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What’s it like to love Min Yoongi?
It changes every day, through the sunshine and the storms and the hot summers and the icy winters, every day is different, and Hoseok never loves Min Yoongi in the same way for more than a single day.
-
See, even before he knew Yoongi, the potential for love sat there in the pit of his chest, waiting for the chance to bloom.
He sees Namjoon first, a tall figure above the crowds queuing to sign Yoongi’s novel Butterfly, Namjoon the guardian angel ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Taehyung is vibrating next to him, book clenched in his hands, a painfully wide, nervous smile on his face. “I’m so excited,” he says, repeating it under his breath like a mantra, an aside to Hoseok as he counts down the minutes until it’s his turn to speak to Yoongi. “Hobi, I’m so excited. Oh shit, I’m so scared. What do I say? Do I say hi? Do I tell him I love him? Do I cry?”
Hoseok laughs a little and pats Taehyung on the back. “What would you wanna hear if it was you up there? If one of your fans were to speak to you?”
“My fans are all under the age of twelve, so I don’t really know.”
Hoseok laughs again. “Don’t worry, just enjoy yourself okay? Namjoon says Yoongi’s a really good guy, I’m sure he won’t mind whatever garbage comes out of your mouth.”
Taehyung reddens at that, but the line moves forward before he can answer back, and then there’s suddenly a clear view of Min Yoongi, sat at a table surrounded by his books and his fans, a pen in hand, ink staining his fingers, a gentle smile on his face as he listens to a young woman who is tearfully speaking to him in a small, shaky voice. Taehyung groans in his throat. “Oh. Oh he’s cute. Isn’t he cute? Don’t you just wanna tuck him in and get him a hot drink? Oh he’s small.”
“He’s very cute,” Hoseok agrees, because hell, he isn’t blind. Yoongi is very cute. Very sweet looking in his sweater with his big smile and small teeth and scrunchy nose.
“Can we go home? I’ve changed my mind, I don’t wanna do this anymore,” Taehyung says, tugging on Hoseok’s arm. “Please, let me go and have a sandwich and cry.”
“You’re being a big baby, he’s just another dude! Say you like his book and then see what he says, it’s not that hard!”
And then it’s Taehyung’s turn, and he’s shoved to the front before he can run away. He looks terrified, and Hoseok would laugh if he wasn’t sure he’d be heard and then berated on the way home.
Somehow, Taehyung manages to stutter out a greeting, and Hoseok watches as he hands over his book to be signed, hands shaking as his fingers graze Yoongi’s.
“Hi there,” Yoongi says, writing his name and a little message. His voice is lower than Hoseok had expected it to be, smoother too. “What’s your name?”
“Taehyung.”
“Well Taehyung, thank you for coming. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my book.”
“I did, I love it. I think I must have read it five times since it came out.”
Yoongi’s smile widens. “Really? Wow, I appreciate you saying so. Who’s your favourite character?”
It unleashes the dam that Taehyung has been holding in his throat, and suddenly he’s talking so fast, spilling so much information at once that even Hoseok, attuned to Taehyung as he is, struggles to follow. Yoongi, however, nods along. He laughs at the appropriate times and interjects when Taehyung raises a point or makes clear he’s confused about something. He writes another message in the book while they converse, and Taehyung’s smile grows from fearful to nervous to happy to downright blissful, and then the minutes are up and a man comes to wave Taehyung away.
“It was great to meet you,” Yoongi says as Taehyung leaves. “Stay happy, kid.”
“Thank you!” Taehyung calls.
Hoseok follows him out, leaving Namjoon with nothing but a wave and a mouthed, I’ll text you later. All he can hear is Taehyung’s babbling, his excitement and joy. It’s sweet, it’s fucking adorable, and so is Min Yoongi, the author infamous for being cold.
“He’s not what I expected at all!” Taehyung gushes, book clutched to his chest. “Hobi, can you believe it? He said I made good points! He said he was glad to hear my thoughts!”
In reality, Yoongi hadn’t said much at all, as he simply hadn’t been given the choice. But what he did say made Taehyung happy, and that’s what Hoseok thought about as he drove Taehyung back to his apartment. The sweet guy with the sad eyes and the kind, kind mouth.
