natural with each other
u look good together

taehyung [3:46]
shit idk bro just...good luck? i rly RLY hope it all goes well
and that. well. youll be happy
both of u

/

jungkook takes his camera with him. carries it around his neck but somehow looks less like a tourist and more like a photography major as he photographs yoongi against the bus window.

“why are you wearing the mask?” jungkook complains airily. “wanna have your face in the pictures.”

“i’m not gonna take off the mask.” yoongi closes his eyelids and tips his head back against the headrest. hears the shutter click again.

“why not?”

“because i’m shy.”

“i was thinking it’s because you’re too famous in your hometown. people wouldn’t leave you alone. they’d come to you with printouts of your soundcloud page asking you to sign them.”

“oh my god,” yoongi laughs raspily into the mask.

“am i right?” he can hear jungkook’s grin.

“yeah, you’re right. can’t help that i’m sort of a superstar around here.” he cracks his eyes open and glances at jungkook next to him. “why are you photographing me, anyway? shouldn’t you be focusing on daegu?”

strangely, jungkook just smiles and shrugs, shifts through the pictures on the monitor. yoongi doesn’t actually mind being photographed by him. jungkook has the ability to make him look good.

they get off the bus downtown, and yoongi grimaces at the abundance of people. seoul is crowded, too, every day of the year, but christmas is different. the people are busier, stressed out, which also makes them ruder. he clings to jungkook’s jacket sleeve unconsciously, tugs the mask up his face.

“why’s everyone running,” jungkook frowns, “it’s like, chill, it’s christmas.”

“i have things to say about the societal pressure surrounding holidays that are losing their core meaning which is to spend time with your loved ones doing things you like,” yoongi mumbles.

“i bet you do,” jungkook laughs softly. “and i bet you’re going to tell me a few times during these next couple of days. that street looks nice.” he points at a less packed street, lined with street lamps connected by strings of light. it does look nice. looks kind of romantic. “can we go there?”

it’s not a date, not even a fake one, and yoongi’s not going to let himself slip into a pretense. he needs a clear separation between reality and make-believe, needs boundaries. he stuffs his hands into his pockets to avoid doing something stupid like trying to hold jungkook’s hand.

they both did their christmas shopping back in seoul - yoongi bought jungkook the perfume he likes already a month ago - and so they just walk. jungkook stops to take pictures sometimes, of pretty shop windows, christmas lights, yoongi, still, even with all of this around him. yoongi maps out the city in his head, draws a route, circles the places he wants to show jungkook.

“ah.” yoongi whips his head around at the soft sound. jungkook’s stopped in front of a window, fingertips touching the glass. yoongi backs up until he’s at jungkook’s side. it’s a tattoo parlour. currently closed but lights on in the window. yoongi looks at the artistically arranged display, the pieces of colorful and monochrome art. there’s one that catches his eye: a deer, antlers so massive they take up over half the page, wild flowers growing out of the bone.

he pulls the mask down to his chin, and looks at jungkook.

“are you thinking of getting a tattoo?”

jungkook nods absently.

“i want something pretty,” he says, “so i’ve been trying to draw something pretty. i like their style. i like that there’s a contrast.”

“contrast?”

“look at the deer,” jungkook says. “it’s pretty… it’s beautiful, but it looks dangerous. the antlers are massive and strong and literally deadly. and then you’ve got… these beautiful delicate flowers, and all this color. it’s powerful and still pretty. strong despite being soft.”

“like you, then.” jungkook turns to him. yoongi licks his lips. “your style, i mean.”

jungkook catches his bottom lip between his teeth. the lights look alive in his eyes.

“i can show you the sketches later.” he looks almost nervous saying this. “i really want to know what you think of them.”

“of course,” yoongi breathes, and watches jungkook even after he turns back to the window.

“and i like the idea of flowers blooming in places they’re not supposed to,” he says, tilting his head. “if those flowers fall off… if he gets into a stag fight or whatever. i think they’ll grow back. it’s resilience. something like that.”

“i can see flowers on you,” yoongi tells him more quietly. he always did sort of assume jungkook would get flowers in some shape or form, whenever he decided to get his first non-meme tattoo. he likes them, draws them a lot, brought petunias home once but they didn’t get enough sunlight. now they only have succulents and the flowers jungkook draws on post-it notes with scented markers. and when he puts it like that. now yoongi really thinks they’d suit him.

jungkook parts his lips, and for a moment yoongi thinks he’s going to say something; but he only inhales, touches his fingers to yoongi’s wrist.

“i’m starving. can you take us to an affordable place that is not terrible?”

yoongi takes them to a nice family-owned place, sort of off the beaten path, away from the busy center, and cosy and quiet because of that. the owner knows him because he usually comes here whenever he visits, and yoongi chats for a moment as they get seated, orders what he usually has for both of them, while jungkook laughs quietly behind his hand about yoongi being a local superstar.

“when you are a famous producer, though,” jungkook grins, “this place will blow up. because the min yoongi used to frequent here. he could’ve stood right there! touched that wall! he could’ve licked this table!”

“do you think i lick tables. be honest,” yoongi says, the laugh he’s holding back paining him, and jungkook takes a picture of the tabletop. then he turns the camera to yoongi across from him.

“i can’t believe i’m here with min yoongi.”

yoongi tries to damp down the gummy smile and does a shitty job. he turns his head, embarrassed, hears the shutter click.

“are you done?” he looks at jungkook from the corner of his eye. jungkook lowers the camera half out of his face. he’s softly flushed, or maybe it’s the lights. his lips are strawberry red, or maybe it’s the tinted lip balm.

“sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. it’s just.” jungkook looks so very pretty here under these lights. yoongi’s bringing him to all of his favorite places in daegu and he’s thinking, distantly, that maybe that’s a mistake. maybe these places will never feel the same again. he thinks he would hate to come here. afterwards, if he fucks it up, if everything changes. “i just really like it when you smile like that. without hiding it… it makes me happy.”

he’s never said it quite like that before. he looks embarrassed by his own honesty, quickly fiddling with the buttons on the camera and changing the subject to food. yoongi is at least twice as red, his insides turning into molten lava.

/

“can i ask you something?”

they are making their way back slowly after wandering for hours. yoongi took him to all the beautiful spots he could think of so that jungkook could take nice photographs. took him to the arcade that’s changed completely since he was a kid, and jungkook beat him at every game they tried except for ddr, at which they both sucked so bad they just agreed it was a draw. they shared cotton candy and walked back through the park all lit up with colorful lights and yoongi didn’t hold his hand.

they got off the bus early to walk the rest of the way, because yoongi wanted to show him the riverside and the bridge he crossed all the time as a kid. it’s pretty, the way the water reflects the blue and red and green lights of the bridge, and jungkook takes a picture after picture while yoongi waits, hands burrowed into his pockets, and watches the concentration on his face.

“since when do you ask for permission?” he says mildly.

“i’m serious. if you don’t want to talk about it, we’ll just drop it.” it’s probably about his family, then.

“shoot.”

jungkook lets the camera hang against his chest, and they start crossing the long bridge.

