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Chapter Text

THE PRESENT, FALL 2020 

Seokjin wakes up with a bulldozer-sized hangover and, unfortunately, an extremely vivid recollection of what had transpired last night. Somehow, he made it back home, but that had been his singular success: he’s sprawled facedown on the couch in his clothes from the night before, an unsightly smudge of drool by his cheek. He shivers slightly with the cool morning draft coming in through the window. When he lifts his head, he can see Yoongi’s shoes by the front door, which means Yoongi’s home, which means Yoongi hadn’t bothered covering him up with a blanket last night, which means his best friend is pissed.

Birds trill outside. Japanese tits, Seokjin knows. No prizes as to how he came by this very specific piece of avian information, and he can’t even bring himself to crack a stupid joke about stupid bird names. 

He drops his head back down and lets himself sink into the couch for twenty seconds, but then his furry mouth and the feel of oil percolating on his face become too much to bear, and he heaves himself into the bathroom to shower and become a fully functional human being again.

Seokjin very deliberately does not think about anything beyond scrubbing his scalp and his face vigorously. This is self-care, he tells himself. Because I’m worth it! It sounds sad and cowardly even to himself. 

When he exits from the bathroom a solid one hour later, Yoongi is sipping coffee at the dining table, eyes expectant, like he’s a villain about to say, I’ve been waiting for you. 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Yoongi says, “to get out of the damn bathroom for ages. Stop hogging the hot water.” He brushes past without another word, leaving Seokjin slightly confused and, if he’s being honest, relieved.

The bathroom door closes, then opens again. Yoongi’s head pops out and this time he looks dead serious. “Don’t go anywhere. We need to talk after I scald my body into wakefulness.” He shuts the door without waiting for Seokjin’s reply. 

“Okay,” Seokjin says meekly to no one in particular. He pours himself a cup of coffee for fortitude and thinks about how he’s going to explain himself. 

When Yoongi is done with the shower and emerges, looking like a freshly steamed mantou in his white robe, Seokjin is prepared. He is ready to grovel, repent, and beg forgiveness.

He’s not allowed to do any of that, because Yoongi does not, as he’d expected, launch into a tirade as to why Seokjin is the worst friend in the world. Instead, he does something worse: he looks at Seokjin with what is unmistakably pity in his eyes, and, in an unprecedented move, places a hand on Seokjin’s knee. 

“I know it’s been hard for you,” Yoongi says. “But you’ve got to stop hurting in order to start healing.” He squeezes, once, in what is probably supposed to be a meaningful way, and winces, as if immediately regretting the uncharacteristic show of intentional affection. 

“Ummmm,” Seokjin says. 

“I know everything,” Yoongi says. “I know you only said what you said to Tae because you were lashing out—not that that’s an excuse—but I understand why you did it. You know I’m here if you want to talk about it, right?” 

“Talk about what?” Seokjin asks warily. 

Yoongi pauses significantly. He looks awkward, like this is hard for him to say, which, good, because it’s hard for Seokjin to listen to. He knows Yoongi isn’t the grumpy old man everyone thinks he is, that he’s actually a really good listener and open with his emotions in a way that terrifies Seokjin, but the two of them have an understanding. At least, Seokjin thought they had.

“About how you broke Jungkook’s heart,” Yoongi says, and Seokjin’s own heart just about stops right then and there.

“He was the one who—,” Seokjin sputters. 

“Oh?” Yoongi raises his eyebrows. Seokjin shuts up. “I’m not going to pry. I know we didn’t talk about it when it happened last year, but I figured you guys weren’t a thing anymore, obviously, and then when Jungkook told me what happened last night—” 

“What exactly did Jungkook say,” Seokjin wants to know. 

“Well, he was upset because Taehyung was upset,” Yoongi says. “And don’t get me wrong, he’s pissed, too, but he was also worried about you, and asked me to make sure you were okay. Said that it wasn’t like you to act that way.” 

Seokjin’s ears feel hot. His entire face feels hot. 

Yoongi continues, “And honestly I’m pissed, too, but, hyung, I know you, and I know you’re not doing okay—”

“I didn’t break Jungkook’s heart,” Seokjin says, which he is something he realizes he can neither confirm nor deny. His voice gets smaller. “He broke—he was the one who broke up with me.” 

Yoongi pauses. Seokjin can practically see the gears turning in his head. He retracts his hand slowly. 

“Seokjin,” Yoongi says warningly, and Seokjin knows it’s serious when Yoongi drops the honorifics. “What exactly did you two do?” 

THE PAST, SUMMER - FALL 2019

What did they not do, in the last hazy days of summer, in the scraps of time in between work and the longer, stretched-taffy weekends spent in the park or in Seokjin's bed? 

The first time he invited Jungkook over — and the distinction was very clearly made that it was him alone, not him-and-Yoongi, doing the inviting — he pushed Jungkook gently against his headboard and went onto his knees, slowly unzipped his pants and took him, warm and wet, into his mouth until Jungkook shuddered apart before him. 

“Hyung,” Jungkook said, eyes hungry.

“Yes?” Seokjin crawled on top of him, heart thumping hard in his chest. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. They were both still fully clothed except for Jungkook’s dick hanging out, which should have been unseemly, or funny, but instead was just kind of hot. 

“Your turn.” Jungkook placed a hand over his crotch, pulled him closer, and he went willingly like a sailor to his siren at sea. 

That wasn’t a hypothetical question, though. This is what Seokjin didn’t do: he didn’t ask about Jungkook’s family, how he’d managed to survive by himself, how he’d met Yoongi, why he was so good with birds; he didn’t ask how Jungkook felt about him. It was easier to just fall into it, whatever it was. Why dwell on the past, when the present looked so much more inviting? And Jungkook seemed more than willing to follow his lead. 

It wasn’t because he didn’t want to know. He wanted to know everything about Jungkook. It’s the feeling that came with knowing that was altogether new. 

(Rationally, of course, Seokjin knows he feels things: mundane things, like hunger, or annoyance, or satisfaction when he got a job done right. But he’d never felt the things that people wrote stories about; he’d never fallen in love, or had his heart broken, or looked into someone’s eyes and felt like he was going to drown in them. Etc etc. And then Jungkook came along, and suddenly it was all Seokjin could do to not go under the deluge of fucking emotions pouring into him at every second.) 

Seokjin had spent his whole life knowing things, or not knowing them (which was binary and simple enough). He had no idea how to deal with feelings.

He should have known, though, that Jungkook was a boy wrought entirely of feelings. Behind the smoke-thin emo goth exterior, he was a tender person, cotton-soft and open-hearted, the opposite of everything the world should have made him into, the opposite of the role Seokjin stepped into too easily as a person moving through the world who would rather not deal with the messiness of other people’s interior lives. 

In other words: Jungkook was too good for him, and Seokjin, in some primal way, knew it. 

You have to make him stay, a greedy, hungry voice inside him said. He’ll stay because he likes you, a smaller voice whispered, too quietly. You don’t have to change yourself for him. It didn’t need to add: That would be lying. 

Seokjin doesn’t like liars. Not even himself; he’s not a hypocrite. 

But being with Jungkook makes him feel like a different person, someone who is worth knowing, liking, feeling for. It’s ill-fitting, sometimes, like a new, scratchy sweater. Makes him feel too hot all over. It was easier when he wasn’t so acutely aware of the nascent thing between them, because now that he is, it’s all he can think about, morbidly fantasizing about the multitude of ways  in which he is going to inevitably fuck up, the future disasters that have already been set in motion by his actions today.

Things are no longer as simple as the rising sun; the souffle has collapsed. 

It makes him feel, unfairly or not, that he has to be a different person — existentially and imperatively. There’s no way, after all, that the Seokjin that Jungkook looks at adoringly is the same Seokjin that sometimes, in a fit of petty unkindness, mutes fans who tag him in too many repetitive tweets gushing about how pretty he is; there’s no way Jungkook would look at him the same way anymore if he knew how truly, deeply unspecial Seokin actually was underneath the face that he has. So he figures he has to shape himself into being the person Jungkook thinks he is, the person he deserves. He has to be better. 

Seokjin, who has never really wanted anything in his life before, let alone to be better at something he can be passably good at without effort, is terrified. 

Their relationship on the surface doesn’t change that much, except now when Seokjin goes with Jungkook to feed his birds, Jungkook will cradle Seokjin’s palm in his own and coax the most recalcitrant of the flock to perch on him, chest pressed unabashed and warm against his shoulder. Now, after dinner with Yoongi in their apartment, Jungkook will retreat to Seokjin’s bedroom instead of go out their door. It’s surprisingly easy to slot Jungkook into his space, not just as a friend but someone he’s allowed to look at and touch. They look good in his bathroom mirror, brushing their teeth side by side; they fit together in his bed, Jungkook more often than not manhandling Seokjin against his chest with his palm resting against Seokjin’s belly. 

But inside? Seokjin doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows, theoretically, what a good boyfriend does. (They haven’t actually discussed what they’re calling their relationship, but Seokjin is not emotionally stunted enough to deny what hand-holding and good morning kisses and visits to photoshoot sets mean.) Boyfriends are sweet, and kind, and patient, and gentle, and loving. So, everything Seokjin is terribly uncomfortable with and suspects he’s genetically predisposed against. But he gives it his best shot anyway, and is rewarded with Jungkook’s happy, full-faced smiles. 

Seokjin feels both relief and a soft swell of dread. This is the version of himself that makes Jungkook happy. Is it him, though? He thinks there must be something wrong with him, to want to regress to when they were both feeling around in the dark, clumsy in their unspoken and unknown feelings. 

It’s fine, though, because Jungkook is happier now than he was when they weren’t together, and Seokjin can give him that, at least. 

And for a while, that’s enough. 

A month into their new relationship (status: still undefined), they’re lying in Seokjin’s bed, sticky and sated, when Jungkook asks, “Hyung, have you ever had a boyfriend?” 

Seokjin replies, accurately, “No.” 

He holds his breath, then lets it out again because Jungkook’s head is resting against his chest and he’ll notice. He wonders if Jungkook is going to ask him to be his boyfriend, and he has no time to overthink or psych himself out so his mouth is already making the shape of the word he wants to say when Jungkook says, “Me neither,” kisses the corner of his shoulder, and gets up to go to the bathroom.

Suddenly the bed feels cold, and Seokjin very unsure. He hears Jungkook brushing his teeth and spitting into the sink, cleaning out the traces of him in his mouth, and thinks about asking Jungkook, right now. Their friends already tease them about it. It’s basically as official as it can get. And labels aren’t a big deal when you know it’s real, right? 