-
The second time he sees Yoongi isn’t so nice, since he’s almost killed, but you can’t pick and chose these things, can you? And years of dancing honed his reflexes, so hey, no one is worse for wear other than Hoseok’s poor, panicked heart. He almost fucking dies from silent laughter when Yoongi asks if his wallet is a bomb, because honestly what the fuck. But then Hoseok enters the cabin he spent his summers as a child in, and it’s been a long time since he last saw Yoongi, but god he looks bad. Smaller, somehow, like his spirit has diminished. His sad eyes are sadder, his kind mouth no longer in the shape of a gentle smile. He looks exhausted and underweight, like he’s slowly being crushed by an unimaginable force.
Hoseok doesn’t know Yoongi well enough to address it, not like Namjoon could, so he looks at the floor instead, where the bottle that was thrown is lying in splinters of glass and droplets of wine, and then it kind of hits him that he literally could have died.
“That could have hit me,” he says, looking back to Yoongi. “You could have murdered me, and all I came to do was stop you from freezing.”
“I thought you were breaking in.”
“With a spare key?”
“I was asleep. I didn’t hear you use the key.”
He’s in fucking frog pyjamas, rosy-cheeked from the wine, and he looks sad. Hoseok has loved a lot of people in his life; his is a soul made for loving, but none looked like they needed love like Yoongi looks like he needs it. None looked quite as deserving, either.
When Hoseok offers up his weekends to help Yoongi with his novel, he doesn’t think twice about it. What’s another person that needs a helping hand, some show of support and solidarity? What’s another person that’s lost their way to happiness? Hoseok is made for this, making the ride smoother, made for proving that the end is always in sight if you look hard enough.
When he knocks on Jimin’s door, finding him annoyed and bleary eyed, all he has to say is, “I have a depressed author who needs a bandaid and some love.”
Jimin nods and gets his first aid kit, plastering on his sweetest smile.
-
The potential was always there, but does he actually expect to fall in love with Min Yoongi? God no, absolutely not. Yoongi is not his type in any way, shape or form.
Hoseok likes show-offs. He like’s fast paced joy and infatuation that flies so fast he’s dizzy. He likes to laugh until it hurts and then just keep laughing, because what is life without fun? Excitement?
And at the beginning he doesn’t think Yoongi could provide any of those things, and though he’s disproven later, he falls in love quite soundly before the realisation anyway, proving himself and a lifetime of relationships that he’s been looking for love in entirely the wrong places.
It’s that fucking conversation with Taehyung, teary-eyed, soft-hearted Taehyung with aspirations and hope bigger than his body, his bleeding heart in his hands. Hosoek has never quite felt anger like that, because homophobia is one thing, bad enough on its own, but to make it personal, about Taehyung, who is completely undeserving of any unkindness is another unforgivable act.
And Yoongi just... calms it. Diffuses his anger completely when he almost falls down the stairs of the cabin and runs out the door to do laps around the ground, and then comes inside and speaks to Taehyung and assures him that everything will be alright. A kid he doesn’t know- can’t possibly remember- and in the middle of his own personal hell, he pauses, takes a deep breath, and then says to Taehyung “Go to sleep and in the morning things will seem brighter with the sun, okay?”
Hoseok’s anger fades. His frustration fades. They’re still there, yeah, because none of the fucking situation was acceptable in the slightest, but Yoongi added a new, cooler perspective. One of support and action, rather than building fury and hopelessness. He fixes Hoseok’s problem as soon as it arises, and then blushes when Hoseok brings it up, glaring as if Hoseok shouldn’t mention it.
Yeah. Hoseok knows he’s in love with Min Yoongi then. There’s no questioning that pain in his chest, the sweet hurt that says, I never want to let you go.
-
Of course, the cabin is the honeymoon phase, and they both knew that.
Despite his claims, Hoseok had a hard time believing just how little Yoongi truly understood about relationships in comparison to just sex. For the first couple of weeks back in the city, their dates go terribly. Yoongi dresses completely wrong for the restaurant or becomes suspicious when Hoseok tries to treat him to things, saying stuff like, “I have my own money, Hoseok. Why would you buy my dinner?”