“is there… or was there… anyone in your family… your extended family, i guess, who you were close to? anyone who showed you support, you know, when you came out?”

there are lots of couples here. people walking hand in hand. clinging arm to waist and arm to shoulders by the railing. taking corny couple selfies. they look happy and in love.

christmas has never really been about love for yoongi. up until he was old enough to understand the romantic kind of love, it was obviously about presents. and when he started to understand the romantic kind of love, he also understood that he is very much not straight.

the first time he had a crush on a boy was in middle school. he kept his mouth shut, but started to pay attention to the way his family treats these kinds of topics, the way they talk about the very group of people he belongs to. he concluded that they, well, don’t. they ignore and ignore until someone forces a comment out of them. then it’s something on a scale of ignorant to hateful. then it’s fine as long as it’s happening somewhere else.

it took him a few more years to come out to them. he didn’t want to admit it, but yeah, he’d been hoping, expecting even, that they’d reevaluate now that it’s not happening somewhere else anymore. that just seems like the thing to do. well, that didn’t happen. it’s been five years, but he’ll never forget how they looked like he’d just slapped them in the face and personally insulted them. will never forget how his mother said, this is not something you need to bring into this house. do not tell anyone else in this family. that was it. that’s still it. five years is a lot of time to learn and come around. it’s also a lot of time to grow roots into your own willful blindness and convince yourself you’re not hurting anyone.

it was a dizzy punch, yoongi supposes, the rejection and its aftereffects: it was confusing, and then it hurt, and then it made him angry. he did keep quiet about it, for a while, and then he did everything in his power to not keep quiet about it. he met some good people in college. namjoon and hoseok. kihyun, with whom he had an ambiguous thing for a few months, who’s still a friend. jungkook, later on. to this day, yoongi’s not sure they understand just how much they all mean to him and how crucial it was that they came into his life when they did, in their increasingly bizarre ways.

anyway. he doesn’t feel loved in that house. so it’s never been about love, for him.

he almost says no one, but finds himself reluctant to do so. it feels too hopeless, right now.

“my uncle,” he answers, “you know, the one who drove me to the hospital after i got stabbed with a screwdriver? he would’ve. i think. he was a lot more open-minded than the majority of my family. that’s how i remember him, at least.”

“was,” jungkook whispers. yoongi nods.

“yeah. he passed away when i was sixteen.” there’s an icy breeze that makes his eyes sting. “before i was out. so i never got to tell him, and it’s all just guessing, but i would like to think so. that… he would’ve been supportive.” he curls his hands inside his pockets, gives a glance at jungkook. “i don’t know. i might just be optimistic. you never know. in my experience, you never know. the people who are supposed to love you no matter what don’t always do that. sometimes their love turns out to be a lot more conditional than you thought.”

“hyung.” jungkook’s hand on his elbow pulls him to a stop. they stand there, for a moment, the glimmering water in his peripheral on his left, people flowing past on his right, jungkook right in front of him. maybe it’s the way jungkook looks at him that catches him by surprise, maybe it’s the way he brings a hand up to yoongi’s face. his eyes close reflexively as jungkook’s thumb brushes against the corner of his eye.

“i’m not crying,” he says, slowly opening his eyes. “it’s the wind making my eyes water.”

“i know,” jungkook says. “hey… hyung.”

“hey,” yoongi says, the corners of his mouth tugging up the slightest.

“hello.” jungkook smiles, with his eyes, first, then his mouth. he’s beautiful, yoongi always thinks this, but sometimes, like right now, he thinks it loudly. “i’ve been having some thoughts about family.”

“what are your thoughts?”

“that family is something you choose.” his fingers are playing with the piercing on yoongi’s earlobe, now. it’s such an intimate gesture. yoongi feels just a little bit off-kilter, not fully grounded. slowly, his fingers reach out and seek jungkook’s waist, tentatively cling to the hem of his jacket. “that you surround yourself with people you love and who love you and that’s your family, right there.”

yoongi hums. his eyes closed without him even noticing.

“those are good thoughts.”

“thank you. as you can see, i have them sometimes.”

“and you've had two today. this is historic. how do you want to celebrate?”

“do you want me to dunk you into the river?” jungkook inquires deliberately. a gummy grin spreads on yoongi’s face, and he laughs, deep in his throat, barely making a sound. opens his eyes, and - for a split second only, there’s something very intense about the way jungkook is looking at him.

something undecipherable yoongi doesn’t think he’s seen before - knows he hasn’t, he’d remember for the way it sets his heart off into a frantic race. but then jungkook blinks, and it’s gone, just like that, in a split second, and yoongi has no idea whether he imagined it or not.

“maybe with a picture,” jungkook says with a tentative note, “take a picture with me, hyung?”

yoongi throws up an exaggerated gang sign in the first one. hyung, jungkook whines, be serious. in the second one, jungkook has his arm around yoongi’s shoulders and yoongi is trying hard not to think about the couples taking pictures on this bridge and how taehyung said they look good together.

/

yoongi’s father is back from work by the time they return. min sungsoo is at least polite enough to acknowledge there’s a person there taking up space as jungkook is introduced three times in three different ways.

“jeon jungkook,” jungkook says.

“yoongi’s friend,” yoongi’s mother says.

“my boyfriend,” yoongi says.

it gets uncomfortable fast after that, his mother shifting on her feet and looking displeased with her mouth pressed into a thin line, his father not knowing where to look, the frown on his face deepening by the second.

as opposed to earlier today, yoongi feels unbothered. takes jungkook’s hand and leads him down the hall. even makes a bit of a show out of running his hand down his back and cupping his hip in the stairs.

“you can put your hand in my back pocket, you know,” jungkook whispers, “is that too much?”

it is too much. for reasons slightly different than jungkook thinks.

“maybe some other time,” yoongi mumbles, stutters only a little bit, and is very proud of himself.

they shower, jungkook first, and yoongi sends how did the date go to both namjoon and taehyung. neither of them reply, which is suspicious, and probably means the date is still going. it’s over ten p.m., and yoongi thinks there’s a good possibility they ended up at someone’s apartment. good for them. hoseok seems to be doing just fine, too. his earlier messages included a disturbing closeup of his elbow and lol that was supposed to go to seokjin.

jungkook enters the room in an oversized white t-shirt and frog-pattern pajama bottoms yoongi got him last christmas, that he usually wears to sleep when he’s merciful enough to wear more clothing than just his briefs. his hair fluffy and tousled and smelling like mangoes.

“smells good,” yoongi comments, clambering off the bed, and holds out his hands. “borrow?”

“get your own,” jungkook whines, but tosses him the shower gel anyway. yoongi catches it easily. this is not that different. from their everyday life back in seoul. the only thing that’s different is that they are in yoongi’s childhood home, in his childhood bedroom. about to share his bed.

that’s nothing new, either. they’ve shared beds. mostly yoongi’s. jungkook’s, a couple of times, and namjoon’s, once, when they were drunk at his party and trying to build a fort on his bedroom floor but neither of them could remember how so they just fell asleep on his bed stripped of all blankets and pillows. in the morning, jungkook puked into the failed fort on the floor. it was great, and an excellent representation of how things were going for yoongi.

jungkook likes sleeping with people, literally sleeping with them. and yoongi does say people instead of yoongi even though he’s only ever witnessed jungkook sleep with him, because assuming he’s somehow special feels like wishful thinking. (yoongi prefers sleeping alone, except for when it’s jungkook. sometimes it’s hard to fall asleep when he’s so close. sometimes it comes easier than falling asleep alone.)

so they’ve shared beds. it’s nothing new. it’s fine.

“dora, dora, dora the explorer,” yoongi sings under his breath in the shower.

when he returns to the bedroom half an hour later, in a similar t-shirt/pajama bottoms combo and feeling sort of like his remaining energy got sucked into the drain with the hot water, jungkook’s lying on the bed on his stomach on top of the covers, texting. he looks up when yoongi closes the door, locks it after a moment’s consideration.

“mom might do something weird,” he sighs, “like come check on us every few hours to make sure we’re leaving room for jesus at all times.”

jungkook snorts, sits cross-legged as yoongi puts his things away.

“i texted namjoon-hyung about the date,” he says behind yoongi, “but he hasn’t replied.”

“yeah, they’re definitely not leaving room for jesus tonight,” yoongi stifles a yawn into the back of his hand. “they’re probably having strange poetic sex right now.”

“that sounds… nice?”

“yeah. i’m happy for them.” yoongi shakes out his towel-dry blonde hair. behind him, jungkook shifts against the sheets.

“i was also texting jimin. he’s in busan right now, did you know? that he’s also from there.”

