Actions

Work Header

slow dancing in the dark

Summary:

All is fair in love, mattresses, and popsicles.

 

Or; “I knocked on your door to angrily tell you to stop having sex at four in the morning but in reality you were jumping on your bed with your boxers on” AU

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

It had been one of the worst days of Jeongguk’s life.

There was a chemistry exam (the class was required) that he obviously failed because he was not in his element. Hoseok, the captain and choreographer of the university dance team, had screamed at the members for over two hours, which was strangely out of character considering the man was practically crafted of sunshine. His evening shift at Copperline Cafe was shitty because college students loved making his life hell and ordering the most extra orders of coffee on the menu ever, just to enjoy the disdain painted on his face. 

Jeongguk had been so excited to arrive back to his apartment, shoveling ramen noodles into his mouth while he watched Dr. Phil and silently judged everybody (in this episode, a self entitled white girl from California kept forcing her mother to buy her the top tier brands, while Jeongguk barely had enough money to buy a candy bar at the university convenience store). Eleven at night, with stiff limbs and a tired heart from practice, he drifted into the most peaceful sleep that he had ever gotten since the start of his first year at university. Submerged into a haze of pleasant, strange dreams that erased the awful day away.

But at four in the morning, everything is ruined when he startles awake to a slow but sexy Lana Del Rey song and the creaking of a mattress on the other side of his thin wall. He knows that university is infamous for hormonal tendencies, parties, and sexual deviancy, but at such an early time in the night, he has no sympathy for his neighbor trying to steal precious beauty sleep away from him.

Ten seconds later, he hears a throaty moan echo against the walls, piercing the silence midnight is supposed to possess. Something coils hotly inside Jeongguk’s chest as he stands up, brain high on sleep and barely able to function. He has enough of a mind to pull on a dirty white shirt draped across the ground, ignoring how his boxers littered with graphic kittens cling tight to his thighs. His desperation for uninterrupted sleep outweighs his fear of confrontation as he finds his way in front of apartment number forty four’s door, banging on the wood with his knuckle. He hopes the knock is intimidating enough for his neighbor to decipher the message of please shut the hell up and fuck quieter.

Jeongguk hears panicked whispers—is it awful that he feels a slight twinge of satisfaction in his veins for ruining his neighbor’s one night stand?—and then after, a long intermission of silence. Just as he is about to avoid facing the awkward situation by spinning around on his heel in the direction of his apartment, because technically, he did fix the problem, the door opens to a tall, slim boy sporting tight pink basketball shorts and an ajar mouth. The way he leans against the door frame is unnatural, stilted long legs tilting at unnatural angles, most likely from the vigorous sex he was having. The music has been turned off, no girl or boy on the bed.

Maybe he hid them in the closet, Jeongguk thinks, because that would be perfectly logical.

“Can I help you?”

The voice is surprisingly deep and masculine from the boy with sculpted, model-like facial features. It hums deep in his bones, and for a moment, Jeongguk does not remember why he is in front of the apartment in the first place. Luckily, his rage reminds him in the form of a yawn.

“Actually, you can. I was wondering if you could tone down your one night stand a bit. Some of us don’t have the privilege of taking afternoon classes, you know, and I would appreciate it if you could stop moaning so loud that I can hear it through the thin walls. Thank you, adiós, ciao, bon voyage, see you later.”

He stretches his feet in front of him, long strides to avoid the look of his neighbor and the increasingly awkward secondhand embarrassment torturing him. But then a hand catches around his thin wrist, and the neighbor tilts his head in confusion like a puppy. A Golden Labradoodle, with the lost eyes darting at every movement and blond hair long enough to hide half of his forehead.

“I… That…” His neighbor struggles to come up with words. “It wasn’t sex.”

Jeongguk furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "But…”

“I was jumping on the bed. Uh, yeah.” The boy looks physically pained to be standing there in his pink shorts that outlined something totally sinful on his lower half, blush blotching against his cheeks. He bites his lips, looking like he wants to sink into the white walls of the apartment.

“Why? At four in the morning to Lana Del Rey? What college kid jumps on beds?” Jeongguk asks indecorously, because it all feels like something torn from a shitty romance webtoon he read when he went through that phase in high school, or a romcom situation that Jimin and him would hate watch, just for the hell of it.

“Well, my older brother bought me a new mattress recently, and I had a really long night, so I only came home an hour ago. And I decided to test out the… bounciness of it. The mattress.”