It’s frustrating, because Hosoek wants to wine and dine him and make him blush, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to trust romance at all. He trusts Hoseok plenty, but he doesn’t trust his intent behind the dates, which hurts a little, but Hoseok tries not to take it personally.
“He had a tough time in college,” Namjoon confides one day while they double date for lunch, Yoongi and Jin arguing at the bar about who pays for the wine. “Like, I don’t know the half of it because Jin doesn’t like to talk about it, but from what I do know, Yoongi never had good experiences of anything to do with relationships.”
Does he know? Hosoek wonders while he sips his wine. Does either of them know that Yoongi was in love with Jin?
It had almost made him jealous, the first time he’d heard, but Yoongi’s expression had been affectionate and yes, loving, but not infatuated. Loving, but not in love, as he’d talked about Jin.
“He’s making it hard to date,” Hoseok admits. “I want to take him dancing, to a proper class, you know? And he asked why, and I said that couples have fun together. Until then he’d seemed down for it, but he closed up and just said that we can talk about it later. I don’t get it.”
Namjoon nods slowly, considering Jin and Yoongi’s distant figures. “Yoongi doesn't realise that other people don’t think the way he does, sometimes. Have you tried asking him directly? I think that’s gonna be your safest bet. He’s had a shit time of it, and romance has never been on this side. Honestly? To me it just seems like he’s scared of admitting that this is a relationship.”
Hoseok is a little shaken by that, because of all the things Yoongi is, scared of commitment has never seemed like much of an option. “You think he’s doubting this?”
Namjoon’s eyes widen. “Doubting? God no! No, nothing like that, I mean that he’s worried in the way that kids are scared of the dark. They just close their eyes and hide, and that’s probably what Yoongi is doing. If there are monsters in the dark and you make sure you never admit you know they’re there, will they attack?”
“You’re saying I’m a monster to him?”
Namjoon takes a big gulp of his wine. “You should be talking to Jin about this, not me,” he mutters. “I’m bad at this stuff; you should have seen me at the beginning of my own relationship. I don’t think you’re the problem Hoseok, I don’t think there really is one. I think that Yoongi is trying not to admit to himself that he’s in a relationship so that if it goes wrong and it ends, it doesn’t hurt him as much as if he committed completely.”
“Oh,” Hoseok murmurs quietly. He hurts again, deep in his chest, but this time for Yoongi. He’s always loved so freely, so completely, that he can’t imagine the pain of not allowing yourself the blessing.
Later that night, when Hoseok goes with Yoongi back to his plant-filled apartment and climbs into the soft bed, wrapping himself around the man he’s completely in love with, he says, “Are you really so scared of our relationship that you can’t even admit to yourself that it is one?”
He expects tension, maybe some resignation, a few biting words at most. What he doesn't expect is the raw panic of Yoongi’s sharp inhale, the single, violent shudder, or the way he throws himself out of the bed and out of the room. Hosoek lies there for a second, shocked, until he hears the thud he knows is Yoongi’s knees hitting the wooden floor, and then he’s up, sprinting into the hall where Yoongi is on all fours, face grey, sweating, and breathing in shaky, mechanical breaths, his eyes closed.
Hoseok kneels on the floor next to him but doesn’t dare touch him. “Yoongi, baby,” he murmurs. Yoongi shakes his head silently, still trying to even his breathing. His hands curl into fists against the floor, and frustration makes him shake even more. Hoseok feels sick, not with worry but with helplessness. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” Yoongi spits, eyes opening to slits just to glare at Hoseok. “Don’t you dare apologise for this, this isn’t your fault it’s my fucking brain throwing a tantrum when I hear something that makes me nervous-“
He shudders again and his head drops. Hoseok waits, giving Yoongi the time he needs to continue speaking. “I’m the one that should be sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
You shouldn’t have to deal with me. It’s implied, and for the first time ever, Hoseok gets really, legitimately angry with Yoongi. He stands and puts his hands on his hips. “I’m gonna go and make us some tea, come into the living room when you’re ready, okay? Shout if you need me.”