But is it? There it is. Seokjin’s old friend, doubt. He doesn’t know; he never does. The only thing that keeps him afloat is doing whatever people say he should — You really have a face for modeling! Why waste it on culinary school where your hands will get chapped and your skin fucked up? — because everything important in this world is constructed by mutual belief, right, like how money is just paper with meaning attached to it — and the hardest person Seokjin has always found it hard to believe in is himself. Easier to have everyone else do it for him. 

Jungkook has never had a boyfriend but he takes to it so easily, flourishing like a flower that grows when it’s shown care and can care in return. 

Meanwhile, Seokjin prickles, and falters. 

When Jungkook comes back to bed, mouth minty fresh, Seokjin turns him around so he’s the big spoon for once. Jungkook complies, wriggling his ass back against Seokjin to be funny, and Seokjin slaps his thigh and says, “Yah, your hyung’s not young anymore. Go easy on me!” Jungkook just laughs. 

When Seokjin is sure Jungkook’s asleep, breathing open-mouthed and warm against his arm where he’s monopolized it as a bolster, he tucks his head against Jungkook’s neck and mouths the words he’d swallowed into his skin. Yes, I would be yours.

The next time Jungkook rearranges Seokjin’s life with a question is when he asks, after Seokjin has finished his rant, “Hyung, if you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just quit?” 

Seokjin pauses, reasons like reflexes rising to his lips. But Jungkook looks so genuinely puzzled, not like everyone else who suggests quitting when he complains, both of them mostly joking, both aware of the ridiculousness of doing such a thing.

Jungkook sure doesn’t look like he thinks it’s ridiculous. He’d let himself into Seokjin and Yoongi’s apartment because Seokjin was going to be late to meet him, and had made himself comfortable on the couch, legs tucked under him and sweater paws flopping in his lap. Now, head cocked to the side, he waits for Seokjin to answer. 

Seokjin has his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbow and tie yanked angrily askew; he’d just finished his tirade on how mind-numbingly vapid everyone at the industry mixer had been, how his director and a fellow model had traded deeply misogynist and casually homophobic jokes like it was nothing, and he’d just stood there like a fucking bobble-head, nodding along like an idiot. 

“It’s my job,” he says, equally idiotically now. 

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Jungkook says. “You can do anything you want. Wouldn’t it be nice to try something else?” 

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Seokjin starts, the defense coming automatically because they’re so vague, because, he realizes with increasing discomfort, perhaps he has no real defense against Jungkook’s very simple question. 

“And I don’t think it’s that complicated,” Jungkook replies. “You have money, connections, brains, a handsome face. What could be beyond your reach? What do you really want to do?” 

“Aish, you flatter me. I’ve never done anything else but what I’m doing now. I would be useless.” Seokjin laughs. “I’m not like you, Jungkook-ah.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re actually talented. And passionate. Ambitious.” 

“And you aren’t?” Jungkook flaps a sleeve at the home around them, all the evidence of Seokjin’s success in life. 

“This is all just stuff,” Seokjin says. “Stuff I got because people like my face for some reason. I’m just really lucky. It wasn’t hard.” He doesn’t really know where this conversation is going, just that he would like it to go somewhere else. 

“Sounds like it’s hard now,” Jungkook says softly. He’s eyeing Seokjin like he wants to say something more, but he must see the tired line of Seokjin’s slumped shoulders and the uneasiness souring his face, because he shakes his head and reaches out for him. “Just something to think about, hyung. C’mere.” 

Seokjin goes easily, thankful for Jungkook’s hands on his back and the cottony smell of him around him. Before Jungkook, he’d never been one for casual touches and cuddles, but Jungkook is a fiend for physical intimacy and Seokjin has the graciousness to accommodate him, that’s all. If Seokjin maybe enjoys it a little too much when Jungkook reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear, or when Jungkook tugs at him to sling his leg over Jungkook’s thigh, well—only he has to know. 

The next day Seokjin goes in to work as usual, and they don’t bring it up again, but it is something to think about. Something Seokjin has never really wanted to think about, to be honest. What do you really want to do? Seokjin doesn’t know. His whole life, he’s done whatever’s been easiest. When a talent scout had stopped him on the streets in his senior year of university and asked him if he wanted to be model, he’d shrugged and said sure, why not. He didn’t know what he was going to do after graduation, and here was this woman, giving him an answer. It hadn’t felt right, necessarily,  but it felt good because it had been so easy. 

Over the years, it’s gotten easier, but Seokjin doesn’t know if it will ever feel right. 

All of this sounds rather disheartening but it couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it’s the happiest Seokjin has ever been. He’d not known that this is what love feels like. Even more disquieting is the fact that this is the most Seokjin has ever felt, period, good or bad, and that in itself is something revelatory — that there was such a wide, full sea of emotions that he can flounder and delight in, when previously he’d only been splashing about blindly in a rock pool. 

Because that is what Jungkook is: delightful. Like a sweet cream puff, or honey mochi, or maybe just a boy who had a lot of love in his heart and, for the longest time, nobody to share it with.

Of course, he’s still the same Jungkook that called Seokjin an old man and refused to be charmed by Seokjin’s arsenal of somewhat clever, mostly facetious jokes; but now he’s more, too. Now, when Jungkook rolls his eyes at one of Seokjin’s puns and is met with an outraged cry, he can wrestle Seokjin to the floor and pin his wrists by his head and kiss him silly, until Seokjin is red in the face and has completely forgotten what he was even mad about in the first place. 

And Jungkook is still the same Jungkook that seems to pop up out of nowhere like a revenant, only this time Seokjin knows it’s because he works a bunch of odd jobs to pay rent in a small room in a budget apartment he shares with two other people. Now Seokjin knows Jungkook is not just funny and sweet, but incredibly hardworking too, like a dog on a hunt with its nose to the ground. 

It’s all pretty overwhelming. Seokjin, who’s always firmly believed in minding his own business, who got to know Yoongi only in dribs and drabs, is suddenly very aware of just how much he knows about Jungkook: he likes to sleep on the right side of the bed, and he likes to sleep shirtless but not entirely naked (too much chafing); he spends too much on bird feed every month because he likes to buy fancy treats; he’s tried for years to train the pigeons in Yeouido to relay messages for him, but the little notes he attaches to their feet always just get ripped up and muddy; he has twin moles on his left inner thigh he calls Blob 1 and Blob 2; and he likes the way Seokjin kisses them softly, like these pinpricks are Seokjin’s favorite part of his body (they are a close second; first place goes to his indomitably boopable nose). 

Somewhere along the line, he realizes all the secret things he knows about Jungkook are his favorite things about him, too. Sometimes, this knowledge makes him feel like he holds the world in his hands, like he is the vast ocean enveloping it in warm waters. 

The sea, though, as Seokjin soon learns, is a dangerous beast, and feeling too much hurts a lot more than feeling nothing at all. 

In the fall, Yoongi goes to Mara-do. 

To see a friend, he says. A friend who’s been away for a long time. 

Seokjin knows: Kim Namjoon, Yoongi’s first best friend. Apparently, he’s met someone. Someone who’s made him better. Yoongi doesn’t say so, but Seokjin can tell he wants Namjoon to move back to Seoul, and he’s hoping this trip will convince him. Seokjin doesn’t know how to feel about that beyond the initial sting of protectiveness, but he sends Yoongi on his way cheerfully enough with a pat on the back and a request for a bottle of Jeju wine. 

On the second day of Yoongi’s trip, Seokjin asks Jungkook if he’d like to stay over for the two weeks that Yoongi is gone. Jungkook’s slept over before, but never for such an extended period of time. He has to pack his toothbrush, and a set of spare sleep clothes. Seokjin wonders briefly if he should be nervous, if this could be construed as a Grand Gesture (and how, his subconscious needles, does he feel about that?) but Jungkook just chirps “Sleepover!” and starts making a list of all the rom-coms he wants to watch.

On the fifth day of Yoongi’s trip, Jungkook has officially stayed over for three days straight. It’s going swimmingly well. Seokjin relaxes around him like a sponge absorbing water. 

After one week, Jungkook has slotted himself into his apartment as easily and naturally as a bird coming home to roost after winter. Meanwhile, something is building up inside Seokjin, something deep and titanic. He wonders if this is how the world felt when the Mariana Trench split open, dismisses this extremely exaggerated metaphor. Calm down , he tells himself, but he is not calming down. He feels, incongruously, restless and volcanic at the same time, a deep pressure building up his skittish surfaces that he fears will ruin the gentle rhythm of their days. 

If Seokjin were less sophomoric at expressing his emotions in a healthy way, he would have told Jungkook about this, or wrote it down in his diary or something. Unfortunately, he’s always found diaries self-indulgent and faintly embarrassing, so instead he simmers and simmers until one day it all comes out in the worst possible, gushing, way. 

You would think an emotional outburst would come after sex, or in the fuzz of an early morning, in the moments your body could be honest before your mind caught up with it.

That’s what Seokjin thought anyway, that these were the big, orchestral moments he would have to watch out for, so he is completely unprepared for when everything does spill over.

It is a completely normal Saturday evening. They had spent the day lazing around in bed with an early winter storm howling outside the windows, warming each other with hands and lips and all manner of rough and lovely touches. Now, they are making a post-dinner snack. 

Seokjin looks at Jungkook who is humming while he’s spreading Nutella on toast, who is wearing Seokjin’s university tee and soft, over-worn boxers, who has half his hair pushed off his face by an idiotic headband but still manages to look super bangable, and when Jungkook, the true chaotic gremlin that he is, sticks the butter knife with a wad of Nutella on it directly into his mouth to lick it clean, comes to the conclusion that he is truly fucked. 

The cup (his heart) doth runneth over. 

What he says next is not an accurate reflection of his inner turmoil. What he says next is this: “So, hey, you should move in, maybe.” 

Jungkook pauses. “What?” 

“Ummm,” Seokjin hedges, kicking himself internally. How did his stupid brain register all of his goddamn emotions and decide on that as what to verbalize? How utterly mundane, how utterly Not Grand. 

Now Jungkook is looking uncertain, brow crinkled and feet going pigeon-toed like he does when he’s nervous. He glances around at his hoodie thrown over Seokjin’s couch and the chocolate monstrosity he’s constructed in front of him from the stuff in Seokjin’s kitchen, and says, “Are you just saying that?” 

“No!” Seokjin bursts out, because no , that’s not what he’d wanted to say at all, he has no idea how to say the things he actually feels because he’s never had to process any of this before, dammit, and how is he supposed to say you feel like home and you belong here and by here I mean with me ? Now he just sounds super fucking guilty, and it’s not like he can rescind an offer for Jungkook to move in—

“We’re in a relationship, right?” he says, mindlessly, mouth moving in all the wrong ways even as his brain tries to disentangle the tidal wave of feeling that had prompted all of this in the first place. “So, like, yeah, you should move in. I have more space anyway!” 

