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Yoongi meets Hoseok in university, friend-of-a-friend style, and by the time Yoongi’s graduated they have each other on Snapchat, Instagram, Kkt, Line, Twitter, Facebook, Facetime, and actual texting. Once they’re graduated they don’t see as much of each other outside group get-togethers (“Joonie’s in town and wants to grab drinks, you in?” “It’s the kid’s birthday c’mon he wants us to go bowling.” “Jinnie-hyung says if you don’t come to his attempts at cooking pasta from scratch he’s disowning you!”) but they text, and snap, and send each other interesting links or thoughts about coworkers or complaints about capitalism or pictures of their dogs.
Well, Yoongi sends pictures of Holly. Hoseok sends back strings of heart emojis, as is appropriate.
It’s better, this way. The less time they spend in one-on-one situations the easier it is for Yoongi to keep his feelings at bay, locked up tight in the secret room of his heart where he sends all his unattainable dreams. While they’re out in groups he can bask in Hoseok’s smile, enjoy the comforting weight of his arm across his shoulders, appreciate the bright, brilliant quality of his laugh, secure in the knowledge that the presence of the others will act as a solid buffer between his having the thought Hoseok has such a pretty mouth and the subsequent thought of I wonder what it would be like to kis-
So he tries to make sure they mostly see each other in group settings, is the point.
Group settings like tonight, crammed together on a bench in a dim bar on a Friday after work. Jimin is drinking beer like it’s water. Namjoon is drinking beer like it’s beer. Jungkook, Taehyung, and Seokjin seem determined to drink their way through every cocktail on the menu. Hoseok is mostly drinking screwdrivers, except that right now he’s got Yoongi’s drink raised to his perfectly pink mouth, lips caressing the rim of the glass, eyes screwed shut as he takes an exaggerated sip.
Yoongi swallows with him.
“Yah, you drink this stuff hyung?” Hoseok asks with a grimace as he sets the tumbler of whisky back on the dark polished wood of the high table. His lips contort into a grimace, his pink tongue visible between the white flash of his teeth. Yoongi tries not to focus on Hoseok’s mouth but it’s hard, when it’s moving so much.
“It’s good,” he says primly, trying to cover for his lapse. “Whisky is good. It’s not my fault if you can’t appreciate it.”
“There is nothing in that drink to appreciate,” Jungkook says in the tones of one who is an authority on the subject. By the end of his sentence he’s almost shouting to be heard over Seokjin’s outraged squawk, and Jimin’s enthusiastic explanation that whisky is, in fact, the best drink in the world, and Namjoon’s laughter.
They’re loud, which is good, because if they are loud it means they are also distracting, and Yoongi can tear his gaze away from the sharp planes of Hoseok’s long face to look at them instead. Unfortunately it means that he’s not paying attention to Hoseok anymore, and so doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late, Hoseok’s head already on leaning on his shoulder, Hoseok’s hair brushing the side of his neck, Hoseok’s breath hot in his ear as he carefully enunciates-
“Nothing. To. Appreciate.”
- in that way that he does when he’s teetering on the tipsy side of drunk and doesn’t want to admit it yet.
Yoongi’s good. Yoongi’s chill. Yoongi can handle this, all of this, even as it’s making goosebumps ripple out from the place where Hoseok cheek presses against the skin of Yoongi’s shoulder, between his neck and the collar of his shirt.
“Not the way most people drink it maybe,” he says in his haughtiest tones, trying desperately to think about the burn of the whisky in his throat and not the burn of the blush creeping its way up his face. “There’s an art, to drinking whisky. Gotta know the art of it.”
Hoseok snorts with laughter. Yoongi snaps his attention back to the argument happening around them, Seokjin and Jungkook fake-boxing, Namjoon and Taehyung discussing something at top volume while Jimin, arms draped around their shoulders, laughs with his whole body. Seokjin’s tie is starting to come undone, and his hair is flopping into his face. Taehyung looks like he’s about ready to throw the phone Namjoon is pointing at emphatically into the nearest pint of half-drunk beer. Everything is very chill. The chillest. Freezing cold, like ice.
“Teach me then.”
Oh dear God, Yoongi lets himself think, because Hoseok is pouting, and anyone in the group would have that reaction to Hoseok pouting.
“Sure,” his mouth says, smiling wide, before his brain can jump in and point out what an absolutely horrible idea it is. His mouth has basically committed treason, that’s what it’s done, and with the crime already committed it just keeps going in complete disregard of any sense of self-preservation. “Sure, hyung will teach you. Just say the word.” He can hear the way his voice shakes. Hopefully Hoseok can’t, over the racket the others are making.
“Now!” Hoseok sits bolt upright in his enthusiasm, smacking at Yoongi’s shoulder. “We’re together, aren’t we? You’ve got whisky, don’t you?”