“now i do.” it’s unwarranted, and so fucking stupid. feeling anything akin to jealousy whenever jungkook mentions jimin. he’s so fucking mad at himself for feeling even mildly upset, because - he doesn’t have a right to. it’s not like it’s a problem he can’t deal with, it’s not like it’s manifesting in any type of way, it’s just - he’d really like to stop feeling bummed about it already.

if and when jungkook ends up dating someone - maybe named park jimin, maybe not, maybe someone with an eight-pack, maybe not - he wants to be able to say, hey, i’m happy for you, and 1. mean it, 2. not cry. like, that’s where the bar is at, currently. he’s got one of those down, at least, he would be happy if jungkook was happy.

still, his mind wanders and he feels like a terrible person for having this human emotion. he zips up his bag and thinks, you have so much in common, huh.

“he wished us good luck, and told me to tell you that if someone needs to be punched, just give him a call.”

“he’s volunteering to get punched?”

jungkook snickers.

“sure. he also said it was nice meeting you at the party and he’s sorry you didn’t get to hang out properly because he really liked you. another time?”

yoongi gets up, shuffles to the bed where jungkook is looking up at him, his expectant eyes as big as the ones on the frogs on his pants.

“yeah,” yoongi says quietly, “jimin seemed nice, too.”

it’s not a lie. he never thought jimin wasn’t nice. he’s clearly nice and pretty and jacked and what else is there to say about that, really. he should just ask. asking would be fine. do you like him like that? but he’s not sure he’d be asking for the right reasons, and, he just can’t. not right now. this trip is already so much.

jungkook smiles up at him, happy and pretty and yoongi feels a terrible twinge, like someone twisting the screwdriver. he taps at jungkook’s knee.

“get off. hyung needs sleep.” he draws the covers, and immediately rolls to the wall side. face half-buried into a pillow, mumbles, “and don’t you dare send taehyung pictures of me sleeping.”

maybe this would be easy, after all. maybe he’s tired enough to just go to sleep without thinking about anything. he has his eyes closed, but hears jungkook exhale out of his nose a couple of times in quick succession in a semblance of a laugh.

“should i get the lights?”

“mm.” hears feet, and the click of a light switch. the black of his eyelids gets a shade darker. hears jungkook tiptoeing to the bed, hears hands feeling the sheets. hears his own loud heart thudding like a hollow drum, and knows it’s his imagination but it feels like the mattress is resonating from the power of it. “oh.” he blinks his eyes open. the room is not as dark as he thought it would be. jungkook is a human-shape hovering at the edge of the bed. “you were supposed to show me your tattoo ideas.”

“now? you want to see them now?” jungkook sounds surprised. “aren’t you tired?”

“i demand to see art.”

“okay, then,” jungkook laughs breathlessly. “if you want. i’ll show you. i have pictures on my phone.”

“wanna see what’s going to be on your body for the rest of your life,” yoongi drawls with a sleepy edge. jungkook’s human-shape disappears momentarily as he fishes his phone off the floor. then he’s back, crawling into bed, flopping onto his back. yoongi watches his face in the blue light as he adjusts the brightness, watches the spidery shadows of his lashes and his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“here.” he offers yoongi the phone. yoongi turns onto his back as well, holds the device above his face.

it’s - flowers, yes. lots of them, in different colors, shapes, and sizes. bloomed and unbloomed. they are growing out of a ribcage. a part of a ribcage, anyway, the bottom of the right side. it’s very beautiful, but it’s beautiful in some violent, unforgiving way. it’s just how jungkook described it in front of the tattoo parlour; a contrast of things. it’s like: a soft explosion, something good out of bad, pain as a part of growing.

“it looks better on paper,” jungkook mumbles as yoongi zooms in and out meticulously to see all the details.

“flowers blooming in places they’re not supposed to,” he murmurs. jungkook hums, low and velvety. “this would be… here, on these ribs?”

“yeah. here.” jungkook shows not on himself, but on yoongi. brushes his fingers against his side, tracing the last few ribs over his shirt. his thumb runs over yoongi’s scar, purposely or unintentionally. yoongi breathes in. turns his head just enough to see jungkook, lying on his side.

“where my scar is?”

“yes,” jungkook whispers. doesn’t say whether there’s a correlation. his fingers don’t cease their slow feather-like movement. a shiver runs through yoongi, hopefully not obvious in the dark. he glides his tongue across his bottom lip.

“these flowers.” he angles the screen, zoomed in on one of the purple and white flowers that dominate the arrangement. “petunias, right?”

jungkook’s smile looks eerie in the glow of the screen.

“the ones that met their tragic end in our apartment. i thought maybe they’d have a better chance on my ribs.”

“i like it,” yoongi tells him quietly, “it’s beautiful. gonna look good on you.” that doesn’t actually mean all that much, because even the fucking frog somehow looks good on him. or maybe it’s more like… the part of his body on which the frog resides makes it look good. he gives the phone back, and jungkook sets it on the edge of the bed. “it’s going to go well with the unicycling frog.”

“yeah.” yoongi can’t see him well enough, but doesn’t have to in order to tell what his smile looks like. “it’s a nature theme. consistency is key.”

yoongi feels slightly on fire, alive, wants jungkook’s fingers back on him. he lies on his side, says:

“tell me about all the tattoos you want.”

jungkook is close, and then he’s closer. they are chest to chest but not quite touching. dim moonlight plays on the curve of his shoulder, the edge of his hair. the dark is a trap, yoongi knows, the dark offers a false sense of security, tends to make us brave. in the dark, yoongi’s eyes trace the details of his face and he feels like it’s okay, like it’s not giving anything away.

“here,” jungkook murmurs. his palm gently closes around yoongi’s shoulder. “half a sleeve, maybe… i want a piece of sky.” he trails his fingers down yoongi’s bicep, so light it tickles. “i want constellations… falling down my arm.” his fingers catch on the edge of yoongi’s sleeve. a fingertip dips underneath, just barely, and caresses the skin above his elbow so carefully it hurts. yoongi, closing his eyes, turns his face slightly into the pillow. “i want song lyrics. haven’t quite decided which ones. but i want it to be about love. the eternal kind. i also want the sea... to remind me of home. not just busan, but more like the idea of it.”

jungkook’s fingers ghost up, up, circle around his shoulder to get to his nape. yoongi curls into him, their knees knocking together under the blanket. listens to jungkook drag in a breath, fingers splayed against the back of his neck, and if yoongi was more awake he’d consider how this is in a way more intimate than any sex he’s ever had and whether that says more about his sexual relationships or what is happening here.

“maybe a moon, here,” jungkook whispers. his voice and the soft drag of his fingers on yoongi’s nape are soporific. “ink would look good on you. would you consider getting a tattoo?”

“depends,” yoongi mumbles, “on what you’d draw for me.”

he doesn’t remember reaching out but his hand is tangled in jungkook’s shirt front. there’s a rhythmic thrum of a heartbeat he can just barely feel. jungkook’s breathing against his hairline. jungkook’s arm looped around him and fingers playing with his hair so gently it’s almost like he’s trying to do it secretly.

“anything you want,” jungkook whispers, and yoongi can’t remember what he’s replying to.

“don’t,” he manages, “don’t say that.”

“why? why not?”

yoongi only shakes his head, or something like that; there’s a chance it’s more like him nuzzling at jungkook’s neck than anything else. then he falls asleep.

/

“- and then the alarms were going off everywhere. it was like something out of a heist movie. we told them it was an accident and they were cool about it but they still made us leave. we tried to make shawarma at my place and after the fire department had left we had a picnic on the roof. we locked ourselves out and i had to call hobi to come let us in.”

“i literally can’t tell,” yoongi says, perched on the top stair on the porch, “whether your date was good or horrible. it sounds like a fucking nightmare. but you sound happy about it so it’s throwing me off.”

“oh, it was perfect,” namjoon says on the phone. he’s clearly smiling. “it was the most fun i’ve ever had. being with him is so… natural. i don’t believe in the idea of needing another person to complete you, but maybe it’s more like… puzzle pieces? i know it’s early… but i feel like we click. it’s mutual, i think. hope. well, he asked me to spend new year’s with him, so.”

