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Jimin grabbed the two cups of hot cocoa and took a seat on the available swing right next to Taehyung. He had his eyes closed, his hands were tight around the old chains and his head was dropped back as if he had been swaying for hours and hours and was now taking a break to enjoy the night. When Jimin sat down, the swing creaked quietly and Taehyung opened his eyes, turning his head to the side so that he could face his friend. There was a rather calming smile on his face.
“I bought us cocoa. The dude at the store said it’s more of a warm cocoa ‘cos something broke in the machines so drinks are not getting, you know... hot,” Jimin said as he giggled and handled Taehyung the cup.
He better accommodated himself on the swing and took a long sip of his drink, wetting his lips after doing so. “Tastes good though.”
“So,” Jimin started after savouring his own cocoa. He was holding the small cup rather tightly in his hands and swaying slightly as if he quite didn’t want to move, his feet digging slowly into the dry grass as he did. “You’ve promised me some stories. What you got this time?”
“What d’you wanna hear?”
Jimin cocked his head so that he could take a better glance at the sky. There were some street lamps and building lights that made it rather difficult for him to see all of the stars he wanted to but he could still point some of them. He could recognised some of the constellations that Taehyung had already told him the stories about. Some nights before, Taehyung had pointed the Ursa Major and told him that “Zeus was feeling horny once again and Hera, with all of her jealousy, turned his lover into a huge bear”. He had also made a brief pause to talk about the Ursa Minor constellation.
“Why are the gods always cheating?” Jimin had asked with a pout. They were on the balcony in Taehyung’s apartment with two empty mugs resting on the parapet, and Taehyung had had zero difficulties to locate the stars.
“Because they’re just as humans as we are.”
“So they’re not gods at all,” Taehyung had shrugged with a small smile on his face. Jimin had pouted even more and rested his chin on top of his hands, gnawing on his pinky as he did. “Tell me a funny story. With no cheating and jealousy.”
“That’s pretty tough,” Taehyung had said as he giggled and patted Jimin’s soft hair.
“So just tell me one that you like.”
Taehyung had stopped for a second for better thinking and he had come with the Milky Way myth, and Jimin had listened to it mindfully even though he had already heard this story plenty of times. He still thought that it was really funny the way Taehyung went through the myth, saying with a big smile that Hera “mercilessly pushed the kid away from her tits ‘cos c’mon, it was her fucking tits and the kid wasn’t even hers”. Jimin had laughed rather loudly for a solid minute and Taehyung had laughed with him. He had left few moments after they had washed the used mugs, and Taehyung had wished that he had stayed.
“Mmm...” Jimin muttered after he looked for any new constellation that Taehyung had yet to tell him about but he couldn’t find any. He had never been good at finding them anyway. “I don’t know,” he said after a brief moment of thinking and amid a sip of his warm cocoa once more, still swaying slightly on the swing as he did. “You can choose one.”
Taehyung averted his gaze from him and wet his lips before speaking, fingers playing with the lid of his cup. “Have I told you about the Pegasus one?” Jimin made a soft noise at this. “Okay, mmm let me see... Aquarius?”
“Yep.”
“Cygnus?”
“And plenty more of the Zeus was feeling horny saga.”
Taehyung laughed in a rather delightful fashion and his head dropped back again as he held himself by the chains of the old swing, and Jimin almost stood up to help his friend, fearing that he might drop the cup of cocoa and himself on the ground. He ended up laughing along just because he loved Taehyung’s carefree laugh, even though he didn’t know what he had said that sounded so funny to the other’s ears.
“Okay,” Taehyung finally managed to say as he pretended to whip a tear from his eyes. He then proceeded to finish his almost cool cocoa and rested the cup in between his thighs. “So I guess I don’t have any story to tell you tonight.”
“Nooo,” Jimin whined with a pout, folding his arms over his chest and swinging his body ever so slightly. Taehyung thought that he was just so cute. “Tell me one about love.”
“Love?”
“Yeah. There must be one.”
“Mmm...” Taehyung glanced at the sky and looked for the constellation that he had in mind, dragging his feet on the grass as he did. The old swing was creaking for they both were moving and even though they weren’t that heavy, this swing might just support the weight of children. “Ah, found it,” he said and pointed to a specific group of stars, joining the dots together with his finger. It looked something like a parallelogram or so, with a line coming from one of its edges. “Can you see it?”
Before he could get a proper answer, Taehyung pulled the chains of the swing that Jimin was sat on so that he would come closer and follow his finger in the direction of the constellation. It didn’t take so long until Jimin could also find it.
