Chapter Text
Jungkook literally cannot wait for Jackson’s party tonight. He’s currently sitting in his room, nursing a beer two hours before he’s even supposed to head over to Jimin’s, he’s that excited. It’s like 7 p.m. The pizza rolls are in the microwave.
He wants to get drunk. He wants to get so shitfaced he forgets his own name. He takes another sip, absolutely ready to die.
The problem is Jimin (as most of Jungkook’s problems are). Jungkook has been especially in-his-feelings about Jimin this week, and Jimin has been complaining about how lukewarm all of his tinder matches have been lately. The problem is when Jimin drinks, he drinks. The problem is when Jimin drinks, he always asks to kiss Jungkook.
The problem is Jungkook cannot take it any more.
Jimin doesn’t have feelings for Jungkook. He makes that very clear every time he asks to him to kiss, as part of his tactics to persuade Jungkook when he says no.
“C’mon, lets just do it! I just want to kiss someone. It won’t be weird. Tae says you’re a good kisser. Why have you kissed Tae but not me? Do you love Tae more or something?”
The microwave yells at him that his pizza rolls are ready. He burns his tongue shoveling them down.
The problem is not, in fact, that he loves Tae more than Jimin. The problem is that he loves Tae differently. The problem is that it would hurt. The problem is that Jimin only asks when he’s drunk.
Jungkook wants to get so drunk he forgets about all of his problems.
His phone buzzes.
Jimin: jungkookie :/ come over early i cant decide what to wear
Jungkook glances at the clock. 7:06. Two hours before the pregame’s supposed to begin.
Jungkook throws the rest of the still-burning food down his throat and doesn’t exactly run to Jimin’s apartment, but it’s a close thing.
Watching Jimin put on makeup is one of Jungkook’s favorite things.
He’s very systematic about it, very particular. He knows what works and what he likes and he sticks to it. Jungkook’s more experimental. Sometimes he does a whole face, sometimes nothing, sometimes he tries something just because it looks fun. Tonight, Jimin’s curling Jungkook's eyelashes, using a contraption he'd always avoided because his sister had told him it was an eyeball scooper.
“You can’t blink,” Jimin says, which makes Jungkook’s eyes instantly water with the overwhelming need to blink. Jimin’s breath fans across his cheek. The moment is so still and quiet, and Jungkook really really wants another shot.
Jimin releases his eyelashes, and does the other side. His face is so focused, Jungkook wishes he could observe it from this close, but he’s way too focused on don’tblinkdon’tblinkdon’tblink.
Jimin lets go again. “Let me do your mascara, okay?”
This time Jungkook can look. Jimin’s mouth is slightly open as he applies, the way it always is when he puts mascara on himself. Jungkook wants to kiss it more than he has possibly ever wanted anything.
“Look up,” Jimin says, and Jungkook’s eyes flick up to the ceiling way too fast, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.
Jimin leans back, focused as ever as he examines his work. Finally, a honey smile drips across his face. “It looks so pretty. Ugh, Jimin, you’ve done it again.”
It. It looks pretty. Jimin’s work, not Jungkook.
Jungkook turns to the mirror. The change is shocking. Who would’ve known the eyeball scooper made such a difference? His eyelashes fan up and out in a way they never had before, they almost look like Jimin’s fake eyelashes he wears sometimes. It makes his doe eyes brighter, sparklier, more alive. He turns to Jimin, who’s still smiling. Jungkook says the first thing he thinks.
“I used to think that thing was for scooping out eyeballs.”
Jimin laughs, falling forward on the bed onto his makeup bag. Jungkook watches, mesmerized.
“Do you want a drink?” He blurts, shooting to his feet.
“I could do another shot of tequila,” Jimin says, looking at Jungkook from upside down.
“I’ll bring us some,” he replies.
He takes two shots in the kitchen before he brings out the shots they take together.
