Archive of Our Own ^beta

He wondered what he had done to deserve this.

Most of the other guys had scattered into small groups so that they could talk more easily, some of them louder than others. He could see Namjoon hunched over a small, pocket-sized book, reading over the contents with a furrowed brow. Seeing his friend that focused made him mildly curious but Yoongi didn’t want to interrupt him, although he did wonder if it was something he should be concerned about. Not so much when it came to Namjoon, more the wide-eyed Taehyung trying to read whatever was written in it… upside-down.

“It’s your fault, you know.”

“I know,” Yoongi replied dully, resisting the urge to grind his teeth.

Jin sounded way too smug about this entire thing, but then, that wasn’t very surprising. What was surprising was that he hadn’t muttered a single I told you so thus far, although Yoongi wasn’t going to risk mentioning that. It’d be tempting fate and his luck was bad enough as it was. As if the universe had suddenly decided to remind him of his current predicament, the sound of laughter washed over him. Loud, bright, interrupted in the middle by a hiccuping giggle. Yoongi was half-convinced he’d recognize that laugh anywhere and in any circumstances.

His hands tightened around the smooth pieces of the wooden puzzle that had ended up being his gift. It was a clever thing, three dimensional, and had immediately piqued his interested when he had looked at it through the transparent packaging. It wasn’t a Rubik’s cube, which he was mildly famous around campus for being able to solve rather quickly, but it had the same sort of appeal to him. And it was new. A new challenge. A good gift.

His mind wandered over to the other side of the room again at that thought, his head turning to look, only for him to abruptly and forcefully glance away at the first flash of yellow. Another loud laugh rang in his ears. Yoongi very purposefully searched for something else to focus on, eyes eventually landing on Hoseok and Jeongguk, who seemed to be entirely immersed in a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Three other guys were playing with them. One of them was Taemin, the fourth he vaguely recognized as one of Guk’s close friends, Yugyeom, but he was fairly sure he had never seen the fifth guy which was very surprising considering the fact they all lived in the same floor of the dorm.

“You could just go tell him,” Jin pointed out, smug voice now sporting an undertone of giddy glee that made Yoongi feel instinctively wary.

“I’m ignoring you,” he replied, only to get immediately - and predictably - smacked on the arm.

“Don’t be rude, Yoongi,” his friend chided him, very obviously staring in the direction Yoongi had been avoiding looking at for the past twenty minutes. “Seriously, just go tell him.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

A lengthy pause followed his answer. Yoongi didn’t need to turn his head to know that Seokjin was giving him one of his patent looks but quite honestly, he wasn’t in the mood for it. At that precise moment, he wasn’t in the mood for much of anything, in fact, except maybe contemplating his existence and all the mistakes that led him to today.

Yoongi sullenly looked up at the ceiling.

His first mistake, he decided, had been coming to study here in the first place, rather than choosing something more sensible. Like, say, taming wild tigers in the snowy wilds of Siberia. Sure, the low temperatures and all the ice would probably kill him, and if they didn’t, his dedicated and beloved pupils could always decide he was more suited to being their lunch than their teacher, but it still sounded like a more sensible option than coming here. After all, if he had decided on any other university, the chain of events that led him to this precise moment wouldn’t have happened, now would it?

“Yoongi!”

The sound of that voice calling his name made him straighten up immediately.  He barely had two seconds to get himself together before a head of blond hair popped into view, directly in front of him - and upside down, at that. Yoongi leaned his own head away a little, slightly startled.

“A- Jiminie.”

“Hey,” Jimin said, all flushed cheeks and bright grin. “Do you wanna see my present?”

No. Yoongi did not, in fact, want to see Jimin’s present. There was no real need to do so given the fact that the person who had bought the damned thing had been Yoongi himself. Not that Jimin knew that. The word “no” rested at the tip of his tongue, ready to slip out, only stopped by the happy glint in Jimin’s eyes.

The tips of his wavy bangs swayed to one side with the tilt of his head. It should look sloppy but somehow it managed to look both endearing and attractive - honestly, there should be a law against that. It distracted Yoongi from his eyes but there was no ignoring how happy his friend was with the gift.

Yoongi resisted the urge to sigh. “Sure.”

“Look, look,” Jimin said, lifting the thing and moving it right in front of Yoongi’s face.

It was a plushie of a dog - although, admittedly, a weird one. It had a roundish, white face, with rather simplistic facial features stitched onto it, the most complex of which being the tongue hanging out. The rest of it was yellow and it looked more like a white otter wearing some sort of weird yellow suit with black dog ears than an actual dog plushie, especially as the top of the suit could be pulled down to reveal a bald head.

Personally, Yoongi found it a little weird, but it had only taken one look to know that Jimin would love the damned thing, because he was the kind of - gorgeous, lovely, kind-hearted - person that saw beauty in absolutely everything. It was, generally speaking, a very endearing trait, except when it came to spiders - Yoongi wasn’t going to forget that particular incident anytime soon.

“You like it?”

“Yes!” Jimin replied immediately, lowering himself down a little and placing a kiss on the top of the plushies’ head.

Yoongi stared at it accusingly. He wasn’t jealous of a toy, he really wasn’t, it was just… that was an unnecessary gesture, was all. He wasn’t jealous.

“Good.”

“I wonder who gave it to me,” Jimin mused aloud, lifting the plushie into his arms and walking around Yoongi to plop down in front of him. “It’s so cute.”

“We ain’t meant to know,” he replied suspiciously quick, a little panicked at the prospect of Jimin asking him if he had been the one.

“I know, I know,” Jimin said, smiling down at the plushie with fondness. Yoongi’s own sharp look was completely unrelated. “It’s just… the guy must know me pretty well, right? I bet he’s cute too!”

“What? How do- how do you know that? Maybe he’s not that cute.”

“I’m sure he’s cute, he gave me this.”

“That’s a toy. How can you tell if someone’s cute from a gift?”

“I just can,” Jimin replied with a short laugh, as if that answer made complete sense. “I bet he’s sweet too.”

“What th-” Yoongi stopped, stuttered for a moment, backtracked. “You can’t know that.”

“Sure I can,” Jimin argued, all happy and self-assured, with so much confidence it definitively threw Yoongi for a loop. “If he wasn’t- oh! Gukkie! Look at my present!”

And with that abrupt cut-off, Jimin suddenly got up and walked over to where Jeongguk and Hoseok were arguing about something, carrying the damned plushie in his arms. Yoongi watched him go and could do nothing but stare as Jimin started showing it off and the other two - the traitors - started laughing and playing around and cooing at the thing.

As happy as Jimin was with the gift and as happy as that made Yoongi in return, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was going to bite him in the ass later. Nah, he thought after a moment, shaking his head as if to rid himself of his worries. Jimin’s enthusiasm was going to die down in a few day, once the newness of the toy had worn off.

It was going to be fine.

His second mistake, Yoongi thought, scribbling absentmindedly on his notebook, had been becoming friends with Jimin in the first place.

It hadn’t been on purpose, not really. Yoongi wasn’t even entirely sure of how they met, he didn’t recall the exact day when he first saw Jimin. He just remembered being vaguely aware of seeing the same guy every time he went to the library to study. It had been about a year ago and fairly early on in the semester, too. There had been barely any other students around which was the only reason he had noticed Jimin’s presence in the first place.

They hadn’t exchanged a single word, hadn’t even acknowledged each other, until two months in. More specifically, until essay season had started rolling in and everyone had suddenly remembered they were supposed to have been doing their assignments. Inevitably, that had lead to the entire student body scrambling like mad for an empty table at the library. Suddenly - but predictably, as it happened every damned year - Yoongi’s usual table was always busy.

If that wasn’t enough, there had been no other free tables whenever he had a break and wanted to study. Usually, that would make him sigh in annoyance and go back to his dorm - it wasn’t an ideal place to study by any means, the other guys on his floor were noisy and he always ended up getting distracted doing things for any class except the one he was actually meant to be studying for - but it was better than nothing.

Except… Jimin had been there. Yoongi had hesitated for several minutes too long once he had spotted the guy. On the one hand, he really didn’t need the distractions that awaited him at his dorm and the reviewing he had needed to get done was really important. On the other hand, they had never spoken to each other, not once, and he hadn’t even known if Jimin had noticed him back then.

Gathering all his courage to go ask him if he could sit at his table had been either the best or the worst thing he had ever done in his entire time here.

“So it’s kind of cute.”

“It’s Jimin,” Yoongi replied absentmindedly. “Of course it’s cute.”

Silence. Yoongi ran his tongue over his teeth, only vaguely aware that their teacher was still talking. Honestly, he really should be paying attention to the lecture rather than mindlessly doodling on his notebook but neither his heart nor his head were in it.

It was probably the fact he hadn’t slept very well last night due to all the stress he was under - and definitively not because he kept replaying all the praises Jimin sang to whoever had been his Secret Santa inside his head. Definitively not.

“Oh? That so?”

Blinking, Yoongi looked up from the criminally small side desk to stare at his friend. Namjoon was staring back with a look somewhere between incredibly smug and utterly amused. Yoongi blinked a couple more times.

“What?”

“Everything Jimin does is cute?”

“What? I didn’t- did I say that?”

“Pretty much.”

Yoongi ducked his head and closed his eyes, resisting the urge to sigh. His fingers clutched the pencil a little tighter. Okay, so his brain-mouth filter wasn’t working when it came to anything Jimin related. That was… great. Fantastic, really. He could swear he didn’t use to have this problem. In fact, when , exactly, had it become a problem? Yoongi clearly remembered being able to endure his suffering in silence… and being able keeping his longing looks to himself, too.

