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Hoseok, Yoongi thinks, is a Godsend.
Or maybe it is those who smile the most who have seen the worst.
But Hoseok knows every time. He just somehow… knows. It’s difficult to even talk when it happens. Words are forgotten, he is incapable of stringing one to another to be coherent enough to even tell them, to ask them, to just say, “Please leave me alone.”
But Hoseok knows it. He locks eyes with Yoongi deliberately on days like these and Yoongi can’t even tear his eyes away. Hoseok tries to read the dullness of Yoongi’s eyes and Yoongi lets him. And God bless him, it’s on days like these that Hobi ushers all the boys away from Min Yoon Gi, letting him have his time with the ways of his mind.
He doesn’t know when it started, their little ritual, just remembers how Hobi first noticed when they were in a hotel room after one of their many promotions. He had had the fortune (or was it misfortune?) to be assigned rooms with Jung Hoseok, their very own shining star.
Quite literally, Yoongi had realized, when he had found out that fans liked to call him the Sun.
The sudden loneliness after weeks of dealing with thousands of people left, right and centre had struck him like a blow, the silence relieving yet suffocating.
Yoongi had gone to the balcony for air and a little privacy away from Hobi who would come back eventually for rest.
He hadn’t heard Hoseok enter, nor felt his presence come up behind him. He started when he felt someone drape a thick comforter over his shoulders, turning around to find Hoseok smiling at him. Yoongi remembers how he had stared like a fool, awestruck at Hobi’s tender expression. Hoseok had folded the corners of the comforter over his chest and lifted one of Yoongi’s hands, used his fingers to uncurl the fist his hand had frozen into and gently placed it where the corners met.
“You should take care of yourself, hyung,” his voice, gruff from exhaustion, had murmured softly.
Yoongi had nodded wordlessly, letting his hand fist into the comforter under the warm weight of Hoseok’s palm and felt the awareness in his eyes.
They had been so knowing in the dark, half-lit by city lights and Yoongi had wondered how on earth he had been so mistaken as to assume Hoseok to be stupid and clueless.
So mistaken when Hoseok’s eyes glittered with knowledge and something akin to support and Yoongi had felt like he had breathed for the first time in years.
Someone had found out despite all his efforts at maintaining a façade. Hoseok had found out even when Yoongi’s entire gruff demeanour was a construct to let his agony blend in without anyone noticing a difference in his emotions. All of that, to let his turmoil stay hidden and just like that, Hobi had made his walls crumble to pieces.
And Hoseok, with his hand squeezing Yoongi’s before letting go, had offered a silent shoulder, all without making him feel pitied or small.
Hoseok had known and had chosen to stay.
And Yoongi had begun to love him for it.
After that incident on the balcony, Yoongi and Hoseok had gotten closer to each other. He had been drawn to Hobi like a moth to a flame. And Jung Hoseok was no lit candle but the actual Sun personified.
Min Yoon Gi didn’t quite understand why or how Hoseok enjoyed his company but he didn’t wish anything to change between them one bit.
Hobi, Yoongi found out, was his polar opposite. Energetic, loud and jolly to a fault, Jung Hoseok was everything Yoongi wished he could be and everything Yoongi was happy to have in his life. Hoseok made people around him want to be better.
Hoseok shared his joy as if it were no big deal, looking people straight in the eye with a blinding grin.
But even he had his bad days, as impossible as it had seemed to Yoongi...
“Tsk, here, let me do it,” Hoseok murmured in a hoarse voice, plucking the wet wipe from Yoongi’s fumbling fingers. He had been too tired to do the whole cleansing ritual, satisfied with wiping the layers of makeup away for the night.
Yoongi held back his protests, fingers curling uselessly on his lap instead.
Hobi’s digits came to gently steady his chin and Yoongi stilled instantly, breath caught in his throat. Proximity still bothered him, he reasoned with himself.
His friend’s fingers travelled carefully over the delicate skin of his face, the gentle press and drag of the damp wipe lulling him into a haze.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered and Yoongi obeyed, lids falling shut. His eyes were carefully wiped too, with pressure lighter than that of a feather and Yoongi couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him, the tension leaving his face.
But when he felt Hobi blowing cool air onto his damp eyelid, his eyes started open, pupils contracting and then dilating.
He blinked rapidly at the sight before him, Hoseok’s slight moue inches just a few inches away from his face, fingers light and warm on his skin.
He felt his throat move around a swallow and let his eyes drop before they could bore holes into Hobi’s. His fingers drop away from Yoongi’s chin but the proximity stays the same.
When Hoseok leaned away, settling back on the mattress, Yoongi pulled out another wipe from the packet, the wipe almost slipping through his fingers before he got a firmer grip on it.
“Your turn,” he mutters without meeting Hoseok’s eyes.