“I see it!” he shouted excitedly, squeezing the cup in his hand as if he was a kid who had just spotted the coolest toy at the store. “Which one is that one?”
“Lyra, the instrument lyre,” Jimin made a soft noise in agreement and glanced at Taehyung, who had a rather shy smile on his face. “This one is a love story with a tragic ending.”
Jimin cocked his eyebrow. “About a lyre?”
At this Taehyung giggled softly. “No no, about its owner. He was a guy named Orpheus and he was a brilliant musician and poet,” he said as he glanced over the stars and back to Jimin. “Orpheus had a wife named Eurydice, who he was deeply in love with.”
“It’d be cool if you just finish here and then call the ‘happily ever after’ thing,” Jimin said whilst running his hands along the swing’s chains. When his fingers brushed rather so lightly against Taehyung’s, he took his hands off the chains as if they were on fire and rested them on his lap. “Go on.”
Taehyung smiled in a manner that made his cheeks puff a little and started to gently pull the chains of Jimin’s swing, making the two of them sway because of the movement. “One day Eurydice died and Orpheus was so deeply shaken that he made the decision to travel to the underworld and try to retrieve his beloved wife,” Taehyung was looking at him with a fondly smile whilst he told Hades’ condition of having Eurydice returning to the world of the living: Orpheus could only look at her once both of them had arrived at the upper world. Jimin was also looking at him and listening to his words mindfully, averting his gaze from Taehyung’s eyes to his lips as he did, time to time. When Taehyung wet his lips out of habit, Jimin did so too, and before he could even notice his hands were over Taehyung’s on the swing’s chains.
“But Orpheus looked at her before she could’ve reached it,” Taehyung said softly, voice rather deep and Jimin blinked, gnawing on his lower lip as he did. He also didn’t realise that he had dragged the swing a bit closer and their knees were brushing rather briefly, “and Eurydice disappeared from his sight... for good.”
The two of them stayed in silence for a while, their knees brushing against one another and fingers touching. Taehyung glanced over Jimin’s eyes and his lips and he noticed that Jimin was doing the same.
“I don’t think I could not look at you,” Jimin said ever so faintly that had not they been so close Taehyung would have missed it. However, they were close, so close that they could almost hear their anxious breaths.
“Neither could I,” Taehyung wanted to touch him, wanted to bring him closer and finally kiss him but he was afraid that by doing so the swing would rock back and everything would be too weird. They would laugh at each other just to try and make things comfortable, then they would get up, take their empty cups and trash them into the nearest garbage can they could find, give each other good night and go back home. Without one another.
Instead Jimin let go of the chains and the swing didn’t rock back. He dug his feet a bit more into the dry grass and folded his arms around Taehyung’s neck, bringing him even closer. Taehyung gripped at the chains rather tighter.
“You know,” Jimin started, tangling his fingers in Taehyung’s hair as he did, “you’re my favourite constellation... and I wanna hear the story behind you.”
Taehyung let out a breath he didn't know he was holding before he could answer it, gnawing on his inner cheek so that he could hold back a smile. “There was this guy named Taehyung,” he then stopped for a second to wet his lips rather briefly, just the tip of this tongue peeking out of his mouth in the action, “and he fell in love with a star.”
“Which star?”
“The most shining star that he had ever seen. More shining than Sirius itself,” Taehyung gave him a boxy smile. “The ancient Greeks liked to call it Jimin.”
Jimin giggled softly at this, lowering his fingers so that he could touch Taehyung’s nape. They were just so close. “And what happened?”
“He asked Zeus to turn him into a star so that he could be with his lover and touch him, even if it was just for once.”
“And did Zeus grant so?”
“I don’t know.”
Jimin smiled and then finally closed the gap between them, touching Taehyung’s lips with his ever so slightly that it almost tickled. Taehyung dragged his feet onto the ground so that he could bring himself closer and Jimin tightened his embrace. Taehyung felt himself melting into the kiss and he desperately wanted to let go of the swing’s chains to touch Jimin, his face, his neck, his waist. He parted his lips and deepened the kiss as he felt Jimin pull at his hair but not in a brusque manner. Jimin tasted as cocoa, sweet as it was, and so did him. They could carry the kiss on and on and on.
It was Jimin who pulled away first, his beautiful lips looking rather plumper and pinkish. He smiled fondly and so big that it made his eyes disappear in a manner that Taehyung loved so much. Jimin reached to kiss him once more, quickly and with his lips closed.
“He did.”