“Okay. Uh, Joon, look… I just-”

Yoongi opened his eyes again. His head was still tilted down so, without meaning to, his gaze focused on what he had been mindlessly doodling earlier: Jimin’s name. Several times. Dozens, in fact, covering the previously blank margins of the page and when, how, why had he done that, what even - quick as a flash and with a surprising amount of strength, Yoongi planted his hand over the notebook with a far too loud smack .

Namjoon jumped and leaned back reflexively, staring at him with wide eyes. Yoongi glanced up at him with a flushing face and a mildly apologetic look - he really hadn’t meant to startle him - that slowly shifted to horror as Namjoon looked around with a sheepish smile. Please, Yoongi asked, not yet daring to look, please let his moment of stupidity have passed by undetected.

The odds were slim, he knew, and when his brain registered the fact that the teacher was no longer speaking, Yoongi resigned himself to his fate.

Slowly, he looked away from Namjoon, only to find most of the class staring at him. Including the teacher, whose brow was raised so high it almost touched her hairline. Once again, Yoongi resisted the urge to sigh. It had probably come across as really rude so he swiftly stood up, promptly apologized and then sat back down. She threw him one last look before returning to their lesson.

From the corner of his eye, he could spot Namjoon shaking, probably trying not to laugh.

“Some friend you are,” Yoongi muttered.

“Sorry dude,” Namjoon replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “That was kinda funny. Why did you even do that?”

“Just… stupid doodles,” he said, shifting a little in his seat, suddenly aware of the fact that his friend only had to glance quickly at the notebook to be able to see the evidence of his stupid crush.

“Oh, is it Jimin’s name again?”

And of course life couldn't be kind to Yoongi and let him get away with it. One time - his subconscious had made him draw Jimin’s name all over his notes like he was back in highschool just this one time, clearly driven by being both bored and tired, and he got caught. Damn Namjoon for being so damned observant and damn his hand for - wait.

What?

“What do you mean again ?”

“You’ve been doing it all semester?” Namjoon replied, confusion turning his answer into a question as he glanced at Yoongi and promptly raising a brow at the look on his face - Yoongi couldn’t even imagine what kind of expression he must have plastered on his face. “What, you didn’t notice?”

“No?” Disturbed, Yoongi looked down at the notebook and moved his hand away.

What? How could he have been doing that kind of thing all semester without noticing it?

“Well,” Namjoon said after a long, awkward pause. “You’ve uh, you’ve been doing it all semester, Yoongi.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” a little irritated at himself, he picked up the rubber and started erasing Jimin’s name from the pages.

“I figured you were doing it on purpose? Or that you… noticed… you were doing it...”

Yoongi sighed a little as he continued cleaning up the margins of his notebook. His phone vibrated in his pocket but he didn’t really feel like checking to see who had sent him a message. It was most likely Jimin, who had probably sent him either a puppy sticker or a picture of an actual dog he saw somewhere.

It didn’t take very long for the page to be mostly free of Jimin’s name. The only hint it had ever been there was the vague trace of lines left by the pressure of the pencil on the paper. Briefly, Yoongi thumbed his notebook, going back a couple of pages. Sure enough, Jimin’s name kept popping up again and again, although usually not to today’s extent.

Yoongi pressed his lips together and shook his head before looking apologetically at Namjoon.

“Sorry. Not angry at you or anything, just…”

“It’s okay, man,” Joon shrugged and offered him a smile as he reached over to squeeze Yoongi’s shoulder. “No worries. Do you want me to keep quiet about this?”

“Please.”

“Sure thing,” there was a small pause. Joon glanced up at the ceiling, thinking. “Although… have you thought about saying something?”

“What,” Yoongi asked, dropping the rubber and picking up his pencil only to tap it nervously against the table. “Like confessing?”

“Sure,” Joon agreed. “Like confessing.”

Had he thought about it? Well, of course he had. He still thought about it fairly frequently but something always stopped him. At first, he didn’t think they knew each other well enough. After they became good friends, he couldn’t be sure Jimin reciprocated his feelings given how friendly he was with everyone. Even after making his peace with it and deciding to confess - if only to get some sort of answer and move on - he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it quite yet. Maybe it was cowardly of him but confessing was difficult.

The rest of the students suddenly standing up brought his attention back to the class which seemed to be over now. Mentally cursing himself for not paying attention, Yoongi haphazardly threw everything into his backpack and stood up. Namjoon, who didn’t seem to mind waiting a while for an answer to his question, took a little longer to pack up, making sure to put everything back in its proper place.

That was one of the reasons why they got along so well, he thought - Yoongi often needed time and space to make sense of his own head and Joon was usually very patient with his friends.

“Sure,” Yoongi replied, once they stepped outside the auditorium. “But I haven’t fi- wait, you’re not even surprised about this?”

“Nah. Not really. It kind of makes sense, actually, you always had a soft spot for him.”

Yoongi frowned, wondering if he should be worried about that. It had never bothered him that his soft spot, as Joon put it, was obvious to their group of friends but now he was starting to question that. What if the others figure out that he actually liked Jimin, romantically? Hell, what if Jimin figured it out?

“You saying that everything he did was cute just confirmed my suspicions,” his friend added with a grin, chuckling a little to himself.

“It’s true,” Yoongi defended himself - although he didn’t think there was any need to, everyone on campus was aware of exactly how cute Jimin was. At least, he thought they were. He had overheard giggly conversations about him often enough to assume so, anyway.

“Oh, it is,” Joon agreed easily enough. Some of the tension in Yoongi’s shoulders left. “Especially with how he’s been with Chimmy.”

… Chimmy.

Chimmy ?

Briefly, the names of all their mutual friends flashed across his mind as he tried to figure out who Namjoon could possibly be referring to. None of them made any sense. After a moment, Yoongi realised it was probably someone he didn’t know. Was it one of Jimin’s other friends? Wait, what if it was and what if Jimin had just assumed this Chimmy person had been his Secret Santa?

Yoongi stopped and grabbed Namjoon’s arm, suddenly alarmed.

“ Chimmy ? Who the-”

“Yoongi!”

He froze. Joon looked over his head, blinking a couple of times before raising a hand and waving with a wide grin. Yoongi watched him do it for a second before he turned around, trepidation filling his chest - and, sure enough, it was Jimin heading their way, wavy fringe messier than usual and pushed back from his face, messenger bag bumping against his right hip.

And the damned plushie sitting on his shoulders .

Yoongi blinked at it, torn between his irrational grudge against the toy and the fondness blossoming in his chest at the adorable sight. Jimin stopped right before them, cheeks flushed, smile bright and happy. His small fingers were curled around the plushie’s little feet, keeping it in place. Yoongi couldn’t keep the smile from his face even if he wanted to.

“Hey, Jiminnie.”

“Hi, Yoongi! Hi, Namjoon!”

“Hi, Jimin,” Namjoon greeted him, sounding entirely too amused as he eyed the toy on his shoulders. “I see you brought Chimmy along.”

… what?

Yoongi glanced curiously at Namjoon over his shoulder but before he could ask anything, Jimin lifted the toy, took it off his shoulders and hugged it to his chest with a beaming smile. Then, to add insult to injury, he rested his chin on top of the plushie’s head, causing Yoongi’s heart to stop beating for a second or two.

Yoongi really, really needed to sue him for that one of these days, except he was fairly sure it would be for nought. Jimin only had to smile at him and he’d retract everything, damn it.

“Yep!” Jimin replied, absolutely oblivious to Yoongi’s suffering and inner monologue, squishing the toy against himself. “Isn’t he adorable?”

“He is,” Joon agreed, laughing a little as he stepped around Yoongi to poke the thing in the forehead. “You really like it, don’t you?”

“It’s the plushie ? Chimmy’s the plushie?” Yoongi blurted out, a little too loudly.

A few heads turned in their direction, causing Jimin to flush and Namjoon to smile apologetically again but Yoongi only stared at each student looking at them until they all glanced away. Usually, he didn’t like standing out, always the one to remind his friends to be a little quieter, trying to calm their natural rowdiness, but at the moment he was a little too irritated to care - irritated? Stressed? Surprised?

“Yeah,” Jimin replied, dragging the word out, smile faltering as his expression shifted to concern. “Don’t you like him, Yoongi?“

“I, uhm, well-”

Namjoon’s brow started rising before he schooled his expression back to neutrality, although his lips were twitching, as if he was trying really hard not to laugh. Jimin tilted his head at him, looking even more concerned as Yoongi struggled to come up with something approaching a normal answer.

Did he like the toy? Yes. No. The toy was fine. What Yoongi liked was how happy it had made Jimin and how much he seemed to have liked the gift. What he disliked was how Jimin kept talking about his Secret Santa as if he was developing a crush on the guy. It wasn’t like he could just come out and say that - or, at least, not right that moment. Maybe later, if he could get Jimin alone and could actually gather his courage to confess. Even then, Jimin could praise whoever he wanted.

“It’s… it’s cute,” he said, eventually, and that answered seemed to mollify Jimin.

The beaming smile directed Yoongi’s way never failed to make him smile back, no matter what the circumstances. There was something precious about how honest Jimin’s upbeat nature was, how genuine his endearing mannerisms were. The was something infectious about the way he laughed and smiled, something that drew you in before you realized it.

Or maybe Yoongi was just projecting his crush on the whole world.

“Isn’t he?” Jimin asked, not really expecting an answer.

Suddenly, Yoongi found himself with an armful of Chimmy, scrambling not to let the thing fall down to the floor. When he glanced up, Jimin was looking far too smug, raising a brow in Yoongi’s direction and then glancing pointedly at the plushie, as if to say that Yoongi better appreciate the cuteness of it.