“It's alright, hyung...” At the look Yoongi shoots him, Hobi promptly lowers his hands, nimble fingers playing with the used wipe.
“I’m sure you are exhausted,” he murmured as softly as his rough voice would allow. Jung Hoseok was after all a great dancer. He never performed half-heartedly.
Yoongi didn’t like the way Hobi’s face was void of expression but he didn’t let it show, focusing on wiping around his eyes without letting the wipe’s solution sting them.
He wipes the last traces of makeup away, before getting up to leave.
But he’s surprised to feel Hobi’s fingers wrap around his wrist, pulling him back. Yoongi tensed up but turned around to face him, worried at the expressionless face once again.
“You okay?” He asked, letting the fingers of his right hand drop the wipe onto the mattress and splay over Hoseok’s forehead instead.
Yoongi is stunned into silence when he feels Hoseok’s other arm winding around his middle, his hands drawing him closer until Yoongi had to pull his hand away from his forehead right before Hobi let it lean against his abdomen.
“Yah…” He protested half-heartedly, “What’s the matter?”
Yoongi felt Hoseok’s slow shake, his forehead dragging the fabric of his shirt along with it from side to side. The movement tickled but Yoongi was too far gone to notice.
Worry gripped him and he let his hand fist lightly in Hobi’s hair. He heard Hoseok inhale a shaky breath before his fingers freed Yoongi's wrist and the hand wrapped itself around Yoongi over the other.
Now Yoongi was even more worried, a slight sliver of fear sneaking its way into his heart.
“Hoseok-ah?” He whispered, his free hand coming to rest on the nape of his friend’s neck.
He didn’t respond for a long time and the only thing Yoongi could hear was his ragged breaths and the sound of his own steady breathing.
When Hoseok finally spoke, it was to stutter these words, “Could you stay for just a little longer?”
Something within Yoongi broke at the question, his hands prying Hoseok’s arms off before taking a seat in front of him and pulling him into a tight embrace.
Yoongi swallowed hard when he heard Hoseok’s stifled whimper, feeling his jittery breaths against the skin of his collarbone. Hobi’s head was cradled in the crook of his neck, his fingers clinging to the front of his shirt weakly. And if he felt cold moisture trickle down his skin, Yoongi pretended as if he hadn’t noticed.
Jung Hoseok is a happy man, the sun personified. He is energetic, loud and jolly to a fault. He shares his joy with every person whose life he touches as if it were no big deal.
What Min Yoongi has never seen is his Hoseok sharing his pain.
And right now, his best friend was in agony.
“You’re alright,” he murmured, pressing a determined kiss to Hobi’s hair. “It’s okay. You’re going to be alright.”
And if Jin found them asleep in each other’s embrace when he came back to the room, he chose not to mention it.
Hoseok laughed along at Taehyung’s words, excusing himself before he went in search of his favourite person.
He had been awkward around Yoongi, more or less avoiding him ever since that night in the hotel room. It was embarrassing to think how he had clung onto Yoongi with such desperation. It was embarrassing to think Yoongi had seen that side of him when he usually did so well at hiding it. He wanted to go find him and apologize. No, first he wanted to thank him.
“Yoongi hyung!” He greeted loudly and poked his head through the door of Yoongi’s room, startled to find it dark and quiet. He saw a figure splayed out on the bed by the window, eyes shut and breathing languid.
He pursed his lips, gently closing the door behind him before approaching Yoongi.
If he’d known Yoongi had been sleeping, he would have been quieter.
He carefully perched on the edge of the bed, watching his friend’s face for any sign of waking up. Yoongi was no light sleeper. If he slept, he slept with the determination of a sloth.
“I’ve missed you,” Hoseok whispered, more to himself than a knocked out Yoongi.
Feeling a bubble of affection rise within his chest, Hoseok cleared the hair on his forehead with soft fingertips and leaned in. He let his lips touch the skin right above the space between Yoongi's eyebrows, smiling to himself when not a single muscle twitched.
“Sleep well, hyung,” he sighed, rising from his seat without jostling Yoongi.
“I’m not.”
Hoseok froze in place, knowing that his face had morphed into a sheepish expression already. Yoongi’s eyes are heavy with exhaustion, dark orbs glimmering in the moonlight from the window as they regarded him.
“I’m sorry,” he laughed awkwardly. Sheepishly. “I didn’t know you were in bed otherwise I would have kept quiet, I swear!”
“You didn’t wake me up.”
“Oh.”
“Hmm.”
“Is something the matter, hyung?”
Yoongi is quiet and Hobi chooses to take a seat again, grasping one of Yoongi’s wrists in his hand.
“What is it?”
Hoseok let out a startled shriek when Yoongi poked him in the abdomen, doubling over with out-of-control laughter when his friend continued to jab at his weak spots.
