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they kiss backstage in cheongju, and that’s where things start spiraling out of control. yoongi can’t pinpoint the exact moment when the glances started lingering too long, when the casual touches started feeling less and less casual, when he started noticing jungkook differently - he’d always noticed him, how could anyone not with his talent and looks - but at some point, something shifted. had they been flirting? hell if yoongi knows. he’d tried to ignore it; the feeling of something building up, everything he was suddenly feeling, telling himself, this is harmless, telling himself, it’s just jungkook. it’s just jungkook. and then it happens:
at the end of a concert, before encore; the backstage is dark, the crowd is loud in their ears, and the rush of adrenaline is working to numb everything, while simultaneously making everything feel like too much. yoongi’s not completely sure of the events leading up to it: it’s a confusing mess of sounds and sensations, a dream-like haze. it’s jungkook, in the stage lights, sweat glistening on his skin, laughing; jungkook’s fingers on his wrist, against his pulse, and they are either walking or running, away from the lights; his hand on jungkook’s bicep and jungkook’s hands in his shirt, and he’s either pulling or jungkook’s pushing; the sensation of his back hitting the wall, jungkook so close their thighs touch, their chests touch; and finally, their lips, when jungkook dips his head down to press his mouth hotly against yoongi’s. yoongi doesn’t have a single coherent thought. he’s not sure where they are. how they got here. if anyone’s seeing this. he’s grabbing onto jungkook’s shoulders like his life depends on it. it feels like jungkook’s hands are leaving burns on his skin.
the encore. the rest of the concert goes smoothly as ever. he thinks he might feel jungkook’s eyes on him, but when they are done, he hurries backstage ahead of the others, his heart pounding with more than just the adrenaline from the show.
changing out of the blazers and dress shirts they wore on stage. namjoon gathering everyone together and making his usual post-show speech, short and to the point. the car ride home; taehyung crashes as soon as he gets in the car, possibly even earlier. everyone’s quiet, but it’s good kind of quiet, tired and content kind of quiet. yoongi is quiet because jungkook is seated right in front of him. he’s slouching against jimin’s shoulder, probably half asleep. the whole car ride yoongi stares out of the window and thinks, what the hell was that. thinks that maybe jungkook, for him, is never just jungkook.
--
surprisingly, things are only mildly awkward for so long. so maybe they avoid talking about it, avoid being left alone together for the first couple of days, but it’s bound to happen, eventually. yoongi has been focused on writing for the past two hours, and doesn’t even notice everyone else leaving; when he looks up, jungkook is the only one on the couch with him. jungkook looks up from his phone, and he looks as surprised as yoongi is. they freeze for a couple of milliseconds; for those milliseconds, some ridiculous part of yoongi’s brain goes, are we going to kiss again? but then jungkook licks his lips a little bit, says,
“i was going to watch a movie, do you want to watch it with me?” he looks sort of nervous and cautiously hopeful and yoongi mentally throws himself down some stairs for even thinking that.
“yeah, sure,” he says, and jungkook looks happy, suddenly, his posture relaxing.
they watch it in jungkook’s room because the television in the living room is still broken from the time namjoon played wii sports. it’s a horror movie, because yoongi is one of the only people in the dorm jungkook can watch horror with. they lie side by side on jungkook’s bed, arms and legs brushing. yoongi keeps a running monotonous commentary, and jungkook keeps pushing at him playfully. it’s nice. it’s normal.
has something changed? yoongi’s heart beats a little bit faster at the feeling of jungkook’s body heat on his skin. did it always? he’s not sure. it’s past midnight when the credits roll and yoongi gets up to slip into his own room. jungkook doesn’t ask him to stay, only sits up and smiles at him in the glow of the screen, telling him to beware of monsters on his way. it would be easy to kiss him. yoongi hazily wonders how he would react if he did. if he’s waiting for yoongi to do it. if he would kiss him back, pull yoongi down on the bed with him.
yoongi realizes he’s been staring a little bit too long. he says a quick good night and leaves without another glance at jungkook. he speed walks to his room, which is not a good idea given that the house is dark and he hits his toe on a doorframe. jin is already sleeping, muttering something about either roasted onions or the russian union. yoongi tries his best to not wake him up, changing out of his clothes quietly and slipping under the covers, hoping his subconsciousness will give him a fucking break and not make him dream about brown hair and lean muscles and a bunny-teethed smile.