That smug little gesture was a thousand times cuter than the damned gift. It made his heart skip another beat and honestly, that was getting a little worrying, maybe he should have that checked out by a doctor.

“Yeah. It’s uh, real cute.”

“You’re not even looking at it, Yoongi,” Jimin replied, smile dimming down, shifting into a light frown.

“I’ve looked. It’s cute.”

“Uhm,” Jimin didn’t sound convinced but grabbed the plushie again, carefully prying it out of Yoongi's grip. The slight frown on his face disappeared, a wide grin replacing it as he continued talking. “I really want to find out who my Secret Santa was! He must be cute, right, to pick up something this cute?”

Oh, God. This again.

His fingers twitched. Yoongi curled his hands into loose fists and forced himself to smile, even as he fought the urge to glance at Namjoon in mild distress. Usually, Yoongi was rather happy that telepathy wasn’t a thing in the real world as he was a rather private person and didn’t enjoy the thought of having other people peek inside his head - yes, he may have thought about this a little too much during the early hours of the morning when his brain felt like mush and his assignments were mocking him - but right then, he would pay to be able to send a telepathic request for help.

“Maybe?”

“And sweet,” Jimin added, raising Chimmy up, throwing it such an adoring look that Yoongi couldn’t help glaring at it. Just a little bit. “He must be sweet too, to give me a plushie.”

“It’s… Christmas?” he offered. Jimin blinked, lowering his arms a little to stare at him in confusion. “Uh, don’t… aren’t plushies a popular Christmas gift?”

“Not as popular as jewellery,” Namjoon offered with what certainly sounded like a teasing tone but Yoongi didn’t want to risk looking. “But a little bit.”

“Oh.”

Such a small word, more of an exhale than anything, but Jimin almost seemed to deflate with it. His shoulders dropped, arms lowering even further, smile disappearing again. For a moment, he looked almost pensive, staring down at the plushie, fingers curling tighter around it. This time, Yoongi didn’t resist the urge to glance at Namjoon - who flinched a little but seemed just as lost - but before he could say something to cheer Jimin up, he spoke again.

“He knows me well,” Jimin said lowly, gaze softening, turning gentle and fond as he hugged the toy close to his chest again, cheeks a little flushed. “He drew my name from the hat. He picked this for me, something cute and - and yellow, my favorite color. He could have picked something generic, something acceptable but this… this was picked for me , you know?”

His mouth felt dry. Yoongi licked his lips, hands going slack as something tightened in his chest. Yes, of course it was picked for him . They had known each other long enough that Yoongi knew at least some of the things Jimin liked and they were good enough friends that he had gone to the trouble of getting something that would be to his liking. In fact, Yoongi had spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide what to get him, only to stumble upon the damned toy - but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that yes, the gift was picked specifically for Jimin, by someone who knew him well and knew what he liked. The confirmation was right there, at the tip of Yoongi’s tongue, but still he hesitated. A cute guy, Jimin had said. A sweet guy, Jimin had said. Confirming it without giving himself away would be easy enough but he didn’t want to give Jimin more reasons to praise his Secret Santa - who was Yoongi himself. Which meant that he was trying to stop Jimin from praising him .

The skin near his temple tingled, a sure sign of a coming headache. Great.

“Sounds like the guy really cares about you,” Namjoon said and Yoongi’s head whipped around so fast he was surprised it didn’t fly off.

His mouth opened to say something only to shut abruptly at the reminder that Jimin was still standing right in front of them. A noise still attempted to escape, something between indignation and protest, leading him to swiftly place a hand over his mouth to keep it down, which only succeeded in making Jimin stare at him in concern again.

“Yoongi… are you okay?”

Quickly, and maybe a little too abruptly, Yoongi moved his hand away to be able to speak but before he could get the words out, Namjoon replied for him.

“Oh, he’s fine, Jimin,” his friend said, placing a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder and squeezing like he had done earlier during class.

Despite Namjoon’s light and reassuring tone, Jimin did not look convinced in the least. He pressed his lips together and furrowed his brows a little bit, in that endearing way he always did whenever he was either concerned or trying to figure something out. The silence stretched on as Jimin glanced between the two of them for several moments. Yoongi felt his nape growing hotter by the second.

“I, uh,” he started, trying to think of something that would make sense, but all thoughts flew out of his head the moment Jimin looked at him expectantly, leaving him at a complete loss for words.

Jimin kept staring. Yoongi stared back. Jimin furrowed his brows a little further, expression shifting into outright concern at this point.

What the fuck , was the only coherent thought Yoongi could come up with. In all the time he had known Jimin, this has never happened to him, not once . Even after he had realized his own feelings - which, granted, wasn’t that long ago - Yoongi had never really gotten flustered around him. He had never stuttered all that much and he had certainly never lost his ability to speak.

Not until he started hearing Jimin go on and on about his Secret Santa, not until he saw him being all happy and cute with that toy.

The damned toy , Yoongi thought, gaze snapping to it and immediately hardening into a glare. In that same moment, he realized he should probably have been saying something rather than getting distracted by his own thoughts, and his gaze returned to Jimin, only to find his friend  frowning at him.

Oh, great. Now Jimin probably thought Yoongi hated the - what was it called? Chimmy? Yeah, that he hated Chimmy.

“He’s just not feeling well,” Namjoon explained and Yoongi almost sagged in relief, then made a mental note to forgive his friend for the previous teasing. “It’s not bad, I think he just needs some sleep.”

“Oh,” Jimin replied, blinking a few times. The frown eased away, replaced by a small, gentle smile that made Yoongi smile back instinctively - only to freeze when Jimin took a step closer and hugged him.

Chubby fingers clutched at the back of his jacket, their grip surprisingly strong. Jimin’s arms wrapped around him felt almost unreasonably warm and the plushie was squished between them, keeping them separated - and wasn’t that a lovely metaphor for this entire thing, Yoongi thought bitterly - and making the position a little awkward.

It didn’t stop Jimin from moving as close as possible, though. After a brief moment, Yoongi hugged him back.

“Jiminnie?”

“You need to sleep, Yoongi,” his friend said, pulling back to look at him seriously, although the smile was still on his face. “Seriously, remember last semester, you almost passed out after your last exam. Just… please get some sleep? Please?”

“Okay,” he replied immediately, regardless of the fact he had been sleeping just fine and that wasn’t the issue, because there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t give to Jimin when he used that tone - soft and low and almost intimate, despite the fact that they weren’t alone, despite the fact he probably sounded like that when he was worried about any of his friends - and Christ, Yoongi was absolutely done for. “Okay.”

“Great!” Jimin said, his entire face lighting up as he stepped back, making Yoongi’s heart lurch in his chest. For once, he barely took notice of the plushie. “I have to go, I’ll be late, but I’ll be holding you to that, Yoongi.”

“I’ll sleep, Jiminnie,” he said, tone subconsciously lowering to match Jimin’s. “I promise.”

Jimin took another step back, then paused. His lips parted and something flickered across his face as he stared at Yoongi silently for a moment. There was clearly something on his mind but whatever it was, he pushed it away with a shake of his head and smiled at him again, then at Namjoon next to him.

“I really have to go. But I’ll see you later!”

With that, Jimin turned to leave, only to stop and turn back around. Incredulously, Yoongi watched him pick up one of Chimmy’s paws and wave it at them as a sign of goodbye. He was vaguely aware of Joon laughing and moving but he wasn’t paying a lot of attention, too busy focusing on keeping his face neutral, too busy trying to keep his feelings at the utterly endearing sight - chubby fingers clutching the tiny arm, bangs falling in front of his eyes, the slightly embarrassed yet happy smile - from showing.

Slowly, almost sluggishly, he raised a hand and didn’t so much wave back as curled and uncurled his fingers a few times. It seems enough for Jimin, though, who beamed at him before securing the plushie against his chest again and setting off to wherever his next class was.

Yoongi watched him go without saying anything further. He kept staring even as other students got into his line of sight, even as Jimin rounded the corner and disappeared.

Still feeling a vague sense of irritation, Yoongi lowered his arm again. He couldn’t for the life of him remember why he had been so annoyed earlier but it probably wasn’t that important. Especially as he seemed to be in a good mood now.

Looking around revealed that they had been left mostly alone, although he couldn’t really recall having seen a lot of people pass by them either. Or, at least, he hadn’t noticed. It was quiet now - wait, did that mean he was late for his next class?

He really should get going. Instead, Yoongi kept staring in the direction Jimin had rushed off to.

“Man”, Namjoon commented lightly, sounding pensive. “You are so fucked.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi replied flatly. “I know.”

There was a crack in the ceiling.

“-think I should? I know it’s a bit silly but-”

It started in the right corner, a smattering of lines that looked somewhat like a spider web. One of the tendrils spread further into the centre, steadily growing shallower but larger. Halfway through its length, a few small pieces of the ceiling seemed to have fallen off.

“-if he doesn’t like me? Maybe he doesn’t know me that well, or-”

Had Hoseok talked with the landlord about that? It seemed dangerous. Sure, the falling pieces seemed to be very small and shallow, going by the holes they had left behind, but what if the next one was bigger? What if it hit someone in the head? Plus, it had already spread. That was a bad sign.

“-okay, okay. No, I know I want to- but Gukkie, what if-”

This couldn’t possibly adhere to health and safety regulations - not that Yoongi had any idea what those were but presumably the dorms had some. It might have been included in the absolute mountain of paperwork they had been required to read and sign before moving in, come to think of it, but no one actually read it and he was no exception.

Surely they had someone they could call about this, though? The landlord, maybe? Why hadn’t Hobi called him about this already?