He flailed for one heart-stopping moment before losing his balance and almost headbutting Yoongi. He braces the weight of his body using his elbows just in time, laughter tapering off into quiet snickers.
Yoongi’s eyes looked vivid, bright and awake this close, the moonlight twinkling within the orbs like starlight.
“You really need to stop doing that, hyung,” he grinned, wondering if the tips of his hair were tickling Yoongi’s forehead.
Yoongi just stared at him and Hoseok blinked a little harder, feeling his grin fade off into a confused frown. But then his hyung just grabbed him by his hips, flipping him onto his back on the mattress.
Hoseok felt a rush of breath escape his lips at the shock and laughter shook his body once again.
One inch farther and he would have toppled off the bed.
“You really love me, don’t you?” Yoongi’s gruff voice asked and Hoseok sobered up, his neck snapping sideways to look at him.
He parted his lips to explain himself but Yoongi had already raised himself up on his forearm, fingers curving against Hoseok's left cheek and before Hoseok could get a single word in, Min Yoongi’s lips pressed against his forehead softly, delicately.
As if he were something to be cherished.
His eyes fell shut at the uncharacteristic act while his eyebrows rose of their own accord. They opened once he felt Yoongi move away and lie back down.
“What was that for?” He asked.
“Why did you kiss me then?” Yoongi asked with a lazy smirk which made Hoseok pause for a slight moment before he barreling on.
“It was a goodnight kiss.”
“Well, Hoseok, that one was payback.”
Hoseok is shocked speechless at that point because he could have sworn he saw Yoongi’s eyelid drop in a wink but Lord, since when did Min Yoon Gi wink?!
It is only the next morning when he wakes up in Yoongi's arms again that he remembers he had forgotten to say both sorry and thank you.
It had been a perfectly fine day when they had all been lounging in their living room after a gruelling five-hour dance practice when Taehyung had snatched Hoseok's phone right out of his hands, waved it in the air and exclaimed, "KISSY EMOJIS! HOSEOK HYUNG HAS A GIRLFRIEND!"
Nevermind where he even found the time or energy (or even the social circles) to find one, but to react so aggressively at Taehyung's playful behaviour had been completely unexpected.
Hoseok had leapt to his feet to tackle Taehyung to the ground in response to which there had been an instant uproar of surprise and anger, Jungkook immediately jumping into the mess to shield Taehyung from Hoseok's furious swipes to get his phone back.
Yoongi had been shocked into stillness as he had watched Jimin bodily haul Hoseok off Jungkook and Taehyung. Namjoon had promptly dragged Hoseok away to give him a sound scolding whereas Jin had instantly begun to mother and placate a thoroughly scared-out-of-his-wits Taehyung. And then Jungkook had played the mediator by handing over Hoseok's phone back to him without meeting his eyes.
Afterwards, Jin and Yoongi had been the only ones left in the living room, staring off into space as they mulled over the day's events with their mouths open.
And Yoongi had so foolishly, so pointlessly muttered, "But I like him."
Needless to say, Jin hadn't let him be after that without an explanation.
But things had never been the same with Hoseok again. Knowing that the reason behind his smile was now some faceless, nameless girl (Namjoon had given them all a lecture on respecting people's privacy despite their protests to know who and how and what the heck how on earth Hoseok?!) had made Yoongi feel small and unnecessary as he nursed his one-sided feelings for the man.
Yoongi had believed that distance would make it better, would make it all go away.
Five weeks later, distance had only made him hurt for five long weeks.
Distance hurts.
But asking for attention, for affection--heck, even for Hoseok's mere presence--and being rejected in favour of that girl, it doesn't just hurt.
It is agony.
There is a girl that Hoseok likes.
There exists a girl that Hoseok likes.
Yoongi wonders if it could get any worse than this and that’s when Hobi approaches him with all the tact and glee of a 6-year-old.
“Do you have to be such a grump all the time, Yoon?”
Yoongi purses his lips on hearing the nickname, startled out of his reverie.
“We can’t all pretend that life is rainbows and sunshine like some others, Hoseok.”
He winces when Hoseok’s shock at Yoongi’s words becomes palpable. He shouldn’t have said that, but sometimes he wants to maim Hoseok’s happy streak just because he knows he can.
Hobi’s happy nature scares him because he knows there will be times when it will drop down to the lowest extreme and he wishes it won’t. He has been there, he has felt that and how hard it is to see the light during those times. He has felt the world slip out of his control and has barely been able to get a hold of himself.
Hobi doesn’t deserve people who’d make him feel like that.
Yoongi feels Hoseok’s hesitance but doesn’t say anything more, silently wishing he would just go away.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Yoongi looks up sharply at the eerie quietness of Hobi’s words and feels ice grip his heart at his friend’s crestfallen face.