“that’s really great.” yoongi rests his chin atop his knee. holly pads back and forth at the bottom of the stairs, and pees into a barren rose bush. pale noon sun shines but doesn’t warm. the jacket he shrugged on in the hallway is jungkook’s. yoongi picks idly at the sleeve that comes up past his knuckles. “i’m glad you’re doing well.”

“what about you?” namjoon asks. “how are you doing?”

there are so many ways he could answer the question how are you doing, and none of them would be comprehensive or final.

(pop quiz: how are you doing?

a) this morning i woke up all pressed up against his chest and i pretended to be asleep for a moment longer simply because i felt nice and warm and safe. he was already awake and playing with my hair so gently and i wondered how long he’d been doing that. i want to wake up like that always. the patterns on my ceiling looked like a galaxy. i was happy.

b) my mother called him my friend again on the phone with my aunt and i could see a kind of fire in his eyes. it was terrifying and i think i keep falling more in love with him. he stood close in the kitchen and kissed my ear when my mother could see. i feel like a slow-motion explosion.

c) my relatives are arriving here tonight and i realized he’s the one who’s still set on playing this game while i’m having second thoughts. because i want to protect him from the people here, the way they are going to look at us, the things they are going to say. it’s stupid. i know he doesn’t need or want my protection. i can’t help it, though. i want only good things for him.

d) he wouldn’t kiss me without asking. but i think he might ask. if things keep accelerating like this. and i think i might say yes.

e) holly is digging a hole in the garden. he’s got snow and dirt stuck on his nose. he looks stupid. love that stupid dog.)

“fine,” he says.

“it sounded like you had several internal monologues during the silence just now,” namjoon remarks. “do you want to share?”

“it’s a mess.” yoongi rolls his chapped bottom lip between his teeth. “my head. everything. so i really don’t know how i’m doing. okay, i guess, considering?”

“is jungkook with you, right now?”

“no. he’s talking to his mom upstairs.”

“hyung,” namjoon says, and yoongi doesn’t like his tone. “why won’t you just tell him?”

yoongi squeezes his hand into a fist around jungkook’s jacket sleeve, and stares at the splintered wood of the bottom stair.

“you know why. it’s going to change everything. it’s going to make things weird, and i can’t stand things being weird. not with him. whenever i…” he lowers his forehead into his knees. “whenever i consider telling him, i see the look he would have on his face, and how he would second-guess our entire history - think back to every interaction and wonder how he’s been hurting me. he would start reconsidering every move, trying to be careful, and it would get awkward, and then... “

“hyung, you can’t know any of that is going to happen.”

“i can’t risk it, namjoon. i can’t -” holly bounces up the stairs, barking sharply and clawing at the door. yoongi swallows the rest of his sentence, and rises to his feet. “i gotta go. i’ll talk to you later.”

he lets holly and himself in, puts jungkook’s jacket back. jungkook’s probably done with his phone call by now, but before he can head for the stairs, his mother calls to him in the kitchen.

“help me with these dishes, please,” she says, and shoves a casserole at his chest. he hands her various pots and pans and she stuffs them into the fridge that looks like it was past its limit about seven items ago. after huffing about the food and other irrelevant things for a while, she says, offhandedly as if it hadn’t been her point the whole time: “i think it’s better if you just introduce jungkook as your friend tonight and keep the nature of your relationship to yourself.”

she can’t even look at yoongi when she says it. yoongi saw it coming from miles away, and watches her impassively.

“why,” he says flatly; daring her to fucking say it to his face.

“you know why, yoongi,” she says tightly, “and i would appreciate it if you kept in mind there are other people in this house. i can’t tell you what to do in your own room, but i hope you will keep inappropriate behavior out of the spaces shared by everyone.”

yoongi’s jaw actually drops a little bit.

“when did we behave inappropriately,” he demands, “when he held my hand? when he kissed my ear for half a second? how is that more inappropriate than hyung making out with his girlfriend where everyone could see them?”

“enough, yoongi,” she bites, “all i’m asking is that you, for one night, act like a…”

“like what,” yoongi says quietly. “a normal person?”

his mother says nothing. yoongi sets the last dish down on the counter, hard, and leaves. it’s difficult to pinpoint what he’s feeling, because it’s all so… tired. the hurt and the anger are dull and muddy instead of sharp and clear because he’s used to it.

jungkook is not in the bedroom. his laptop sits on the bed, his camera next to it; on the screen, dozens of small rectangles - his photos from yesterday.

yoongi’s not sure whether he’s supposed to look at them; but they are sort of right there in his face. he sits down on the edge of the bed, and just carefully scrolls down the page. they are good photos, as far as he can tell, but he already knew jungkook is a talented photographer. it’s a timeline of their downtown adventure, starting from when he was taking yoongi’s pictures on the bus.

yoongi is in a lot of them. which makes sense since he was the only other person there, but he now sees that jungkook also photographed him when he didn’t notice. not in a creepy sort of way, just - when yoongi thought he was only capturing the scenery, he also included yoongi in the frame. as if to make sure - he’ll remember yoongi was there with him.

his attention is caught by a photo taken in the restaurant, and his finger glides on the touchpad, opens it up. yoongi, smiling the kind of smile that used to make him self-conscious, that still does, sometimes, looking away from the camera, looking - so happy it takes him by surprise, sort of. he hasn’t often seen himself look that happy, and it’s… strange to look at, strange to think -

that this is how jungkook sees him. this, and all of these photos, is yoongi through jungkook’s eyes.

he remembers how jungkook told him, i just really like it when you smile like that. and he kind of feels like he did when jungkook made him chicken soup.

“ah, hey.” he snaps his head up. jungkook walks in, eyes flitting between yoongi and the laptop.

“sorry,” yoongi mutters, “they were right there so i… looked.”

“it’s okay, you can look.” jungkook climbs the bed, sits with his knees pointed at yoongi, legs splayed on one side underneath him. fingers fiddling in his lap, he nods slightly at the laptop behind yoongi. “i like that one.”

there’s a gentle, almost shy smile on his face.

there’s such a contrast between how the person downstairs makes him feel, and how the person up here makes him feel. (loved.)

yoongi lets the weight in his chest tip him sideways, his head landing on jungkook’s thigh. jungkook exhales softly. carefully, he slides his fingers into yoongi’s hair like he’s testing waters. when yoongi sighs, he gets surer, gently scratching fingernails against his scalp.

“are you okay?” he asks softly. yoongi swallows. after a beat,

“yeah. just sort of wish this day was over already.” he reaches up, thumbs at jungkook’s denim-clad knee, draws shapeless patterns.

“gonna be fine,” jungkook murmurs. brushes a fingertip against the skin behind the shell of his ear. yoongi closes his eyes.

“hey. tonight at dinner. stay close, yeah?”

“of course.”

“maybe hold my hand.”

“mm-hm.” he’s smiling.

“and if none of my relatives has spontaneously combusted or fleed the house in terror yet, maybe kiss my cheek. or something equally outrageous and disgusting.”

“kiss your cheek,” jungkook repeats quietly, “or something. i can do that.”

yoongi feels like maybe he can do this, too.

/

“taehyung,” yoongi whispers, clutching the phone to his ear with both hands, “i can’t do this, i’m freaking out. i’m dying. i need an existential garden table meltdown round two. help me.”

“why are you whispering?” for some reason taehyung is also whispering. “where are you?”

“i’m in a closet,” yoongi says.

“i thought the whole point here was to be out of the closet?”

“no, i’m in a literal, physical closet,” yoongi hisses.

it’s very dark in here. yoongi doesn’t remember this cleaning supply closet being this stuffy, either. it was a lot roomier back when he was six and playing hide-and-seek with his brother. at least that’s actual evidence he has grown in size. he stares blankly at a mop in the dark and couldn’t feel less like a winner.

“okay, tell me what happened,” taehyung says on the other end of the line.