“What if he says no? I mean, I’m sure he’ll be super nice about it but-”

A flare of irritation shot up his spine. Yoongi closed his eyes as he inhaled sharply, then kept them closed as he held his breath for a moment before exhaling slowly through his nose. Okay. So this distraction thing wasn’t going very well. It was difficult to make himself focus on something silly and unimportant when Jimin’s voice carried all the way across the room. It was even harder to ignore what was being said and no amount of mental ranting against the state of the dorms was going to make it easier.

Yoongi took another breath, eyes still closed, and lightly dug his nails into the sleeves of his sweater. He could do this. It was fine. He could just ignore what was going on around him. It was fine. If he kept his eyes closed, maybe got his phone so he could listen to some music - if he didn’t have to see the damned plushie or hear what Jimin was talking about, he could do this.

It was fine.

“Okay, okay. You’re right, Gukkie. I want to do this so I’m… I’m gonna find him and ask him out. I think- I might have an idea, I was speaking to Taemin yesterday and he seemed-”

… fuck it.

Abruptly, Yoongi opened his eyes and stood up, startling both Jin and Hobi next to him, pulling their attention from whatever weird board game they were trying to play. Without sparing them a glance, he started walking towards the other side of the room, gaze firmly fixed on Jimin’s back, barely paying mind to what Guk was saying in reply. His gaze stopped briefly on the yellow fabric barely visible to the left of Jimin’s torso: Chimmy, of course. On his lap this time.

He had barely taken a few steps, however, when someone tackled him into a hug. Taken by surprise, Yoongi let out a startled noise and staggered to the side a bit before finding his balance again, curling an arm around the other person to steady himself.

“Wha-”

“Yoongi!”

“Oh, Tae,” his anger at being so suddenly and rudely tackled vanished in an instant when Taehyung lifted his head to give him a huge smile. Usually, he gave Yoongi more warning than this, knowing how much Yoongi hated to be taken by surprise, but he tended to forget whenever he got too excited about something. “Give a guy some warning.”

“Oh, sorry!” Tae replied immediately, eyes widening at the reminder. His smile turned apologetic as he squeezed Yoongi a little bit before attempting to step back - only to be pulled back in by Yoongi, who wrapped one arm around his shoulders.

He didn’t want Taehyung to think he was really upset about the hug, after all, only startled.

“Hey, it’s fine.”

“Sorry, I really didn’t mean to, I forgot, I got excited!”

“Uhm,” Yoongi chuckled, having already figured out as much. “What about?”

His gaze flickered over to where Jimin and Jeongguk were still talking, although they had moved closer and seemed to be whispering to one another which made their conversation very difficult to hear, unlike two minutes ago. Now that he wasn’t being driven by impulse, the realization of what he had been about to do began to sink in, making his heart beat faster.

He had just… he had just been about to walk over there and tell Jimin everything - that Yoongi was his Secret Santa, the one that had given him Chimmy; that Yoongi had like him for a while now; that he’d like nothing more than to ask Jimin out. His breath shortened a little, heart feeling like it was thundering in his chest. The more he thought about it, though, the more he didn’t see any reason not to go through with it.

Jimin might tell him no but Yoongi still had to try. All the little reasons he had found before, that he had used to stall this moment, seemed unimportant. He was going to do this. He was going to walk right over there and confess to Jimin, he was going to-

“-tening, Yoongi?”

“Huh?” he turned to look at Taehyung, blinking a few times. “Oh, uh, sorry. Got distracted. You were saying?”

“The Secret Santa?”

What? Yoongi blinked again, trying to figure out why they had suddenly jumped to that particular topic, of all things. It was difficult to focus when all his attention was currently centred on his newfound resolution to confess to Jimin as quickly as possible but he didn’t want to blow off Tae. That would be rude, he could wait a few more minutes.

“What about it?”

“It’s what I’m excited about! It made me so happy,” Tae replied, not seeming to mind that Yoongi’s attention had drifted off for a bit. His grin grew even wider as he started gesticulating animatedly. “It went so well! And I love the concept, you know? You’re receiving a gift from a stranger, isn’t that nice?”

Yoongi faltered.

“Uhm…”

“I mean, Gukkie was saying he wanted to know who gave whom what, but I told him it was best not to know, because that would ruin it!” Tae said, nodding to himself vigorously a few times. He shimmied from under Yoongi’s arm to stand in front of him, grab his shoulders and pull him close, staring at him rather intensely. “It doesn’t matter who gave it to you, just that they did. It’s not about the people , it’s about the spirit of giving just for the sake of it. And I think knowing who pulled your name out would ruin that - it wouldn’t even be a Secret Santa then!”

Taehyung pouted, clearly put off by the thought of people ruining the spirit of the little tradition he had decided to start this year. Behind the surface childishness of his words, though, there was a genuine sadness to it.

Yoongi stared at him silently for a moment.

Well, fuck.

“I, uh… yeah, that sounds… uhm…”

His words trailed off. Taehyung looked at him expectantly. When Yoongi failed to continue, his intense expression shifted - his smile dropped a little, the light in his eyes faded the tiniest bit. He was still attempting to smile, at least, but Yoongi could recognize forced cheerfulness when he saw it.

“You agree with Gukkie,” Taehyung said, nodding to himself again - just once, this time, and slowly. “Okay, then maybe-”

“No,” Yoongi interrupted, already cursing himself for giving in so easily. His hands grasped Taehyung’s elbows and squeezed a little, carefully. “It’s… yeah, you’re right, it’s… nice. You did well.”

“Really? You don’t have to agree with me just to cheer me up, Yoongi.”

“I’m not,” Yoongi reassured Taehyung, squeezing his elbows again and giving him a genuine - if small - smile. “I think it was really nice. Thanks for talking me into it.”

“You didn’t need that much convincing,” his friend replied teasingly, hands leaving Yoongi’s shoulders before he pulled him into a quick hug. “But thank you.”

“No problem.”

With another bright grin, Taehyung pulled back and turned around, waving wildly at someone.

“Gukkie! Yoongi agrees with me about the Secret Santa! See, I told you!” he shouted, walking off towards Jimin and Jeongguk, chattering as he went.

Yoongi sent a vague smile in their direction, not wanting to be rude, but didn’t quite look at them. Instead, he turned around and went back to his previous seat, plopping down next to Hobi, barely noticing that Jin seemed to have disappeared during his conversation with Taehyung. The urge to bury his face in his hands washed over him but that might seem a bit suspicious so, instead, Yoongi rubbed both palms over his eyes, pretending that he was feeling sleepy.

His third and perhaps most lethal mistake had been giving in to Taehyung. Twice .

In all fairness, it had seemed perfectly harmless at the time. Yoongi had, at some point, admitted that he liked Christmas a lot - honestly, who didn’t? - which resulted in Taehyung chasing him down a few months back to talk about this whole Secret Santa thing he was putting together. In the most literal sense, at that: he had literally chased Yoongi down the corridor until he had stopped to listen to the idea.

It seemed simple enough: the participants were everyone who lived on their floor of the all-male dorm, Taehyung would put all their names in a hat and then privately have each person draw a name. They would then exchange gifts two weeks before they went home as no one wanted to be worried about it during their last week of classes or the hell that was exam week after that.

And it had been simple. It had gone really well, without a hitch, even, except for the fact that Jimin had liked Yoongi’s gift so much that he hadn’t stopped praising him ever since and apparently wanted to ask him out… which really, really shouldn’t be a problem. The current situation was so ridiculous that he felt the need to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming.

This entire mess could have been avoided if he hadn’t given in to Taehyung not once but twice now - first agreeing to the whole Secret Santa business and now deciding to drop his plans to confess just so he wouldn’t make his friend sad, or worse, disappointed. In his defence, everyone pretty much gave in to Taehyung sooner or later, but still.

And the worst part was, Yoongi thought, moving his hands away to glance at his friend, smiling and laughing and doing this weird handshake thing he had going on with Jeongguk, that Yoongi couldn’t even be mad about it. Taehyung had put the whole thing together himself because he liked Christmas and he liked everyone on their floor and wanted to make them happy for a little bit before the stress got to them all. Making sure Taehyung himself was happy was the least Yoongi could do, after all, so he didn’t regret his decision.

Well, not a whole lot.

Yoongi dropped his head and sighed lowly.

“Weren’t you going to confess?”

And abruptly lifted his head again and turned, facing Hoseok with wide-eyes.

“Wh- uh- what-”

“You looked like you were gonna do it,” Hobi explained, or at least sounded like he was trying to explain, although Yoongi didn’t think that was much of an explanation as to how he had known what Yoongi was planning on doing. “And then you came back kinda deflated… did you change your mind?”

Yoongi spluttered a little, incoherent, still taken by surprised by how casually Hoseok had mentioned his- his confession attempt. Plan? It hadn’t been much of an attempt - whatever. Namjoon clearly knew that Yoongi liked Jimin for some time now, according to their conversation earlier in the week, but did Hobi know, too?

“You uh- you know? About me- I mean about Jimin-”

Hobi raised both eyebrows at him, a pinched look falling over his face, one that Yoongi was very familiar with, as his friend tended to make that same expression whenever he thought Yoongi was either full of it or being particularly difficult.

“You’re joking.”

“No?”

Hobi kept looking at him. Yoongi stared back. After a moment, his friend shook his head slightly and sighed.

“Yoongo-”

“Would you stop calling me that?”

“I’ve known you since you were six, I’ll call you whatever I want. Now, Yoongo, I love you, I do,” Hobi said, brushing off his token protest - Yoongi didn’t really mind the nickname and they both knew it - as he draped an arm across Yoongi’s shoulders to pull him closer, speaking lower as to not be overheard. “But sometimes, I kinda want to strangle you.”