So it was Yoongi who was willing to become one of those cruel people who’d do something bad enough to make Jung Hoseok look the way he did now?
He had never expected Hoseok to take it the wrong way--to take his silence and his avoidance the wrong way--but he has.
“No,” he murmurs and looks away, letting his eyes apologize through evasion.
“Is she…do I know her?”
“Who?” Yoongi’s confusion is apparent in the furrow of his brow.
“The girl on your mind?”
Yoongi grits his teeth and look away yet again, letting his silence speak for itself. Darn Jin for interfering. He knew he shouldn’t have confided in anyone.
“I—I’m sorry, I’m prying.”
Prying?
“No,” Yoongi grasps Hoseok’s wrist and tugs at it til Hoseok takes a seat beside him. He feels the offence bubble up in his chest.
“Do you hear yourself talking?” He scoffs.
“Then is it really too much to ask?” Hoseok smiles at him, a softer version of his blinding grin.
But it’s just as persuasive.
“What do you want me to say? That it is?” He is running out of evasion tactics now. The words are trying to force their way out of his brain and onto his tongue but he can’t let them.
“You had me worried, Yoon,” Hoseok urges, his hand gripping the back of Yoongi’s neck and face leaning in to burn holes into his eyes. “I thought you were having an episode and I couldn’t get through to you.”
It’s much too close for comfort but Yoongi’s body isn’t willing to move away at the moment.
“It’s a guy,” he whispers and watches the physical impact of his words in the infinitesimal widening of Hoseok’s eyes, the way his lips part just enough for a gasp to make its way through. He feels the distance between them increase with the way Hoseok’s fingers leave a warm trail on his neck when he pulls back.
Yoongi notices him swallow because he is watching his neck. He just can’t meet his eyes right now.
He sneaks a look at Hoseok’s eyes and watches them still under fluttering eyelids.
Yoongi lets him deal with that piece of information and hopes it would be enough to derail him, to distract him from asking further questions.
“Do I know him then?” Hoseok asks as if his closest friend didn’t just come out to him.
Yoongi huffs out a surprised laugh at Hoseok’s persistence, refusing to look him in the eye.
“Hey, hey, Yoongi-ah. Is this why I was the last to find out? Did you think I was not going to like this because let me tell you, I’m far from homopho—“
“The reason I didn’t tell you is because you know him all too well, Hoseok.” The last to find out?! Exactly how many people had Jin told about this?
Yoongi gets up and gives up, ignoring Hobi’s protests. He begins walking away, dusting off his pants before tucking his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Yoongi-ah, please don't leave.”
Yoongi’s steps falter at those words, but he saves himself from stumbling and halts.
“I was wrong. I know it must have felt like I abandoned you because of her but she’s not—”
“Don’t,” Yoongi turns around to whisper harshly. “Don't, Hoseok-ah.”
Fear chokes him, it’s grip strong and murderous. He feels his lips part and quiver and watches Hoseok’s eyes fall to them in concern.
"That's enough,” He says. For all the days that he spent writhing in pain within the confines of his mind, just wishing for relief, praying for escape, for release ; for all the times he thought of calling Hoseok through the haze but couldn’t when he remembered all those excuses that began with her; for all the times the terror of Hoseok leaving him overpowered his own misery, Min Yoon Gi lets his eyes plead with Hoseok to let it be.
“Leave me alone,” he says the words to Hoseok for the first time in his life, “Please.”
And then he walks away.
He isn’t done with this.
The moment he gets time alone with Jin, away from prying eyes and curious ears, he confronts him.
“How dare you?!” He snarls, rushing towards Jin with his hands balled into fists.
Jin looks startled at the way Yoongi addresses him, floundering in silence.
Yoongi remembers his place, bites his lip and mutters a quick apology.
“Hyung,” he begins, quieter this time, “Why would you tell him?”
“Yoongi-ah, I didn’t tell him. Trust me,” Jin denies.
“I did trust you, hyung. That’s why I told you,” Yoongi barks, forgetting that he is out of line, raising his voice at Jin like that.
Jin shakes his head, looks around for a moment and then grabs Yoongi’s wrist.
“We need to talk."
Yoongi sits down on the edge of Jin’s bed, shoulders taut as he waits for his hyung’s explanation.
“Hosoek assumed. He had sensed that something was wrong in the last few weeks. He just never had the time to check up on you,” Jin begins, pacing back and forth in front of him.
Yoongi scoffs, shaking his head at the floor.
“No, he really didn’t. He’s struggling with some things of his own, Yoon-ah,” Jin mutters, a displeased expression on his face at Yoongi’s subsequent shock. “Which you would know if you had tried to talk to him even once instead of pushing him away the way you did.”
“I pushed him away, hyung? Me?”