Jackson answers the door when they arrive with Tae and Hobi and Yoongi in tow at 10:22 p.m. He lives there with 6 other guys, but the whole house is theirs, and they even have a little porch which currently has a beer pong table set up. Jungkook hates beer pong. He gets freaky competitive about it but always ends up playing with Jimin, who sucks.
Jimin isn’t visibly drunk yet, but Jungkook is definitely feeling it. He left a little room for Jackson’s jungle juice, but not much.
Jackson surveys them with a suspicious look. “Who do you know here?”
“Shut up, dickwad, or I’ll dropkick you,” Yoongi says pleasantly. Jackson barks a laugh, and swings the door open the rest of the way.
“You guys are pretty early, so you get the first crop of jungle juice. Only use one cup, if possible, we’re all about saving the environment here.”
There are definitely people milling about, but it’s still too early to be drunk enough for that natural, easy conversation that comes when you’re tipsy and un-selfconscious, so the mood is vaguely awkward. They make their way to the kitchen where most people are standing around, and get themselves a drink that tastes like Hawaiian Punch and bad decisions, every sip drying out Jungkook’s tongue a little bit more.
Someone who’s name Jungkook belatedly remembers is Mark comes into the kitchen holding another one of those orange water coolers to match the one sitting on the island. He puts it down and hollers, “Can someone please go get the rest of the mixers from the basement?”
“I’ll go,” Jungkook volunteers, eager to make himself useful and stop standing around like a sim awaiting commands.
“No, it’s okay,” says someone else with red hair who Jungkook recognizes as another roommate. “I’ll go. You have to know how to prop the door open right or it’ll slam shut and lock you in, and Jackson lost the basement key again.”
“Fuck off!” Jungkook hears Jackson yell from the direction of the door as the red-head squeezes out of the kitchen. Hobi and Yoongi have already wandered away, but Jimin and Jungkook and Tae are still standing around in an awkward cluster.
“Welp,” Jungkook says, lifting his very full cup. “Bottoms up, I guess.”
They drink.
“What the fuck did you put in that super fuck-up potion, dude?”
This question is directed at the red-head who has told Jungkook to call him BamBam, which seems pretty weird, but like what-the-fuck-ever.
“It’s crazy strong, right?” BamBam yells back, laughing, which doesn’t really answer Jungkook’s question. Usually one cup of jungle juice is about one drink to Jungkook, but two cups in and Jungkook is thinking maybe he shouldn’t have filled them so high. He still has like a third of this cup left though. Maybe he should dump it out. But he doesn’t want to be wasteful. His tongue feels like sand. He chugs the rest.
Jimin’s dancing, because Jimin is always dancing, but thankfully Jungkook is drunk enough that looking at one thing for too long is kind of impossible so he can't really just stand there and watch him grind on Tae like he usually might in this situation.
He feels restless, like his skin is continuously shifting over his body and he has to move or it’ll fall off. Its an almost-pleasant feeling. Almost-distracting. His brain is also ever-shifting, which is nice because holding a thought is completely futile and he’s vaguely aware of what he’s running away from but he's incapable of dwelling on it, or anything else at all. He has to pee, again. Oh, good. Something to do.
There’s no line to the bathroom, so he barges right in. The process of peeing is a series of snapshots, motion after motion, although he definitely overshot when he grabbed for the toilet paper on the first try.
He goes to wash his hands, because he might be wasted but he’s not a monster.
The second he makes eye-contact with his face in the mirror, his body shifts into itself. He feels real for the first time since halfway through the second cup of jungle juice, which is sort of nice but also weirdly unpleasant In a way he cannot grasp.
Get a fucking hold of yourself. You’ve been drunk in a bathroom before. This always happens.
Just because it’s true, it doesn’t ever get any less disconcerting. He keeps staring into his own wide eyes. They’re pretty eyes. His eyelashes are fanning out in a pretty way because of the eyelash curler. Shit. Nothing is real, everything is too real. He starts blotting at the ridiculous amount of sweat on his forehead and neck with toilet paper, but watching mirror-Jungkook do the same actions Jungkook is very slowly and carefully trying to execute just makes the feeling worse.