His first instinct was to either ask his friend why, exactly, he wanted to strangle him, or make a snappy comeback, but after thinking on it for a moment, Yoongi ended up shrugging helplessly. “Yeah. Sometimes I wanna strangle me, too.”

“At least you’re honest about it,” Hobie replied, frowning as he glanced off to the side for a moment. “So, what stopped you?”

“I…”

What had stopped him? Sure, he didn’t want Taehyung to be sad about spoiling the whole Secret Santa thing but that only really stopped him from saying that he had been the one to get Chimmy for Jimin. It didn’t stop him from confessing entirely. Yoongi could still go over there and do it.

Except… Jimin seemed so keen on his Secret Santa. It wasn’t Yoongi that he had been talking about and praising non-stop for the last week, not really. It had been this cute, sweet guy, which didn’t sound like Yoongi at all.

From the sound of it, from what he had glimpsed of Jiminnie’s and Guk’s conversation, they thought it was someone else. Confessing would most likely result in his friend gently turning him down and Yoongi couldn’t even argue his case, couldn’t say that the person Jimin was looking for was him .

“I kinda… I think- he’s gonna be-” Yoongi licked his lips and ducked his head slightly, trying to come up with something to say other than the fact that he thought Jimin would be disappointed to find out who gave him his gift. “I- I don’t think he likes me.”

Silence. Yoongi lifted his chin a little and caught Hobi slowly turning his head to look at him from the corner of his eye, prompting him to do the same. The pinched look was back on his friend’s face.

“You wanna run that by me again?”

“I, uh… look, Hobi, he seems really keen on the… on the Secret Santa guy, yeah? And I don’t…. Uh… there’s no point in asking if he’s looking for him, you know? I uh…” he paused for a moment, then lowered his voice. “Look, I overheard him talking with Guk. He’s gonna find him and ask him out and… I don’t know, they mention Taemin and Yugyeom and… there’s no point.”

More silence. Hobi kept staring at him, squinting as if trying to make sure he was telling the truth. Yoongi tried not to squirm under his gaze - not telling anyone about whose Secret Santa he was included Hoseok, naturally, but he had always found it difficult to hide things from his best friend. Knowing someone for years and years did that.

“You know, this is exactly why Jin left when we saw you turn around.”

Instinctively, Yoongi glanced at the spot Seokjin had been sitting in previously. His mind ran other the words, trying to figure out what Hobi was trying to tell him. They saw him turning around after speaking with Taehyung and Seokjin decided to leave… why, exactly?

“What?”

“Just,” Hoseok started, then stopped. After a moment, he blew out a breath, strong enough to lift up his bangs from a moment. “Yoongi. I love you but sometimes-”

“You wanna strangle me. Yeah, you’ve said. Why did Jin leave? Did I upset him?”

Briefly, he looked around, managing to spot Jin now sitting with Namjoon, the two of them bickering back and forth about something, a laptop resting in front of them. Next to him, Hoseok mumbled something he couldn’t quite catch, although he was fairly sure he caught a “your bullshit” in there, which caused Yoongi to turn to his friend with narrowed eyes.

“Look, Yoongi,” Hobi said, sounding fond, exasperated and tired all at once. “You know we love you, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And you know we want you to be happy.”

“Yeah?”

“All of us.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Like, really. We want you to be happy, so we’ll support you in… taking the steps to make that happen, no matter what they are,” Hobi stressed, giving him a rather sharp look, although Yoongi had no idea what that gesture was supposed to mean. “Your happiness is really important, so we - all of us - want you to go get it, okay? No matter what.”

“Thanks, Hobi,” he replied, equal parts touched and confused.

On the one hand, it was good to know that all of his friends did genuinely want him to be happy and cared about him, especially as he had met them all rather recently while studying here, with the exception of Hoseok.

On the other hand, he didn’t see why his friend was bringing that up now of all times. Was it the Christmas spirit? No, most likely trying to get him to confess, but Yoongi couldn’t explain why that was a bad idea. Not truthfully and in-full, anyway.

“You’re still- okay, okay,” after squeezing him once, Hobi let him go and stood up.

Yoongi glanced up at him with a raised brow, taken aback by the frustration in his tone and how he seemed ready to just walk off. Jin had moved earlier too, apparently, and the thought that he was upsetting his friends was starting to concern him. Before he could ask about it, though, Hoseok looked down at him.

“Hey, what’s Jimin’s favourite colour?”

“Yellow,” he replied immediately despite his confusion at the sudden question. “Everyone knows that, Hobi.”

“No,” his friend disagreed, although he was smiling now for some reason, and his tone had gone a little softer. “ You know that, Yoongi.”

Without bothering with an explanation, Hoseok left him sitting there, trying to make sense of what on earth his words had meant. Resisting the urge to groan, Yoongi looked up at the ceiling and noticed the crack he had been staring at earlier.

For some utterly ridiculous reason - either the season or him going slightly insane, though he thought the latter was more likely - he felt a weird kind of kinship with it.

“Me too,” he muttered, staring up at it. “Me too.”

His fourth mistake, he thought whilst stabbing the notebook in front of him with the tip of his pen, had been buying Chimmy.

A rough sketch of the toy’s face seemed to stare at him from the paper. It was a bit loopy and the blue lines were uneven but it still seemed like it was mocking him. Yoongi moved his pen away a little only to start drawing the most ridiculous moustache he could - petty and childish, sure, but it still filled him with a sense of vindictive satisfaction.

See, the Secret Santa wasn’t the first gift he had ever bought Jimin. It was his third, by Yoongi’s count. The first had been a notebook of a soft cream shade with a big, yellow cartoon chick on the front cover, proudly declaring it to be made from recycled materials. The second had been a set of bright pins, some cute and some cheeky. The one thing they had in common was their shared colour - yellow.

Hobi’s words came back to him briefly, making him frown. Yeah, he knew Jimin’s favourite colour was yellow. The first time they had spoken properly, in the library, when Yoongi hadn’t been able to use his usual table, Jimin had been wearing this oversized yellow sweater and working his way through a lollipop. He hadn’t asked about it but after catching him glancing at it a few times, Jimin laughed and explained that he really liked the colour.

He also tended to like cute things, animals in particular, which is why Chimmy had seemed like such a great gift. During the previous summer holidays, Jimin kept sending him pictures of his neighbours’ puppies or just generally any and every dog he came across, a habit he still kept to this day. Getting him a dog plushie rather than any other animal was only logical - although Yoongi would debate classifying Chimmy as a dog but that was besides the point.

Stumbling upon the plushie had been an accident, really. Yoongi had dozed off in the bus and gotten out two stops later than usual which meant he had to walk back and whilst doing so, he passed by a toy store. He hadn’t planned on going in - Chimmy had been in the display window and one glance was enough to make him stop in his tracks.

It was perfect, really. It was a really cute, mostly yellow plushie based on a puppy, all things he knew Jimin loved. The tongue sticking out even reminded him of his friend’s habit of sticking his tongue out while studying or focusing on something particularly difficult, so buying it as a Christmas gift was a no-brainer. After Taehyung explained his Secret Santa idea and Yoongi ended up drawing Jimin’s name out of the hat, it just seemed easier to go with the plushie he had already bought - it had been for Jimin in the first place, after all.

He didn’t expect to be betrayed by a damned toy, though. The thought made him glare at the rough sketch again.

“Is it going that badly?”

His gaze lifted from the poorly drawn Chimmy to Jeongguk sitting across the table, who thankfully couldn’t see the doodle - or the violent things being done to it - due to their pencil cases and a rather thick, rather heavy book resting between the two of them. Yoongi blinked and tried to remember what his assignment was even about, to no avail.

“Uh…”

“Ooooh,” Jeongguk said, leaning back in his chair with a grin that looked far too cheeky for Yoongi’s taste. “Is this about Jimin?”

A pause.

Yoongi kept his gaze level and face blank as he tried to decide whether or not he should deny or even protest the assumption, only to close his eyes with a tired sigh and slump in his seat. What was the damned point? If even Jeongguk - who despite being a great guy tended to be entirely too oblivious to these things - knew about his crush, then absolutely everyone in their group of friends knew except for Jimin.

Grand.

“It’s complicated.”

“Oh wow,” Guk replied, blinking at him all innocent-like. “Are you finally getting on Facebook? It’s about time but, you know, everyone’s on Twitter now so-”

His sentence trailed off as Yoongi picked up his rubber and threw it at his head with a half-hearted glare. It missed Jeongguk by a mile but it made him laugh which was all Yoongi had wanted to do, anyway. And, in an ideal world, it would have distracted him, too.

“But really, what’s wrong?” Guk closed the book in front of him and rested both elbows on the table, planting his face in his hands. “Namjoon says sometimes our problems seem big only because we make them out to be big, when in reality they can be really small and simple to solve.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Joon.”

“You didn’t say he was wrong, though,” Guk pointed out with a smile - actually pointed, jabbing his finger forward once for good measure.

That was the thing about Jeongguk really. It was easy to forget because he was the youngest but when he wasn’t either goofing around or being painfully shy, he had a tendency to be extremely observant. It was something Yoongi usually admired and encouraged but right now, he didn’t know whether to be proud or irritated.

“It… I don’t know if it’s a big problem or not,” Yoongi confessed, mostly because he couldn’t really deny that Namjoon’s words made sense, as they usually did. “But I have a solution already. It’s just….”

“Just…?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

It took Yoongi a while to speak and when he did, he did it slowly, trying to prepare himself for the incoming questions.

“It would make Tae sad.”