Jungkook frowns. “What’s wrong with my place?” Oh, fuck, now he looks kind of annoyed. And he’s still holding Seokjin’s butter knife. 

“Nothing!” Seokjin babbles. “It’s just small, and your roommates are kind of sketchy, but here you’ll be closer to the studio, you could spend more time with Yoongi, and you’ll have, you know,” he casts a wild look around his living room, “...in-house laundry?” 

“So I should move in to spend more time with Yoongi? And for your washing machine?” 

Seokjin makes a nonsensical gesture with his hands. “Hands-on mentorship is very important! And I know how much you care about clean clothes?” This is stupid. He’s stupid. He needs to just say what he means for once, and stop hiding behind jokes and jabs and the ridiculously complicated ways in which he has avoided honesty for pretty much his entire life. 

“Hyung, this is important,” Jungkook says. He’s put the knife down. “You shouldn’t say things so easily like that. Not if you don’t mean them.” 

Seokjin is bamboozled. Because here is how it is: he does think it’s too soon for Jungkook to move in, because they’re both still testing out how they fit into each other’s lives, still feeling out those boundaries, some of them more tender than others. But: he wants to tell Jungkook that this means something to him, that he’s never felt this way before, and all of that mushy stuff, and he’s scared, but maybe Jungkook is scared too, so they can figure it out together— 

“Hyung, I love you,” Jungkook says desperately, always one step ahead.

Ah, fuck. Jungkook has never had a problem with saying what he means. Now Seokjin is reminded why he himself doesn’t do it. 

And Jungkook is never scared. Not like he is. 

It’s too much, Seokjin thinks. His chest hurts, and then he sees Jungkook’s face freeze, and he realizes he’d said it out loud. (Why is it always that the things he should keep to himself always escape, while everything he wants to say stays wedged in his throat?) 

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, because it isn’t. Well, it is too much, but — that’s not what he meant. Not in a bad way. Maybe scary, but not bad. Not in the way Jungkook thinks it is now, with his fists curled tight and his lower lip trembling. 

Seokjin knows he should say something, should take Jungkook’s hands in his and sit him down and explain the torrent of emotions flooding through him right now, but he can barely understand it himself, this overwhelming monsoon of fear and affection and desire and fear, again, churning into a whole-body ache that leaves him rooted to the spot. 

“Then what did you mean?” Jungkook asks. 

Seokjin falters. He doesn’t know. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just thought—that’s what people in relationships do. Right?” He sounds pathetic even to himself.

“But do you want to?” Jungkook presses. 

He doesn’t have an answer, because the answer is no, but also not yet, and also, in some deep, primal way, yes.  

“You shouldn’t do things just because you think you have to,” Jungkook says fiercely, and suddenly Seokjin is reminded of an earlier conversation they had. What do you really want to do? 

“I’m just trying to be a good b-boyfriend,” Seokjin says, increasingly out of his depth. He winces when his voice skips at the end, and he sees Jungkook’s face harden almost imperceptibly. 

“Do you feel sorry for me or something?” Jungkook asks. 

“No,” Seokjin says automatically. He doesn’t. Okay, so maybe when they’d first met he’d thought of Jungkook as an odd little thing, someone kind of worn out around the edges that Yoongi had taken under his wing; but now? He feels so much more for Jungkook than sorry. 

But Jungkook must hear or see something that betrays Seokjin’s earlier, ungenerous opinions, because his expression crumples like a piece of paper in a fist. 

“You sound like you’re lying,” Jungkook says, and when Seokjin shakes his head, says “No” again, he can hear the high whine in his voice, the urgency. 

“Hyung,” Jungkook says, and nothing else. It sounds pleading, like he’s willing Seokjin to understand, to meet him halfway, but Seokjin doesn’t know how the conversation has taken such a turn from him asking a question impulsively to this. 

He doesn’t know what to do.

“I need some air,” is what he settles for. It’s utterly inadequate and probably cowardly, but in the last two seconds Seokjin has realized he is close to having a full-blown panic attack and he doesn’t know how to articulate that without making it seem as if he’s blaming Jungkook for it. “Please stay. I just. This is a lot, I’m sorry, I really need to take a walk.” 

“You’re leaving? This is your apartment,” Jungkook says, taking a step forward.

Instinctively, Seokjin takes a step back. Jungkook immediately freezes. 

“Just stay,” Seokjin pleads, and with a sickening feeling churning in his stomach, flees. 

When he returns to the apartment at midnight, it’s empty. Jungkook isn’t there. He’s cleared the toast from the table and washed the utensils. Seokjin spots the plate he’d used, drying lonesome on the rack. 

He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it had not been such a quick and easy acceptance on Jungkook’s part. How had it been so easy for him to go? 

It had taken everything for Seokjin to ask him to stay.

Then he realizes what should have been obvious the moment he’d stepped into the apartment: everything that Jungkook had brought over is gone. No hoodie, no pajamas, no toothbrush; he’d even left Seokjin’s uni tee folded neatly on his bed. 

Something kicks in Seokjin’s heart, then judders to a stop. 

The knots untangle themselves when Seokjin is alone in his bed that night. He’s scared because he loves Jungkook, and he’s never loved anyone like this before. And now Jungkook’s gone, and so the fear is too, but what is he supposed to do with the love that’s still leaping in his chest, hopeful? 

Three days later, Seokjin quits his job. 

THE PRESENT, FALL 2020 

When Seokjin is done, Yoongi is looking at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. Seokjin can’t tell if his best friend is about to hit him or hug him.

In the end, Yoongi doesn’t do either. He exhales, very slowly, and says, “Hyung. I know we don’t talk about the things that are bothering us because I’ve always abided by your ridiculous rules,” and Seokjin is ready to protest that the rules had been mutually agreed upon, but Yoongi shakes his head and continues, “and they’re your rules, let’s not pretend you would have become my friend if I hadn’t played ball. But. I think we both know this is something really important. And you need to make it right. With Taehyung, and with Jungkook.” 

His words sound final, like an ultimatum — otherwise I don’t think I can be friends with you anymore… — and Seokjin is almost too ready to take the easy way out and agree, when Yoongi snorts. “You really piss me off, you know that?” he says. “I can see you backing away already. Do you really think you can get rid of me that easily?” 

Seokjin doesn’t know what to say. His tongue feels fat and stupid in his mouth and everything feels like it’s moving simultaneously too slow and too fast. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Yoongi continues, looking so calm. “And you don’t want to either, I think. So stay. With the people you belong with. With us. But you have to bring them back. The people that matter take work, hyung.” 

It’s funny, how Yoongi manages to sound both reassuring and critical at the same time, how his words make Seokjin relax and cringe away with shame. Seokjin supposes that’s what real honesty feels like. Something more complicated than yes or no. 

He clears his throat. After talking for so long, it feels dry and wrung-out. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. I’m—sorry, I just—” To his horror, he can feel his knees wobbling and his chest tightening. 

Yoongi reaches over and places one big, warm palm on his leg, stilling its jerks. When their eyes meet, he’s the same Yoongi that Seokjin’s looked at since they first met, and that’s how Seokjin knows that Yoongi is a really good friend who has been truthful from day one and is being truthful now. That’s how he knows Yoongi’s right. He has to take responsibility. 

The last thing Yoongi says to him sticks like a burr. “Hyung,” he says. “I know you think Jungkook broke things off. But I suspect it’s not as clear as you would like to think. Who really ended things? You, or Jungkook?” 

Seokjin realizes he doesn’t know. Not for sure, not anymore. 

Seokjin apologizes to Taehyung first. He gets Taehyung’s work schedule from Yoongi and waits for him at the aquarium after work, overly paranoid about how suspicious he looks with his cap and indoor sunglasses and a pointed disinterest in the marine life around him. 

When Taehyung emerges from behind the door that says STAFF ONLY, in a bright orange T- shirt with dancing dolphins and turtles on it and a bandanna tied around his long hair, he looks so joyful and bright and kind that Seokjin feels even more like a complete asshole. 

Taehyung doesn’t startle when Seokjin raises his hand in a feeble wave, just turns to his coworkers, saying something and gesturing at Seokjin, before he peels away from them and heads over. 

“Hyung,” he says, his voice a little wary, a little hurt. Still giving Seokjin the privilege of knowing how he feels even though Seokjin had thrown his very openness in his face the last time they’d met. 

“Hey, Tae,” Seokjin says. He takes off his sunglasses, rubs at his eyes a little. “Can we talk? Maybe over coffee? Hyung’s treat.” 

They go to a cafe nearby where Taehyung, clearly a regular, gets smiles from the baristas and extra dollops of whipped cream on top of his hot chocolate. The barista doesn’t ask if Seokjin is with Taehyung and neither of them mentions it so Seokjin gets a perfectly polite squeeze. A week ago, Seokjin would have smacked Taehyung’s shoulder and pouted his way into an extra drink. 

When they sit, Taehyung crouched small over his mug, Seokjin takes a deep breath. He generally tries to avoid confrontation and has only ever had to deal with Yoongi in arguments, so he’s unsure how to proceed. With Yoongi, things are usually resolved with a series of grunts and well-timed gifts. 

“How are you?” he asks carefully. Puts his hands around his coffee so he can’t dig his nails into his thighs.  

Taehyung eyes him, the gold in his gaze glinting. “I’m fine,” he says, not stating the obvious: except for when my friend (you) said some extremely hurtful things to me . Seokjin thinks that’s all he’s going to get, but then Taehyung takes a deep breath and continues: “Some trouble at work today, in the penguin zone. It was my first time handling feeding and they, ah, didn’t like me very much, I guess.” He frowns a little, a dip in his mouth that Seokjin has always found adorable. “I don’t mean them any harm, though. Not anymore, anyway.” Before Seokjin can wrap his head around that rather strange comment, he continues, “I sold two of my paintings the other night. It was nice.” 

Right, of course. The other night, which Seokjin had spent most of in a bush. 

Seokjin clears his throat. “That’s great, Taehyung-ah. I’m really happy for you. You...you deserve it. You’ve worked hard.” Takes a breath. “And, ah, I’m sure the penguins will come around.” 

Taehyung sighs. “You think? They scattered the minute I walked into the enclosure. Couldn’t even get them to come out for sardines!” 