Under the weight of someone’s knocking, the door buckles in a concerning way. It might give in. After about 20 seconds of fiddling with the lock, he takes a deep breath and slowly pulls the chain out of the deadbolt, unlocking it for the two squirming drunk girls who’ve been yelling “Let me in!” at him for a while now.
The strange, too-drunk-too-sober bathroom trip lasts him about until he steps outside, when Jimin accosts him.
“Jungkookie!” he yells. His face is soft and happy in a way that tells Jungkook he’s definitely drunk. The roots of his hair are sweaty, and he has it pushed back off his forehead in a distracting way. “I’ve been looking for you. Bimbo told me you were in the bathroom.”
Jungkook laughs, throwing his head back. “BamBam.”
Jimin frowns cutely. “Oh. I thought it was weird that he would call himself Bimbo. Wait. BamBam?”
Jungkook smiles, his heart soaring with endearment in a way he never lets it when he's sober. “I like Bimbo better. Why were you looking for me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Tae found some cute guy to grind on, and told me to go 'drink some water or something,' so. Rude, but then I realized we hadn’t hung out all night! So now I’m here. What have you been doing?”
Jungkook knows he’s looking at Jimin with very much the same expression as Someone Who Is In Love With Jimin might, but he just can’t help it. His head falls to Jimin’s shoulder with a sigh. The contact feels nice. Grounding, like mirror-Jungkook, but in a comforting way this time.
“I’ve been tragically bored. Please save me.”
Someone’s sweaty, bare arm brushes into Jungkook, shoving him into Jimin, who trips into someone else. They right themselves, only for someone else to nudge past Jimin.
“Let’s go somewhere less claustrophobic,” he says.
They head past the kitchen to find a place to breathe. The hallway is less crowded, most people just moving through, except for a small crowd of girls gathered around one girl who is crying, and the other girls seem to be trying to keep her from calling her ex. Jimin approaches and asks if they need any help, but the less-drunk not-crying ones assure him they’ve got it handled. He still has his eyebrows pulled with worry, so Jungkook pulls him away before he can start to dwell on it, and opens a random door.
“The basement,” Jimin says, peeking down the rickety stairs. There’s a dim light on at the bottom, but it’s devoid of people. “I wonder why no one’s down there?”
Jungkook feels like he should know. He feels like theres a reason. But before he can conjure it, Jimin is happily trotting down the steps into the empty, much cooler room, and it’s not like Jungkook is capable of doing anything except following.
The door behind them slams shut with a heavy wham! and suddenly Jungkook remembers. Oh, how he wishes he didn’t. Tentatively, he turns around and reaches for the doorknob. His hand looks like it belongs to someone else. It tries to twist the knob. No dice.
“Hey Jimin,” he calls.
“Yeah?”
He clears his throat. “I’m... pretty sure we’re locked in.”
“Oh.” Jungkook looks over at Jimin, who looks entirely unconcerned. “That’s okay. We’ll just get Tae to let us out.”
He clears his throat again. “You know, I just remembered something.” He starts down the stairs.
Jimin hums, eyes not moving from his phone.
“I seem to recall... Bimbo... saying something about how Jackson lost the basement key.”
This gets Jimin’s attention. “So...we’re trapped?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before we entered the dank basement?!”
“I forgot!” he replies, attempting to mentally prep to be on the receiving end of one of Jimin’s world famous rants, but he just laughs, (if not a little bitterly), sets his phone down on the concrete, and places his elbows on his knees, head held in his hands. They run through his hair slowly, and Jungkook is literally physically incapable of not tracking every minutiae of the movement, the way his hair flicks in eyes after, doused in sweat. “I’m too drunk for this,” he says.