Yoongi looks at the glass in his hand. It’s passable whisky but not exactly good whisky, not what he’d give someone if he was trying to convert them to the path of the best alcohol. “I’ve got better stuff at home,” his mouth says, acting on it’s own initiative again, and only after the words are out of his mouth does his brain figure out what lies down this road.
“At your place then! Next week?” Hoseok looks up at him with pleading eyes. It’s an expression Yoongi finds impossible to refuse under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances.
“Next week,” he says, grinning in spite of himself in the face of Hoseok’s enthusiasm.
A smile blooms across Hoseok’s face. It’s like being hit with a ray of sunlight rendered corporeal. Yoongi feels dazed by the impact.
“Next week!” Hoseok repeats. “Yes! Here, give me your phone, I’ll put it in your calendar so you don’t forget.”
Yoongi, still stunned by the smile, hands his phone over automatically. Hoseok unlocks it and opens Yoongi’s calendar with a few quick taps.
“There,” Hoseok says in triumph. “All set, alarms and everything. It’s gonna be so much fun hyung!”
In the process of handing Yoongi’s phone back he somehow ends up draped most of the way across Yoongi’s shoulders and Yoongi remembers, suddenly, why this might not have been his brightest idea. Hoseok is more when he’s tipsy: more giggly, more tactile, more everything, and Yoongi has just agreed to interact with him like that on purpose, alone, in the privacy of his apartment.
At least he’s forewarned, he thinks grimly, as he takes another sip of whisky, and forewarned is forearmed. And maybe, maybe, things won’t be as bad as he fears. They used to hang out one-on-one all the time before they’d graduated, and their lives had got busy, before Yoongi had gone and fallen-
And Hoseok seems eager to learn, Yoongi thinks firmly, refusing to follow that train of thought. Hoseok seems eager to learn, and Yoongi would have said yes without hesitation if any of the others had asked, and he’s determined to treat Hoseok exactly as he’d treat everyone else.
They’re his friends, he reminds himself firmly. They’re all his friends.
Friends.
“Hyung!” Hoseok says, staring into Yoongi’s small apartment as Holly prances around his ankles. “You cleaned!”
“What?” Yoongi looks around. Tiny galley kitchen with Holly’s dog bowl at one end, even tinier, shaky table that doubles as extra counter-space, squashy old couch long enough that even Namjoon can stretch out fully whenever he sleeps over, coffee table, television, embarrassingly big sound system and record collection, and off at the back the door to the bathroom, and the curtain that separates his bedroom and the main space. It looks exactly like it normally does, except…
Maybe he’d picked up the books he usually leaves scattered around, and the dog toys Holly never puts away. Maybe he’s done the dishes, so there isn’t a pile of them squeezed onto the patch of counter beside the sink. Maybe he actually put his coat in the closet instead of leaving it draped over the back of the couch. Maybe he put away as many of his shoes that would fit too, and maybe he swept, and maybe got rid of the worst of the dog fur, and maybe he- maybe he cleaned. Maybe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he squawks indignantly. “Has Namjoon been telling lies again? Saying I live in squalor?”
Hoseok sidles past him, toeing his boots off and shrugging out of his coat while Yoongi closes the door. “C’mon hyung. I’ve been by enough. I know what your place normally looks like.”
Of course he does, Yoongi realizes, as his stomach sinks toward his shoes. Every other time he’s come by -
(Okay, so maybe sometimes they hang out one-on-one, against Yoongi’s better judgement, like when Hoseok texts to say I am now the proud owner of the first three seasons of One Piece and hyung has the better audio-visual setup be ready in 20 minutes marathon time, or when Yoongi snaps a picture of the too-much food he’s made because it’s a new recipe and Hoseok sends back perfect, be right over, or when Yoongi sends a string of tired emojis in response to the question You doing okay? and doesn’t get a reply until there’s a knock on his door and he opens it to reveal Hoseok, out of breath, carrying a case of beer. Maybe each time is an exercise in self control. Maybe Yoongi could say no, could figure out a way to cut the visits back, and maybe it would be easier but… but it’s Hoseok)
-the place has been messier, the detritus of Yoongi’s life scattered across every surface, piled in drifts in the corners. Cleaning is exhausting, and he usually doesn’t have much warning before Hoseok appears at the door, so he’ll apologize with a quick sorry about the mess when he opens the door, and Hoseok pulls a face and helps Yoongi clear the dirty socks off the couch so they can sit down, or wash enough dishes the mess in the kitchen is back under control, or puts away enough books they can actually see the surface of the coffee table.
“And you’re dressed all fancy too,” Hoseok comments as he crouches down to give Holly a good scratch under the collar, oblivious to Yoongi’s frantic attempts to come up with a reason that things look the way they do that doesn’t sound like excuses.