Trust Taehyung’s focus to be on the penguins. Seokjin laughs, a small sound that nevertheless feels real. “Yes, I’m sure. You’re very likeable, and these birds would be dumb not to realize that. I mean, they also have to eat sooner or later, so maybe you could train them, and they’ll start thinking of you as food.”

For some reason Taehyung finds that hilarious, and he laughs for a good thirty seconds, Seokjin growing increasingly nervous and wondering if he’s said something wrong. He didn’t think so, but he’s already fucked up more than once. 

“Good idea, hyung,” Taehyung says at last, and Seokjin can’t deny that he’s relieved that his hyung card hasn’t been rescinded. “You’re a genius!” 

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin blurts out. He can’t sit here and make small talk with Taehyung like nothing happened. He feels like this is an important thing to get right. It would be easy enough to laugh at Taehyung’s jokes like everything’s fine, but it wouldn’t be right. 

Taehyung stills. Waits for him to continue. 

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin repeats. “For what I said to you at the gallery opening. And for storming out and causing a scene. I should have supported you and instead I was really mean and rude. I was a bad friend to you that night, and I should have been better. Will be, if you, well, if you still want to be my friend.” 

His heart is beating strangely fast now, and Seokjin wonders if it’s normal to feel so nervous when apologizing to someone you care about. Because he does: care, that is. It feels revelatory, somehow, yet utterly simple. He cares about Taehyung because Taehyung is his friend. Taehyung is his friend because he cares about him. 

“I care about you,” Seokjin continues. His ears are hot on the sides of his head. Fuck, he feels flayed open in a fucking Starbucks . “We’re—I think we’re friends, not just because of Yoongi but, like, actually? And I want to keep it that way. So, uh, I just, I’m really sorry.” 

“Yeah, we are,” Taehyung says. 

“What?” 

“We are friends, not just because of Yoongi,” Taehyung says. “You made it sound like a question. I’m telling you it’s not.” 

Seokjin sags. “Thanks,” he says weakly. 

“Did you mean what you said? All that stuff about me faking being nice but not needing to?” Taehyung asks evenly. He doesn’t sound accusatory, just mildly interested, like he’s waiting for Seokjin to explain the reasoning behind his critique of a movie instead of his entire personality. 

“I think there’s a part of me that distrusts niceness,” Seokjin says slowly. “I guess I see it very often in my line of work but it rarely translates to genuine kindness, if that makes sense. There’s a difference, and sometimes it’s hard to tell whether someone means it. But you’re one of the best people I know, Taehyung-ah. I think I was jealous. Of how easily kindness comes to you, when I’m only good at being nice. Also because of how handsome you are.” He laughs weakly. “That was just me being a bitch.” 

“Hyung, you’re literally the most handsome person I’ve ever met,” Taehyung says. “Don’t tell Namjoon-hyung I said that,” he adds after a beat. “I think I understand. But you don’t have to worry. You know you’re not very nice, right?” 

Seokjin blinks. “Um. I’m not?” 

Taehyung shakes his head. “Not at all. You laughed at Namjoon-hyung that one time he tripped over his own shoelaces, and when Yoongi tried to experiment with his wardrobe with that giant snood, and—” 

“Ah, okay, I get it,” Seokjin interrupts, embarrassed.

“You’re not nice,” Taehyung continues, fixing his gaze on Seokjin. “But you’re kind. I see you, hyung. You gave Namjoon-hyung a bandaid for his knee. You told him Velcro sneakers were trendy again. You told Yoongi-hyung a snood hid his elegant neck and bought him a turtleneck instead. I remember. 100% cashmere.” 

Taehyung leans back, triumphant. “ I see you .” 

Seokjin remembers the incidents he’s talking about. He’d thought nothing of it at the time.

“Okay, so I definitely lied about Velcro being back in fashion,” he says. “So that wasn’t nice or kind, just hilarious.” The moment the words leave his mouth, he winces. 

A smile graces Taehyung’s face, cheeky and warm. Then it sharpens, with humor and something edged with just the tiniest bit of brine: “See? You got it. Step two: change. Stop assuming people are who you think they are instead of who they actually are.”  

Seokjin blinks, but Taehyung’s face is open and relaxed, without a hint of anger. 

“I think you mean well, hyung,” Taehyung continues gently. “And I really like you, obviously. But maybe you need to consider that the issue at the root of all this is that you had to understand that your problem with how I act is your problem. I’m not trying to be someone I’m not, so you should stop thinking I am.” 

Instinctively Seokjin has something barbed on his tongue, but he swallows the sharp words and feels every jagged edge go down his throat. Taehyung’s right. Ever since they first met, he’s been obsessed with figuring out how could be so Taehyung so good — trying, not unkindly, he doesn’t think, but trying nonetheless, to poke holes in a facade where there wasn’t one — when maybe, instead of any diabolical metric that he used to judge people, Taehyung is just. Like this. Gracious and big-hearted and forgiving. 

And if a small part of Seokjin feels bad about that, because he knows he falls short, then that’s something that he has to work through on his own. 

So he says instead, “You’re right,” and then, “Thank you.” 

Taehyung sips from his hot chocolate nonchalantly, leaving behind a foam layer on his upper lip. “You’re welcome. Say, do you want to come over for dinner?” 

What Taehyung fails to disclose is that “dinner” includes hovering over Taehyung as he chops onions, enthusiastically but without a single shred of skill. 

“Normally we eat out,” Taehyung says as onion pieces fly everywhere. “’Cuz we’re not very good at cooking, but hyung’s really trying to make mealtime sacred, so. I’m cooking jjapaguri!” 

“I see that,” Seokjin says, eyeing the stacks of ramyun Taehyung has set aside. “But why are you chopping onions then?”

“For flavor!” 

“Oh god,” Seokjin whispers as Taehyung almost slices the tip of his finger off. “Stop, please, let hyung take over.”

That’s what Namjoon comes home to twenty minutes later: Seokjin frying three eggs in a large skillet while Taehyung sucks seasoning powder off his fingers and worries about the crisp outer edge to wobbly yolk ratio of the eggs. 

“Do not question my frying skills,” Seokjin declares, flicking Taehyung with a dish towel, just as Namjoon walks through the door. 

“Uh,” he says, as Taehyung bounds over to him and hugs him. He looks from his boyfriend to Seokjin and back again. Raises his eyebrows. He looks slightly judgemental and Seokjin has to resist the urge to explain his presence in the kitchen or prostrate himself before Namjoon. Because of course Namjoon knows what Seokjin did.

“Don’t glare at him, hyung,” Taehyung says. “Seokjin-hyung is making us food. It really would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t been around.” 

“Is he now,” Namjoon says as he makes his way to the stove. “Hey, hyung.” 

“Namjoon,” Seokjin says as he tries to slide three eggs onto a plate as calmly as possible. 

“So did you apologize?” 

Seokjin blinks, puts the pan down, and turns to Namjoon, who’s looking at him very seriously. Beside him, Taehyung has an affectionate look on his face. He has one hand fisted in the back of Namjoon’s sweater. It’s cute, Seokjin thinks.

“Yeah,” he says. “And I want to apologize to you too. I’m sorry. For being an asshole when you and Taehyung have been nothing but good to me.” He gives a short bow, and when he looks back up sees surprise flit across Namjoon’s face before he recomposes himself. 

“Well, er,” Namjoon says somewhat awkwardly, shuffling on his feet. “That’s—fine. Um. Thanks for making dinner.” He gestures at the eggs. They’re some of Seokjin’s finest, he if does say so himself. 

Seokjin thinks he still has a ways to go yet with Namjoon before they can go back to the way they were. No, he corrects himself, not to how they were before, but to a better, more honest friendship. One where Seokjin can laugh at him for being clumsy and Namjoon will know he doesn’t mean it that way and Seokjin will know that he knows. 

But this is good for now. Sitting down at the table to have dinner together, both of them inordinately fond as they watch Taehyung slurp down his egg whole, making slightly stilted conversation as Namjoon tries to navigate how he feels about Seokjin now and Seokjin tries to be as honest as possible. 

At the end of the night, Namjoon hesitates for only a split second before he hugs him at the door. Seokjin hugs him back, tightly. 

It’s a start.

That night, when Seokjin is on step 7 of his skincare routine, he gets a text from Namjoon.

Kim Namjoon: have you spoken to JK? 

Seokjinnie: not yet

Seokjinnie: but i’m going to 

Kim Namjoon: okay good. he came over for dinner yesterday.

Seokjin feels his heart rate go up. He sets aside his cream and sits down on his bed. 

Seokjinnie: oh, nice.

Kim Namjoon: ….

Kim Namjoon: don’t you want to know what he said? 

Seokjinnie: ahh. what did he say

Kim Namjoon: ask him yourself. 

Seokjinnie: T_____T

Kim Namjoon: seriously, hyung. idk why you’re so nervous. he’ll forgive you once he knows tae did!! 

Oh. Right. Namjoon doesn’t know about him and Jungkook. He thinks they’re just friends. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking stressful. 

He puts his phone face-down and smooths out the moisturizer on his face. He needs a game-plan. Jungkook is important to him and he’s learnt — is still learning — that you have to show the people in your life that they matter. Not because you want anything from them, but because they deserve to know. 

Jungkook deserves better than his off-color jokes and bad manners. He deserves to know the truth, even though just the thought of admitting to it burns Seokjin’s face beneath his night cream. Can they even still be friends? 

Seokjin knows that he hasn’t been trying. But he wants to.

Tomorrow, he has a cake to bake. 

THE PAST, WINTER 2019

Seokjin has spent his winters alive thus far without Jungkook, so this one should not be any different, but it is. Maybe because two weeks ago he would have had him, his warm palms and golden laugh. Now, the cold is sharp and bitter against Seokjin’s skin, and he keeps his hands in his pockets. 

For the first few days, he drinks. It doesn’t feel natural to stagger around his apartment in his pajamas while tossing back shots of soju but isn’t that how people get over breakups? Maybe if Seokjin performs the requisite steps of Getting Over Someone, it will help him get over Jungkook. He has no idea. If he’s being honest, this plan does not sound very viable, but it’s either that or have some meaningless sex with people he doesn’t know, and Seokjin thinks if a stranger touches him right now he might throw up.

That could also just be the alcohol swirling in his stomach.

At some point Yoongi intervenes and hides his alcohol, but they both know Seokjin doesn’t have the discipline to be an alcoholic, which is quite a damning indictment of his personality, but he is frankly too damn sad to care. 

Seokjin surprises himself by feeling, by all objective accounts, very sad. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s acknowledging to himself that he’s even sad in the first place. Distantly, he realizes he might have some emotional processing issues. 