“I admit that she has become an important part of Hobi’s life now but that doesn’t mean you let your friendship crumble to the ground,” Jin crosses his arms, a frown on his face.
Jin’s words sting. He knows he has been at fault, too. But what about the way Hoseok kept declining every time he asked for some of his time? It had gone on for months on end (even after Yoongi had decided to trash the whole distance bs) with Hobi having no time to spare at all.
“How did he come to know?” Yoongi asks, words sharp and quiet.
“He didn’t know, Yoongi-ah. I didn’t tell him a thing.”
Yoongi cannot believe his ears.
“He stopped by to talk to me but when I didn’t respond, he said he would confirm his thoughts directly. Whatever he found out, he found out after talking to you. Did you tell him something?”
Hoseok had found out through a flimsy guess. He hadn’t known but Min Yoongi had spelt it out for him.
It’s a guy.
Yoongi's lips curled in a grimace. He lets his head drop, hands clutching at fistfuls of hair. Distantly, he hears Jin’s comforting words.
“It’s going to be alright, Yoon-ah. You’re still best friends.”
He pays them no mind because no matter what Jin said, the truth was still going to be the same.
He was in love with Jung Hoseok. And he had let out his own secret.
“It’s Jimin, isn’t it?” Hoseok comes to him with lips stretched wide with uncertainty, the falsity of it making Yoongi bristle.
“And what if it were?”
“Hyung—”
“It’s none of your business, Jung.” Yoongi snaps.
“Hyung. That’s not fair. You know I—”
“You what, Hoseok? You what?” He turns to look at him sharply, knowing full well that it's an accusatory glare.
“I care about you.”
Yoongi shuts his eyes at those words, the hushed whisper feeling too much like an affectionate caress.
“Why do you think it’s him?” He asks instead, opening his eyes to look away.
“What? Because he’s the one you’ve been spending time with the most, hyung. And you are happy around him.”
"Yes, one tends to be like that around people who actually take care of you."
Hoseok falls silent and Yoongi curses himself for delivering another well-worded blow. He didn't deserve Hoseok. Not by a long shot. Not if he was going to use the man like a punching bag.
"Jimin is lucky."
It's Yoongi's turn to be shocked into silence as he regards Hoseok with astonishment.
Hoseok is looking straight ahead without actually focusing on anything in particular, his face grim.
Yoongi speaks before he can think over his words. Even he can sense the spite in it.
"You say that like it's a death sentence."
Hoseok turns and deliberately locks eyes with him. It is Yoongi who has to break his gaze, his insides uneasy at the look in Hoseok's eyes.
They are filled with an unnamed emotion. He swallows tightly, parting his lips to say something redeeming. But he cannot make a sound.
"Hyung, if you wanted me gone, you could have just said so."
Yoongi's heart thumps just the same but he thinks he can feel its beat get weaker.
"Why do you have to be like this?" Hoseok asks. His voice is strained, barely a whisper. Yoongi wants to stab himself and get it over with. "You were never like this."
Yoongi wishes he could--not be such a dick to Hoseok. That's the least he could do.
"I've always been this way."
“Well, not to me.”
Yoongi really, really wants someone to take Hoseok away from him immediately. He doesn’t know what else he’ll say. Bitterness is rushing in his blood and spilling out of his mouth.
And he was never any good at walking away from Hoseok.
“I thought we were best friends,” Hoseok says.
The breath Yoongi inhales next is shaky.
Why does it feel like a break-up even when it shouldn’t? They were never together in the first place.
“It’s not your job to take care of me,” Yoongi says firmly. But it sounds like a lie even to his ears.
Hoseok looks like he just lost a battle and all his comrades.
Yoongi just wants to curl up and wait for death to befall him.
But he is saved just in time when Jimin enters the living room, smelling like shower gel and freshness and gently tugs him by the wrist.
“Hyung, I need to talk to you. Do you mind if I borrow Yoongi hyung, Hoseokie hyung?”
Yoongi watches Hoseok’s mouth move soundlessly. He stares at Jimin and then his hand on Yoongi’s wrist and back again at Jimin with a knowing look in his eyes.
Tension is strung taut for a moment and then it is as if it collapses.
Hoseok just nods curtly and lets Jimin take him away.
That night, Yoongi sleeps in Jimin’s bed, letting him run delicate fingers through his hair.
“I wish you’d stop doing this to yourself.”
“Doing what?” Yoongi grumbles.
Jimin sighs loudly and smacks Yoongi on the head.
“If you wanted to be punished, you could have just told me. It’ll be a real pleasure.”
Yoongi knows what Jimin is trying to say. But he doesn’t want to talk about Hoseok.
“Kinky,” he winks at Jimin instead. Belatedly, he realizes that it’s too dark for Jimin to notice.
He is rewarded with another smack in the head anyway.