--
then it’s been over a week, neither of them has mentioned it, and a part of yoongi is starting to think that maybe it didn’t even happen. maybe it was his imagination, a strange, feverish post-concert dream. maybe they never strayed from the rest of the group, maybe they were never alone in that dark corner backstage. maybe he doesn’t actually know how jungkook feels all pressed up against him, hot and sweaty, or how he kisses. would he dream that up? (the answer is, embarrassingly, yes, he would.)
a host of a tv program asks jungkook if he’s had his first kiss yet. next to yoongi, jungkook gets all flustered, unable to wipe the embarrassed grin off his face, his hands moving around wildly as he tries to dodge the question.
“no comment, no comment,” namjoon helps out mercifully as the other members have the time of their lives picking on jungkook who visibly gives up, putting his hands back down on his lap, laughing but at the same time looking like he wouldn’t mind being swallowed by the earth.
“we won’t air this, don’t worry,” the host says, and then they air it anyway, and yoongi can watch on his phone screen as jungkook glances at him, just for a split second after the question.
his first thought is, the fans might pick up on that. they always notice this sort of stuff. doesn’t really matter, mostly people won’t think it seriously means anything.
his second thought is - and it really hits him, his chest tightening with mild panic and something else - so it really happened. it’s not like he really, actually believed it didn’t, but... fuck, it really happened. jungkook pushed him against the wall and kissed him, and yoongi kissed him back, and it was real. it was real and it was good and yoongi liked it, wanted it, and it was possibly jungkook’s first kiss, and, shit. yoongi knows they have to talk. has known it the entire time. (why, exactly? so that it won’t happen again? to make it happen again? yoongi could claim it’s definitely the first one - but he’d be lying.)
they are on the road again, in hong kong, this time. they have a practice and two shows coming up, but tonight they are free to relax at the hotel. “relax” being merely a suggestion that some people choose to ignore; yoongi hears someone who sounds a lot like hoseok scream in the corridor, followed by jin yelling in his exaggerated exasperated tone. the two are rooming together. yoongi is rooming with namjoon, who’s already passed out on his bed in starfish position. jimin and taehyung snatched jungkook for the three-person room.
yoongi contemplates between taking a shower and just going straight to jungkook’s room. he compromises, sending a text saying, are you in your room? i want to talk and getting into the shower. in the shower, his mind runs blank. he stares at the tiled wall, forgets whether or not he put on shampoo already, puts it on again.
“get it together,” he says blankly to the running water.
when he gets out, ten minutes later, jungkook has replied, come to the 46th floor. yoongi raises a brow, types, it’s private and throws on a pair of sweats and a black hoodie.
just come, jungkook says, and yoongi knows he’ll go. he frowns at himself in the mirror before leaving. he’s not exactly serving looks tonight. the hoodie is oversized and frayed, his hair is a damp mess, and his face is still a bit puffy from the hot water. he’s not sure why he feels like he should look good. he just wants to talk. he just wants to address what they did. that’s all. that’s all. after a moment’s hesitation, he grabs the black mask he wore on the way from the airport and puts it on.
the forty-sixth floor is the last floor available on the elevator. jungkook wants him to come to the roof? now that he thinks about it, he vaguely remembers some of the members gushing about the hotel having a rooftop level before they even got here. the elevator plays godforsaken elevator music and yoongi is going to kick jungkook’s ass for making him listen to it for all of twenty-five floors (not physically possible, but maybe jungkook would let him get a hit in).
the elevator dings and the doors slide open to reveal a dim floor. it’s too quiet and yoongi suddenly feels like he’s going to get jumped. he steps out cautiously. he doesn’t see anyone, and then:
“hyung.” he turns in the direction of jungkook’s voice, and sees him at the lower end of a staircase, hanging onto the railing with one hand as he leans down towards yoongi. “i didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“then why’d you ask me to,” yoongi says, rolling his eyes, and walks towards jungkook. “where are we?”
“come up,” jungkook bites at his lip and grins. yoongi is sort of glad he’s too far away and it’s too dark to see well.
jungkook strides up the stairs annoyingly fast with his long legs. yoongi follows him much more slowly. at the end of the staircase, there’s a door that’s held open by a... fucking pair of gucci slippers. yoongi immediately knows that whatever’s happening here, probably should not be happening. he steps out on the roof and takes it in: seats and tables line the edges, along with dimly lit lanterns. there’s a closed up bar up ahead and a swimming pool in the middle. there’s absolutely no one up here, except for -
“yoongi-hyung!” jimin is waving at him across the pool, arm raised high above his head. taehyung, barefoot, surely enough, attempts to dropkick him into the pool.