He’s about to deny it, say no I didn’t with another healthy dose of indignation, when some traitorous voice in the back of his mind points out that yes, you did. He doesn’t normally swan around his apartment in the jeans Jimin tells him make his legs look amazing and actually give him an ass, or wearing one of his three button down shirts instead of an oversized sweater, with his nicer earrings in his ears and his fashionable glasses on his nose and a few delicate silver chains around his wrists and neck. He’s even wearing rings. If Namjoon were here, Namjoon would ask him if he was going out, with some heavily suggestive eyebrow action just in case Yoongi hadn’t understood properly from words alone.
“Can’t drink whisky looking like a slob,” he invents wildly.
Hoseok throws his head back when he laughs, his soft hair falling away from his forehead, his hand pressing deeper into Holly’s fur, and Yoongi feels his heart speed up. “I didn’t know there was a dress code! Here, do I pass?”
He stands, much to Holly’s disgust, and does a spin for Yoongi, and though Hoseok is the one spinning Yoongi is the one feeling dizzy. Hoseok always looks good of course, but today he looks especially so, in a pair of jeans, ripped to look exactly the right amount of well-worn, and an oversized sweater the same rich, deep green of old growth forests. Yoongi itches to run his hands along the sleeves to see if they’re as soft as they look, wonders if he were to slip his hands underneath it if the skin-
He backpedals away from the thought. Keep it cool, keep it casual. They are two friends about to drink some very good whisky in each other’s company. Now’s the time for snappy comebacks, not sincere compliments that might make Hoseok blush and smile down at his feet in their fuzzy green and white striped socks.
“Only because you’ve taken your shoes off,” Yoongi says, focusing his eyes on the socks so he doesn’t do anything stupid like look at Hoseok’s legs for a second time. “You’re lucky I even let those things in here. Should be made to wait in the hall.”
Hoseok laughs again. It goes straight to something in Yoongi’s chest. He feels warm, like he’s already started sampling the whisky, or like he’s looking at Holly. He wants to say something but he can’t seem to get his lungs to work. This is going to be a problem.
“They’re beautiful and I won’t hear a word spoken against them,” Hoseok says as he breezes past Yoongi and takes three long steps to collapse into his usual spot on the couch. Holly trots along behind him and begs to be let up. Hoseok obliges. “Now, c’mon, I was promised I’d learn the joys of how to taste whisky tonight. Let’s get to it, hyung. Time’s a-wasting.”
He has a usual spot on my couch, Yoongi realizes, as Hoseok grins up at him, glowing gold in the warm white of Yoongi’s lights. His fingertips disappear into the fur of Holly’s back between his shoulder blades, right where he loves to be scratched. With the soft jazz piano playing in the background it feels like something out of a horribly cheesy drama. He has a usual spot on my couch fuck fuck fuck, I-
“Right,” Yoongi says weakly. “Right. Let me just get the glasses.”
One of the nice things about being an adult who has had a few years of full-time employment under his belt is that Yoongi has been able to upgrade his liquor cabinet to include several very fine whiskies. Generally he doesn’t pull them all out at once but for Hoseok he does, along with the unsalted crackers and the distilled water some careful research told him would be best for resetting Hoseok’s palate between samples.
Yoongi walks Hoseok through the how first, focusing on the bottles in front of him, the glasses, the notebook with his carefully recopied notes so he’d be able to read them at a glance, no deciphering required. If he’s focused on those things he has an excuse not to look at Hoseok, leaning toward him so he can see better, their shoulders brushing occasionally, his expression intent. Their mouths are very close when they sit like this but he ignores it. He ignores it very hard. Doesn’t even think about it.
Once they start drinking it gets harder not to think about Hoseok’s mouth. Yoongi’s eyes catch on the movement of Hoseok raising his glass to sniff at the amber liquid glowing inside, the sleeve of his sweater falling down to reveal the deceptively plain, delicate bracelets around his wrist, and then get tangled in the sight of Hoseok parting his lips, revealing a hint of teeth and tongue, before he drinks.
Yoongi looks away from Hoseok’s mouth and gets caught instead on the dark fan of Hoseok’s eyelashes against his cheekbones. He has his eyes closed while he focuses on trying to taste the notes Yoongi mentioned. Yoongi finds he can’t look away when Hoseok’s eyes flutter open, his mouth drawing down in a frown before he coughs.
“Hyung, I still don’t-”
“Try again,” Yoongi says, helplessly breathless. “Anything new tastes a bit funny the first couple times, until you get used to it.”
Hoseok does. The face he pulls isn’t as bad this time. Progress.
What Yoongi had forgotten about, in his determination to give Hoseok the absolute best whisky tasting possible from his supplies, is exactly how much of a lightweight Hoseok can be. When they go out he usually drinks beer, at half the rate of everyone else except Taehyung. Here, in Yoongi’s apartment, with the warm, slightly smokey fumes of whisky enveloping them, a new jazz record playing quietly in the background, things escalate quickly.