Yoongi sighs. “How did you know I needed saving?”
“Well, you looked like you wanted to curl up and die.”
“That’s exactly what I’d been looking forward to.”
“Mm, too bad. I won’t let you do that.”
“Why not?”
Jimin pulls him closer and hooks his chin over his head, drawing both arms tighter around him.
“Because you’ve got amends to make, hyung.”
Yoongi feels Jimin’s embrace strip his very bones of tension and stress. He snuggles into the warmth of Jimin’s small body.
“I love Hoseok hyung just as much as I love you. I won’t watch you two destroy each other like that. I won’t let you.”
Yoongi thinks he is undeserving of Jimin and his kindness too.
A few weeks down the line, however, he is willing to take his words back.
Things go well after that one confrontation with Hoseok.
He spends practically all his time around Jimin, seeing as he knows of his situation and is a little less judgemental about his actions than Jin. That in turn, enforces Hoseok’s belief that he was into Jimin.
Yoongi cannot bring himself to mind that. Some part of him wants to show off his friendship with Jimin, like salt in a wound.
He hates that part of him.
Hoseok doesn’t avoid him but he doesn’t engage him either.
Yoongi doesn’t know whether he should be thankful for that.
Their comeback is closer than ever, their music video is almost ready to drop and their dance routine is close to perfection.
It’s during their practice that things go slightly awry.
If anyone were to ask him, he could tell them how he was doing his best. He just slipped on flat ground. Or perhaps he was too busy watching Hoseok take center stage in front of him.
But the moment he goes out of sync with the others, Hoseok turns in the middle of his performance, his face furious.
The other members jump out of his way at once, parting like the Red Sea to let him through, straight to Yoongi. He looks cool as he stalks towards him with music rising to a crescendo around them.
Nobody wanted to get in the way of a mad Jung Hoseok.
Not when he was in his zone. Especially not since he was their choreo in-charge.
He expects Hoseok to scream at him, to discipline him and to ask him to practice his part by himself a hundred or so times before joining in on their actual practices.
What he doesn’t expect, however, is for Hoseok to charge at him with a livid expression and push him.
The force is enough to make him stumble and everyone gasps and calls out but Hoseok grabs him before he falls to the floor, only to shove him again.
“You are-the only one-who keeps-messing up-every-single-time-we practice-this choreo,” he spits out, using shoves to punctuate his sentence.
The last shove has him by the wall of their studio.
The shock in the room is palpable. Nobody expected Hoseok to get physical. He never does.
Yoongi can feel everybody’s eyes on him.
Maybe nobody expected him to take a younger one’s abuse quietly either.
But Yoongi knows it’s his fault so he keeps his head down, curls his hands into fists lest he does something stupid. He doesn’t do well when Hoseok’s this close. There’s a ridiculous urge zinging through him. He wants to grab Hobi.
What he might do upon grabbing him is another matter altogether.
Hoseok raises his index finger and jabs it into Yoongi’s sternum. Surprisingly, it hurts. He can’t help the wince that shows before he has it under control.
But that must but what ticks Namjoon off.
“That’s enough!” He shouts.
Six pairs of eyes snap to him instead.
“I have had enough of you two--” Namjoon jabs a finger in the air in both their directions as he walks up to them. “--walking on eggshells around each other and messing up every other day,”
Hoseok steps away from Yoongi in mute shock when Namjoon positions himself between the both of them.
“You,” he says, pointing at Hoseok. “are going to apologize to Yoongi hyung. I know you are the leader when it comes to choreography but that doesn’t excuse you manhandling him like that when he’s your hyung.”
“And you,” Namjoon turns in place to point at Yoongi who has pressed himself up against the wall as their leader all but invades his personal space. “are going to apologize to Hoseok. I don’t care about your excuses. You have definitely done something to piss him off.”
Namjoon steps out of his way, crosses his arms and asks, “You two are going to resolve your problems. Are we clear on that?”
There are few moments of awkward silence.
“I asked: are we clear?”
“You know what? This won’t work.”
Six pairs of eyeballs now eye Jimin apprehensively as he stalks towards them.
“You two are coming with me.”
Nobody stops him as he grabs them by their arms and begins to physically drag them out of there. It’s an easy task as they make no move to resist him.
Jimin drags them all the way upstairs to their living area and keeps walking until they are well inside the bedroom Jimin shared with Hoseok.
“You’re going to stay here and not get out until you have buried your problems. I’m going back to practice.”
“What?!”
“No! Jiminah--”
“Do you really want to incur Bang PDnim’s wrath so close to a comeback?”
Both of them shut up at that.
With one final nod of satisfaction, Jimin walks out the bedroom door. The sound of the door being locked from the outside echoes ominously.
Hoseok and Yoongi eye each other warily.
Screw Jimin and his kindness.