Jeongguk blinked at him. Taken by surprise, no doubt, and now Yoongi was going to have to come up with some way of explaining himself without actually talking about it. Damn his guilty conscience and strong morals for making it difficult to mislead his friends.

“Why do you think that?”

That… that  wasn’t the question he had been expecting.

Yoongi’s fingers grew lax, almost dropping the pen, then tightened their grip again. Jeongguk only stared at him, a weirdly calm look on his face, as if he was not at all surprised by his reply. Yoongi squinted at him with suspicion - had Jeongguk and Taehyung been talking about this?

“I- I just… I know it would make him sad, okay?”

“What would make me sad?”

“ Jesus fucking -” Yoongi jumped in his chair, twisting around and knocking one of his knees against the nearest leg of the table. It took biting down on his lip rather forcefully to keep either a shout or a curse - or a shouted curse - from escaping.

Taehyung frowned at him.

“Don’t do that, Yoongi,” he said, unhelpful and entirely too late. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said, voice strained as he grabbed gingerly at his knee, flinching at the touch. “Thanks, Tae.”

“Yoongi thinks the solution to his problem would make you sad,” Guk explained from across the table without prompting - or, indeed, so much as asking.

Yoongi would glare at him but honestly, he felt like he had been glaring at everyone for the past week and it was getting tiring - his bouts of irritation tended to be short-lived, as he wasn’t the type to waste his limited energy on such things. Sustaining this much annoyance over a long period of time was starting to get to him.

“Ah,” Taehyung said, pausing for a moment. “Why?”

“I…”

The words died on his tongue. What else could he say? How else could he evade the question, what half-truth could he tell this time? Yoongi was irritated and annoyed and tired , most of all, and a little sick of going around and around in circles and dancing to avoid the subject and for fuck’s sake, he had been jealous of a toy - a toy ! A toy that he gave Jimin!

“I’m the Secret Santa , alright? I’m Jimin’s Secret Santa. I got him the plushie and it’s - all week, all this damned week, he’s been going on and on about how cute and sweet the guy who gave him that plushie is and it’s- it’s getting to me, okay?” Taehyung’s eyes had widened momentarily as he started his rant but then gave way to a rather blank expression. “Because I- look, I like him a lot, but he thinks it was someone else. I was going to tell him but then… you started talking about it not being about the people but the spirit of the thing and that it was better if we didn’t know who gave whom what and you just… you’re my friend and you worked so hard and I don’t want to make you sad, Tae, I don’t, which is why I didn’t confess and I - can’t.”

The last word ended his rambling rant rather abruptly, his brain suddenly running out of things to say. Taehyung kept staring at him, his face entirely blank and giving nothing away. It took Yoongi an embarrassingly long moment to realize what he had said and who he had said it in front of.

Great. Great great great. Not only had he ranted at his friend but he had done it in front of Jeongguk, too, thus ruining the spirit of the whole Secret Santa thing that had made Taehyung so happy in the first place. What the hell was wrong with him? He was being a jerk .

Placing a hand on the back of the chair, Yoongi made to stand up, ignoring the twinge in his knee, an apology at the tip of his tongue - only for Taehyung to smack him upside the head .

Yoongi swayed forward a little, stunned. His gaze flickered down, resting nowhere in particular, before it snapped back to his friend… who was glaring down at him, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, looking none too pleased.

“Tae, I’m really sorry-”

“Go confess. Now.”

… what.

“What.”

“Go confess!” Taehyung all but shouted, throwing his hands up in the air in such an uncharacteristic display of frustration that it left Yoongi stunned all over again. “Oh my god, do you know how long we’ve been waiting for this? Six months! Six months, Yoongi!”

What?

“ What ?”

“I mean… that’s just us,” Jeongguk helpfully added, glancing at the ceiling briefly in concentration. “I think Hoseok has been waiting for a… year? Seokjin said nine months yesterday, so-”

“You- what- but-” Yoongi stuttered, glancing from one of them to the other, unable to choose whom to focus on. “You what?”

“ I can’t believe ,” Taehyung continued, stomping his foot on the floor and crossing his arms, as if neither of them had spoken. “That you’d used that as an excuse not to confess.”

“It wasn’t an excuse,” Yoongi defended himself, raising a hand as if he felt the need to physically shield himself from Taehyung. “I really didn’t want to make you sad!”

For whatever reason, that seemed to take the wind out of Taehyung’s indignant sails. He stared at Yoongi for a moment before exchanging some sort of no doubt very significant and meaningful look with Jeongguk. Then, he sighed .

“I know,” Taehyung said, low and a little tired, but a small smile was slowly replacing the previous glare. “You really love us, Yoongi, and you want us to be happy. But did it never occur to you that we want you to be happy, too?”

Oh , Yoongi thought, recalling Hobi’s similar words to him last Sunday.

“I mean, the Secret Santa is… yeah, I put a lot of thought and work into it and I’m really proud but… Yoongi, this is much more important. I understand and I’m not sad, I promise,” a small pause. “But I’m going to get angry again if you use it as an excuse to keep yourself from being happy.”

“We’re not going to force you to confess,” Jeongguk hurriedly added. “We just…”

The sentence was left unfinished. Yoongi let it drop, fingers nervously drumming against the back of his chair. It had never been his intention to use Taehyung’s happiness as an excuse, not really… or not consciously? But maybe that was exactly what he had done.

After all, wasn’t he absolutely convinced that Jimin was going to be disappointed?

“He doesn’t… Guk, you’ve heard him talk about his Secret Santa. Cute and sweet and handsome and - that’s not me, right? I uh, sorry but I overheard a bit of your conversation with him and he thinks it’s someone else. Taemin or something, I don’t… I don’t mind if he rejects me but I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Honestly, the mental picture of a shocked Jimin staring at him, only for his shoulders to drop in disappointment and a crestfallen look to fall over his face was a thousand times worse than getting rejected. It was the most likely scenario, too, since Yoongi couldn’t possibly live up to the praises that Jimin had been singing about his Secret Santa for what felt like a year now.

Taehyung and Jeongguk exchanged another very important and meaningful look - honestly, what was it with his friends and all these looks? He was starting to think there had been some sort of mandatory How-To-Silently-Communicate-With-Your-Friends 101 class that no one had told Yoongi about - before turning to look back at him.

“We’re not going to force you,” Jeongguk said, smiling encouragingly at him. “But… please trust us.”

“If you don’t trust us, then I’ll really be sad,” Taehyung said, pulling out one of the other chairs and sitting down, his backpack hitting the desk with a loud smack.

“Wh- are you blackmailing me?”

“Yep.”

Yoongi paused, ready to throw a mildly offended look at Taehyung for his friend’s absolute shamelessness, when his gaze passed over his rough drawing of Chimmy - and stopped.

Vaguely, he was aware of his two friends starting a discussion about something or another. He was even vaguely aware of his name being called once or twice but at the moment it didn’t seem very important.

Chimmy. Jiminnie.

Abruptly, Yoongi stood up, not even taking notice of his hurting knee, and started shoving all his things into his bag. His friends stopped talking but didn’t ask him anything, didn’t try to stop him or interrupt, didn’t reply to his distracted goodbye or even speak at all until he was almost gone from their sight.

“Kiss him!” he thought he heard Taehyung yell, as Jeongguk tried to shush him. “Kiss him, you fool!”

It figured that the one time he wanted to find Jimin, he couldn’t.

His phone had died at some point and his powerbank was empty. His first stop had been the dorms but no one seemed to be there which was unsurprising given that it was still the early afternoon. His second stop had been the lecture hall Jimin was supposed to be at - it wasn’t like Yoongi didn’t know his schedule by heart - but no one seemed to be there either. The class had most likely been cancelled or the lecturer just asked them to hand in their final essay and go.

Jimin wasn’t in the library and he wasn’t in the bookstore, the cafe, the basketball court, the cafeteria, the stationary store - though, could it be called that when it also sold drinks and candy? - or any of the little hangout spots near campus either. Two hours and a whole lot of rushing later and Yoongi had made absolutely no progress whatsoever in his search.

While stopping and looking around for a place to get some water, he had suddenly realized how silly this all was and decided to walk back to the door to wait for Jimin there. The stationary shop was on the way back and sometimes Jimin liked to stop and look at the new designs - it was nearly Christmas, after all - so Yoongi was slowing down to take a peek inside when someone nearly bumped into him.

“Oh, hey, care- Jimin?”

“I’m so- Yoongi?”

Jimin stopped in the middle of stepping back, reaching for Yoongi’s arms instead, likely to steady himself. His hair was in disarray, like he had just crawled out of bed, but the joke at the tip of Yoongi’s tongue died when he noticed the light circles under his eyes and the flush to his cheeks.

Everything about him looked a little off, even his bag was hanging off of one shoulder haphazardly, rather than hanging onto both securely like usual.

“Jiminnie? Are you okay? Are you sick?”

“Wh- Huh? Sick?”

“Yeah, you look a little…” Yoongi eyed him, not sure how to put it into words. “Do you have a cold or something?”

“Oh, no, I’ve been running around-” Jimin started, then stopped. He bit his lip for a long moment, silently staring at Yoongi, then straightened his shoulders a little and spoke again as he released his grip on Yoongi. “I need to talk to you.”

“Alright, Jiminnie,” he was still worried about the possibility of his friend being sick but if Jimin wanted to talk, they could talk. “Do you want to speak here or uh… go somewhere else?”

“Could we... “ Jimin brushed his bangs back, holding them tightly for a second before releasing his grip and giving him a slightly forced smile. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Sure. Where to?”

Rather than answering verbally, Jimin hummed and started walking. Yoongi fell into step easily enough, doing his best to glance at him discreetly. Something still seemed off and it was bothering him - something beyond the slight circles under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders and the state of his hair, something beyond the forced smile.