“it was going fine.” yoongi tongues at his bottom lip. his shin hurts, probably producing a bruise, he banged it on something when he locked himself in here. “it started out fine, you know? my grandparents got here and my mother was immediately doing her everything to separate us, sending me into the kitchen to, like, wash some fucking mugs we didn’t even need - but i heard jungkook in the hall, introducing himself as my boyfriend, and they were like, what, because they can’t hear well, you know, and then he went, i’m dating your grandson, like, really loudly, and it was so fucking funny.”

taehyung whistles. “i’m impressed with him. then what happened?”

“my mom kept it up, keeping us apart - and being super fucking rude to jungkook, speaking to him disrespectfully when she chose to acknowledge him at all - and that’s sort of… what crosses the line, you know, makes me just… so fucking mad, he doesn’t deserve that. and then my aunt got here… and i just sort of went fuck it.”

all of yoongi’s aunts: pretty terrible. aunt jiyoung is not the one who gifted the stained glass candy bowl, but she’s the type to say things like marriage belongs to a man and a woman and then look very proud of herself like she just said something brave and controversial. yoongi knows because she said that two years ago at a wedding. yoongi got extremely drunk at that wedding and made out with one of the groomsmen.

“ooh, is this getting spicy? what did you do?”

“nothing like that - i held his hand and his waist and called him my boyfriend -”

“you held his hand? good lord , yoongi, take it down a notch, you’re getting too wild.”

“i’m dying in a closet, tae,” yoongi snaps. “ listen. jungkook was saying that he wants to make it difficult for them to ignore us, and i started to think he’s right, we should do that - so we’ve been close all evening, constantly touching, and the thing is - he’s so good at this, he’s too good. he’s… paying attention to all these little details. he’s doing things like playing with my earrings and touching my hair and when i got whipped cream on my mouth he just… wiped it off with his thumb.”

“did he then suck it off his thumb?”

“tae,” yoongi hisses. a beat passes. “yes. do you see why i’m freaking out? we haven’t even gotten to the dinner part yet, but i feel like i’m about to explode. i can’t go on like this.”

“so... you locked yourself into a closet to die and left him there with your family?”

“of course not. i would never do that to him. i locked myself into a closet to die when he went to the bathroom.”

“he’s probably going to be back soon, right?”

“i know, i know,” yoongi mumbles. he doesn’t want to leave jungkook alone with his family, nor does he want him to find yoongi in a closet for no reason. he needs to get it together. the idea of chugging a bottle of detergent is also tempting, though.

“hey, buddy,” taehyung says, “you’ve got this. i didn’t know i had it when namjoon asked me out - you saw how freaked out i was - but we had an amazing time.”

“i heard you almost died,” yoongi says.

“like, a bunch of times,” taehyung confirms. “but it was an incredible experience and now we’re older and wiser and banned from the art museum until next year. this being open about your feelings thing really paid off and i think you should consider taking your own advice.”

“i’ve got to go,” yoongi mumbles, “we’re going to have dinner and i’m going to be totally cool about it and when it’s over i’m going to walk outside, just walk for a couple of miles, and scream as loudly as i can. then we’ll never talk about this again and we’ll go on being friends and everything will be back to normal.”

“that’s sort of the opposite of what i told you to do, but okay,” taehyung says, “i’m sure you know exactly how unhealthy what you just said sounded so i’m not even gonna say it.”

“yeah,” yoongi says in a dead voice.

“good luck with dinner,” taehyung says, and it really sounds like the conversation is over; yoongi is about to hang up, but then taehyung says: “hey. i know it’s a mess with your homophobic family and your feelings for kook and everything all tangled up but i think you should remember that when you strip all that away, it leaves you with the barest truth which is that jungkook is there with you right now because he cares about you a truly enormous amount. me? i would’ve been there for the free food and the acting, solely.” yoongi snorts, shoulders jerking. “but he’s there for you. so lean into him… not away from him.”

“huh,” yoongi says after a couple of beats. “that was actually… yeah. thanks.”

“that was good, right? i partially ripped it from this script i’m reading.”

yoongi shakes his head minutely, a tiny smile on his lips. “yeah, it was good. talk to you later.”

he exits the cleaning supply closet, and takes a moment to breathe air that’s not filled with various chemicals. then he walks down the empty hall towards the dining room double doors wedged open. the kitchen entryway is right across from it. he can hear people in both rooms; but his ears tune in on the hushed conversation being had in the kitchen. he stops, stands still with a hand propped against the wall shared with the dining room, staying out of sight.

it’s about him. it’s not very hard to guess. there is currently only one thing they would talk about in these tones. they are talking like they are keeping in a contamination; like raising their voices even slightly would release something terrible into the world.

“- bisexual? oh, then, you have nothing to worry about,” his aunt says, almost in the exact same tone she said marriage belongs to a man and a woman. like she’s so proud to confidently say something so embarrassing. “that’s just a phase. oh, you must be so relieved. he is going to end up marrying a woman, i’m sure of it.”

“a phase,” his mother says, even lower, “i don’t know, is it? he says it’s not, and - they’ve been together for six months, that’s what he told me, don’t you think… that’s a bit…”

“oh, no, it won’t last,” his aunt scoffs, “it’s a phase, everyone says that. he just needs to meet the right woman.”

“i hope so,” his mother sighs. “this has been… so hard for me -”

“i can imagine, yes, yes,” his aunt says. “maybe you could introduce him to - some of your colleagues must have lovely daughters -”

“jesus,” yoongi whispers, shoulders hitting the wall soundlessly. eyes skimming the edge of the ceiling, he flicks his tongue in his mouth, honestly surprised by the fact that he is surprised. he should’ve known. that these kinds of conversations were taking place. he did know. but hearing it…

“hyung?” his eyes fly to jungkook down the hall, just now coming back from the bathroom. jungkook tilts his head, slightly worried.

suddenly the things he vented to taehyung about seem nonsensical - the proximity, the touching, jungkook - twenty minutes ago it felt like he couldn’t stand it, but now - he’s there for you, taehyung said, and he’s right, having anyone else here would be such a fucking bummer, he would just miss jungkook as always, he would just end up calling him anyway to tell him, so i just heard my mom and my aunt talk about...

yoongi only has to stretch out a hand. he purses his lips in a silent shh and jungkook understands, comes to him with his steps extra light and casting a wary glance towards the kitchen where the conversation is still going. yoongi’s fingers cling to the fabric of his shirt and pull gently, guiding him to stand in front of him.

jungkook listens to them say horrible ignorant things, eyes averted to the side and lips slightly jutting out in a pout the way they do when he focuses hard, his brow furrowing more and more.

“oh, fucking hell,” he mumbles.

something yoongi also knows is that there is no way in hell he’s going to be cool about it. even if he wanted to, he can’t, not now when he knows they think jungkook is just something temporary, something not even worth acknowledging, something bad that will go away once yoongi finds the right woman, whoever the fuck that is. nothing about jungkook is temporary. he’s as permanent as the scar on yoongi’s ribs and the flowers that would be on jungkook’s, or the frog tattoo on his -

that’s a terrible analogy.

why should yoongi have respect for them or their unfair double standards when they act like respecting jungkook and him and their relationship would kill them.

yoongi’s hands slide up, up jungkook’s chest, to his neck, fingers splayed against the warm skin.

