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Yoongi had always despised Jin. Everything from his perfect pout to his perfect family to his perfect grades annoyed Yoongi beyond anything he had ever felt. He just seemed to have the perfect life and as someone who saw their imperfections as creative inspiration, Yoongi couldn't help but be annoyed at Jin’s seemingly ideal existence. It didn't help that as childhood neighbours around the same age, the old ladies in the neighbourhood were always comparing the two, pointing out Yoongi’s flaws whereas Jin had none.
His distain was well known to his friends who unhelpfully chuckled and jeered whenever the two would pass in the corridor, quietening a little when Yoongi would aggressively mutter under his breath for them to stop but never completely letting it go. Everyone knew that they were rivals: that's just the way it's always been.
Yoongi only starts to question his view of Jin’s life when he’s seventeen, a whole thirteen years after the pair were first introduced.
It's late on a Sunday in the middle of term and he’s feeling stressed. The workload is piling up now and he craves nothing more than a cigarette. His parents are both out doing god only knows what and he figures he's pretty safe stepping out onto the small balcony at the back of his terrace house. What he doesn't expect to see however is that perfect Jin has had a similar idea, swapping the balcony however for the flat roof of his own house.
“What are you doing up there?’ Yoongi asks the older boy, cringing at how harsh his tone had sounded to his own ears.
Jin eyes him cautiously before lazily pulling his own cigarette up to his lips.
“Just hanging out,’ he replies with a shrug, ‘I'm guessing you had the same idea.”
Yoongi holds up his own cigarette and lights it, not letting the appearance of his rival get in the way of his relaxing. He takes a long drag from it, cockily blowing out a long breath of smoke. Jin does the same only instead of blowing out a breath, he manages to manipulate the wispy smoke into vague circles. Yoongi feels a flash of admiration before remembering who he's looking at and frowning around his cigarette. Jin chuckles behind his hand.
“I didn't think you were the smoking type,’ Yoongi says because he can't help but try to fill the silence in this strange situation.
Jin actually laughs at that, a bit of a strange sound but one that has Yoongi’s insides squirming at the thought of making him make that noise again.
“There's probably a lot you don't know about me Min Yoongi.”
With that, Jin nimbly jumps off of the roof onto his own balcony and stubs out the end of the cigarette on the railing. He shoots Yoongi a small smile before he makes his way inside and shuts the door behind him.
*
After their first encounter, it becomes almost a regular thing for Yoongi to see Jin smoking on the roof of his house at night. He can't believe he's never noticed him before: he would have been the first person to spot anything less than perfect about perfect Jin. However, eventually, in every single cliche way possible, Yoongi begins to see that everything he thought about Jin was wrong. Well, he still has a perfect pout (delectable when pressed gracefully against the end of his cigarettes) and perfect grades (he sometimes even brings his school work onto the roof although Yoongi constantly threatens to stub out his cigarettes on it) and his family is still pretty good (although the tidbits of conversation the pair now share allude to the mounting pressure they're putting on Jin to succeed) but he's not sure why when he looked at Jin the first time he had thought that they should be rivals.
Jin is funny in a way that makes Yoongi groan out loud but secretly he enjoys the silliness that he's never seen before. When the weather gets a little cooler, Jin brings an old blanket out, helps Yoongi up onto the roof, wraps it around the two of them and points out the constellations. He starts to always do it when Yoongi’s parents have been fighting and the younger soon figures out that Jin can hear the shouting through the walls. Yoongi discovers Jin’s kindness in the way he doesn't ask questions about the fights that Yoongi would be embarrassed to answer. The perceived rivalry has turned into a quiet friendship, only shared between cigarettes and roof top discussions.
It's not until several months after their first roof top encounter, while wrapped up in Jin’s duvet with the stars reflecting in their eyes, that Yoongi realises he likes Jin as more than a friend. He's felt like this before about his male friends and decided to squash down any feelings but this time, maybe if it's Jin it'll be okay.
“I like you,’ he says quickly, not wanting to lose this sudden surge of confidence.
Jin looks down from the sky, his eyes going wide and boring in Yoongi’s. For a moment he's scared, scared that he's screwed this up in an irreversible way. However, soon Jin’s lips are stretching into a beautiful smile. Yoongi can't help but smile too, even though he feels a little bit like he'll start to cry any second now. Before he has a chance, Jin is leaning in and pressing their lips together. It's still at first, both of them getting used to the feeling before Yoongi moves his slender hand to brush against the short hairs at the back of Jin’s nape. The other man moans softly and that seems to set off a reaction in both of them. Suddenly, they turn desperate, hands clutching at every body part they can reach, contented sighing passing from one set of lips to the other.
“I never used to smoke,’ Jin suddenly confesses as Yoongi pulls away from his mouth and presses gentle but deliberate kisses against his neck, ‘when you saw me, it was only my second time ever.”
“Oh’ Yoongi says questioningly, ‘What made you continue?”
There's a small moment of quiet where Jin pants a little more heavily as Yoongi softly sucks the juncture between the other man’s neck and his shoulder.
“I've always liked you,’ he says eventually, moaning a little as Yoongi grazes his teeth against sensitive skin, ‘I just didn't know how to talk to you, you were always glaring at me.”
Yoongi snorts despite his fluttering heart and moves away from Jin’s neck, manoeuvring himself into his lap and kissing him soundly.
“I think I probably liked you too,’ he admits, looking away sheepishly and hating his lack of confidence, ‘I think I just mistook it for wanting to be better than you.”
Now it's Jin’s turn to laugh, that strange sound that Yoongi had inexplicably fallen in love with.
“That's okay,’ he says, pressing their foreheads together gently, ‘we're here now and that's all that matters.”
*
Jin and Yoongi are still rivals at school. Yoongi starts to try harder, wanting his grades to catch up with Jin’s (it helps that he sometimes attempts to get Yoongi to study before he allows them to kiss) and his friends still tease him when they pass by each other in the halls (although Yoongi’s expression is more one of fond annoyance when their eyes meet than the real annoyance it used to be). They're still neighbours (burdened by expectations and the underlying terror of falling apart). But at night, on the rooftop looking up at the stars as if they're all that exist in the world, the two of them kiss like dying men. They can't be certain about forever but they know can be certain about right now and as Jin said, that's all that matters