“what do you think?” jungkook suddenly appears at his side. he’s grinning, happy and excited.
this is a different side of jungkook, yoongi thinks. jungkook on stage is ferocious, the way he moves making him seem older than he actually is. here he is a twenty-year old boy full of unguarded wonder and excitement for things. yoongi can’t help but smile under the mask.
“i think one of them is going to get soaked,” he says, raising a brow, “’i’m betting on taehyung. this place looks a lot like it’s closed, you know.”
“the door was open,” jungkook shrugs, “if we get in trouble, we’ll say we didn’t know. come here.”
and then he’s tugging at yoongi’s sleeve, leading him towards the edge.
“when did you become such a troublemaker,” yoongi mumbles.
“you guys raised me, so whose fault is that,” jungkook quips.
jimin and taehyung are playing around somewhere across the pool. yoongi can’t see them from this angle. jungkook takes a seat, twisting his body to look at the scenery, his forearms resting on the railing. yoongi sits down next to him. their knees don’t quite touch.
“look at it,” jungkook says, and yoongi looks. tries to. it’s not his fault jungkook is in the way, distracting him.
jungkook took a shower too, but he doesn’t look like a mess, unlike yoongi. he’s wearing a white t-shirt, loose but stretching around his biceps the way he has his arms up; yoongi briefly wonders if he’s cold, but it doesn’t look like he is. his brown hair is messy in a way that still looks good. his face is bare, and yoongi can barely make out the tiny scar on his cheek in the dim light. he looks soft, in the light from the lantern. he looks so... effortlessly good. it’s not his fault. anyone would stare.
jungkook turns to him. yoongi knows he was caught staring. jungkook blinks; a soft smile appears on his face.
“why are you wearing this,” he says, and then he’s reaching to hook a finger under yoongi’s mask. “there are no cameras here.”
yoongi lets him pull the mask down under his chin. it feels more intimate than it probably actually is.
“you know what i want to talk about,” yoongi says, although his breath is catching in his throat.
jungkook looks at him for a moment. the smile on his lips turns into something smaller.
“yeah,” he says, “i just wanted to show you this. where do you want to go?”
yoongi looks at him. jimin and taehyung’s voices are distant. cool night wind ruffles jungkook’s hair a little bit. yoongi thinks that were they alone somewhere, he might kiss him again. so he says,
“we can stay here for a while longer.”
jungkook smiles lopsidedly at that.
“it’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, and yoongi can’t tell if he’s honestly talking about the scenery, or if he’s making fun of yoongi because he saw him staring. in any case, yoongi says,
“yeah, it is.”
“this looks romantic,” jimin’s voice comes, closer than a moment ago, “should we leave, tae?”
jimin and taehyung are walking over, taehyung’s arm slung over jimin’s shoulders.
“you look like you’re on a date,” taehyung comments. yoongi is pretty sure jungkook’s face flushes a little, even in the dim light.
“so do you,” he says.
“we are,” jimin says, throwing an arm around taehyung’s waist. “it’s been a wonderful time. he’s a gentleman.”
“anything for you,” taehyung says, wiggling his eyebrows at jimin in a truly ridiculous manner, and jimin breaks into giggles.
“don’t make me watch this,” yoongi says, “just go if you’re going.”
“the leader is going to be pissed if you stay out all night,” jimin reminds them, and they leave, taehyung complaining about his feet being cold.
they sit in silence for a while. yoongi is trying hard to ignore the fact that they are alone, they have the whole roof, and the backdrop is kind of sickeningly romantic. and he has thought about what to say, ever since he saw the interview; but none of it seems to make much sense, now that they’re alone on a hotel rooftop and jungkook is inches from him looking all soft and beautiful. jungkook is sitting seemingly casually, eyes fixed on his hands, but the way he’s fiddling with his fingers reveals that he’s nervous.
“was that your first kiss?” yoongi ends up asking. he’s not speaking loudly but it still sounds too loud in the silence.
jungkook licks his lips slowly and raises his head to look at yoongi.
“does it matter?” he asks.
“i just want to make sure,” yoongi says slowly, trying to collect his thoughts as he goes, “that you know what you’re doing.”
that you don’t regret it.
the look jungkook gives him sort of takes him by surprise. he looks serious, all of a sudden, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, a certain intensity in them that makes yoongi think that, just maybe, he underestimated what he’s gotten himself into.
“don’t baby me, hyung,” jungkook says quietly, “i know what i did. everything i did was because i wanted to. besides, you... kissed me back.”
there’s a hint of hesitance as he says it. like he’s half expecting yoongi to deny it, although they both know full well yoongi did kiss him back, that he was digging his fingers into jungkook’s shoulders so hard it probably hurt. yoongi sighs. he lets his gaze slide over the city.