But after a week of wallowing, Seokjin grows tired of the staleness of his own breath and the mind-numbing mundanity of doing absolutely nothing. It’s a good thing he snaps out of his funk then, too, because he can tell Yoongi was about one tense dinner away from staging an intervention and wrestling the truth from him.

And Seokjin is just not ready for that yet.

He wonders how much Jungkook as told Yoongi, since they’re definitely still in touch, even if Jungkook’s absence at their dinner table becomes the thing they are both obviously thinking about but never have the balls to bring up. Seokjin picks gingerly at his food, and Yoongi does not comment on how bland everything has been tasting recently. 

The barn swallows stopped coming to Seokjin’s window a few days ago. Rationally, Seokjin knows it’s because it’s winter, and the swallow is a migratory bird seeking warmer climes, and it will be back in the spring. Seokjin wonders if it will remember his ledge, or if it will simply land find shelter where it can. He wonders if that’s what Jungkook is doing now — seeking warmer climes. But he’s not a bird; he might not come back. Still, Seokjin continues leaving seeds out. A signal, a reassurance, for the swallows that might return after the turn of the seasons. 

Four days before Christmas and two weeks after The Disaster, Yoongi asks, “Is it okay if I invite Jungkook over for Christmas? I don’t want him to spend it alone.” 

It’s the first time Yoongi has deliberately brought up Jungkook. Over the past weeks, Seokjin has come to learn to decipher Yoongi’s code: I’m staying late today — Jungkook.  Helping a friend with a video project — Jungkook. Needless to say, Seokjin does not drop by unannounced at Yoongi’s studio anymore. 

“Yeah, of course,” he says. “Does he want to?” 

Yoongi looks at him sideways. “He does,” is all he says. 

Seokjin nods. 

Neither of them are big on holidays or gift-giving, so it’s going to be a simple affair: dinner, drinks, the normal things that friends do in their homes when the rest of the world is cold and dark outside. Yoongi picks up pork belly and seafood pancakes and, for festivity’s sake, mashed potatoes and gravy . Seokjin makes a cake just for the fun of it, chocolate and vanilla buttercream with a plastic Santa ornament on top. 

When Jungkook arrives, Seokjin answers the door wearing an apron with Santa’s Little Helper emblazoned over a cartoon elf sticking its butt out to the side. He’s pretty sure there’s butter smeared on his face and he can feel his hair escaping from the headband he’d slapped on.

In other words, he looks like a mess.

Meanwhile, Jungkook, under his winter coat, is in a giant gray hoodie and matching sweatpants. He has a bottle of wine in his hands. (Seokjin remembers the other times he’s opened the door to let Jungkook in before, and curses Yoongi’s ability to disappear whenever he’s most needed). 

“Nice outfit,” is the first thing Jungkook says. 

“Right back at you,” Seokjin shoots back, sniffing. 

Jungkook cracks a smile, then. It’s small, but it’s there. They stand there awkwardly for a half a beat before Seokjin remembers to step to the side and let Jungkook in. He breathes in when Jungkook passes, smells clean citrus and cotton, doesn’t breathe out until Jungkook wanders into the kitchen. 

Dinner is not as tense as he’d thought it would be. In fact, Jungkook is nothing but nice, almost distressingly so. He doesn’t act like the last time he’d been here Seokjin had asked him to move in. He acts like a dinner guest. 

The three of them talk about the food and the weather and their work. Yoongi thinks Namjoon might really move back, after all. The boyfriend, Taehyung, is an interesting guy, he says. Jungkook says he would love to welcome them to Seoul, and perks up when Yoongi mentions that they’re both animal lovers. 

Afterwards, they hack at Seokjin’s cake, getting frosting and plastic snowmen everywhere, and sip champagne. It’s when Jungkook brandishes the soju that Yoongi shakes his head.

“All right,” he says, his face as red as a shiny autumn apple. “I’m going to bed. You two gonna be all right out here?” He sounds outright skeptical, the closest anyone’s gotten all night to acknowledging the elephant in the room.

“Yes, hyung.” Jungkook rolls his eyes, sounding petulant. He also seems very drunk.  

“Okay, okay,” Yoongi grumbles, standing up. He staggers a little. “Merry Christmas, assholes. G’night.” 

“Night, Yoongles,” Seokjin calls to Yoongi’s disappearing back. He gets a tired middle finger as a response, and truly, it warms his heart. 

Then it’s just the two of them, sitting on the floor of his apartment with soju and the remnants of dinner spread around them, an all too familiar scene. Seokjin can see how the rest of the night would play out: they would make out, dreamy and slow, on the couch; clean up together, flicking soap suds at each other foolishly and happily; at some point Jungkook would probably go too far and Seokjin would have to wrestle him for the dishrag; and Jungkook would let him corner him against the countertop and raise his chin defiantly and ask what he would give to get the rag back, and Seokjin would make a joke about spanking him for his rudeness and Jungkook’s eyes would darken and maybe his breath would hitch and almost definitely they would forget about the rest of the dirty dishes and inevitably get soap in their hair later—

Seokjin exhales, very slowly. 

When he sees Jungkook looking at him steadily, he almost does it — lean over and kiss him. Maybe if they don’t talk about it, they can pretend it never happened. But then the dredges of fear rise up in him again, like a heart attack in slow motion, and he has to turn away, gulp down another shot of alcohol to burn away the acid fright. If it would be that easy to pretend, it would be too easy to get wrong again, too. And Seokjin would rather have less of Jungkook, right, than all of him, wrong. 

“Happy Christmas, hyung,” Jungkook says.

“Happy Christmas,” he echoes. He should say something, right? Something that will reassure Jungkook that he did the right thing by leaving, even though Seokjin had asked him to stay. No hard feelings. Seokjin will bury all his hard feelings in the bog of his own heart, let it sink into the muck. 

“So how are things?” Jungkook asks carefully. “The new shoot?” 

Seokjin remembers, then, what he’d done. Nobody knows yet, not even Yoongi. “I quit my job,” he replies, equally carefully. 

“What?” 

“Yup.” Seokjin shrugs. “I finally did it. New year, new me, and all that.” 

“That’s great, hyung,” Jungkook says. “That’s really great.” He takes a big swig of soju, straight from the bottle. 

The living room feels too small, suddenly, the heat that had previously made everything cozy now slightly claustrophobic and cloying. Seokjin is very aware of how far they’re sitting from each other, an unnatural distance only made more bizarre by the tension in the air. Why did people say that alcohol made it easier to be honest? If anything, Seokjin’s tongue feels utterly rigid and incapable of saying anything he needs to say. 

“Do you know what you’re going to do next?” Jungkook asks.

“I’m not sure,” Seokjin says.

“You should open a bakery,” Jungkook says.

“Maybe,” Seokjin replies, unsure how he feels about the fact that Jungkook’s first suggestion was exactly what he’d been thinking about. He feels seen , in a way that had made him glow, but now just saddens him.

They lapse into silence which Seokjin feels like a weighted blanket over his shoulders. He wants Jungkook to say something but also to stay quiet. He wants him to leave, so Seokjin can crawl into bed, but he thinks he might not be able to let Jungkook out the door like this. Jungkook does not seem aware of his inner conflict; he throws back another shot. 

Seokjin says, “You should slow down. You’ve had a lot to drink.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jungkook snaps, brittle as sugar candy. Seokjin tries not to flinch, but he doesn’t think he succeeds.

There’s a shuffling noise, and Seokjin sees Jungkook has turned to face him. His face is quite flushed and he’s swaying a bit. 

“Hyung, are we good?” he asks, which is such a ridiculously vague question. Seokjin thinks it must be his awkward, roundabout way of apologizing for snapping, because the alternative — that Jungkook wants an on-the-spot assessment of the goodness of their entire relationship, whatever that even is right now, is slightly absurd and absolutely panic-inducing. 

“Of course,” Seokjin says, slapping a hand down on his thigh. He’s not laughing, which ruins the effect quite a bit. “What’s a little drunk ribbing between friends, right.” 

There’s a clang , and Jungkook yelps. He’d dropped the soju bottle, and it’s now noisily rolling around on the floor, but thankfully it was already mostly empty, so there’s not much of a mess. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and almost trips over his own feet trying to pick up the bottle.

“Let me,” Seokjin says, and reaches for it. 

He grabs it by the neck, and it’s only when he’s straightening that he realizes how close he is to Jungkook. Their shoulders brush and it’s the first time they’ve touched the entire night. He jerks back, too obviously. 

Jungkook’s fringe has flopped into his face, so Seokjin cannot see the expression in his eyes. 

“Hyung, I’m tired,” Jungkook says quietly, as he sits upright, listing to the side. 

“Come on, then,” Seokjin says, standing up so he doesn’t have to listen anymore. 

He hauls Jungkook to his feet and slings an arm over his shoulders. The points where they are touching burn with heightened awareness. “You can take the bed,” he says, just to say something. “It would be highly irresponsible for me to let you attempt to make your way home like this.” 

Jungkook huffs out a breath as they shuffle their way to Seokjin’s bedroom. “It would be highly irresponsible of you to leave me alone in bed, too. What if I pass out in my own vomit?” 

“ Are you going to vomit?” Seokjin tries to affect more disgust than affection in his voice. He ignores Jungkook’s sloshed, instinctual flirting. 

“Nah,” Jungkook mumbles. He sags against Seokjin, waiting for him as he fumbles with the light switch. Their socked feet make no noise as they slide over to the bed and Seokjin uncurls Jungkook from his side. “Throwing  up in your bed does not suit my purposes.” 

It takes a herculean effort not to ask what those purposes might be. 

“Aren’t you going to ask what those purposes might be?” Jungkook demands, red-faced and subdued. His hair fans out on the pillow, raven-black against white. He tosses a bit, grumbly, legs falling open automatically. 

Seokjin looks away. “No,” he says, reaching over to pull the comforter up to his chest. “I already know they’re devious.” 

Jungkook grins, toothy and kiddish. “Bingo.”

“You’re terrible,” Seokjin says, and he can’t help the way softening the words by tucking a stray lock of hair behind Jungkook’s ear. “Go to sleep and dream your nefarious dreams.” 

A hand shoots out from beneath the covers to grab Seokjin’s wrist. 

“Hyung,” Jungkook mumbles into his pillow. “It’s cold. Stay here.” His grip tightens. 

“Jungkook-ah, let go,” Seokjin says. He tugs gently, but Jungkook is, not surprisingly, stronger than he is. 

“Don’t wanna,” Jungkook says, and Seokjin can practically see him pouting. 