The statement makes Jungkook giggle, a little bit, and he collapses next to Jimin. Jimin looks drunk, but Jungkook’s head is spinning, and not like a globe or a merry-go-round, but like how the shitty scanner on the 2nd floor of the bio building has to scan line by line, going lefttoright lefttoright lefttoright over and over again in a hypnotic rhythm. His vision slips to the side a bit, but then his brain tries to correct the sensation by quickly shifting back to center, and then he slips again, over and over and over. Existing is taking an enormous amount of energy. He closes his eyes, with the irrefutable logic that if there is nothing to see then nothing can spin, but this hypothesis is very quickly proven extremely false and his eyes snap open, scanning the room and realizing there is not a convenient place to barf, should the occasion arise.
“I bet I’m drunker,” he says, every word requiring a herculean amount of effort.
Jimin snickers. “I bet you are, bun,” he says, hand lifting to brush a small, clammy thumb over Jungkook’s cheeks. “You’re all flushed.”
Jungkook feels like a marionette with his strings cut, his body going to jelly, leaning on Jimin’s hand. He wants to close his eyes and focus on the sensation, but this thought is quickly vetoed when the closing of his eyes makes his brain spin 100x faster again.
“Mm,” he says. Jimin smiles so bright, so sweet, how can a person be so pretty, he thinks.
“How can you be so pretty,” he says.
Jimin giggles, hand withdrawing and looking away. “You’re only saying that because you’re drunk.”
“Probably. But I always think it.”
Jimin looks at him a long time. Maybe it isn’t that long. But it feels like forever. Jungkook would like to continue being looked at like that.
“Really?”
Jungkook nods, head lolling to his shoulder. “You can trust me. Drunk people don’t lie. And I’m...very drunk.”
Jimin laughs again, flinging backward. “You already said that.”
“Still am.”
Jimin stills, looking at Jungkook again, but different this time. He doesn’t like this look as much.
“So why won’t you kiss me?”
And...whoa. Jungkook may have started the night with the secret agenda to finally take Jimin up on his offer to make out, but he didn’t expect to have to talk about it. He’d sort of imagined a wordless agreement. Like a handshake.
“I... don’t understand the question.”
“If you think I’m pretty. Why won’t you kiss me?”
“I’ll kiss you,” he blurts, nearly cutting Jimin off.
Jimin laughs again and, uh oh. Jungkook doesn’t like this laugh either. “So, you just have to be drunk enough to say yes?”
“You have to be drunk enough to ask,” Jungkook retorts.
Jimin looks at him for a long time. Clearly he’s said something he shouldn’t have, but he really does not have the mental capacity to figure out what it was right now.
“Would you say yes if I was sober?” This is almost spoken in a whisper. Like he doesn’t want to spook Jungkook. A scared bunny.
Jungkook knows Jimin doesn’t black out. He knows Jimin will remember this. But he’s tired. He’s just so beyond bone tired that he feels Jimin’s eyes drawing the truth forward, like a compass that can’t help but find true north.
“Yes,” he whispers.
Jimin doesn’t react. How long it took Jungkook to answer was probably all the answer he needed.
“Is that why you never said yes before?”
Jungkook nods. Jimin nods as well, turning away slightly and eyes glazing over, like he's trying really really hard to figure something out in his head.
“Wait, but then why did you say yes now?”
Jungkook rubs at his temples, eyes going closed for a moment before he opens them again. “I’m just tired,” he says. “You’re really pretty and I’m really tired.”
“Tired of what?” he says. There’s something in his eyes. Whatever he was thinking about, he’s figured it out.
“Tired of not kissing you. Tired of wanting to. And also it’s like, really late so I’m a little bit regular tired too.”
Jimin smiles, inching closer. “Okay. So what you’re saying is, you want me to kiss you right now?”