“i did,” he says. he feels jungkook’s eyes on the side of his face.
“and you don’t want to do it again.”
he says it like a statement. there’s something like sadness in it. like disappointment. yoongi feels a twinge in his chest. he knows what he wants to say. he’s thought about this. he’s thought about this a lot. what they should and shouldn’t do. but it’s difficult to say it.
“it’s... that would complicate things. it’s not something... we should get into.” god. he sounds like a fucking emotionless jerk. he forces himself to look at jungkook, whose gaze is fixed somewhere between yoongi’s shoulder and jaw, the look in his eyes distant. it’s the right thing to do, rationally, all things considered. yoongi’s sure of it. but somehow it feels like he’s fucking up.
“yeah.” jungkook cocks his head, still staring at the same spot. “yeah. you’re right.”
he blinks, finally focuses his eyes on yoongi’s.
“i get it. we should forget about it. continue acting like it never happened. it’s not like i didn’t know that. i just...” he trails off. yoongi is pressing his nails into his thigh.
“jungkook,” he starts, and doesn’t know where he’s going with it. find someone you can actually be with. find someone better. just kiss me again.
jungkook gets up.
“it’s okay, hyung,” he says, looking down at yoongi, “you don’t have to worry about me. just... we’re still friends, right? we’re okay?”
“of course,” yoongi says, and it comes out as a breathy whisper. jungkook bites hard at his lip. his expression falters for a split second, almost too briefly to catch. then he nods.
“we should go in,” he says.
something in yoongi snaps, and he acts purely on impulse. his hand shoots out before he can think about it, grabbing jungkook’s wrist to stop him from leaving, pulling him back down on the seat. he has just enough time to see jungkook’s eyes widen; then he’s leaning forward, pressing his lips to jungkook’s. the hand that isn’t holding his wrist comes up to the side of his face.
they barely move; yoongi just holds it for a few more seconds, until pulling away because he forgot to breathe, and he thinks jungkook did, too. he’s looking at yoongi with half-lidded eyes, his breath hot and heavy against yoongi’s lips. yoongi swallows, the realization of how much he wanted this rolling in like a tidal wave. then he decides to continue realizing things at a later time, because this time it’s jungkook who closes the distance, and yoongi loses the ability to think about anything else. he tilts his head to fit their mouths together more firmly, drawing a small noise from jungkook’s throat, and yoongi is gone, just like that. he slides his fingers into jungkook’s hair, kisses him hard, his tongue darting out and past jungkook’s parted lips; jungkook opens his mouth, his tongue sliding against yoongi’s, inexperienced and sloppy but, for some goddamned reason, so good. his fingers dig into yoongi’s ribs. yoongi’s curl in his hair.
they pull away to catch their breath; one of them - yoongi’s not sure which one, and it doesn’t matter at this point - closes the distance again, and again, and once more. the pace slows down, becomes lazy, deliberate. jungkook’s hands are very still and firm against yoongi’s sides, like he’s concentrating hard. it’s filling yoongi with such intense fondness, he thinks he might die.
he’s lost all interest in the concept of time. staying here until dawn, slowly kissing, sounds very ideal. he’s vaguely aware he one hundred percent contradicted his own words, and he can’t even bring himself to care, right now. kissing jungkook is addictive. he never knew his self-control could be this bad.
“what now?” jungkook whispers against his mouth. yoongi doesn’t know. he draws back to look at jungkook. his lips look as swollen as yoongi’s feel. his face is slightly flushed. his hair is more of a mess than it was before. it’s... a good look on him. yoongi needs a) to get his pulse in check and b) a cold shower.
“we go back down,” he says, “we get some sleep. we pray namjoon won’t murder us tomorrow because we’ll be looking like the walking dead. and we’ll talk about this.”
“okay,” jungkook says, tongue darting out to lick his lips. yoongi’s eyes follow the movement involuntarily. “okay.”
it may sound like a clear-cut plan, but they run into a problem already during the first step. the door is closed. it won’t open, no matter how yoongi pulls.
“tae’s shoes,” yoongi groans, throwing his head back. “fuck.”
jungkook tries, too, because he’s stronger, but little does it matter when the door is locked.
“i can’t believe they actually locked us out here,” yoongi says, “i’m gonna kill them dead.”
jungkook ponders what it would cost if he kicked the door in, but before he can attempt it, yoongi reaches into jungkook’s back pocket and pulls out his phone, holding it out for him wordlessly. while he’s phoning up taehyung, he gives yoongi a look, lip caught between his teeth in a halfhearted attempt to hide his smile.