“For twenty minutes, listening to Lana Del Rey, while moaning?”

The tips of the other boy’s ears go hot at the mention, almond eyes glancing down at his feet out of embarrassment. There are so many words that Jeongguk hopes his brain will supply him while observing the other boy's reaction to the moaning, and cute is not one of them. Because somebody who jumps on beds like a twelve year old girl at her first sleepover party will never invoke any sympathy from the Great Jeon Jeongguk (and yet, he is a horrible liar, even worse than Jimin).

“The moan wasn’t what you thought it was, please, I swear,” his neighbor practically begs, “I fell off the bed while jumping and busted my leg. Probably sprained it. Band practice will be hell tomorrow. Just look at it.” The boy stretches his long legs out, pushing it forward to reveal a deep blue bruise painted across the beautiful tan flesh. Jeongguk gazes at it with wonder, half disgusted, half enamored at how a bruise can look so gorgeous against a man’s hairy leg this early in the morning. “Wait, shit, I’m sorry, overstepping my boundaries and all. Yoongi hyung always says I do that. You probably want to go back to sleep. Fuck, I’m really sorry—”

The small amount of confidence bubbling in Jeongguk’s system allows him to push forward into the doorway, breath heavy against the other boy’s face. “Can I bounce on this mattress that is supposedly so amazing according to popular belief?"

It’s obvious his neighbor did not expect the strange turn of events, probably thinking that Jeongguk would slam the door in his face and curse his guts out for being a pathetic loser who wears pink basketball shorts. But a coy smile stretches like elastic across his lips, warm and amiable. He presses himself against the wall to let Jeongguk pass by into the room decorated with anime posters and artificial plants against the windowsills.

“Hey, stop looking at Lucy, she gets shy,” the other boy says.

Jeongguk asks in confusion: “Lucy?”

“Oh, uh, I named my room. Or apartment, or whatever. I really need a filter. This is probably one of the strangest experiences I have ever had.... Say, do you want colored popsicles? I bought those rainbow ones from the convenience store.”

The boy is cute when he rambles on, but Jeongguk interrupts him because contrary to popular belief, he is not a sadist who enjoys the suffering of others running in circles around social conversations.

“What’s your name, weird mattress boy?”

“Kim Taehyung. But weird mattress boy sounds better.” The sides of his eyes crinkle and his mouth transforms into a gleaming, boxy smile, that should not make Jeongguk’s stomach drop to the ground like he is riding a rollercoaster teetering on the climax. “What's yours, weird kitten boxers boy and fellow mattress enthusiast?”

His eyes dart down to his exposed thighs and boxers riding up his legs, flush heavy on his skin. “Jeon Jeongguk. Shit, I should change out of these, why did I think it was a good idea to yell at my neighbor that I thought was having sex at four in the morning with kitten boxers?”

Taehyung giggles and Jeongguk thinks he can see God peeking around the corner. “It seems like a perfect intimidation, if you ask me. If I really was having sex, then I’d ask you to join.” And without noticing what he exactly implied while the other boy chokes on the air because, graceful, he says, “Don’t change out of them. If you do, then I’m going to look like an idiot in my pink basketball shorts.”

“You play?"

“Hell no. I got these off the clearance rack at TJ Maxx.”

Taehyung strolls over to the mini fridge, pulling out about one hundred popsicles shoved into the confines. “I’m going to guess what flavor you are. I feel like you’re basic and want blue raspberry.”

“Taehyung, you damn psychic,” Jeongguk mumbles sweetly, clutching the popsicle that the other boy thrusts into his hands.

At first, he does not know whether to join Taehyung who lays on the bed while sucking on the popsicle, so he roams around the room awkwardly until his neighbor commands him by saying, “Get over here, Jeon. We have a mattress to test.”

They bounce on the bed while sucking on the popsicles until five in the morning, when the sun finally borders on the horizon and Jeon Jeongguk has a You Fucked Up Moment because time escapes when you’re with Kim Taehyung, some strange breed of boy who according to a late night of jumping on the mattress with traded facts shared about them was born in Daegu, is a Biology major, loves photography, and was almost going to smuggle his dog Yeontan from back home into the apartment complex until his grandmother told him not to. He finds it terrifying how the two fell on the same wavelength too quickly, because conversation has never been so easy and effortless for introverted Jeongguk, who took ten years of childhood to open up to his next door neighbor and local asshole Park Jimin. It all happens too quickly, floating away from him as the night ends and the sun rises in the sky. It’s obvious that Taehyung is going nowhere, mounted in the same apartment complex, but he does not want to let go of the euphoric high of first conversations and strange meetings that buzz across his skin warmly.