“Maybe we should stop here,” Yoongi says when he notices that Hoseok’s face going quickly from pink-all-along-the-cheekbones to pink-all-over, his voice getting louder, his enunciation that much more precise.
“But it’s so lovely,” Hoseok purrs, cradling his glass between his hands like a precious gem, or Holly. “I’m having so much fun! I don’t want to be done yet! And anyway you were right, this one is sweeter, and the burn is different, and I like it.”
“Smoother,” Yoongi corrects, because terminology is important. “This one has a smoother finish.”
“Smoother finish,” Hoseok repeats, bright eyes and bright smile aimed directly at Yoongi. If Yoongi could bring himself to look away he’s sure he’d see their afterimages clearly across his field of vision. “And the citrus notes! You were right, I can taste them!”
“Yeah,” Yoongi breathes. “Yeah, this one is nice.”
“And you said the next one has honey,” Hoseok continues, shifting so that instead of sitting cross-legged on the couch he’s leaning into Yoongi’s space, reaching across Yoongi’s lap to pick up the dark bottle. “I want to try the one with honey, hyung.”
“Notes of honey,” Yoongi says weakly, but Hoseok is looking at him bright and eager and excited, enjoying himself, and they’ve been far more inebriated in public before. There’s no real reason to call it quits, except for how it’s getting exponentially harder not to think about Hoseok’s long fingers, wrapped around- “Alright, alright, you can put the big eyes away. We’ll take Holly for his walk, get some more water, and we’ll keep going, okay?”
“Yes,” says Hoseok, nodding with the entirety of his upper body. Yoongi is horribly endeared. “Yes. Good plan hyung. Let’s go.”
He stands all at once. Holly, reluctant to get out of his dog bed at the mere suggestion of a walk, appears as if by magic at their feet. “Holly!” Hoseok crows delighted, his whole face lighting up. “Are you ready for walkies Holly? Are you ready? C’mon bud, let’s go let’s go let’s go”
“Let’s go,” Yoongi repeats, the ground solid under his feet as he stands, his head and heart reeling. “Let’s go.”
It’s the fifth whisky where they really hit trouble. Hoseok flips all at once from flushed and bright eyed and only listing to the side a little bit to definitely leaning against Yoongi, slouched down on the couch beside him so he can rest his head on Yoongi’s shoulder.
“I think we’ll have to leave off the last one,” Yoongi says, nudging Hoseok with his elbow. “Should’ve poured smaller tasters, eh?”
“‘m good to keep going!” Hoseok protests, although he undercuts it by nuzzling into Yoongi’s neck. Yoongi’s blood can’t decide if it wants to freeze or burn in his veins.
“You’re falling asleep,” Yoongi says, hearing the way his tone is soft at the edges and helpless to do anything about it. “Shouldn’t you be going home?”
“Not sleepy at all. We’ve got one more. Don’t quit now.”
Yoongi pulls away just a little, so he can give Hoseok a properly skeptical look. Hoseok whines and tips over farther until he’s resting against Yoongi again.
“Not sleepy, eh?”
“Maybe sleepy a little.”
“Just a little.”
“Very little. Teeny tiny amount.”
There are three and a half options here, as far as Yoongi can see. The first is public transportation, likely how Hoseok got here, except there’s no way he’d be able to stay awake long enough to get off at the right stop so that’s right out. The second is Yoongi calling a cab, but Hoseok lives alone, so option two-and-a-half is Yoongi going with him in the cab to make sure he drinks more water, and brushes his teeth, and actually sleeps in his bed instead of the first place he stops moving for longer than five seconds.
Option three… well, the easiest and most cost-effective way to handle this is for Hoseok to crash here. Yoongi’s done well tonight, not letting himself think about the things he’s not letting himself think about, and really in the grand scheme of things, how much harm could a freshly-awoken, slightly hungover Hoseok do?
“We’ll do the last one some other time,” Yoongi says, carefully taking Hoseok’s half-finished glass out of his hands and setting it on the table with a faint clink. “You’re half asleep Seok-ah, at least brush your teeth so your mouth isn’t all gross in the morning.”
Hoseok makes a wordless noise of protest when Yoongi stands but goes easily enough when Yoongi tugs on his hands, follows him into the bathroom. Yoongi retrieves his toothbrush, in the little plastic container on which Hoseok has scrawled Seokseok’s in his messy writing, and hands it over. It isn’t the first time Hoseok’s ended up staying over. Yoongi comforts himself in the knowledge that there’s another toothbrush in there labelled Namu, and one labelled Handsome. He’d do this for any of his friends, because they’re friends.
“Brush, Hoseok,” Yoongi prompts, when it becomes clear that without it Hoseok is just going stare at the toothbrush onto which Yoongi has squeezed some cinnamon flavoured toothpaste (mint clashes unpleasantly with the whisky) forever and not actually put it in his mouth. Hoseok jumps, as though shaking himself free from some sort of paralysis, and mechanically starts to brush his teeth. Thankfully Yoongi doesn’t have to remind him to spit.