After observing him for a few moments, it clicked.

“Where’s Chimmy?” Yoongi asked.

Jimin stopped walking rather abruptly, then turned to look at him, blinking repeatedly.

“What? You’ve been… you’re always carrying him around now.”

At least, he had been. Not that Yoongi had bumped into him that often this week, what with everyone being stressed about their last classes and being busy trying to simultaneously hand in essays and prepare for their exams, but every single time he had spotted Jimin, he had been carrying Chimmy in some fashion.

On his shoulders, against his chest, propped on one hip, held between his torso and his arm, but always there.

“Oh, uhm..” Yoongi watched worryingly as even the forced smile slowly disappeared. “I left him- it... at the dorm.”

“Why?”

“It’s… I-,” Jimin stumbled over his words, gaze flickering everywhere but avoiding him entirely. “I-”

“Hey, hey,” Yoongi said, reaching over to gently grab his friend’s upper arms. Jimin’s eyes finally landed on him, his expression turning inscrutable at the touch. “What’s wrong, Jiminnie? What happened?”

Jimin took a deep breath and seemed to steel himself. “You don’t like it.”

“I- what?”

What was he talking about? The stuttering? No, Yoongi didn’t like it, but only because it meant that was something wrong.

“Chimmy,” Jimin clarified and although his voice and gaze both remained firm, his posture seemed to deflate a little bit. “You don’t like Chimmy.”

“I don't?”

Okay, fine, so he was a little jealous of the toy and may have blamed little Chimmy for all his problems but he didn't think Jimin knew that. Or, at least, he had hoped that his bitterness wasn't that obvious.

“Yoongi, you clearly don't like him,” Jimin said, frowning. “I don't… I don't know why but you don't, so I didn't bring him. You've been acting all weird and I don't know if it's him or something I did or…”

His friend glanced away for a moment, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. Yoongi closed his eyes just for a moment. When he opened them, Jimin was staring at him again, hesitant and unsure. It didn’t suit him, not at all. It was a look usually reserved for when there was a big exam looming and his self-doubt got the best of him.

Yoongi thought that the last thing he wanted was for Jimin to notice how strange Yoongi had been acting since the gift exchange. He had been wrong. The last thing he wanted was to make Jimin doubt himself like this - the idea that his actions had caused it made something in his chest tighten. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t been his intention at all.

There was nothing for it, Yoongi thought. Trying to navigate this mess had only led him to dig himself into a bigger hole. Time to come clean.

“I need to tell you something, Jiminnie,” abruptly, he realized his hands were still hanging onto Jimin. Yoongi let them drop before taking a step back, ignoring his friend’s confused look as he tried to steady himself. “It’s important.”

“Okay?”

“I uh- I like you,” he faltered. Jimin only blinked at him - the longer his friend looked, the more nervous Yoongi became, so he closed his eyes and forced the words out. “As in, really like you. Romantically. I have for a while now and I was- I was planning on confessing before, dunno why I didn’t. But… ever since you got the- uh you got Chimmy, you’ve been really… you’ve been after your Secret Santa, going on and on about how cute and sweet he is and I… it’s uh. It’s me. I gave you that gift - but I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t want Tae to be sad. I thought- I thought you’d be disappointed that it was me and-”

“I know.”

Yoongi’s eyes flew open, his jumbled speech and train of thought screeching to a halt. Jimin was staring at him still, bottom lip catch between his teeth again. His expression kept flickering from one emotion to the next but hesitation was the only one Yoongi was able to place.

“I know you gave me Chimmy, Yoongi. I knew it was you all along.”

Yoongi opened his mouth. Nothing. It felt like his mind was stuttering - starting, stopping, jump-starting all over again.

“Wh- why- how did you-”

Jimin blinked again, the corners of his mouth tugging down into a slight frown as confusion replaced hesitation.

“Yoongi. It’s yellow. You always give me yellow gifts. And it’s a dog - I kept sending you pictures of dogs over the summer. He even has his tongue sticking out and you keep teasing me about doing the same thing when I’m studying.”

Oh. It… sounded really, really obvious when Jimin put it like that. Suddenly, Hobi’s words from a few days ago made a lot more sense. Was everyone able to figure out that he was Jimin’s Secret Santa? Including… Jimin…. himself.

Oh, God.

“I… uh…”

Jimin bit down harder on his bottom lip. Before he knew what he was doing, Yoongi raised a hand to stop him - only to realize what he was about to do, pause, and then slowly lower his hand back down.

They stared at each other for a moment, silent and awkward, until the implications of what Jimin just said slammed into him.

“Wait, so when you were talking about your Secret Santa being cute and- and sweet and all that, did you… I mean, if you knew it was….”

“Yeah,” Jimin confessed, voice low and timid, gaze dropping down to his feet as his shoulders slumping down a little further. Why… why was he looking so dejected? “I told Gukkie and he… he said that if I started being really loud about it, you might… you’d make a move? I knew it was a stupid plan, I should have just told you, but I thought that… that maybe….”

Was that the conversation Yoongi had overheard a few days ago, just before talking with Hoseok? And was that why Jeongguk told Yoongi to trust them and just go confess, because he knew all along ? A brief spark of irritation at his friends flared up but he pushed it down for the time being, distracted by another, much more important thought.

“I uh… I thought you were talking about Taemin or something but… but you meant… me?”

“Yeah.”

“So uh you- you like me.”

“Yes, Yoongi.”

“Oh.”

Yoongi was vaguely aware that he should say something else, that his reaction should probably be something other than blank surprise, but his mind still felt a little sluggish. Instead, the realization came to him slowly.

His face started to redden, flushing deeper with each new piece of information that sank in - he liked Jimin, Jimin liked him, all the compliments that Jimin had been showering his Secret Santa with had been meant for Yoongi , Jimin had wanted Yoongi to confess because he liked him, too.

“O-oh,” he swallowed and licked his lips before offering a smile, feeling a little self-conscious of how nervous he probably looked. “I uh- I like you too, Jiminnie.”

They kept staring at each other.

Yoongi fought the urge to fidget. For all of his frustration over being unable to confess, Yoongi had never actually given much thought to what would happen after he did it. Not even when he had almost done it on the spur of the moment, after overhearing Jimin’s conversation with Guk.

So they liked each other... now what? He should probably ask Jimin out on a date, right? Yoongi didn’t want to presume anything, he could still be rejected, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it and damn it, he was far too old to be acting like this.

“Yoongi,” Jimin said, looking up at him again, still a little shy. “Can I… uhm… can I kiss you?”

His train of thought screeched to a halt again. This time, though, Yoongi just let it happen, focusing on the most important thing: Jimin wanted to kiss him. He could try and make sense of everything else later. Right now, Jimin wanted to kiss him - and Yoongi wanted to kiss him back.

Inhaling sharply, Yoongi nodded at him, a little too quickly. The motion looked more like a jerk than a nod but Jimin still smiled at him, still took a step closer and nervously pressed a hand against Yoongi’s chest before leaning in.

It was short and a little awkward. Yoongi almost didn’t have time to feel the barely-there pressure of Jimin’s lips on his, hesitant and feather-light, before it was gone - he followed, instinctively, chasing down another kiss.

A longer one this time, and firm, his shyness forgotten entirely. Jimin’s lips were fuller than his own and much warmer, smooth with some sort of lip balm that made Yoongi lick his own lips reflexively when pulling back - the taste was vaguely familiar but he didn’t get to place it before Jimin was leaning in again.

With a flushing face and a smile wide enough to show off his gums, Yoongi raised both hands to cradle Jimin’s face. They took turns, kissing and chasing each other’s lips, until Yoongi decided to be merciless and not move back, kissing every inch of Jimin’s mouth that he could reach: along the lower lines of his mouth, his cupid’s bow, the pout of his bottom lip, the upturned corners, until Jimin couldn’t help but laugh into it, red and flushing and full of fondness, moving away to breathe but grasping onto Yoongi’s shirt for support.

“Hey, Jiminnie,” Yoongi said, quiet.

“Hi, Y-Yoongi,” Jimin replied, smile as bright as the sun, blushing a bright pink that probably mirrored Yoongi’s own flushed face.

Suddenly, just like that, nothing else really mattered. The annoyance and irritation that had been plaguing him melted away into nothing. Yoongi couldn’t find it in him to hold onto any of it, not when he was still holding Jiminnie right there, not when they stood this close together, not with the memory of how warm his lips were still fresh in his mind.

Not with the hope that they could keep doing this blossoming in his chest.

“Do you- uh… do you wanna go on a date with me? Maybe?”

Jimin froze but just for a moment, eyes widening a little, before nodding a little too enthusiastically.

“Yes!”

“Calm down,” Yoongi said, unable to keep himself from chuckling.

“Oh, like you’re not looking forward to it,” Jimin replied, a cheeky glint in his eyes - and that, that was the Jiminnie that Yoongi liked to see the most. “Jin told me you’ve been moping for a week.”

“He said that, did he?” Not that Yoongi was even surprised anymore, already resigned to the fact that all of his friends had apparently been in the known about… whatever this was. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel irritated. “Wait, if you knew that, then why…”

Jimin shrugged a little, glancing down. “I mean… I’m me and you’re… you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, I’m…” Jimin trailed off for a moment, glancing at him before continuing. “I know I’m handsome. I know I’m nice and a very hard worker. But you… I just… your dedication to your studies and your friends and… and the way you give your best in everything you do. You’re gorgeous, too, there’s a reason you have a fanclub on campus, you know? I just-”

“I have a what.”