“pretend you’re kissing me,” he whispers, knowing they’ll come out of the kitchen soon. partly because he doesn’t want to see them. but doesn’t want to run, either. and if they won’t give him the same rules, he’ll take them himself.

fire, there’s a kind of fire in his eyes. sometimes yoongi questions whether jungkook has really been cool about anything a day in his life.

he holds yoongi’s gaze, and leans in, so, so slowly, fingers finding purchase on yoongi’s waist. everything else feels slowed down, except for yoongi’s heart which is beating in fast-forward.

his back is pressed flat against the wall. jungkook is anything but trapping him; his body brushing against yoongi’s the way light touches you, his hands on his waist gentle like they’re holding something fragile. yoongi’s face tipped up, he keeps staring into jungkook’s eyes - until he’s staring at his fluttering eyelids and lashes fanned out against his cheeks as his eyes finally drop lower on yoongi’s face.

their noses brush, then their foreheads as jungkook angles his face. he’s breathing against yoongi’s lips, his nose pressing into yoongi’s cheek. they stay on that brink, a second away from kissing, always a second away - and it doesn’t feel like time is frozen, it feels like the opposite of that. every cell in yoongi’s body is alive, he’s waiting without meaning to.

peaches, yoongi thinks, does it really taste like peaches.

it would be so easy. he’s almost expecting jungkook to just close that last inch of distance. or to whisper the question against his lips. can i - yoongi would say yes. he won’t even pretend he wouldn’t. which is why it’s good that jungkook doesn’t do either of those things. why would he.

they are not still because you’re not still when you kiss; jungkook keeps moving against him like a river constantly flowing, nuzzling his face ever so slightly, and yoongi’s hands slide up his neck, to his face, and it’s to help the illusion but also because he would - he would hold jungkook’s face.

he distantly registers the sound of an almost comically shocked gasp, followed shortly by people speed-walking past them. the only thing he knows for sure is that jungkook’s hands still hold him like he might unravel and his pulse under yoongi’s fingers is in allegro.

when they are gone, yoongi slides his face into the nook of his neck just for a moment, breathes in his faint mango scent just for a moment. jungkook’s hands curl on his waist, slightly less gentle but still gentle.

“you okay?” jungkook whispers into his hair.

depends on what exactly you’re asking, yoongi thinks as he lifts his face. what he says is,

“let’s eat dinner.”

all those scenarios he went through in his head; this is playing out like one of the worst ones. he feels like a landmine sitting at that table, riled up from everything that just happened, and he is very aware he might go off and destroy things such as the last remaining shambles of a relationship with his family on an irredeemable scale tonight. he cares very little.

jungkook, next to him, close to him to make it easier to remind everyone they are dating every once in a while by throwing an arm over yoongi’s backrest or brushing hair off his face, is burning with some fierce, intense anger, too. yoongi can feel it, in these calculated gestures, in the heat he radiates. he has every right to be angry for himself, but knowing him - it’s probably mostly for yoongi.

he cares about you a truly enormous amount. yoongi thinks about this when he forgets himself looking at jungkook’s profile and forgets his anger and hurt just for a moment. thinks:

the arm around yoongi’s backrest is for them. but the fingers gently stroking his shoulder in such small patterns it’s not perceptible to anyone else are for yoongi.

the second he takes his eyes off jungkook and lets the rest of the world filter back in, he’s back on that frozen still lake, the ice cracking under his feet. he sees the way his mother’s jaw tightens every time they so much as lean a little too close to each other. his aunt keeps giving her those sympathetic be brave looks that make yoongi want to stab himself in the eyeball with a fork just to avoid seeing them. his father hasn’t even looked their way the entire evening, and his grandparents - well, probably still think they are very good friends.

it goes on like that until most of the food is gone. then his aunt steps on the landmine. more accurately - knowing exactly where the landmine is, knowing it’s a landmine, she thinks it’s going to be nice this time and not explode in her face when she stomps on it even though no one has given it a single reason to be nice.

she’s talking about her work in insurance sales and she says:

“i have this one client - oh, i know i’m not supposed to talk about clients, but she’s such a charming young woman, about yoongi’s age, and i just had to think of yoongi - she studies music as well, violin, and she is so very lovely, very graceful. i’m sure yoongi and her would get along great.”

yoongi’s cutlery clatters sharp and resounding against his plate as he drops it. most heads at the table turn to look.

“tell me,” he says, voice cold and clear like ice water, “are you seriously trying to hook me up with some woman while my fucking boyfriend is present?” his hands curl into fists on the table. “you have no shame.”

“you have no shame,” his mother snaps, finally, finally - “you are behaving selfishly and childishly. you know that we don’t condone… this. it breaks my heart, honestly. it’s like you’re punishing us for something. i don’t understand you. i don’t understand how you can think that this is normal.”

there goes the ice, finally. he always did wonder what it would be like, underwater. well, it’s silent. it’s silent and lonely and freeing.

“thank you,” yoongi says with a terrible emotionless calm. “thank you for being straight-forward about it for once.”

then he stands up, grabs the ugly stained glass candy bowl with both hands, and smashes it to the floor as hard as he can.

/

yoongi swings one leg out of the window in his room. it’s not the ideal place to smoke, but once he’d found the pack of french blacks he’d stolen from his brother and stored away in his nightstand approximately a million years ago, it had seemed too anticlimactic to go back downstairs. he hopes jungkook won’t mind the smoke that doesn’t make it out of the window. it doesn’t smell like regular cigarettes, anyway. it smells sweet and tastes like yogurt.

there’s the sound of knuckles against door, too soft to be anyone but jungkook. yoongi’s not sure how he’s managing to knock softly, but he is.

“come in,” he calls, perhaps unnecessarily, but in case jungkook’s waiting for a confirmation. the door opens and closes. socked feet cross the room. yoongi looks at the cigarette burning between his fingers until jungkook says:

“i’ve never seen you smoke before.”

“that’s because i don’t smoke,” yoongi mumbles, and proceeds to take a drag. he blows the smoke into the dark, into the absence of a tree to escape down, and turns to jungkook, who’s already mirroring him, straddling the other side of the windowsill. he holds out his hand. yoongi passes him the cigarette.

yoongi is not a smoker and jungkook is definitely not a smoker. he takes a tiny baby drag and frowns.

“why’s it taste sweet?”

“it’s yogurt-flavored.” yoongi takes the cigarette back. “i don’t think they make these anymore. i’m sorry i left you alone with my family.”

“you don’t need to say sorry,” jungkook says quietly, “the only people who should be sorry are downstairs. cleaning glass and candy off the floor.” he grins, just a little bit. “how did it feel? smashing that thing to bits.”

yoongi laughs once, tired but remotely genuine, probably.

“real fucking cathartic. every bit as good as i thought it would.” he draws the foot hanging above snowy ground up to the windowsill. cigarette dangling out of the window, leans his forehead against his knee. says, honestly: “i don’t want to stay here.”

there’s a faint shuffling sound as jungkook pulls himself closer.

“i know. we don’t have to. we can leave tonight. we can go home.”

yoongi lifts his head to peek at jungkook through strands of blonde hair.

“you’re supposed to go to busan after this.”

“i’m not leaving you alone,” jungkook says like it’s a given, and reaches up carefully, almost hesitantly to move a strand out of yoongi’s eyes. he did the same thing with much more conviction earlier. but that was part of the act. this is just… him. yoongi’s eyelids flutter shut at the touch and the inevitable sparks jungkook’s fingers leave in their wake. “we can go home... or you can come to busan. my mom would be happy to meet you.”

when he goes to lower his hand, yoongi grabs his wrist. jungkook’s fingers brush against his cheek. yoongi turns his face into his knee again, but keeps holding on.

“thank you.” pause. “for being here.” pause. “it’s nice not to be alone.”

“i think i made matters worse,” jungkook says softly. yoongi shakes his head.

“this is actually… good. this is what i wanted. honesty. to make them say it to my face. i feel better now. i do.”

“hyung. yoongi.” jungkook’s fingers curl under his jaw and apply just enough pressure to prompt him to look up; yoongi does. jungkook looks at him intensely, the slightest wrinkle between his brows. “the things she said were really horrible. i was so angry for you. if you hadn’t broken that bowl, i would’ve put my fist through something. i’m not sure what. so it’s really good that you broke it.” he speaks in this quiet, fierce voice. his thumb is lightly caressing yoongi’s jaw. there’s something heavy and prickly in yoongi’s stomach.