They head to the bedroom next, where Yoongi retrieves one of his oversized shirts and the pair of pyjamas Hoseok had gifted him years ago because they are covered with small brown toy poodles. They’re fuzzy, and therefore not something Yoongi actually enjoys sleeping in, but Hoseok loves them and always requests them special if he’s more awake when they’re bedding down. He accepts them wordlessly when Yoongi hands them over, his eyes blinking big and soft and sleepy. Yoongi has to clear his throat before he can find enough voice to say, “I’m just going to deal with the record player, make sure Holly’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
Hoseok makes a noise like acknowledgement and Yoongi flees, grateful for an excuse not to be in the same room as a sleepy, slowly changing Hoseok. With all that skin on display it would be hard not to think about-
Records! Yoongi thinks frantically. They’ve gone through a bunch of his records tonight, and although Yoongi’s been good about putting them back in their sleeves when he’s changing them out he hasn’t been good at putting them back on the shelf. He focuses on that first, making sure they all end up back in their correct places on his shelves. When that’s done he gives Holly a pat (Holly doesn’t even open his eyes), and then, still trying to delay his return to the bedroom, he decides to wash the dishes.
Normally when his friends stay the night they insist on taking the couch and he doesn’t bother fighting them. By this point in their relationships they all know how poorly he sleeps anywhere except his bed. He never likes to presume, and of course he’d give them his bed in a heartbeat, but the fact that Hoseok hasn’t appeared yet to have the completely meaningless conversation fills him with dread. The best case scenario is that Hoseok is fully clothed and asleep in his room somewhere, probably looking adorable. The worst case scenario… Well, the worst case scenario involves a lot more skin. Yoongi is tired, and tipsy, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep a leash on his thoughts.
Hoping for the best, Yoongi flicks off the lights in the main room and peers around the curtain to his bedroom. The overhead light is still on but he can’t see Hoseok anywhere, not until notices the fact that the blankets on his bed, hardly ever made, are rumpled as usual but also different somehow. If he tilts his head to the side a bit and squints they look almost rumpled in a shape that suggests draped-over-a-human-body.
Yoongi will take the couch, he decides. He will get changed, and he’ll get the extra blankets down, and he’ll go and lie on the couch until he eventually falls asleep. Maybe Holly will deign to cuddle for a bit, if Yoongi asks politely. Sure, he might not sleep well, but it’s a Friday night. It’s not like he has anything important to do the next day, and he can take as many naps and drink as many cups of coffee as necessary to get himself feeling something like normal.
It’s a good plan, a solid plan even, a plan thoroughly foiled by Hoseok himself when Yoongi decides to risk approaching the bedside table to plug in his nearly-dead phone. “Ah,” Hoseok says, sleep-rumpled head rising from a nest of Yoongi’s pillows which will, Yoongi realizes in horror, now smell of Hoseok for the foreseeable future. “Hyung. Bed?”
“Hyung’ll take the couch,” Yoongi says quietly, finding the phone cable and plugging in. “Go back to sleep.”
Hoseok frowns, contriving to do it not with just his face, but with his whole body. “You don’t sleep on couches.”
“It’ll be fine,” Yoongi lies. Even as not-fine as it will be he can’t imagine any universe where it’s worse than climbing into bed beside a Hoseok who-
“I sleep on couches.” Hoseok wriggles under the blankets, twisting himself around until he’s in a position where he can start to sit up properly. “You bed, I’ll couch.”
“What?” Yoongi asks, trying to parse the words, and then, “Oh, no, Seok-ah, you were already asleep, please don’t get up on my account.”
“Hyung sh’sleep i’bed too then,” Hoseok says with determination, grabbing at Yoongi’s wrist and pulling him forward, “Big ‘nough.”
Bad idea, screams the one part of his mind with any sense of self preservation left. The rest of his mind is focused on Hoseok’s fingers, warm against his skin, the wrist above them now bare of any bracelets, probably impossibly soft on the underside. If he pulls out of Hoseok’s grip now Hoseok will pout at him. In his current state, tipsy from the whisky and an evening spent in Hoseok’s company, the pout would be devastating. He will pick his battles. He will concede defeat here.
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, okay. Shove over.”
Hoseok makes a pleased-sounding noise that might have been words, if the person speaking had completely forgotten to open their mouth, and shuffles over until his back is pressed up tight against the wall. He doesn’t let go of Yoongi’s wrist. Yoongi’s heart swells painfully.
“Good,” Hoseok says, when Yoongi is lying under the covers beside him. He throws an arm over Yoongi’s chest and pulls him closer. Yoongi, still not quite sure how this is all happening, follows obligingly. He lets Hoseok rearrange his limbs to his satisfaction, and by the end of it he finds himself being cuddled like a living, breathing teddy bear.
