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The light comes on in the hallway, a sliver of warmth cutting through the dark. Yoongi knows that he should be asleep. It’s late; late enough that the only sounds are those of the city outside—the low hum of tires treading pavement broken by the occasional whirr of a siren or rev of an engine. He should be asleep, but his brain has other plans and instead he’s been staring at the ceiling for hours, thinking.
Some nights are like this. An endless lineup of memories and song lyrics and panic about the future. His limbs feel heavy and his eyelids are drooped but whenever he lets them close he’s reminded of the cacophonous battle playing out within the confines of his skull. So he keeps them open. He keeps them open and the next morning he pretends that his eyes are not bloodshot and carrying bags. Acts like he’s grumpy because he’s Min Yoongi and not because his mind periodically betrays him and steals away his sleep.
Yoongi is used to nights like this one. He’s used to being the only one awake.
But tonight he’s not.
He listens as footsteps pad heavily down the hallway, barefoot and dragging. Hears the door to the fridge open and then shut again. Hears it happen another three times. Someone tinkers with a glass.
Then, silence.
Yoongi pauses, strains his ears. The light is still on outside his door, harsh against his eyes so accustomed to the dark, but not unwelcome. Whoever is out there doesn’t return to their room.
He lays in his bed, counts the seconds. Someone else is awake. He can feel their presence like a second heartbeat in his chest. Thump. Thump. Thump. The seconds pass steadily and Yoongi’s mind is loud and the light has shifted from being bright to soft.
His sheets swoosh as he slips out from underneath them.
He runs into Jungkook in the hallway, hair a mess and eyes bleary but wide with shock as Yoongi smacks into his chest.
“Shit,” Yoongi growls, stepping back and blinking groggily up at his youngest bandmate. “What are you doing up?”
Jungkook recovers fast from his surprise. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“You turned the goddamn light on.”
He ducks his head, takes an interest in his sock-less feet. “Did I wake you?”
And now it’s Yoongi’s turn to feel embarrassed. He clears his throat, runs a rough hand through his bed-ruffled hair. “No.”
For one prolonged second neither will look at the other. Then Jungkook meets his eyes and Yoongi feels his lips twitch into a smile and they’re both stifling laughter too loud for the quiet around them.
“Are you going back to bed?” Yoongi asks through a smile. It’s unusual having someone to whisper to in the dead of night. Every word feels like a secret. Something that’s theirs alone.
Jungkook shrugs and his grin slips as he glanced uneasily at the other end of the hall. “I probably should, right?”
Yoongi would be disappointed if it weren’t for the way that Jungkook’s voice rose in pitch at the end of his sentence, causing the word to come out uncertain. It’s a question but also a request. Tell me to stay, the word seems to beg, and Yoongi is happy to comply.
“We could watch a movie or something,” he says nonchalantly.
Jungkook leaps at the offer—the exact opposite of nonchalant—and Yoongi bites down on his lip to stop the smile that threatens to give his excitement away. He has an image to keep up, after all.
He cares less and less about that image as Jungkook tows him along to his bedroom and climbs in under the covers. The bed is soft and warm and the streetlights outside cast an unearthly glow across the room, changing red to green with the traffic.
Sometimes the city is too much, and it makes Yoongi feel like his life is small—like nothing that he does could ever matter. Other times it’s a comfort; a reassurance that the world is big and wondrous, and that it moves with the people that walk it.
Tonight he hardly notices the size of the city, too busy being swallowed up by the light in Jungkook’s eyes.
The laptop sits between them, balanced on their touching thighs and Yoongi takes a second to marvel over how nice it feels to lay here side-to-side. Jungkook’s wearing sleep pants and an old cotton t-shirt, and Yoongi wants to bury his face in it but he doesn’t. He’s satisfied enough by the closeness of their bodies, the warmth running all along his side, and the one hand that Jungkook rests against the laptop, close enough to Yoongi that knuckles brush his thigh.
They’re sharing earbuds, the wires looping along their chests and tangling together at the middle, a little like the way that Yoongi’s heart feels. Jungkook chooses some action flick that he's never heard of but he doesn’t complain. He’s not paying much attention to the movie anyway.
Instead he focuses on Jungkook’s hand, on the way that it twitches like he can’t keep still. Every movement is a spark against Yoongi’s skin, burning through his layers of clothing as easily as fire. Jungkook’s eyes are on the screen and Yoongi’s eyes are on Jungkook.
When he fidgets again, Yoongi catches the look that crosses his face. It’s gone in an instant, a tiny frown that smooths away the second that it forms, but Yoongi sees it. Recognizes it, even. The night is long and they can’t sleep and Jungkook is yearning for something.
Yoongi inches closer. Leans his head against Jungkook’s shoulder. Because he’s yearning for something too, and maybe its the same thing or maybe its not but Yoongi longs to close the distance, and Jungkook doesn’t stop him. The hand twitches again and this time it lands very close to his, there but not quite touching. There’s an invisible string between them, pulled taught along with the muscles of Yoongi’s arm. Jungkook’s breathing has gone shallow and Yoongi’s heart is racing in his throat and they stare at the movie, but both are aware that neither is watching it.
Both are aware that the distance between their hands is shrinking, but Yoongi still hears Jungkook’s breath catch when their fingers finally touch.
They’re not even holding hands, not really. The featherlight brush of skin against skin can hardly be classified as touching let alone anything else. And yet.
And yet.