Jimin stopped and stared at him. After a few seconds, his expression shifted from surprise to a resigned, exasperated sort of fondness.

“You didn’t even know, did you?”

“I have a wha- you know what, it doesn’t even matter,” Yoongi decided. He nodded to himself and let his hands drop, only to reach for one of Jimin’s. “You can’t talk like that to my date.”

“We haven’t even gone on a date yet, Yoongi,” Jimin protested but his cheeks went a little pinker and the smile returned. He even laced their fingers together, movements shy and slow, but the squeeze he gave Yoongi’s hand was firm.

“Sure we are, we uh… we’re on one right now.”

“Are we? Where are we going then, Yoongi?”

“Uhm”, he could tell, just by the tone, that Jimin was only teasing him but Yoongi wasn’t going to lose whatever game they were playing now. “Sure. Lunch.”

“It’s four pm.”

“Early dinner, then,” he replied, only for a tiny spike of insecurity to run through him. “Unless- uh- unless you don’t want to? It’s fine, I can pick something better-”

His spiel was interrupted by a kiss - sweet, short, to the point and not nearly as shy as the first one. Jimin was visibly trying not to laugh as he pulled away.

“Early dinner sounds great. Lead the way.”

“Okay,” Yoongi replied on automatic despite having no idea where exactly they should go to eat, a little too kiss-stupid to think. He moved so that they stood side by side, laced hands hanging between them. “Oh, hey, uh… you wanna get Chimmy before we go?”

“Chimmy?”

“Yeah, you’ve been carrying him everywhere. And uh, now that I know you know it’s my gift I kinda… I dunno,” he confessed, a little embarrassed. “I like seeing you carry it everywhere. You don’t have to, it’s just… cute?”

“Ah,” Jimin replied, glancing at him with a far too innocent look. “Uhm… well, you see, Yoongi…”

His grin kept widening, even as his eyes went wider with faux innocence. Yoongi narrowed his own eyes at him.

“What?”

Jimin pressed his lips together and dropped Yoongi’s hand. Then, he swung his bag around, unzipped it - and pulled out a very familiar, very yellow plushie. Yoongi stared at it. Then at Jimin. Then back at the toy.

“Seriously, Jimin?”

It wasn’t even worth pretending he wasn’t endeared by this. Jimin zipped his backpack and swung it around again, resting the plushie against his chest, giving Yoongi an idea.

“Wait here”, he said, before turning around and walking to the stationary store.

The odd sound of rushing footsteps stopped him after he walked in. Yoongi looked around, confused, and spotted Namjoon in a corner, staring up at some books about… knitting? Granted, his friend was interested in all kind of things, but knitting ? It just wasn’t likely, even less so if you took the way he was shifting nervously into account.

Now suspicious, Yoongi carefully peered around the other aisles. Sure enough, he spotted Jeonguk and Seokjin very engrossed in some manga volume or another, except that it was upside down . On the next aisle over, Taehyung seemed to be genuinely interested in a pen shaped like a syringe - which was mildly concerning but at least he didn’t seem to be faking his interest.

Hobi, right next to the takeaway coffee, didn’t even bother pretending that his presence was a coincidence. Instead, he sent Yoongi another one of those looks, raising a brow rather sharply and nodding towards the door, as if to tell him to hurry up and get back to Jimin. Not really wanting to question why all his friends were there - it was fairly obvious anyway - Yoongi swiftly grabbed a lollipop.

Then, after a moment of thought, he grabbed another.

Jimin was still standing right where Yoongi had left him, tilting his head curiously as he approached.

“Here,” Yoongi said, offering him the candy.

Jimin blinked down at his hand for a moment, then laughed, throwing his head back. It took him a couple of seconds to get himself together again, but once he did so, he took one of the lollipops. Yoongi raised a brow and gestured for him to take the other one, too.

“Huh? Why two?”

“One’s for Chimmy.”

Silence.

“One…” Jimin repeated, blinking a couple more times, before breaking into laughter all over again. His entire frame shook with it and he leaned into Yoongi who wrapped an arm around his shoulders to keep him mostly steady. The hand that was already holding one of the lollipops rose to cover his mouth but it wasn’t nearly enough to disguise how amused he was.

“What?”

“Yo-you-you’re so-so cheesy, Yo-Yoongi!” Jimin managed, half-heartedly hitting him on the closest shoulder.

“I’m being nice!”

“Ah, so cheesy,” Jimin continued, a little more put together but still letting the occasional giggle and chuckle escape, even as they started walking. “Cheesy.”

“See if I do anything nice for you or Chimmy ever again.”

“Yoongi, last week you walked an old lady across the street which made you late for an exam.”

“... so?”

“So I know you’re nice. You can’t fool me.”

“Dunno, I’ve been a bit snappish lately…” he mumbled, the guilt finally catching up to him only to be immediately eased by the warm, happy kiss pressed against his cheek.

“That’s because you were jealous of Chimmy.”

“I was n- yeah, okay. Fine.”

“There’s no reason to be jealous anymore. I love him because you gave him to me, Yoongi,” Jimin said, bright but soft, voice so full of fondness that Yoongi had to clear his throat and glance away for a second. “So you don’t have to be jealous of him anymore.”

“Yeah. Alright.”

“Especially when I bring him to all our dates.”

“ All our dates? What do you-”

“ Yes , all our dates, Yoongi.”

“He can’t come to all our dates! What if we go to, dunno, a swimming pool or something?”

“We’ll just have to bring a babysitter.”

“A babysitter? Jiminnie, it’s… just easier not to bring him.”

“We can’t just leave him, Yoongi.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s our child!”

“Our- Jiminnie -”

His fifth mistake, Yoongi thought as they kept playfully bickering, was not having confessed a long time ago.

He wondered what he had done to deserve this.

The steaming cup of coffee taunted him, fresh and mouthwatering, resting right in front of him but still too hot to drink. Across the table, Jimin was still talking, even as he attempted to eat his breakfast and write some notes at the same time.

“Jiminnie, you’re gonna choke again. Leave the notes.”

“Bah Ah nuhd ah tnhuh!”

“Sure,” Yoongi relented, chin propped on his hand, watching with a fond smile. He really didn’t know what he had done to deserve this - the happiness buzzing under his skin, the early morning light painting Jimin in soft golden tones, the love he felt every day. “Whatever you say.”

Jimin paused to send him a look that most definitively said he wasn’t amused. Still, at least he stopped attempting to talk and just focused on eating, even if he refused to stop writing. When his phone started going off, he had polished off his breakfast and was just finishing the list.

“Ah-ha!” He said triumphantly, reaching over with one hand to dismiss the alarm.

Yoongi got up from the table and went to fetch Jimin’s coat, scarf and gloves. He handed the latter over first, then helped him put the jacket on.

“And don’t forget to water the plants.”

“I won’t.”

“And remember to call Namjoon about tonight! Tae put it together again but Gukkie might need a ride to ours.”

“I will.”

“Oh, and if Taemin calls, tell him I’m working late on Friday.”

“I know, Jiminnie,” Yoongi replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes but not the urge to laugh as Jimin’s rambling was interrupted by the scarf going around his mouth - or the urge to laugh even harder at the look he got for that.

“I hate you,” Jimin said, once he managed to tug the scarf down a little bit, freeing his mouth enough to speak.

“Nah,” Yoongi chuckled again, leaning forward to kiss his nose. “You still think I’m cute and sweet.”

“Lucky you,” Jimin replied, not missing a beat. “If- oh, I’m going to be late!”

His phone started going off again. Jimin shushed it - as if that was going to work - before quickly kissing Yoongi goodbye and grabbing his bag on the way out the door.

“Have a nice day at work!” Yoongi called out, then added fondly at the sound of the door closing: “Yeah… lucky me.”

As with most mornings, he set about cleaning up the mess from breakfast. There wasn’t as much of one as usual, given that they had both somehow overslept and ended up just grabbing some fruit since that didn’t actually need to be cooked.

Yoongi hummed along as he washed what few things they had used, then sat back down to enjoy his cup of coffee and mess around with a prototype draft on his tablet for a bit. About half an hour later, he washed up his cup and went to get ready for the day, making sure he had everything - his own jacket and scarf included.

It was on the way out the door that he spotted it.

A bit faded now but still very well-kept. Yellow, with the white face and the floppy ears. The sight made him smile widely as he approached.

“Hey, Chimmy,” Yoongi said. “Looks like today’s the day, huh?”

He took a moment to look it over. Chimmy had caused them no small amount of grief during the move, when both of them thought they had lost him in between packing everything. The thought of losing the toy caused a few more scares after that, which is why they had given him his designed place on the shelf and tried not to move him.

Yoongi reached up and picked the plushie up with one hand, then reached behind its spot with the other. It was high up enough that he had to feel around for a bit before finding the slightly velvety texture with his fingers. Carefully, he picked up the small box and placed Chimmy back where he was meant to be.

“Thank you for keeping this safe for me, Chimmy,” Yoongi said, still smiling fondly.

His own phone started ringing. He ignored it for a moment, looking down at the small, square box in his hand, then up at Chimmy again, thinking of his plans for later that evening.

“Think he’ll say yes?” he mildly wondered out loud, thumb brushing over the fancy gold letters.

Shaking his head with a chuckle, Yoongi pocketed the box, silenced his phone, then made his way to the door, picking up his own suitcase as he went.

Unable to resist, he paused halfway out the apartment and looked back towards the shelf. Chimmy was still resting there, like he usually was, and Yoongi grinned at him. The weight of the box in his pocket made his heart beat quicker, made him grin wider.

“I guess this year’s Secret Santa is gonna be even better than one where I gave you to Jimin, huh?”