“Better,” Hoseok sighs into his neck. Yoongi is too stunned even to shiver. Hoseok burrows in tighter. “Sleep now.”
Yoongi wishes he could, desperately, if only because then he could stop being aware of all the places Hoseok is pressed up against him. “I’ll try,” he whispers back.
There’s no reply from Hoseok except gentle, even breathing.
Yoongi stares at the wall opposite, fuzzy without his glasses on, illuminated by the soft blue light from the streetlights outside, and starts counting sheep.
At some point he must sleep, because some time later he finds himself groggily waking up. It’s still dark, he can tell that even with his eyes closed, and a voice he recognizes is saying “Love you too.”
That’s worth opening his eyes for.
He takes a few seconds to take stock of the situation. He’s on his back now, the ceiling blurry above him and dim, deep shadows lurking in the corners, which means it’s still the middle of the night. He isn’t being aggressively cuddled anymore, but there is someone holding his hand, and when he turns his head to the side he can see Hoseok’s face. It has a strange blue-grey cast, the way everything does at night, and its eyes are wide open.
Hoseok must be the one holding his hand, then.
“Mrmph?” Yoongi can’t seem to get his mouth, tongue, or jaw to cooperate.
“Love you so much, hyung,” Hoseok says, blinking once, breath smelling strongly of the aftereffects of whisky with a faint whiff of cinnamon.
It can’t be a dream. If it was a dream Hoseok’s breath wouldn’t smell, and his hand wouldn’t be so warm in Yoongi’s hand. It has to be something else then.
Sleep talking, Yoongi decides. He’s sure there’s a kind of sleep-talking that can happen when people have their eyes wide open. Hoseok is probably dreaming about someone else, and it just so happens that his eyes are open and it feels like he’s staring directly into Yoongi’s soul.
In light of this conclusion, Yoongi’s next decision is that the safest thing to do is nothing. He stays exactly where he is, not moving, barely breathing, and waits to see what happens next.
Hoseok blinks once, slow as molasses, and lets go of Yoongi’s hand. Yoongi whimpers at the loss of contact, a faint, thin noise in the dark, but then Hoseok shuffles forward. He keeps shuffling until he has his arm and leg wrapped around Yoongi again, their faces are a hair’s breadth apart. Yoongi tries to re-evaluate whether do nothing is, in fact, the safest option, but gets distracted because Hoseok chooses that moment to close the distance between them until they are doing something that might, under normal circumstances, be called kissing.
These aren’t normal circumstances, thankfully — Hoseok’s breathing has already evened out, even while his mouth is still pressed up against Yoongi’s, and Yoongi thinks he might be asleep again — so they definitely haven’t kissed, and this is not a memory Yoongi will have branded into his synapses forever.
If Yoongi moves too much he’ll risk waking Hoseok up for real and that, more than anything, is something he’d like to avoid. He settles for moving just his head, a fraction of a degree at a time, until he’s facing his ceiling again. Hoseok’s breathing hits his neck now, warm and damp, but at least it isn’t creeping into Yoongi’s mouth anymore.
At last he decides that this whole situation is something he is just going to have to deal with in the morning. Nighttime is tricky like that — it makes the edges of everything soft, and blurred, and warm, and comfortable. He’s not sure he can trust it. There are things that seem possible at night that always prove false in the bright light of day. He’s left the thing in his chest unvoiced for years. What’s a few more hours, really.
It takes him a long time to fall back asleep.
When he wakes up the second time it’s to an empty bed and the smell of coffee. It always takes him a few minutes and an injection of caffeine to get his thoughts back under proper control, so the first thought of his day, Hoseok knows how to make coffee here, is coloured in pastel pinks, warm soft purples, a butter-smooth yellow, warm and comforting. Hoseok knows how to make coffee here, he thinks happily, and he’s going to bring me a coffee, and curl up in bed again, and-
He remembers the not-kiss.
“Fuck,” he groans, rubbing his face with his hands, because in remembering the not-kiss he remembers the way Hoseok had clung to him, is suddenly aware of the subtle change to the smell of his sheets, knows that something else has changed irrevocably and there’s no way to change it back.
Through his curtain he can hear the quiet sounds of Hoseok moving in his kitchen, opening the fridge, getting something out of the cupboard. For the briefest of moments he considers staying exactly where he is until the noise outside the curtain changes, until he hears the quiet close of the door. He doesn’t consider it for long. Once he’s started considering it it becomes a choice he’d be making. He’d be choosing to stay where he is, to avoid Hoseok, and that would be… well, it would be basically the same thing as running away, would it? He’d be running away from Hoseok, and that would be wrong.
Besides, he needs to make sure Holly gets out.
He doesn’t bother getting dressed. He pushes back the curtain separating his bedroom and the living/dining/kitchen area and there Hoseok is, sitting on the couch but not in his usual spot. He’s sitting where Yoongi sat, torso angled so he can glare at the bottles of whisky sitting innocently on their shelf as if they have personally wronged him.