“it’s kind of funny,” he says, and finally gives in to laughter after seeing the suffering look on yoongi’s face. yoongi joins in seconds later. it’s a mess. it would get messier. but at least it’s kind of funny.
--
“dude, what the hell,” namjoon nudges at his side in the middle of practice, “you look like the walking dead. more than usually.”
this morning, yoongi nearly missed the car ride to the venue where the dress rehearsal is held, which is, essentially, namjoon’s fault for not making sure he woke up. (“i tried for like twenty minutes. i thought you were dead, so i held a two minute silence and left.”) he woke up to hoseok banging on his door and a bunch of missed calls from the members and the manager. he got less than two hours of sleep and would kill for a cup of coffee. luckily he’s used to operating on little sleep.
“and why is taehyung acting like he’s expecting you to kill him at any given moment?” namjoon continues. “what the hell did you all do last night?”
yoongi conveniently ignores the question and lets his gaze slide over the backup dancers and technicians until it settles on jungkook. he’s doing a little bit better than yoongi, only looking half-dead whereas yoongi looks eighty percent dead, but yoongi suspects it’s only because he slept the entire car ride, and then he slept backstage when they were trying on the costumes. he was basically sleeping when the frustrated stylists tried to dress him.
when yoongi approaches him at the end of the practice, taehyung at his side eyes him warily and then quickly disappears to join jimin across the stage. it reminds yoongi of an antelope escaping a cheetah. jungkook chuckles under his breath.
“you’re not really even mad at him, are you?”
“no,” yoongi says, shrugging, “but it’s fun to watch. i’ll tell him he’s forgiven later.”
jungkook yawns and covers it with his oversized shirt sleeve.
“didn’t get much sleep either?” yoongi asks, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
jungkook tilts his head to the side, giving yoongi a curious look. he fiddles with his long sleeves a little bit.
“why couldn’t you sleep?” he asks.
“namjoon was snoring,” yoongi says. after a beat, “and i kept thinking about the rooftop.”
“are you interested in architecture?” jungkook ducks his head, trying to hide how pleased he is. there’s a cocky smirk pulling at his lips.
yoongi rolls his eyes. they are in the back of the stage, behind the lights. he glances around. there are no others nearby. namjoon is chatting with someone a little ways to the right, but yoongi can only see his legs. he grabs jungkook’s sleeve and tugs, spinning him around to face him. they end up standing very close.
“i was thinking about you,” he says in a low voice, looking jungkook in the eye, “brat.”
he hopes, in the back of his mind, that he’ll never forget the way jungkook’s looking at him now. there’s a glimmer in his tired eyes, a slight pink tint high on his cheeks, and the smile he gives is happy and soft and private. yoongi feels warm, inside and out. something about jungkook makes you want to give him the world. or maybe it’s just yoongi. they jump apart when they hear namjoon’s voice coming closer, even though they weren’t doing anything.
back at the hotel, jungkook nudges at him as they walk the corridor on their floor.
“do you want to nap?” he asks, and yoongi knows what he’s really asking is, do you want to nap together. he curls his fingertips against jungkook’s, softly, and says,
“i’ll kick namjoon out.”
namjoon gives them a long look, but in the end, merely raises an eyebrow and asks if he should hang the do not disturb sign. (yes, but not because of the implication.)
jungkook flops down on the bed face first, limbs spread. yoongi gives a laugh and pushes at his leg.
“move, you’re taking up all the space.”
jungkook rolls over to lie on his back, and yoongi gets on the bed next to him. they’ve done this before, sort of, they’ve fallen asleep on the same bed - usually with other members around, though - but it feels like the first time. but, still: jungkook scoots closer and drapes an arm over his chest, easily, naturally, and it’s not awkward in the least.
“i’m so tired,” jungkook murmurs, his face close to yoongi’s on the pillow, and yoongi can see the details of it, the dark eyelashes against his cheeks, the small imperfections, the slight purplish shadows under his eyes. he lifts his hand, without thinking, and brushes a strand of hair out of his eyes. jungkook’s eyes open at that, heavy with sleepiness. he may or may not have the prettiest eyes yoongi’s seen. he may or may not be the prettiest person yoongi’s seen. he’s almost sleep deprived enough to say these things out loud.
but he says, let’s sleep, and jungkook’s eyes close once more, a smile ghosting on his lips. yoongi falls asleep watching him, and even though the size of these things he’s feeling is starting to terrify him more and more - even though he doesn’t know what will become of this - it feels a lot like everything is alright, right now.