“i know you would’ve,” yoongi breathes.

is he crying? he doesn’t think so, but jungkook brushes his thumb against the corner of his eye like he is. he looks like he still wants to say something; but he doesn’t, in the end, not verbally, anyway. he leans in, closer, until his lips touch where his thumb was. yoongi’s heart beats out of tune, his eyelids drop on their own. jungkook presses another soft kiss lower to his cheekbone, and then murmurs:

“sorry. is this okay?”

his hot breath tickles yoongi’s face.

it probably is not. considering jungkook doesn’t really know what he’s doing and the extent of what he is to yoongi. considering the screwdriver in his chest is the only thing keeping yoongi from bleeding out on him and it feels dangerously loose in the wound right now.

“yes,” yoongi whispers, “it‘s nice.”

jungkook seems happy with this verdict, seems happy to kiss down the side of yoongi’s face, along his jaw; then the other side, his cheek, his brow, between his eyes. he has never… well. they have never. jungkook is physically affectionate sometimes. sometimes yoongi gets touch-starved. but he’s never drowned yoongi in kisses like this. he probably needs this, needs to show affection like this right now, as much as yoongi may need to receive it.

nice probably isn’t the right word for it; it does feel good but also like he might die.

the cigarette slipped through yoongi’s fingers at some point. he’s not holding it anymore. instead his hands are tangled in jungkook’s shirt, his leg still bent between their bodies. his pulse is turbulent and his breath catches in his throat when jungkook kisses dangerously close to the corner of his mouth. he pulls away, and when they meet eyes - there’s a moment where yoongi knows they are thinking of the same thing. that the only part of yoongi’s face still untouched by his lips is his mouth.

yoongi’s hands are fists in jungkook’s shirt collar. jungkook’s chest rises and falls, heavy. and yoongi can’t help it; he looks at jungkook like he’s telling him to finish what he started.

jungkook answers by leaning back in, and it feels like a torturously long while until his lips finally, finally touch yoongi’s. yoongi’s eyes close.

it’s just a kiss. his heart is beating out of his chest. it’s just a simple, soft press of his lips, just like the kisses he dropped everywhere else on yoongi’s face. his fists clench around the fabric of his shirt. it’s just a kiss. to finish what he started.

except that when jungkook pulls away this time, there’s a kind of intensity in his eyes and it doesn’t feel like anything’s finished. he searches yoongi’s face for something, and yoongi wants more, of course he does, he always wants more; he claws at jungkook’s shoulders, a silent plea, and something shifts on jungkook’s face. a split second later he falls forward, mouth colliding with yoongi’s a little bit harder now, a little bit clumsy as their noses bump, the angle slightly off - but it’s only awkward for so long as jungkook tilts his face, moves his lips slowly and experimentally against yoongi’s, and then they are kissing, and then it’s

jungkook’s soft lips carefully pushing and pulling at yoongi’s, moving tentatively but not uncertainly - like gentle waves rocking against shore or like benevolent flames licking at firewood, and it feels so good yoongi’s toes curl, it feels

euphoric, to know jungkook wants him, wants to kiss him like this - his heart is frantic, it’s soaring somewhere high up, it’s just a distant song to him right now - he isn’t thinking of anything, anything that isn’t jungkook, jungkook’s mouth, his tongue pressing against yoongi’s bottom lip, licking in, his hands on yoongi’s neck and waist, his body pinning yoongi to the window frame.

he kisses yoongi so good and hard, deep and increasingly urgent, and yoongi wants closer, his fists pulling at jungkook’s shirt - he can’t get close enough, his own leg is in the way and they are still sitting on the fucking windowsill - so he slides off, tugging jungkook with him, their mouths barely leaving each other as they stand.

“oh,” he breathes against jungkook’s lips as he staggers backwards, his hands on jungkook’s neck and in his hair, jungkook’s hands on his waist tight but not tight enough - “tighter, hold me tighter.”

honest things just spilling out of his mouth but he can’t help it, nor does he care, at all, not when jungkook sighs or maybe moans against his lips and complies instantly, closing his arms around yoongi and pulling him so close - then yoongi’s calves hit something, and he falls. the bed, they came to the bed, and jungkook is pressing him into the mattress, solid and warm against him - good, so good, and yoongi’s head spins, he feels breathless and feverish as jungkook keeps kissing him, small noises drowning in the space between their mouths. yoongi’s hands are grasping at his back, desperate to get him closer, to feel the hard muscles shifting under his palms, on top of him, against him, everywhere.

jungkook mouths hotly along his jaw, teeth and tongue against his pulse point. their legs are all tangled up and jungkook’s thigh is pressing down on yoongi’s crotch, and yoongi - no, they are both half hard - fuck -

jungkook’s hands slip up yoongi’s shirt, and though gentle, the mere touch of his thumbs against the bare skin on yoongi’s belly makes him shiver.

“can i,” jungkook whispers; he sounds wrecked, gone, beautiful, “is this okay?”

and yoongi almost, almost -

he wants to say yes, wants to say touch me more, wants to say please; but -

all of a sudden, without warning, clarity catches up.

what the fuck are they doing.

what the fuck is yoongi doing.

he wasn’t supposed to let himself slip into a pretense. (he doesn’t love you like that.) jungkook doesn’t know yoongi’s in love with him. (he doesn’t love you like that.) jungkook doesn’t know what this means to him, jungkook thinks they’re just doing this to make each other feel better, that this is just comfort and desire and need. (he doesn’t love you like that.) yoongi still doesn’t even know whether or not jungkook really tastes like peaches because it just tastes like yogurt-flavored cigarettes. he doesn’t love you like that. why are you pretending he’d ever love you like that.

this is all wrong.

his hesitation doesn’t escape jungkook, who immediately stops touching him, pulls his hands out of his shirt and props himself up on an elbow. he looks down at yoongi - he’s so devastatingly beautiful, he looks fucked out already, his face softly flushed, red bitten lips, and even now yoongi wants to pull him back down, kiss him more, touch him, be touched by him, wants - well. all of him. and he can’t have that. his fingers curl, press down on jungkook’s chest.

worry flashes across jungkook’s face, then mild panic.

“yoongi? are you okay? did i -”

there’s a knock on the door. it echoes loud and sharp, and makes them both jump. jungkook wrenches himself away, sits on his heels with one of yoongi’s legs still trapped under him awkwardly, stares down at yoongi with his chest heaving, shirt hanging off his frame all stretched out and wrinkled. when yoongi swallows, it tastes like blood.

“i -” jungkook starts. the person at the door knocks again.

yoongi curses, tugs his leg from underneath jungkook, rolls off the bed. he goes to the door in a haze, on autopilot, not even feeling his legs move. his stupid heart races, shallow and relentless. he doesn’t want to look at jungkook. doesn’t want to see the look on his face and doesn’t want him to see the one on yoongi’s. he yanks the door open.

it’s his father. yoongi stares at him blankly like he doesn’t recognize him. his father’s eyes dart to jungkook, who’s scrambling off the bed by the sounds of it, then back to yoongi. he clears his throat uncomfortably.

“yoongi,” he says, “can we talk?”

before yoongi can muster an answer, footsteps come up behind him. the door is carefully but insistently opened wider until yoongi’s hand drops from it.

“i’ll give you a moment,” jungkook says quietly. he slips through the doorway like he can’t wait to leave the room. yoongi thinks he might cry.

he turns back to the room. sees the subtle wreckage they left as if it’s daylight for the first time. the open window, blue curtains fluttering in the breeze, cigarette ash on the windowsill. the corner of the carpet turned inside-out. the wrinkled bedspread.

it’s cold now that jungkook’s not here.

he goes to the window and closes it. kicks at the carpet with his toes until it straightens out. tidies the place up like he’s covering up a crime scene.