There’s an intensity about Jimin that Jungkook is pretty sure he has no clue he possesses. He knows people are drawn to him, he knows they’re intimidated, but he doesn’t know how it feels to be a plain old comet just passing through, until Jimin looks at you a certain way and suddenly gravity sucks you in, and you’re a moon and you’re Jimin’s and you'll never escape him.
Jimin looks at Jungkook like that now, gaze holding him steady, easing ever closer. Jungkook hitches a breath. He’s sitting with his legs folded criss-cross, and Jimin nudges closer, each leg draped over one of Jungkook’s, not actually touching but so, so close.
Jungkook thinks he nods. He probably nods. Jimin is making it very hard to think, let alone execute brain-to-body commands. Jimin places his hands on either side of Jungkook’s face, so delicately. Jungkook has seen Jimin make out with people before. He kisses like he’s hungry, like it’s a competition and he’s determined to win, his smile often turns cocky, wicked, sharp and sexy. But right now he’s looking at Jungkook like he’s never seen something so precious and he’s holding him like he desperately doesn’t want to break him and Jungkook thinks that alone might just shatter him.
Jimin’s eyebrows crease, his eyes lighting up in the glow from his adoring smile. A hand brushes some hair off Jungkook’s forehead, sliding softly down to his chin. “Jungkookie,” he says, so softly, so lovingly, that Jungkook literally thinks he’s on fire. Nothing feels real. Nothing at all about this moment can possibly be real.
Jimin leans in, his nose resting next to Jungkook’s as he takes a moment, breathes in deeply, their breaths mixing together. Jungkook huffs out all at once, suddenly realizing he’d been holding his breath. His breathing after that is embarrassingly ragged.
Jimin presses his lips to Jungkook’s softly, unbearably softly. Jungkook has only ever kissed strangers (and Tae, that one time), people at bars and in frats, and most of them jump straight to tongue, to biting, everyone needy and overflowing with something like they’re desperately trying to find someone who will ease the load.
He has never been kissed like this. The hungry, sharp creature he’s seen kissing other people is Jimin, but this is Jimin too. Gentle. Soft. Sweet. An unfathomably beautiful and complex human being.
Jungkook’s heart swells in his chest. Jimin’s lips are so soft and he can feel that because of how gently they’re pressed against his, like Jungkook is something sacred.
Jungkook can’t handle it. He really feels like he might have discovered the secret of spontaneous human combustion, his mouth feels so alive and like it’s simultaneously detached from him and the only part of him that exists. He starts to lose his mind a little bit, and he leans in, opening his mouth the smallest amount to suck on Jimin’s bottom lip slightly, and Jimin lets him, and then—fuck, slowly, slower than Jungkook thought anything could happen ever, he pulls away, letting his lips linger, letting the pressure go slack, and his lips detach from Jungkook’s and Jungkook’s mouth is buzzing, instantly missing the contact more than he can stand.
He resists the urge to raise a hand and press his fingers to his lips to see if they really are vibrating like it feels like they are, but only just.
Good thing too, because Jimin’s thumb drags across his jaw and runs across his lower lip, slowly, catching on skin.
Jungkook doesn’t know what he looks like. He feels wild. He feels like a car battery that just got jumped. It was the most chaste kiss of his entire life, and it ignited his every nerve ending.
He catches Jimin’s eyes but then oof, he looks down, forever a coward, forever unable to parse or understand the intensely complicated look in Jimin’s eyes. Too drunk for it.
Shit, he is drunk, huh? His everything swirls, and he tilts forward a bit, gripping Jimin’s waist which he had been grabbing, trying to make sense of up and down, chin catching on Jimin’s shoulder, mind whirling.
A crashing sound comes from somewhere upstairs. “Hey, you there?” comes Taehyung’s voice, and Jungkook turns and shit, there’s Tae, along with Yoongi and Hobi and Jackson.
“You came!” Jimin says, peppy and cheerful and sober-sounding as ever. Jimin really has an incredible, underrated knack for this, sounding stone-cold sober. Or maybe he really is sober, and he’d kissed Jungkook like that.