He doesnt want to crowd Yoongi, knows that shouting is the opposite of productive, that coddling would just make things worse. So he goes into Yoongi’s small kitchen and makes two cups of tea, and after almost ten minutes pass, Yoongi joins him, now in one of Hoseok’s oversized sweaters as well as his cute baby blue pyjamas. He looks vulnerable with sweat still drying on his face, and Hoseok’s anger drains as quickly as it bubbled up. Yoongi walks right into his arms and they hug tightly, Yoongi’s face pressed into Hoseok’s neck, Hoseok breathing in the quiet smell of Yoongi’s hair.
“I love you,” he whispers, trying to swallow down the emotions welling up. “I love you, I don’t love you despite your problems, I just love you. I want this to work. I want us to work. I want us to try, Yoongi.”
“I do too,” Yoongi raps. “I want it to work but I just, I don’t know. I just keep panicking and then everything seems worse when I do and I love the city but I can’t go walk through the trees when it gets too much and I hate walking alone at night because it’s dangerous and I know you’d be mad if you woke up and I was gone like that and I wanna go on dates and enjoy our time together but I just keep thinking... I just know I’m gonna fuck it up.”
Hoseok hums and tries to come up with a concise way to explain his feelings. When he looks at Yoongi... it can barely be classed as love. He doesn’t see a broken person, a project, a work in progress, he just sees Yoongi, problems as well as gifts. He loves all of Yoongi, from the ends of his feet to the tips of his skinny fingers. From his worst nights to his very best days. “You’re human Yoongi, and you keep forgetting that. If you fuck up, then we talk it out and work through it, just like if I fuck up, right? Or would you write me off without any conversation if I did something like let you pay for my meal? You’re worth so much more than you feel at your worst, I promise you, you’re worth the romance, the fun, the good memories, the love. I promise.”
Yoongi’s tremors don’t subside, but after a few minutes of silence Hoseok feels his breathing truly begin to even out. “I love you.”
Hoseok smiles and presses a kiss to Yoongi’s blonde head. “I love you too. Wanna go to bed with our tea and I can tell you about all the terrible things I’ve done in past relationships to make you feel a little less awkward? I’ve done some bad things.”
He feels Yoongi’s small answering smile. “Like what?”
“I threw up on my girlfriend on our way to prom because I was so nervous, and she was wearing a sequined dress, so the vomit was really on there.”
Yoongi’s tremors turned to the shaking of laughter. “Oh wow.”
“Exactly. Shall we go back to bed? Talk it out?”
“Yeah. Thank you.” Yoongi looks up and presses a chaste kiss to Hoseok’s mouth, sweet and lingering. “I mean it Hobi, thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You need to stop thanking me for loving you,” Hoseok replies, following his retreat to drop another kiss on that pouty mouth he adores. “It comes naturally to me. I think I was made for loving you.”
“What a fucking coincidence then,” Yoongi says, and Hoseok gets to see that beautiful smile.
-
He rings Jin a few days later. “I wanna do something so romantic that it knocks Yoongi’s fears out of the water.”
Jin coos. “A grand gesture of romance, you say? Well consider me in. What are you thinking of? He doesn’t deal all that well with surprises.”
“It’s gonna take a while, because the one I’ve found is in Japan and will need to be shipped,” Hoseok says, still scrolling on his laptop. “Maybe even a month or so. Is that too long?”
“Love is never too long,” Jin says dreamily. “I waited for almost half a year for Namjoon to realise how in love I was with him. Have I told you the story of how we met?”
“At least twenty times,” Hoseok says. “Oh I think I’ve found one for a little less money. Would he mind second hand?”
“What are you getting him? A puppy?”
“No, we’re not ready for something like that yet I don’t think.”
“Then what?”
“A piano.”
Jin sucks in his breath. “Oh Hoseok, if you do that there’s no going back. I mean it, I really mean it. If you break his heart after that I’ll really have to murder you, and I’ll have to do it very painfully.”
“Between you and the rest of our friends, I don’t doubt the pain,” Hoseok says with a wince. “But I don’t intend on breaking his heart, I wanna make him happy. Would a piano be a good start?”
“You’ve already made the good start,” Jin replies. “I never thought I’d see him like this. I think a piano would be a really good way to prove the value of romance, though. What a good boyfriend you’re turning out to be.”