/

it’s a rather short talk - his father was never much of a talker. it’s an incredibly awkward exchange, but the point is - rather than disowning him and kicking him out of the house, his father says he’s going to learn about bisexuality and he’s going to learn to be supportive. maybe it was the candy bowl that put things into perspective for him, maybe it was his mother’s biting words - maybe jungkook even said something after yoongi had left - yoongi doesn’t ask. he feels like it’s been an earthquake after an earthquake. he doesn’t have any time to adjust.

on one hand he feels numb and exhausted - but he still finds himself crying by the end of it. he thinks it happened at the mention of jungkook. when his father said, your partner seems like a decent guy. as long as he’s making you happy. that’s what matters. but he can’t be sure. one minute he’s wiping the backs of his hands against his wet cheeks and sniffling in an uncomely fashion while his father awkwardly pats his shoulder and politely looks away.

after he leaves, yoongi sits cross-legged on the bed, calming down and waiting for jungkook to return. he does, after a while. the door clicks gently shut behind him.

“i overheard some of it,” he says softly; doesn’t sit on the bed with yoongi, but hovers by the wall, arms wrapped around himself, like - like he’s not sure where they’re at, whether it’s okay for him to come close. what makes it worse is that yoongi is not sure either. “sorry. i wanted to listen in, in case what he had to say wasn’t so nice.” he gives a small smile. his eyes meet yoongi’s briefly, before dropping somewhere around his knees. “he’s trying to learn. that’s good, isn’t it?”

“yeah. it’s something.” yoongi rubs at his eyes, which feel dry and tired now. he must look awful. all puffy and red-eyed.

he wants jungkook to sit next to him. or at least be on the same side of the room with him. he wants to leave and get far away from him. he wants to wrench the screwdriver out and tell him everything. he feels like he’s already drizzling blood on the bed sheets anyway. he wants to kiss him again. wants to never have kissed him in the first place.

“hyung,” jungkook starts hesitantly. his fingers twitch against his arms like he’s not sure what to do with them. “did i… do something you didn’t want? if i did, i’m - i’m so sorry, i -”

“you didn’t,” yoongi reassures. he presses his nails into his palms. he almost - he almost wants to laugh. or maybe cry. probably both. his heart keeps pounding violently against his ribs. his fingers slip to the bottom of his ribcage and press down - as if to physically keep the blood in, to keep everything in. “you didn’t cross any lines. everything that happened… i wanted. you don’t have to be sorry.” please don’t be sorry. that only makes it feel worse. “i just, i - couldn’t. can’t.”

jungkook is looking at him with his mouth slightly parted, a strange distant look in his eyes, and yoongi has no idea what he’s thinking.

“yeah,” he whispers; then he clears his throat, and says again, louder, “yeah. yeah, that’s… we can just forget about it. or, like, we don’t ever have to talk about it. we can just… leave it here. let’s leave it here.”

“what happens in daegu, stays in daegu,” yoongi jokes weakly. jungkook gives a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. yoongi can’t even do that much. he still doesn’t want to stay here; that, he knows. jungkook probably doesn’t want to, either, he’s just not saying it. but he’s on the other side of the room instead of next to yoongi and yoongi really doesn’t know how to sleep in the same bed with him right now. so he makes it easy for both of them, says: “let’s leave tonight.”

jungkook blinks a couple of times. he looks a little bit tired.

“okay.”

“you can go to busan like you planned,” yoongi says, “i’ll go home.”

jungkook’s brow furrows ever so slightly.

“are you sure? i - i don’t want you to be alone.”

“namjoon and hoseok are both in seoul for christmas.” yoongi uncurls his fingers. he straightens out his legs, gets up off the bed. it’s true, they are, but the reason yoongi’s saying that is because he knows jungkook won’t go to busan if he thinks yoongi is going to be alone - and he really needs jungkook not to be nice right now. “it’s okay.”

it feels so superficial, tense, the entire conversation, even if they are pretending it’s normal. yoongi is terrified this tension between them won’t ever go away again.

they pack their things mostly in silence. yoongi’s fingers catch on jungkook’s christmas present in his bag; he slips it into jungkook’s luggage when he’s in the bathroom, buries it under clothes so that it’s not immediately noticeable. he tidies himself up the best he can. he does look like a mess. like he hasn’t slept in years. his eyes are red-rimmed. there’s the faintest smudge of a starting bruise on the juncture of his jaw and neck. he puts on the mask and pulls it underneath his jaw. that almost covers it up.

he gets his brother to take them to the train station. they board different trains in different directions. jungkook’s arrives first, and they stand there on the platform, for a moment. yoongi watches the way shadows shift across his face and light reflects off his glasses. then jungkook sets his bags down, steps forward, and pulls yoongi into a hug.

yoongi loops his arms around the small waist. buries his face into the nook of jungkook’s neck. they stay like that for what feels like a long time and not enough time all at once. it feels like they are saying goodbye for a lot longer than a week. or maybe like it’s not just a goodbye.

yoongi doesn’t want to think about the things it could be.

“gonna miss your train,” he rasps.

“yeah,” jungkook whispers after a beat. still, he holds on a little bit longer.

yoongi finds he doesn’t want to let go. but he does, of course. he watches jungkook get on the train. watches the train take off a few minutes later. he would see him again soon, of course. but they are leaving something here in daegu.

he’s surprised to see his brother still parked on the lot across from the platform, smoking by the car. he saw all of that, yoongi supposes. the lovers’ goodbye, dragged out. the embrace that stretches on for minutes, both unable to let go because i love you so much. stay with me. or something like that. that’s how it must’ve looked to him. he’s got twenty minutes, so he takes his bags and goes to the parking lot.

junki fishes into his pocket and wordlessly holds the pack of cigarettes out to yoongi. yoongi mentally shrugs, takes one, sticks it between his lips. takes the lighter, cups his hand around the flame. for a minute, they smoke in silence, watching the people on the platform.

then junki says:

“i’ve never been in love.” yoongi takes a slow drag. lets the smoke spill past his lips, and glances at his brother. he’s still gazing at the platform, leaning the backs of his thighs against the hood. he flicks ash into the snow. “i don’t think, at least. or if i have, it’s a lot more underwhelming than what i’ve been made to believe.”

yoongi considers quietly, tugging at a dried piece of skin on his lip with his teeth.

“it’s different for everyone, i’m sure,” he concludes, “but i think you’d know if you had been in love.”

“yeah,” junki mumbles. a few beats pass in silence again. then he says, “watching you two kind of made me wish i was in love.”

yoongi feels a rush of some type of strange misplaced nostalgia. or maybe it’s just common sadness.

“sure, you’re not the handsome one,” he says around the cigarette, “but i’m sure you’ll eventually fall in love. settle down. make mom very happy with grandchildren.”

the corners of junki’s mouth curl upwards. the only time he bears any resemblance to yoongi is when he smiles.

“mom hasn’t given me any shit about smoking since you came out, you know,” he hums, glancing at yoongi out of the corner of his eye, “so thanks for that.”

yoongi snorts. then he keeps laughing. because it’s funny in an extremely unfunny morbid way. junki joins in with a couple of raspy breathy laughs.

“you’re welcome,” yoongi says with a shake of his head, bringing the half-burnt cigarette to his lips.

“i think it was brave,” junki says, serious again. “coming out. i always thought that, kind of, even if i never told you that. but after tonight, i kind of realized… just how brave it was. made me think…” he trails off, peering at the train tracks like he’s looking for words there. “well. you’re my little brother. i hope you’re staying safe.”

yoongi would make a safe sex joke if this wasn’t their first real heart-to-heart in twenty-five years and if he wasn’t deeply touched right now.

“that’s so sweet,” yoongi says monotonously with none of the emotion he’s feeling.

“fuck you,” junki says, rolling his eyes. he’s quiet for a moment. “i really thought jungkook was going to beat me up for stabbing you with a screwdriver.” yoongi lets out a surprised laugh. “that’s good. that he’d do that for you. it’s good… having someone on your side like that. i’m glad.” yoongi stares at the side of his face. junki flicks his cigarette to the ground and nods towards the tracks. “i think that’s your train.”

yoongi breathes in. the cigarette has burned to nothing in his fingers. he lets go.

“i think it is.”

“always fucking hated that bowl,” junki mumbles.