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Seokjin says, which is pretty hypocritical because neither does he; he’s functioning on autopilot now because he’s aware that if he lets himself even entertain the possibility of serious thought, there will be nothing stopping him from falling into bed with Jungkook. It has always been too easy to cleave himself to Jungkook’s desires. 

At his words, Jungkook opens an eye, a gleaming slit in the light. His look is muzzily accusatory. “I do,” he says. “You just don’t want to hear it.” 

It’s entirely too true and disconcertingly insightful. Is Jungkook as drunk as Seokjin thought? 

Doesn’t matter, he tells himself. 

“I’ll turn the heat up. Go to sleep,” he says, and rips his hand away. He leaves with a nonsensical pat to Jungkook’s head, and backs away, shutting the door before Jungkook can say anything else that will cut right through him. 

Outside in the living room, he sits down and knuckles at his temples. 

He wants to go back into the room and lie down beside Jungkook. He wants to wake up next to him. Kiss him. 

But he’s already had his chance, and he blew it. Jungkook made his decision — the right decision — and Seokjin should honor it. This touchiness is just residual affection. It will pass; it has to. Seokjin doesn’t think he can be around a Jungkook that acts like his boyfriend but is not his boyfriend. 

He can feel the fear and desire rising up in him like the worst mixed cocktail, overly sweet and nauseating. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” he whispers to himself. His chest is all tight and achy, like a pulled muscle seizing up. Of course, if he knew, he wouldn't be in this position. 

That night, he sleeps fitfully on the couch. Before the sunrise tomorrow, in the gauzy gray of predawn, he thinks he hears footsteps, and the quiet click of a lock turning, but he doesn’t have the strength to open his eyes before sleep pulls him under again.

Of course, Seokjin is not surprised when he finds his bed empty the next morning. Neither is he surprised to see that Jungkook made his bed before he left. What is startlingly unexpected in its intensity, however, is the terrible, gut-ache feeling that he’s made a terrible mistake. 

On the first day of the new year, Seokjin goes to the bank and signs a check that will buy him the piece of retail space he will transform into his bakery. 

He’s never considered himself a creature driven by his desires, someone who yearned particularly hard — not like Jungkook or Yoongi, both of them who wanted deep in their bones — but he does want this. He allows himself this: an honest desire, and all the possibility of happiness and failure that will come with it. 

THE PRESENT, FALL 2020  

Seokjin still knows where to find Jungkook. 

He’d baked a cake, but had left it at home in the end. It felt childish, somehow, like a toddler apologizing with knick knacks because it was the only way they knew how. But he was an adult, so he would use his words. No more hiding behind offerings. 

It’s Wednesday, so he goes to Yongsan Family Park. This time, he doesn’t hide behind the bushes like a creep. Much like the first time he’d intruded on Jungkook with his avian friends, he simply walked right up to him.

“Hey,” he says. “Can we talk?” 

Jungkook doesn’t look surprised to see him. He brushes off the bits of birdseed on his hands and nods. It’s like he’d been expecting him, which is a surreal thought to have. They walk to a nearby bench and sit down, far apart enough that they don’t accidentally brush up against each other. 

“So, I think I have a lot to apologize for,” Seokjin says, all jitters. He tries cracking a smile. 

Jungkook deadpans, “You think?” 

“Okay, I deserved that,” Seokjin says. “Sorry. I’m nervous. I’m saying stupid things. Argh. Okay. Let me start over.” He turns around to face Jungkook, and maintains eye contact resolutely as he says with as much feeling as he can muster, “I’m sorry. For being a complete shithead at the party the other night and ruining everything. And I’m also sorry for throwing candy at you.” 

Seokjin can’t tell what effect his apology has on Jungkook; his face, normally so expressive, is perfectly calm, and Seokjin wonders when Jungkook learnt to school his emotions like that. Then he sees just the sliver of a smile, and Jungkook’s whole body sags against the bench. He looks almost relieved. 

“Apology accepted,” he says. “Though I will admit I ate the caramels you threw at me. Couldn’t let them go to waste.” 

Could it really be that easy? Seokjin doesn’t think so. He can see Jungkook picking at the hem of his shirt, and knows that there’s more on his mind. 

“What is it?” he ventures. 

Jungkook looks up at him through his eyelashes, almost shy, something which he hasn’t been around Seokjin for a while now. It makes him look both sly and innocent at the same time; it’s the same look that used to precede him baiting the shit of out Seokjin so that he would manhandle him to the ground. 

“Why’d you do it?” Jungkook asks. 

“Do what?” 

Jungkook shrugs. “The theatrics.” 

Seokjin sighs. The truth will out, after all. The petty, selfish truth. “I was jealous. You looked good. Your new friends looked good. You looked good together. I was an irascible lump.” 

Jungkook starts a little, at this. Slowly, he says, as if for clarification, “Taehyung’s dating Namjoon. And you saw the way Hoseok-hyung and Jiminie were eyeing Yoongi-hyung.” 

“Yes, unfortunately I have that image branded on the back of my eyeballs.” Seokjin winces. “I know it doesn’t make any sense at all, but actually this is rather opportune, because I also have to apologize for — not trying enough, to be friends, you know. After. When you’ve clearly made up your mind and are actually putting in effort to be nice, meanwhile I just. Was a complete dick.

“It’s just, you acted so normal after we broke up, I felt like...I don’t know,” Seokjin says helplessly, all of it coming out now. “Like I was going nuts, everything felt out of control, and you were totally fine, like we never even—”

There’s a strange look on Jungkook’s face. He looks like he’s on the verge of an enormous realization. 

“I was totally fine?” he asks. 

“Weren’t you?” Seokjin replies, and he doesn’t mean for it to come out sounding so...hurt. 

“Did you know,” Jungkook says, sounding, improbably, casual and half-strangled, “I didn’t realize we’d broken up until the Christmas dinner we had at your place.” 

Seokjin goes still. “What?” His mouth is suddenly dry. But you were the one who left. 

Jungkook exhales loudly. “Well, shit, I guess we’re really talking about this now.” He slides Seokjin a sideways look. It is no longer shy or sly. When he speaks, he sounds sad and unbearably gentle. “Hyung, you didn’t say. After we fought, you didn’t call. Or visit. I was waiting for you, but you never came. And you never told me.” He laughs a little, like this piece of information is funny. 

“How was I supposed to know if you never told me?” he continues, and just like that, Seokjin understands that Jungkook does not find this funny at all. 

Seokjin has no words. His mind is blank, a whir of white noise. He kind of wants to throw up. He thinks about how Yoongi had once told him that he was a really good listener, actually, and he wonders if somewhere along the line he’s forgotten how to be the one doing the talking instead. Or maybe, if he’s being honest, he’d always rather been the one hearing other people’s truths than giving them his own.  

Jungkook says, “A year and a half ago I told you I loved you and you walked out of your apartment and didn’t call me for three weeks. You broke up with me without even breaking up with me, which is something I didn’t realize you could do. I had to find out from Yoongi-hyung. He said, ‘I’m sorry you guys broke up’ and I had to stop myself from asking what he was talking about. Do you know how insane I felt?”

“Jungkook, I—” 

“You just let me go, hyung.” Jungkook raises his voice over him. “We had one fight, and you just fucking let me go. And the funniest part is, I didn’t even know.” 

Oh, god. 

“That night, at Christmas,” Jungkook continues, voice lilting higher in agitation. “I remember. You put me to bed. I asked you to stay, and you didn’t.” His voice wobbles, like a barely-set jelly, and Seokjin has never felt clumsier.

“You were drunk—” he tries, but Jungkook cuts him off again. 

“Stop treating me like a kid,” he says. “I know what I was asking. I remember.” 

Seokjin remembers, too. 

Hyung, are we good? and Hyung, I’m tired. 

The tidal wave is back, only this time it’s not fear, it’s a bone-chilling front of sorrow and all the time he cannot take back, and Seokjin lets it wash over him. 

After an age, he realizes he’s bent over at the waist, head in his hands. He whispers, “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

From somewhere above him, he hears Jungkook snort, a sad, bristling sound. “I tried. Didn’t I? I came by all the time, even when Yoongi wasn’t around. You locked yourself in your room. I asked you what you were running away from and you just ran away some more. I tried. Did you?” 

Seokjin thinks of coming home to find Jungkook vaulted on the window, the way his eyes had carefully found Seokjin’s when he could just as easily have ignored him. He thinks of the pink shirt he’d worn that day Taehyung and Namjoon had come over, how it had looked too wide in the shoulders—

“You took one of my shirts?” he asks, lifting his head up to gape at Jungkook.

“And you didn’t even notice,” he retorts, which is extremely fair. 

“I don’t pay attention to my clothes anymore,” Seokjin admits glumly. “Did you know how much I stopped giving a shit once I wasn’t being paid to?” 

“Ah, so it wasn’t that you were completely unaffected by the sight of me in your clothes,” Jungkook says lightly. It doesn’t quite mask the bitterness beneath.

“I thought you were trying to let me down easy,” Seokjin says quietly. “To be disgustingly honest for once, I always thought you were too good for me. I assumed you agreed, by the end.” 

“You presume too much, hyung,” Jungkook says, and this time the way he says hyung reminds Seokjin of the very first time they’d met, when he’d bluffed with cultivated haughtiness and a well-tailored suit, and Jungkook had seen through it all and taken his measure anyway. And then, more bluntly, “Stop fucking projecting.” 

Seokjin is a trash fire of a human being. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“Taehyung told me the same thing,” Seokjin admits. “And I think I understand now. Honestly, Jungkook-ah, I was really scared. But I should have held on. I should have talked to you and listened to you. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” His hands are trembling almost uncontrollably. 

“It’s fine,” Jungkook says. 

“No, it isn’t.” 

There’s a pause, then: “You’re right, it isn’t,” Jungkook agrees, “I’m still not over it, to be honest.” 

But a hand reaches out to cover Seokjin’s anyway, stilling the compulsive shiver. Jungkook’s fingers are slightly cold; Seokjin doesn’t mind at all. 

“Did I fuck it up for good?” he asks. 

“I don’t know. I really, really don’t. For the longest time, I thought I would take you back in a heartbeat if you ever just opened your damned mouth to ask.” 

Seokjin hardly dares breathe. “Does that mean you still—” 

Jungkook says, very calmly, “I think I would like us to be friends.” 

Seokjin looks at him, and sees the steadiness in his gaze. He understands now: this is Jungkook, mending their fractured relationship on his terms. 

“I would like that,” he says. He will beg for anything he can get. Then he asks, tentatively, “Can I hug you?”