He laughs. “Yeah well he still won’t call me his boyfriend, so we’ll see.”
Jin makes the petty noise that means he knows more than Hoseok does. “He might not call you his boyfriend to your face but... I may have... heard a certain word slip from his mouth...”
Hoseok laughs and hangs up with a goodbye. And then, because he’s so happy it feels like he’s overflowing, he texts Yoongi, ‘You’ve decided I'm finally your boyfriend, then?’
The reply makes him laugh openly to himself, sat in his office with an antique website open and Yoongi as his phone’s lockscreen. ‘Honestly, fuck Kim Seokjin. What a fucking asshole.’
-
A year later, the engagement is planned. He’ll take Yoongi to the cabin for their anniversary, make another grand, romantic gesture that makes Yoongi burst into tears, and then they’ll cry together and have sex and watch a film and love each other some more. It’s all planned.
Only when they arrive at the cabin, there’s already a fire blazing, food in the fridge, and the curtains are open, showing the endless expanse of forest around them.
“Huh,” Hoseok says, dropping his bags. “Jimin must have prepped the place for us, which is sweet.”
“Actually, it was Tae and Jungkook,” Yoongi says from behind, wrestling with his own bags and the door. “They’re visiting Jimin and stopped by for me.”
“Why?”
He turns around to look at Yoongi, and his eyes immediately go to the ring. And yeah, his heart stops.
Yoongi grins. “Think you’re the only one that’s learned a few things? Jung Hoseok, you romantic bastard, wanna marry me?”
“You’re proposing to me and you called me a bastard?” Hoseok whispers. He can’t blink. He can’t breathe. “Fuck you, Yoongi, I was gonna propose this weekend!”
Yoongi falters. “You were?” he begins to withdraw the ring, then pauses and cocks his head. “Wait, does that mean it’s a yes?”
“Of course it’s a yes!” Hoseok shouts. “You stupid dick!”
“He said yes!” Jungkook calls. Somewhere else upstairs, Hoseok hears Jimin reply with a distant, “Yay!”
And then he can’t hear anyone because he’s sat on the floor crying, and Yoongi is wrapped around him like the most welcome blanket. “I love you, Jung Hoseok,” he murmurs.
Hoseok nods, still crying loudly. “I hate you but I love you too. Of course it’s a yes. Wanna see the ring I got you?”
Yoongi smiles so hard his eyes squint. “In a minute, yeah? Let’s just wait here a while, we have all the time in the world.”
-
What does happiness feel like to Hoseok?
It feels like hearing Yoongi say, “Maybe I was in love with you before I knew it.”
It feels like sleeping beside him, skin on skin, close enough to touch and finally feeling welcome to do it, to drag his fingertips over the soft skin, the softer slope of his nose, the softest curve of his lips.
It feels like waking every morning to Yoongi’s phone blaring, seeing that brief second where the noise wakes Yoongi but he’s still largely unaware, and smiles at Hoseok like he’s been waiting all his life for them to wake up together.
It feels like the promise to come back to the cabin each summer for Yoongi to write and Hosoek to help Jimin teach kids at the dance studio.
It feels like shitty coffee in the mug he adopted from Yoongi, savouring each cup of I’M OLD BUT AT LEAST I DON’T SHIT MYSELF YET.
It feels like working with people he loves – Namjoon and Taehyung especially, but all of the others too. Hoseok lives for human contact, flowers under attention like a rose in the sun, but it’s also getting to return home and ask Yoongi how his day was.
It feels like the sappy, romantic shit Yoongi secretly loves but would never ask for, like the piano from his youth and the hope for a good future in the keys and his pages.
It feels like life, because Hosoek’s life makes him happy. He’s always felt happiness in waves, some good days and some bad, but Yoongi is the moon now, controlling his oceans.
The dedication in his third novel reads,
Hobi,
If you never stop loving me, I promise to never stop loving you.
You’re my best friend and my partner in a way I never thought I’d have, and I love you endlessly.
Keep smiling, okay? Your happy makes me happy.
That’s what happiness feels like, and what it’s like to love Min Yoongi.