There’s no way to navigate this situation that doesn’t end with Hoseok surprised so Yoongi coughs, politely, just to let him know he’s there.
Hoseok jumps, predictably, and then very unpredictably says, “Ow ow ow ow!”
They get Hoseok’s spilled coffee cleaned up, Holly watching balefully with only one eye open from his position on the other end of the couch, and then Yoongi suggests Hoseok might want to get changed out of his coffee-dampened pyjamas.
“No, it’s fine,” Hoseok says, with a determined set to his mouth.
Yoongi suspects he knows where this is going. He steels himself for it. “Okay.”
“We should talk,” Hoseok says next.
Yoongi nods, just once. He was right. “We should,” he agrees, “But I’ve gotta take Holly down first, and pour myself a coffee, okay?”
“I took Holly down already,” Hoseok says stiffly. “But coffee. Right. Yes. That makes sense.”
Yoongi frowns automatically at the strained tone in Hoseok’s voice, realizing his mistake only when Hoseok flinches back as if slapped. “Hey,” he says softly, reaching out a hand to put it on Hoseok’s shoulder. Hoseok shivers at the touch but doesn’t step back. “Hey. It’s just me. We’ll be fine. But coffee.”
“Right,” Hoseok says, turning pink. “Right. I know. I’ll just. Anyways. Couch.”
“Couch,” Yoongi agrees. “And coffee. Want more?”
“No, thanks,” Hoseok says as he crosses back to the couch. “I’m good.”
Yoongi takes two steps and finds himself in the middle of his tiny kitchen. The hum of the refrigerator is loud in the silence, and somehow, impossibly, just makes Yoongi more aware of the fact that Hoseok isn’t humming to himself, or clicking his tongue, or tapping his feet. He’s just sitting on the couch, still and small, his knees drawn up to his chest, sneaking the occasional glance at Yoongi as he moves around the kitchen. He looks painfully young.
They sit in more silence while Yoongi sips his coffee, pets Holly, and waits for his brain to wake up properly. Now that they’re across from each other Hoseok seems to find it impossible to look at Yoongi, his eyes focused instead on Yoongi’s hand in Holly’s fur.
Yoongi is exactly halfway through his coffee when Hoseok speaks. “I’m… Sorry. About last night.” He swallows and starts again. “I’m sorry about last night I should have thought whisky is so much stronger than beer, and, and, I didn’t realize how hard it was hitting me and I really, it just suddenly came over me, and I’m very embarrassed and- and- and-”
The words come out in one long string, almost unbroken even to draw more breath. Yoongi isn’t sure he catches all of them, but he thinks he understands the gist of it. He takes a sip of coffee and starts trying to piece together what Hoseok is saying with the definitely-not-a-kiss and the middle of the night hushed confession but Hoseok won’t give him a break and keeps going.
“Did I… I hope I didn’t say anything, anything stupid… did I?”
Yoongi blinks at him. It’s a lot to take in, first thing when he wakes up.
Holly sighs.
“No,” Yoongi answers, startled by the question. Hoseok didn’t say anything that made him uncomfortable, not unless he had thought Yoongi was someone else, and somehow, looking at Hoseok curled in on himself, unsure in a way he never is, somehow Yoongi doesn’t think that’s the case.
He’s still trying to figure out how to put the feeling ballooning in his chest into words when Hoseok decides he wants a bit more clarification.
“Is that ‘no, you didn’t say anything’, or ‘no, you didn’t say anything stupid’? Because I just… I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about!” It comes out harsher than Yoongi had intended, startling Holly, who glares at him, and Hoseok, who shrinks back, eyes going wide.
I am not awake enough for this, he thinks as he works to keep the irritation he feels at himself, for not being able to manage his tone properly yet, off his face. He doesn’t want Hoseok to think it’s directed at him by accident. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says, deliberately more soft, more quiet, as he weighs what he wants to say next. He runs through a few options but really, there’s only one that fits. He sucks in a breath through his teeth and says, “I love you too.”
It’s feels like he’s pushed pause on the world and all the air goes out of the room. Hoseok freezes in place, the only sign of life the way his nostrils shrink and flare as he processes Yoongi’s words. Yoongi can feel the rise and fall of Holly’s chest under his hand. He breathes in time with it. He’s not sure he could, otherwise.
“Sorry,” Hoseok says at last, when it becomes abundantly clear that Yoongi isn’t going to say anything else. “Sorry. What?”
“Last night you said you loved me,” Yoongi says, determined that now that they’ve started this conversation they’re going to see it through to the end. “You had your eyes wide open, and you said ‘Love you too,’ and then ‘I love you hyung’, and as far as I know I was the only hyung in my bed at that point-”
Hoseok groans loudly, covering his face with his hands, and Yoongi feels like his heart has started beating again. For a few seconds there he thought he’d wrecked it all. “I can’t believe myself,” Hoseok says. “Years, years I’ve been sitting on that, and then I go and spill my guts as soon as you get me into bed. I’m the worst.”