A multitude of expressions flash across Jungkook’s face before he clears his throat and nods, just once. Carefully, Seokjin reaches over and pulls Jungkook close to him. Tucks his chin around Jungkook’s neck and squeezes until he feels Jungkook relax against him minutely. It feels kind of weird; when they were dating their touches had always been playful, even when they weren’t necessarily playing — this feels strange, like something new Seokjin must acclimate to. But gradually, he feels Jungkook loosen, arms coming up tentatively to hug back while he presses his cheek against Seokjin’s shoulder, and Seokjin finds that he is okay with this discomfort, if it means he gets to learn Jungkook, all over again.

He has a lot of catching up to do. 

THE PRESENT, WINTER 2020

This winter doesn’t feel as cold as last year. Seokjin and Jungkook make snowmen in the park and by the time they’re finished Seokjin can’t feel his fingers anymore, his nose is red and running, and there’s frost all over his hair. But Jungkook’s laughter is mellow and comforting, like if honey were a sound, and—

He still keeps his hands in his pockets, but the rest of him feels warm. 

Then, two weeks into the new year, Jungkook starts going on dates. 

The first time goes like this: they’re having their weekly dinner as usual, but when Jungkook shows up, he has some makeup on and is wearing fancy leather boots, a shirt tucked into jeans that has the top two buttons undone. 

For a second Seokjin is confused as to why this look is familiar, then he remembers. Nice clothes, nice hair. Earrings, lip gloss. He’s seen Jungkook’s first date outfit before, when they had tteokbokki in this very room. Sometimes life is funny, and sometimes cruel; this time it is both. 

“Yah, Jungkook,” Yoongi says, poking Jungkook’s exposed collarbone. “Isn’t this too sexy for a first date?” 

“Jimin-hyung told me to do it!” Jungkook pouts. “He said it was subtle but inviting.” 

“Oh?” Yoongi raises his eyebrows. “Hmmm. Fine, then.” 

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Yoongi, you’re seriously whipped.” He turns to Jungkook, who looks suddenly nervous. “You look very nice,” he says, and he means it. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” He winks, hoping to dispel any awkwardness, and hopes Jungkook can’t see how tightly he’s gripping his cup. 

He doesn’t feel jealous, necessarily. He’s glad that Jungkook is opening up his life to new experiences and meeting new people. Not protective, either, because he knows Jungkook can take care of himself. Maybe wistful is the right word: he sees him in his nice clothes fretting over how he looks, what he’ll say, whether he’ll be charming enough, and all he can think is — anyone would be lucky to have you. 

Some of Jungkook’s dates end early; those are the bad ones, or the ones that are just okay, and the three of them usually end up getting chicken and beer afterwards. Jungkook, chewing furiously, will talk about how his date’s breath had smelled, terrifyingly, of garlic even though all they had was dessert wine and cake. Seokjin will be a normal person and stop himself from asking how close they’d gotten for Jungkook to be able to tell.  Or sometimes the badness is more mundane, like someone who seemed only interested in talking about himself, and kept asking the wrong questions. Seokjin likes hearing Jungkook dissect his dates afterwards, likes being privy to the insides of his brain in this way.

Then there are the ones that end well. These ones, they don’t discuss. They don’t meet up for late night supper. Seokjin can fill in the blanks. Sometimes, the next time they see each other, Seokjin can still spot the faintest dark smudge below Jungkook’s jaw or nestled in his collarbone. 

He ignores it. He lets go. 

Seokjin tries. And it’s never easy, but it becomes easier . He asks Jungkook about his family one day, and after Jungkook finishes telling him about how he never really knew his biological parents and how the foster home he’d been in was okay, but had never felt like home, he takes a deep breath and says, for the first time in his life, “I think everyone in my family hated each other.” 

Jungkook doesn’t say anything, just waits. Seokjin continues, and Jungkook listens. Seokjin has never told anyone this before; Yoongi only ever guessed at the contours of this particular old hurt. Afterwards, he feels raw, like he’s spent the last half hour poking relentlessly at a fresh-bloomed bruise, but then Jungkook suggests they visit the baby ducks at Nanji Park, and Seokjin wonders if this soreness isn’t so much the pain of reopening an old wound but the good, comforting ache of stretching out muscles he never knew he had before. 

One day, Seokjin asks, “So are you magic?” 

Jungkook gives him a confused look. “No,” he says slowly. “What makes you think that?” 

Seokjin waves a hand. “The bird thing. Can you, like, talk to them?” 

“What? No?” 

“So…you can’t understand what they’re saying?”

“Oh my god. No—hyung, have you spent this whole time thinking,” now Jungkook is laughing, gasping for breath, “that I was some kind of bird whisperer?”

“It was a valid assumption! You were all, like, mysterious and emo so was I wrong for thinking you were some kind of bird witch?” Seokjin squawks.

“You thought I was mysterious?” Jungkook giggles. “And emo?”

“Stop repeating all my words at me!” Seokjin says. 

“Bird witch,” Jungkook teases. “That’s so stupid.” But his eyes are crinkled into a fond shape. 

“Okay, I get it, magic isn’t real, I don’t know what I was thinking, blurting that out,” Seokjin groans. 

“Mmhm, I’m not sure about that,” Jungkook says, eyes twinkling. “You should ask Taehyung to take you to the river sometime. He could show you something pretty dope.” 

Seokjin points an accusatory finger “See? Mysterious.” 

Jungkook laughs. “This one’s not my mystery to reveal,” he says, which is so fucking cryptic. “But if you want to know about me and the birds, it’s because of Uncle Choi.” 

“Uncle Choi?” 

“The Birdman of Hangang. He taught me all I know.” 

Seokjin raises his eyebrows.

“He was this old man who went to the parks by the river every day. He fed the birds. Helped them. One day he saw me looking and asked if I wanted to try.” Jungkook shrugs. “I said yes. People thought he was crazy. I think he just wanted some company.” His eyes go distant. “He died a year or so ago. Stopped showing up for a week and I knew something was terribly wrong. It took me two days to find him because I’d never asked where he lived or what he did besides hang out at the park. I still don’t know anything about him, really, except that his name was Choi Minseok, he was 78, and his favorite birdy was G-Dragon’s mom. At least, I’m pretty sure.” He chuckles. 

“That’s really nice, Jungkook-ah,” Seokjin says. “I’m glad you were friends. People are real assholes and so much of it stems from ignorance and fear, you know, and you just—don’t give a fuck, and that’s so cool. You’re a solid one, kid.” He stops rambling. It’s embarrassing, but these days he’s doing something called the free expression of thoughts. 

Jungkook’s cheeks are flushed pink from the cold. He mumbles, “Don’t call me kid,” and leans over to steal a slab of Seokjin’s beef. 

Seokjin jabs at his chopsticks, defending his food, but gives in eventually when Jungkook starts threatening to call down his flock to peck at him.

“You can’t do that,” Seokjin protests. “Literally! Also, no fair!” 

Jungkook just sticks out his tongue at him. 

It gets easier, falling into a pattern that is at once familiar but not entirely the same as the one they’d had before. This time, Seokjin wants to know — and feel — everything. Because Yoongi was right — the people that matter take work. 

Seokjin thinks, I see so much more of you now.

Seokjin says, “I see so much more of you now,” and for once, when he sees a quiet happiness grace Jungkook’s face, he doesn’t regret speaking his mind. 

THE PAST,  SPRING 2019 

Seokjin first met Jungkook in the spring of 2019, a time that felt like a palmful of rose petals, everything brimming with possibility and shine. Seokjin, in pastel, on TV. Seokjin, perhaps never as happy as he thought he was, but who didn’t think it mattered as long as he looked the part. Then, enter Jungkook: spooky, bloodstained, with cow eyes. 

Seokjin asked him about his injury, once, when he realized he never found out what exactly happened to Jungkook the night they met, why Yoongi had been patching him up. “I bet you were scratched by an angry mother bird when you were just trying to help rescue her chicks,” he suggested, picturing it already. His valiant boy, saving lives. “Or maybe some asshole kid was mistreating a birdy, and you stepped in—” 

“Hyung, I got punched in the face by a drunkard,” Jungkook interrupts. 

“Oh,” Seokjin frowns. “That’s not very heroic. Unless you were defending—” 

“Nope,” Jungkook says, ending the word with a pop. 

“So I was right,” Seokjin cries. “You were suspicious after all.” 

“Is that what you told Yoongi hyung?” Jungkook’s face has gone all squished up with amusement. Seokjin reaches out to smooth it out, otherwise he’s going to start laughing too. “He said something about how you were real snotty, and not to mind you.” 

“The utter betrayal. Why did you lie, then?” 

Jungkook blushes, scrunches his nose up even more. “‘Cuz I panicked. Wanted to impress you and you looked really fancy.” He pauses, turns away, picks at the hem of his shirt. “I was grubby.” 

Seokjin is so fucking fond. 

He presses his face into Jungkook’s neck and curls an arm around his chest. Bites down gently and laughs when Jungkook squeaks. “You’re my grubby boy,” he murmurs. “Dirty pretty baby.” 

“Hyung,” Jungkook whines, and that’s the moment, Seokjin thinks, the completely sentimental, gross, blush-inducing moment, that he falls in love for the first time. 

Love is not pink flowers and red hearts, after all; for him, it’s the boy in all black. 

THE PRESENT, SPRING 2021 

The second time Seokjin falls in love with Jungkook, he sees it for what it is. Like the first time, it is nothing dramatic. The heavens do not open with rain and his heart does not grow to twice its size. But where previously he had felt open and uncomfortably uncertain, this time Seokjin is only certain.

He wonders if he’d just never stopped loving Jungkook, but he thinks this is doing a disservice to what he’s experiencing now. Back then, love had felt like feeling: a good one, warming him from his head to his toes. Now, it’s all that and more: it’s something he wants to do — with Jungkook. He is a hearth, and he wants Jungkook to warm by his side. 

This time, Seokjin does not wait five days to throw some bread at Jungkook and make out with him in a public park. 

He’s tired of waiting.

“Jungkook,” he says. It’s a Sunday and they’re both at the bakery. Seokjin has a big order to fulfil for a birthday — cake, accompanying cupcakes, meringues, the works — and Jungkook has come over to help him. He’s currently beating egg whites into soft peaks; Seokjin takes a second to admire the cord of his muscles and the concentration in his eyes before he clears his throat and says again, “Jungkook-ah.” 

“Hyung, hold on,” Jungkook says. “I’m almost there.” 

“I have a stand mixer, you know,” Seokjin points out. 

“Yeah, but I wanted to try,” Jungkook says. “Bet it tastes better handmade anyway.” 

Seokjin wants to tell him that’s not really how baking works, but instead he says, up to his elbows in flour, “I love you.” 

Jungkook stops whisking. 