What a day full of surprises.
“What did I do to piss you off, then?” Yoongi asks drily, crossing his arms as he reluctantly turns to face Hoseok. Namjoon’s voice echoes inside his head.
Resolve your problems.
“No.”
“What?” Yoongi mutters, feeling dumb as he does so even when Hoseok is the one making no sense.
“It’s not my job to take care of you. But I did because I wanted to. Because I cared for you.”
Yoongi’s heart stutters a little.
“And you don’t anymore?”
It’s not supposed to sound like a taunt, like a petty rhetorical question. Yoongi is scared of how much he wants to hear the answer to it. He is scared of how much he doesn’t want to know what the answer is.
“You don’t let me. Taking care and letting someone take care of you-that’s how it works. It’s a two-way street. It’s not easy. You’re not making it any easier.”
“Oh so now it’s difficult for you to be around me?”
“Hyung--”
Yoongi holds up a palm to stall the flow of his protests.
Resolve.
“It’s not your job to take care of me,” He begins with much difficulty. Being honest was not exactly his forte. Being honest about his emotions, even more so.
“It’s not your job, but why is it that I feel so resentful, Seokah?
He feels sick, admitting that. Instant regret floods him. There was no going back now.
Hoseok still looks a little bewildered, a little indignant. It seems as if he feels he doesn’t deserve whatever Yoongi is planning for him.
“Why did you try to ice me out? What did I do wrong?”
Yoongi huffs humourlessly. “What you did wrong?” He asks with raised eyebrows.
He walks up to Hoseok, stopping right in front of him, just out of his personal space.
“You took care of me.”
Hoseok’s eyebrows come together, there is hurt welling up in his eyes. From this distance, Yoongi can see it all far too clearly.
“You took care of me. So foolishly. Boy, didn’t you realize there’s a reason I like to go through my moods alone?”
Hobi is still quiet. His lips are parted slightly as if he can’t believe what he is hearing, as if he is on the edge of interjecting but holding on for more words that he can make sense of.
“But I couldn’t let you hurt by yourself,” Hoseok says in a small voice and Yoongi is shaking his head before the man has even finished his sentence.
His words hurt in the sense that they cause him pleasure. He needs to stop thinking that Hoseok could ever see him that way, that Hoseok could ever mean those words in any sense other than the friendly one.
“It’s not your job to take care of me,” he reiterates as he meets Hoseok’s gaze head-on.
Yoongi raises a single finger, ignoring the pricking of his eyes as he jabs it into Hoseok’s hard chest.
“But you still made me want you to take care of me.”
There’s silence after his little speech. There’s silence and then some more as they only breathe heavily and assess each other.
His arm eventually tires of holding itself up while his finger pokes Hoseok in the chest and Yoongi has to let it fall to his side.
But before it can do so, Hoseok catches it.
“Say it in a way I can understand,” he says.
Yoongi chuckles despite the ghastly atmosphere.
“You were always the foolish one,” he says with a smile, more to himself than anything when Hoseok’s grip tightens.
His other hand comes up to grab his upper arm.
Hoseok leans in and grits out, “Hyung, explain yourself before I do something I regret.”
Yoongi distinctly notes his disadvantage.
Hoseok is towering over his own short frame, his hands hold Yoongi in place with a vice-like grip and his voice has an unmistakably threatening quality to it.
Resolve.
So he decides to do the wise thing.
He decides to egg the man on.
“Hoseokie, I’ve never known you to be violent,” he says with a lopsided grin.
He feels like getting a little beat up tonight. Yoongi is surprised at himself. He didn’t know he had masochistic tendencies.
Hoseok growls under his breath. He actually growls. And Yoongi is only just starting to realize that he is quite possibly going to end up with a bruised face tonight.
“They won’t forgive you if you mess up my face. Comeback is less than a week away,” he gulps.
Hoseok’s grip on him loosens but he makes no move to step back.
“I need you to answer something, hyung.”
Yoongi nods. Hoseok inhales deeply before continuing.
“Do you like Jimin?”
Yoongi’s answering swallow is loud enough that Hoseok frowns.
“Do you like Jun Hong?”
Hoseok’s hands fall away at Yoongi’s question, lips parting in shock. To Yoongi that almost seems like an admission.
“You looked into my phone,” he says. His voice is breathless but with a hint of betrayal.
“I didn’t mean to,” Yoongi mutters, taking a step back and crossing his arms again. “Your phone was on your bed when it pinged, the chat was open.”
Hoseok doesn’t say anything to that and Yoongi rambles on just to fill the silence.
“Isn’t that why you were mad at Taehyung for taking your phone? You didn’t want any of us to find out.”
“How much did you read?”
“What?”
“How much of that chat did you read?”
“I caught a glimpse of a single sentence before your screen blacked out.”