“I thought Jackson had lost the keys?” Jimin asks.
“Yeah, but Yoongi knows how to pick locks, remember?” Taehyung says. “He learned because he thought it would impress boys—”
“Shut up, dweeb,” Yoongi cuts him off, to little effect. Everyone knows Yoongi has a Jupiter-Sized soft spot for Taehyung.
“Well, I think it makes you look like a bad boy. And also a bit of a hero. Jungkook and I would’ve been stuck down here for hours if it weren’t for you.”
Ah, Jungkook. The man currently frozen on the ice cold concrete floor, still processing the last 20 minutes, watching Jimin at the top of the steps, who has clearly forgotten about him and their whatever that had been by now. But Jungkook’s not stupid. He knows that it was different from a normal kiss. Right? But he also knows that he definitely doesn’t know that much when it comes to these kind of situations, so he forces himself to his feet and sways embarrassingly.
“Jungkookie, you good?” asks Hobi, obviously amused.
Jungkook stands as still as possible and waits for the world to be still as well. Eventually it slows down a bit. “‘M so good,” he says, and even he can tell how not good he sounds.
Jimin laughs and descends down the stairs again, sliding up against Jungkook underneath his arm to prop him up, even if Jungkook doesn't really need him to. He's not complaining.
"C'mon, big guy," Jimin laughs, and Jungkook knows Jimin always looks and acts way more sober than he is, but this is uncanny.
He feels unbalanced in more ways than one.
Jimin drags him outside, and their party makes their way back to his apartment, silhouettes illuminated by dim and dying streetlamps. Jimin doesn't let go.
"I meant it," Jungkook says. He won't even have the capacity to be embarrassed about speaking until later. "Did you?"
They're at the back of the group. The rest of their friends bumble on, loud and disorderly, but the duo stop, Jimin looking up at Jungkook.
"It's you, Jungkook," he says. "I could never not mean it."
Jungkook keeps staring in Jimin's eyes. His eyeshadow is smudged. Jungkook belatedly tries to hear what Jimin said. "I'm sorry," he blurts. "Can you explain it to me like I'm stupid, because—"
Jimin reaches up for Jungkook's jaw and kisses him again. Jungkook had sort of resigned himself to the reality that that basement kiss would be all he would ever get, so in a way this kiss is even more surprising than that one had been. Like how getting struck by lightning once seems unlikely, but twice seems impossible.
He pulls away. Jungkook, yet again, is literally incapable of doing anything except standing and staring and being in love with Jimin. This is the truth of him, stripped away by alcohol and lowered inhibitions and streetlights swirling with moonlight. He is Jeon Jungkook, he is in love with Park Jimin, that's all there is.
"Ask me when you wake up tomorrow," he says, breath ghosting Jungkook's chin, "and I'll explain it then. In vivid detail. Okay?"
"What if I never wake up?"
Jimin blinks and steps back, providing Jungkook's brain with some much needed and much resented distance. "What?"
"I can't wake up if I never fall asleep. And there's no fucking way I'm falling asleep after you just said that."
Jimin smiles, that heart-melting, soul-crushing, cancer-curing smile that Jungkook first fell in love with over a decade ago when he decided to share his kimchi at lunch with the new kid. Jimin's hand drifts from his jaw up to his hair, running through. It's a familiar gesture, but Jungkook lets himself get lost in it, just this once.
"God damn it," Jimin says, the tone far milder than the words should ever be delivered. "I'm trying not to take advantage of you here, but how am I supposed to not jump you when you go and say shit like that?"
"JUNGKOOK AND JIMIN, SITTIN IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-"
"Shut up, Hobi!" Jimin calls back to their friends who have covered quite some distance by now, laughing, hand still in Jungkook's hair.
"Tomorrow," he says, eyes alight, and he grabs Jungkook's hand and pulls him along. Jungkook follows, like he's always done, like he'll always do.