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Seokjin hadn’t expected the need to clarify. “I mean, I love you,” he says. “I’m in love with you.” 

“Oh,” Jungkook says. “I don’t know what to say to that.” 

Immediately, Seokjin wants to die. Maybe he can knock himself out with his rolling pin. 

Jungkook must see the expression on his face because he winces. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just don’t understand. Where is this coming from?” He looks slightly wary. 

“Um,” Seokjin says. He doesn’t know what that question means. “My heart?” 

“This isn’t funny, hyung.” 

Seokjin blanches. He wasn’t trying to be. For maybe the third time in his life he’s totally, utterly serious. “I know it isn’t, Kook-ah. But I’m not joking. I wouldn’t, not about this.” 

“So...what do you want? Are you asking me out?” Again doesn’t need to be said. 

To be honest Seokjin had not thought that far ahead.

“I just wanted to tell you,” he says. “I wanted to let you know.” 

They both remember the last time he hadn’t. 

“I appreciate that,” Jungkook says, and Seokjin wants to die again. No wonder people hated being emotionally vulnerable. 

“I really do,” Jungkook continues. He must have seen the constipated expression on Seokjin’s face, because he puts his bowl aside and comes closer. Seokjin tries not to shy away like a scared animal. “I know this couldn’t have been easy for you—” 

“Oh my god, end me now,” Seokjin blabs, unable to deal with what must think is a merciful letting-down but instead is like committing seppuku with a dull blade. 

“—because it definitely hasn’t been easy for me, waiting for you to come to your senses.” 

Seokjin blinks. “Wha…?” 

The light in Jungkook’s eyes is fierce and exultant. “God, you’re slow.” 

“???” 

“I don’t know how you managed to verbalize question marks, but you did,” Jungkook says, not without some appreciation. “Hyung, I know.” 

“Know what ?”

“I know how you feel about me. Because I feel the same way, too.” 

Seokjin remembers Jungkook saying, with complete earnestness, that he wanted them to be friends.

“But you’re a terrible liar,” he says, still reeling. “And you said: friends.” 

“I got better,” Jungkook says. 

“Fuck, I guess you did.”  

“It wasn’t a complete lie, anyway,” Jungkook says. “I did want us to be friends. But I also wanted to kiss you, even then. Never stopped wanting to.” 

“You rascal,” Seokjin breathes. “What about your dates?” 

Jungkook shrugs. “I wanted to go on those, too,” he says. “Did you know, you can want different things at the same time. Sometimes even contradictory things.” 

Seokjin knows, all right.

“To clarify,” he says, slowly. “When you say you feel the same way…” 

Jungkook raises his chin, just slightly. “You can use your own words.” 

“I mean, I already did,” Seokjin says helplessly. “I love you.” The second time is much easier than the first; he wonders if the more he says it the lighter it will make him feel, until he can float away into the sky.

Jungkook looks at him appraisingly. 

“Why don’t you ask me out?” he asks, and it sounds equally like a challenge and an invitation. 

“Okay, fine,” Seokjin says, reckless and loving it. “Will you go out with me, Jeon Jungkook?” 

Jungkook smiles. “Only if I get to pick where we go.” 

“Done,” Seokjin says. “Done, done, done.” 

Jungkook sticks out a hand, and they shake on it, like they’re blessing a new business venture. 

“Wait, I want to do it right this time,” Seokjin says nervously. “I'm sorry I was so idiotic about this before. I don't want to have a weird non-breakup again where we just stopped talking to each other and assumed the worst. That was the dumbest, most pointless thing, I can't even think about it without wanting to throw up in my mouth a little." He pauses, unsure. "Are we boyfriends? Will you be my boyfriend?” 

Jungkook hesitates, and Seokjin almost makes a meep sound. 

“I think, eventually, yes,” Jungkook says, which isn’t a no. “But I agree that we should do it right this time, and I think it means taking it slow. We have to talk to each other. Like, really talk, not that thing you do where you say things and pretend they mean something symbolically, or something.” 

Seokjin winces. He is not unaware of what Jungkook is talking about.

“Okay, agreed,” he says. “Literary devices banned forthwith in this household.” 

“Ban ‘forthwith,’ too,” Jungkook says. “Old man.” 

“It’s not an archaic choice!” Seokjin protests. “Words mean things!” 

Jungkook raises his eyebrows. 

Seokjin shuts his eyes. He’d walked into that one. “Fine,” he allows. 

“I love bullying you,” Jungkook says happily. 

“I love you,” Seokjin blurts out, and blushes.

“Don’t hide, hyung.” 

“I’m not—I’m just—okay. I’m going to make you a promise. And old me would have kept it to myself because if I never spoke it out into the world it wouldn’t matter if I failed. But then it doesn’t mean shit, and I want this to mean shit. Well. You know what I mean. It’s only real if you know it too. It only matters if you know.” 

Taking a deep breath, Seokjin leans in and whispers his promise into Jungkook’s ear. “Do you believe me?” he asks when he draws back.

Jungkook looks thoughtful, and amused, and happy. “I think I would love to see you make your case, hyung.” 

Seokjin slowly leans forward to rest his forehead against Jungkook’s shoulder. He can feel Jungkook’s palm slide up to cup the back of his neck, his hand dusty with flour and dry against his sweaty skin. “Thank you,” he says, voice muffled. 

“I have high hopes,” Jungkook says, his touch as soothing as a balm for heartburn. 

Things don’t go back to the way they were before. Thank god, otherwise what would all of this have been for? Now, like well-adjusted adults, they communicate, and discuss; they set boundaries, and shift them when they press up against them. Yoongi sees them cuddling one day and has the audacity to try to sneak off into his room but they attack him and sit him down and tell him everything; he listens, pretending as if he’s being tortured, but Seokjin swears he saw the glint of a tear in his best friend’s eye. He also definitely saw him open up a group chat with Jimin and Hoseok and blab to them immediately afterwards, that little snitch. Taehyung claps his hands like a seal when they all meet up for dinner and he sees them holding hands; Namjoon wolf-whistles and immediately blushes. Everyone is happy for them.

Sometimes it goes slow, like when Jungkook sleeps over again for the first time and they both fumble a little, lost; but sometimes, it’s as if they picked up where they left off, with piggybacks and slightly defiant spoonfeeding and balancing on a bicycle that’s too small for both of them, careening down the Han with the wind in their hair. 

Only this time, Seokjin doesn’t feel the big wave of fear anymore. His heart is the warm sunlit sea, and Jungkook is the shearwater that skims its surface, dazzling, and plunges deep.

SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE

In the early dawn, there are two men walking by the Han River. There had been three until just a minute ago, when one of them, the tallest, with a head of shaggy silver hair, stripped and dived into the cold waters, sleek as a knife. He did not surface for a very long time, and when something did break the gloss of the river’s surface, it was a furred head, amber eyes in a face of gray fur. 

“Did he dye his hair to match his pelt?” Seokjin wonders. He waves at Taehyung, who dips a flipper in response before folding back into the current. 

“That’s your question?” Jungkook laughs. He gathers up Taehyung’s clothes and folds them neatly into his bag. They agreed to meet back here in two hours; plenty of time for Taehyung’s weekly swim and for them to make their rounds. 

“Well, it’s the only one that can be answered within the bounds of logic,” Seokjin replies. “What? Don’t laugh! He’s magic! I think I’m handling this very well.” 

They walk in silence, the only sounds around them the early morning twittering of birds and the soft creak of the earth waking up beneath their feet, as thousands of other people stir into wakefulness in their beds. It puts Seokjin in a meditative mood, which doesn’t unnerve him like it would have used to.

“I wonder if Taehyung misses his family,” he says. “I wonder if they miss him. He’s so very far away.” He doesn’t just mean geographically, but he thinks Jungkook understands without him having to clarify.

“He told me about them, once,” Jungkook says. “He was the black pup in his family. Apparently, the kids are kicked out once they’re old enough, to learn how to survive on their own. ‘Come back only when you want to, not when you need to,’ his father told them. Only Taehyung never did. Want to, that is. I think that surprised everyone, including him.” 

“He strikes me as a lot more sentimental than that,” Seokjin says. 

“He is,” Jungkook agrees. “And he visits whenever he wants to. But sentiment shouldn’t keep you somewhere you don’t want to be, right? Maybe sometimes if you love something you have to let it go.” 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything, just pushes his pushes his collar up to guard against the chilly breeze that’s picked up suddenly. He wends his arm around Jungkook’s so he can stick his hand in his jacket pocket, and smiles when Jungkook yelps. 

“Cold,” he says by way of explanation. 

“You have your own pockets,” Jungkook points out. 

“Prefer yours,” he says simply, and Jungkook allows it. 

“I rescued an injured bird once,” Jungkook says suddenly, when they round a curve in the river and arrive at their first feed stop. He whistles sharply, and after a few seconds there’s a dry rustle in the trees and Seokjin sees that two sparrows have alighted on the lowermost branch. With the warmer weather, the birds that left during winter are coming back. “It had a sprained wing. I think it got hurt when its parents kicked it out of their nest.” 

“How rude of them,” Seokjin says. 

Jungkook elbows him half-heartedly. “They were doing what their parents did to them. Teaching it how to fend for itself.” 

“Tough love?” 

“Something like that,” Jungkook says. He shakes out a couple of seeds onto his palm and holds his hand out. The sparrows flit straight to him, pecking gently at the food, and Seokjin shifts to hug him from the back, arms around his waist and chin on his shoulder. 

Jungkook makes a soft, surprised sound. 

“This okay?” Seokjin asks, his whole heart in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Jungkook whispers, and leans back a little. 

“It was the first bird that ever let me close,” Jungkook says as the sparrows finish up. “It needed me, and that felt good. Nobody had ever needed me before. But then one day, its wing healed up, and it flew away, just like that. Never came back.” 

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin mumbled into his neck. 

“Don’t be,” Jungkook laughs. “It’s like Taehyung told me, yeah? It only matters when they have a choice. A bird needs the open sky. It had to let me go.” 

Seokjin thinks that’s a strange and sad way to put it, that the bird, and not Jungkook, had been the one to let go. But, with what he knows about Jungkook, maybe not so odd after all. 

“What a neat metaphor,” Seokjin says, as a prelude to what he actually wants to say.

“Metaphor? For what?” Jungkook laughs. “Didn’t we ban metaphors?” 

“Not yet. Only symbolism. Anyway, what I’m trying to say, dear Jungkookie,” Seokjin says, “is that thank god neither of us is a bird, because I’m certainly not going to let you go. Not again.” 

In the rosy hue of morning, he kisses him, and that, too, is a promise.