“What did it say?”
“He...said he loved you too.”
Yoongi barely manages to get the words out. It’s funny how such a simple word had made practically his whole world collapse.
“Loved you, too.”
Too. Three letters. But such meaning behind such a small word.
It is not hard to guess what Hoseok’s text must have been to garner such a response.
Hoseok’s body almost sags at his words, his shoulders dropping in what seems to be relief. Yoongi doesn’t understand that reaction. He was expecting something close to apprehension.
“Seokah, you could have talked to any one of us. You know we’re far from being against such a relationship,” Yoongi says. He wants to reassure Hoseok. He wants to make the boy feel safe again.
“And what about being in one?” Hoseok takes a step closer to Yoongi who almost reflexively retreats.
On seeing that, Hoseok’s lips thin and he doesn’t move closer again.
“I don’t understand…” Yoongi trails off.
“Would you? Be in such a relationship? Did you...ask Jimin to be in one with you?”
Yoongi blinks, exhaling sharply as he tries to think of a way to stall him.
He absolutely cannot find out. Not when Hoseok has done nothing to deny Yoongi’s claim about Jun Hong. He almost wants to lie through his teeth. He wants to grab Hoseok by his shoulders and shake him and tell him that he is in love with Jimin.
But he reminds himself of what he had set out to do here, of why they had been locked in. He needs to wrap it up. Like a pretty little present with a bow.
“That doesn’t concern you.”
“Hyung-”
“You really are prying now,” Yoongi warns.
Hoseok advances another step closer, hand gesturing furiously. His face is drawn in anger and Yoongi cannot help but feel his own anger rise as a response.
“ Hyung! I’m your best friend . Don’t I deserve to know?”
Yoongi flexes his jaw.
“You really want to know?”
He wonders distantly, as his body readies himself for fight or flight, blood rushing through his veins, if it will help if he demonstrates. He can feel his heart thud loudly in his chest.
“I do.”
Hoseok’s expression is beseeching, his words even more so.
Resolve, he hears Namjoon’s voice in his head again.
Screw it.
He takes two steps closer to Hoseok.
“Then let me show you,” he says.
Yoongi gets to glimpse a brief moment of confusion on Hoseok’s face before he does it.
Yoongi kisses him.
And he is blissed out for those few precious moments.
It lasts all of four seconds and then he pulls back, horrified.
His hand flies to his mouth in shock.
Hoseok stands in front of him, completely stunned. He blinks once, then twice.
Yoongi groans into his palms. “I must be crazy.”
But then strong hands are prying his hands apart, pushing them down to his sides and Yoongi doesn’t have time to even voice his question as Hoseok bridges the gap between them.
This time, he can actually feel the softness of Hoseok’s lips against his.
He grabs onto Hoseok’s shirt with weak fingers, clinging on for dear life.
And then one of Hoseok’s hands pulls him closer by his neck only to deepen the kiss.
Yoongi’s knees are ready to give out at this point but it’s as if Hoseok knows it. His arm winds around Yoongi’s waist, drawing him flush against the other’s body.
It seems like a lifetime passes by, they stand there like that, connected at their lips and hips. Hoseok shows no inclination to stop and Yoongi keeps running out of breath.
But he needs to clarify things.
He comes up for air, gasping. “Wh-what about Jun Hong?”
Hoseok pauses in his endeavours to chase after Yoongi’s lips.
“What about Jimin?” He raises an eyebrow.
“A lie,” he pants. Hoseok seems amused at how out of breath he is. “It was always you.”
Hoseok sobers up instantly at his words, pulling back to look at him properly. His eyes flit between both of Yoongi’s and rove all over his face as if searching for a sign that it was a lie.
“Hyung…”
“Now answer me. Do you…”
“You know he’s one of my closest friends,” Hoseok murmurs, raising his fingers to brush Yoongi’s hair out of his eyes delicately. “I would talk to him...about you.”
Yoongi blinks up at him. Hoseok isn’t meeting his eyes, choosing to fiddle with Yoongi’s shirt instead.
He belatedly realizes that they are both sweaty from all the dancing and squirms in Hoseok’s hold.
His eyes immediately flick to meet Yoongi’s.
Yoongi falls still, watching Hoseok’s lips curve into a smile and then unfurl into a complete grin.
And then somehow, they are laughing in each other’s arms, both hands holding onto the other as if they were afraid it were a mere dream.
And as he gazes into Hoseok’s glimmering eyes, his heart feels at rest.
He knows they’ll be alright.
Yoongi traps Hoseok’s grin with his mouth, wishing to taste it.
He kisses him like it’s the end of the world.
He kisses him like there’s no tomorrow.
And most of all, Yoongi kisses him just the way he loves him.
Boy, was Namjoon gonna be proud of his resolution skills.