“I’m just that good,” Yoongi says, taking another sip of his coffee. “Know how to treat a guy right. Give him fuzzy pyjamas, make sure he gets his teeth- hey! Hey! I’m holding hot coffee! Seok-ah!”
Holly yaps a few times, annoyed that his nap has been disturbed.
“Sorry, Holly,” they say, automatically, in unison, and then they turn to each other and grin.
“Forget me being the worst.” Hoseok folds his arms over the pillow he’d been using to gently beat Yoongi around the head. Yoongi takes a second to appreciate the fact that he isn’t sitting all the way across the couch anymore, but much closer, mere inches separating them. “You’re the worst. We’re here having a- a moment, and you go and make it all about you like some sort of-”
“What can I say,” Yoongi asks, relief bubbling through his veins in ways that are making him feel light-headed, giggly, like he’s still tipsy from last night. “I wanted attention, so-”
“Yah!” Hoseok says, this time burying his face in the pillow. “I take it back. I don’t love you at all. I hate you, from the very bottom of my soul.”
“I know.” It’s possible that he’s been happier before in his life, but if he has the memory has been blotted out, written over, washed away in the tidal wave of affection rushing through him as he looks at the way Hoseok’s hair falls across his visible ear. He shifts on the couch until he can reach out with shaking fingers and trace the shell of it, then run his fingers around the back of Hoseok’s neck. Hoseok relaxes into the touch.
Yoongi was wrong, three seconds ago, when he thought it was the happiest he’d ever been. This is the happiest he’s ever been, the skin of Hoseok’s hand warm under his hand, the hairs at the nape of his neck soft.
“Sooo, um, now that’s we’ve established that you remember the, uh-”
“The incredibly cute confession of love, yes, go on.”
Hoseok groans into the pillow again. “Yeah, that, so-”
“It’s reciprocated,” Yoongi cuts in again, because he knows it will make Hoseok smile wide enough that he’ll be able to see it in the bulge of his cheeks even if his mouth is still pressed into the pillow.
He loves being right.
“So you’ve said hyung, now, if I could just-”
“And I’ll keep saying it!” continues Yoongi, feigning an energy he doesn’t quite have even with the coffee and the joy, “Until the day you really believe it, in your soul.”
This gets Hoseok to take his face out of the pillow, his expression torn between fondness and exasperation. Yoongi fights not to grin, smugly pleased with himself. Unless he misses his guess, Hoseok won’t be able to resist asking-
“And after?” Hoseok asks, falling into Yoongi’s trap.
Yoongi schools his expression into the most serious one he has on hand. “I’ll say it anyways, just because I want to.”
He watches, internally filled with glee, externally cast in iron, as the words sink in. Hoseok’s expression transforms from fond exasperation into something that can best be described as bit into an apple and found half a worm.
“You’re disgusting,” Hoseok informs him seriously. “Really, just, incredibly-”
“And yet,” Yoongi interrupts, moving his hand from the back of Hoseok’s neck to ruffle his hair, “You love me.”
“I dooo,” Hoseok groans, this time burying his face not in the pillow he’s clutching but in Yoongi’s shoulder. It makes Yoongi’s breath hitch, and his stomach swoops in the nicest way. “God help me I do.”
Without really thinking about it Yoongi plants a kiss in Hoseok’s hair, since it’s right there. He thinks about it a lot, once he’s back to sitting upright, and he reaches out the hand not wrapped around Hoseok’s shoulder to pet Holly a few times until his heart rate calms down.
“So,” Hoseok says, his voice buzzing through Yoongi’s chest pleasantly, “So now that we’ve established that you remember, uh, that you remember, anyways, do you also remember the, um… the…”
“Yeah,” Yoongi says, although it’s less a word and more and exhalation. “Yeah, I definitely do.”
“Well,” Hoseok continues, turning his face so he’s speaking right into Yoongi’s shoulder, “I was trying to. Um.”
“Kiss me,” Yoongi supplies, wondering if this is how he dies.
“Right. Right.” Hoseok nods against his shoulder. “And I was wondering if maybe, now that we’re awake, and we’ve talked about it, could I try again?”
This is definitely how he dies.
“If you like,” he says, hardly daring to breathe.
“I would like,” Hoseok says, putting his hand on Yoong’s thigh, just above the knee. There might be a layer of fabric between them but Yoongi can feel his skin burning at the contact. It only gets worse as Hoseok pushes up, up, until his face is level with Yoongi’s, their noses brushing together delicately. “As a matter of fact,” Hoseok whispers, his breath hot on Yoongi’s lips, “I’d like that very much.”