The tension between them is solid enough to shatter, present as a cumbersome weight to the air, a static shock running along his skin. He wonders briefly if Jungkook can feel it as pointedly as he can; if his mouth has gone just as dry, his stomach twisted in as many knots. He tries to keep his eyes on the movie, uncertain of what all of this means and anxious of stepping too far too quickly, but eventually the temptation overcomes his nerves and Yoongi turns his head.
Jungkook is staring back at him.
The first thing that he notices is Jungkook’s lips. Which is probably an embarrassing thing to admit but his first thought isn’t about how much he’d like to kiss them—although that follows soon after—but instead it’s about the way that they’re pursed, set into a thin line, dimples puckered into both cheeks. His brow is slanted, eyes hard, and Yoongi panics for only a second before realizing that he recognizes this look. It’s the same one that crosses Jungkook’s face before every concert, the same one that takes over his expression while playing stupid games on his phone. This look isn’t an angry one however much it may look that way.
This look is determined.
Unsure of what to do with this new information, Yoongi flails. His eyes widen, lips part. His hand that is touching Jungkook’s—still touching—clenches into a fist. He can feel the heat radiating from his cheeks like twin suns, and the thought of how red his face must be only serves to embarrass him more but Jungkook doesn’t laugh, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything but stare like he’s trying to will himself to jump out of a plane without a parachute. Maybe, in a way, he is.
And then the hand pulls away and Yoongi has only a second to swallow his disappointment before those fingers are resting against his cheek instead.
The movie plays on, long forgotten.
Jungkook’s mouth moves like he wants to say something but no words come out, and he looks almost frustrated by that. His eyes darted down to Yoongi’s chin and back up to his eyes, searing every inch of skin in their path, and Yoongi wonders not for the first time what it would be like to have those lips touch down against his own.
He breathes in heavily through his nose, mustering his courage. The palm cradling his cheek is warm—so warm—and the pads of Jungkook’s fingertips trace a line down his jaw, a silent reassurance.
It’s late and the house is quiet and the city is alive and Min Yoongi is kissing Jeon Jungkook.
They meld together like a wave meeting the shore, the slide of lips tentative at first, and then hungry. Jungkook’s fingers slide into his hair, tickling the back of his neck, and Yoongi sighs against his mouth, his hands curling into the front of that cotton shirt. They kiss like they’re searching for something, lips seeking and tongues exploring, and when they finally pull apart Yoongi thinks that maybe they found it.
At some point throughout all of that they shifted to face each other, the laptop abandoned on the bed, and Yoongi’s hands spread to palms against Jungkook’s chest as they go back to staring. The charge is still there but it’s different now; crackling with energy. Jungkook’s face is flushed, his lips red and glossy, and Yoongi takes a moment to bask in the fact that he did that. His tongue darts out to touch his lips with the thought, and Jungkook’s eyes darken to the colour of the sky as they follow the movement. His actions remain meticulous—almost measured—as he cards his fingers in and out of Yoongi’s hair.
The night could pass by unnoticed while they stare into each other’s eyes, but Yoongi has other plans.
His hand trails a path down Jungkook’s stomach, fingers careful as they slip up under his shirt. The first touch of cold fingers to heated skin makes Jungkook shiver and Yoongi smoothes his palm over his side to calm the field of goosebumps.
“Hyung—“ Jungkook whispers but there’s a spell cast over the night that Yoongi’s afraid may be broken with words so he stifles them with another kiss. Jungkook melts into him. There’s no other word for the way that his body curves helplessly into Yoongi’s touches. The world fades away to nothing and Yoongi fades into Jungkook, into the feel of lips against lips and skin against skin. They kiss until their lips swell and their lungs burn and their hearts feel full. And when they stop kissing, they don’t go far. Yoongi’s lips hover against Jungkook’s, brushing them with every laboured breath, hand engraving his skin with an invisible mark. One that says “this boy is mine now, and I’m not about to let him go”.
They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, and Yoongi isn’t quite sure when he falls asleep but he finds himself waking with his nose pressed up into the crook of Jungkook’s neck. They’re tangled together much like the earbuds that lay discarded on the floor, and if the light filtering in through Jungkook’s blinds isn’t enough to tell him that it’s morning then the sounds of the other boys bustling around certainly does.
He snuffles, blinks the sleep out of his eyes. He should get up, sneak back to his own room and pretend that he didn’t spend the night wrapped up in another boy’s arms. But Yoongi finds that he really, truly does not want to. So he stays put, breathing in the smells of cotton and a sleepy Jungkook.
Maybe he should be more nervous about what will happen when Jungkook wakes, but he can’t find it in himself to be anything but content. At most, he got a couple hours of sleep but Yoongi feels rested, rejuvenated, like Jungkook’s lips are enough to keep him on his feet. And aside from that there’s a heavy arm around his waist that makes him feel safe and small in all the best ways, so really Yoongi thinks that he has absolutely nothing to complain about.
That doesn’t stop the small burst of panic he feels when Jungkook shifts with a yawn, but the sight of him all bed-ruffled and cute certainly muffles it.
Jungkook looks at him confused, like he’s still half in a dream, but then a smile breaks out across his features that’s so wide and bright that Yoongi has to squint against it’s force. His stomach swells with a strange, giddy feeling and Yoongi’s smiling too now, all gums and curved eyes.
It’s going to be hard, but that doesn’t matter. They’re smiling and they’re happy and it may be day now but they both know that they no longer have need to fear the night.
Yoongi watches Jungkook smile and he knows that tonight, he’ll sleep well.