By this point, Jeongguk has overdosed on blue raspberry popsicles and the two are laying on top of Taehyung’s bed (the mattress was as comfortable as it was intoxicating to jump on). Both of them are sleep deprived, staring at the ceiling, trying to enjoy each other’s presence as sunlight spills from the blinds of Taehyung’s windows.

“I still can’t believe you thought I was having sex. I mean, me, Kim Taehyung, famous for not getting it.” The boy next to him erupts into giggles, shoulders shaking and brushing against bare skin. All it is is a shoulder but Jeongguk can obviously not control the tingles traveling down his spine. “I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. When you opened the door, couldn’t you see from the pink basketball shorts that I was a virgin?”

The room shifts to silent when Taehyung stops laughing.

Jeongguk traces his fingers against tanned cheeks parallel to him, drumming against the surface. Maybe it's because he has not been kissed ever since he left his girlfriend in Busan at age seventeen. Maybe it's because Taehyung is beautiful, with soft features and a genuine face. Maybe it's because the early hours of the morning are dawning upon him,. Whatever it is makes Jeongguk lean it with hesitance, hot breath fanning the other boy. Across from him, Taehyung’s eyes are wide with shock and perhaps even fear, tongue poking out purple from his mouth, the product of eating about ten grape popsicles.

Jeongguk smirks, lips quirking upwards. “Blue and purple. What does it make?”

“Oh my god, Jeongguk, you dipshit, do you even know the color wheel—”

The other boy shuts him up with a chaste kiss, tentative salmon pink lips brushing against parallel virgin ones. Everything is slow, calculated, numbing. Sunlight glows and bathes them in a golden morning hue. A fuzzy sensation settles inside Jeongguk’s stomach as he teases Taehyung with his tongue, brushing it soft across his lip. A flurry of fruity tastes settle inside his mouth, the scent of vanilla and laundry detergent floating in the air.

When they pull away, the two are quiet.

“Thank you,” Taehyung mumbles.

Jeongguk cocks his head over, because did Taehyung just thank him for a kiss when the pleasure was all his?

He says dumbly instead: “What do you mean?”

“For giving me an amazing first kiss story to tell my parents who have so much pity on me for not touching a pair of lips in my whole existence of twenty one long years. Maybe I should drop out and become a romance writer instead. Use that award winning, romantic line to  make the women swoon. Blue and purple, what does it make?

Jeongguk shoves his shoulder against Taehyung’s with a hearty laugh. “You’re only using me for stories and writing content. I knew this would end in tragedy the moment I jumped on your mattress. Kim Taehyung, you wound me.”

And suddenly, Taehyung is initiating a deeper kiss, smiling and letting out bubbly laughter into the other boy’s mouth that Jeongguk swallows down. They bask in it awhile: the strangeness, the habits, the mechanics of kissing. When the two of them adjust to each other, playing tonsil hockey until eight thirty in the morning, Jeongguk has to (sadly) break away and walk on the other side of campus to dance practice.

Taehyung walks him to the door, fingers digging in the side of his shoulder.

“It’s been legit, Kim Taehyung,” he says, offering a fist bump while lurking in the doorway.

“Is that really what you say to boys you just kissed for over two hours, stole popsicles from, who offered their beloved mattress to satisfy your jumping needs? You give me a fist bump and tell me that this has been legit?”

Jeongguk swaps a fist bump for a small kiss on Taehyung’s nose, nuzzling them together, everything warm and soft fostered through the touch. His fingers linger against the other boy’s face, falling down as he walks backwards away from the room he spent the night in and instead, towards his own lonely apartment.

“Don’t worry. We still have the whole rainbow of popsicles to test,” Jeongguk says while walking down the hall, smirking at his neighbor who watches him leave with a blush creeping across his cheeks.

“The whole rainbow,” Taehyung says with a smile lifting his swollen kissed lips upwards.

Somehow, it sounds like a promise and agreement intertwined together.

Notes:

my twitter!

 

 

thank you for reading if you made it this far!! gold star and grape popsicle for you.