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It was late summer and Yoongi and Hoseok were sitting outside at one of those outside tent places where you could get Soju and some classic Korean food. Yoongi still wasn’t sure why they were there. Hobi had called him up without explaining much but Yoongi knew something was wrong by the way his voice sounded and when they finally met up at that one intersection close to Hoseok’s flat he could also tell by the look on his face and the silence that was unusual with Hobi. The whole atmosphere made Yoongi anxious too.
He tried to be a good friend and get some food into Hobi so he made him sit down at that small plastic table. When he asked him what he wanted to eat Hobi just shrugged and so Yoongi just ordered him jajangmyeon and got tteokbokki for himself. Thankfully Hobi started eating when the food came. But he also ordered two bottles of soju which was very unlike him. He was a lightweight and couldn’t handle alcohol well. Yoongi knew that and Hobi knew it too. So why…?
Hobi started kicking back shots as if he did it often. His face was already turning red. Yoongi got more and more worried. Seeing his best friend like this hurt him as well. It always had. Yoongi felt the need to hug him but right now didn’t seem like the best moment and anyway they were sitting opposite each other so it would have been weird if he got up to hug him. And since Yoongi wasn’t the biggest hugger in general Hobi surely would have found it weird.
Yoongi decided he had to find out what happened first. “Will you tell me why you’re like this?”, he said, voice soft and at that Hobi started sniffing while sucking in his last noodle. Yoongi could see tears in Hoseok’s eyes. Hobi never cried though. But now sobs where shaking through him and it physically hurt Yoongi to see him like that. “Seokie, come on. Please tell me.”
When Hobi looked up there was some bean sauce on his cheek. The tears wear about to collide with it. For some reason unlike all the other times when he had felt the need to touch Hoseok this time Yoongi didn’t hold back. Instead he reached out his hand and swiped away the sauce with his thumb. “There was some sauce”, he stupidly mumbled and Hoseok’s teary eyes met his. But his hand didn’t leave Hobi’s soft face. Instead he started brushing away Hoseok’s tears as well.
For a second Hobi just stared at him and Yoongi started regretting his daring actions but then Hoseok accepted the caress and simply closed his eyes, trying to breathe in deeply. His tears collected at his lashes and his lips quivered again but Yoongi wiped away the new tears too. In that moment he didn’t care about what the surrounding people might think. The only thing in his attention was his most important person.
After a minute or so, Hoseok’s breathing got slower again and Yoongi decided that he should really drop his hand now. When he did Hoseok looked up at him again and finally started talking.
“It’s over with Jooheon.”
Yoongi sucked in a breath. “What did he do?” His voice was icy. It had been hard enough to see Hoseok with Joonheon. But they had seemed happy, he had seemed like a good guy. But now…
Hobi buried his face in his hands. “He.. I.. It was me. I broke up with him.”
Yoongi was stunned. This was something he had not expected at all. “I… what?” He couldn’t hold back his confusion. “I know”, Hobi sighed.
“Why?”
“I just… he just… something was wrong and I guess I already slightly felt it in the beginning. Like he’s a great guy but something was missing and I just… couldn’t stand this feeling anymore.”
Yoongi didn’t know what to say to that. His heart screamed Me! It’s me that you’re missing! But he knew that it had never been like that for Hoseok. This treacherous hope blooming in his chest right now was only going to bring him pain.
“Maybe it’s for the best then.”
“I know!”, Hoseok wailed. “But you should have seen his face. I’m scared I scarred him for life.” He buried his head in his arms on the table. “Why am I such a horrible person?! Breaking up over just a feeling like this?”
Yoongi slowly put his hand on Hoseok’s left arm. “You’re not horrible. Breakups are never pretty. And about that breaking up over a feeling thing: Relationships are about feeling to a great extent. And from what you’ve been telling me this has been a long time coming. I know this is hard and it’s only proper to be sympathetic with Jooheon. But I think you did the right thing. Still it’s only natural too be sad. So just let yourself feel things right now.”
Hoseok was now peaking up at him, his chin still propped on his hands. “You know I’m bad at that.”
Yoongi smiled gently and stroked Hobi’s hair once. “I know. But maybe this is a chance to learn, hm?”
Hoseok closed his eyes again and for a couple of minutes they were both silent, Yoongi staring at the lashes and the mop of hair of the person he had been pining over since they had first met in college.
He couldn’t stop his feelings from washing over him and it stressed him the fuck out. So he pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and a lighter and started smoking to calm himself down. It was a bad habit but right now his head was spinning almost as much as Hoseok’s was.
He slowly breathed the smoke in and out, sighing and looking down at his precious Hoseokie whose nose started twitching. Hobi was up in a second, frowning at Yoongi. “You know I hate it when you smoke.”
Yoongi sighed. “I do. I’m just… stressed.”
Hoseoks eyes got wide. “Really? You really are too empathetic for your own good.”
It’s not just that, Yoongi wanted to say but instead what came out was “Ugh, I know, right?”
Hobi still wouldn’t let it go and looked at him with a scrunched face and looked a little like an angry squirrel. A very cute angry squirrel. Yoongi really was hopeless. [author’s note: haha, get it?...sry]
But then Hoseok’s unscrunched itself a little and he reached for the cigarette. “Gimme that”, he said angrily. “I’m way more stressed than you.”
Yoongi could only stare at him with wide eyes. Hobi never smoked. But Yoongi was too stunned to stop him.
When Hoseok tried to smoke the inevitable happened: Although he looked very hot and elegant with the cigarette in his hand he quickly started coughing.
As soon as he got his breath back he said: “Geez, that stuff is even worse than I thought. I’m never letting you smoke one again.” And with that he dropped the cig on the ground and stepped on it.
Yoongi sighed. “That shit costs money, you know.”
Hoseok shook his head cutely with his lips pressed together. “Yeah no. Never again.”
Hobi exed the last of his soju and then the rest of Yoongi’s who tried to stop him but it was in vain.
“That not…” The second bottle was empty now.
Hoseok stood up. “Let’s go.”
Yoongi looked up at him in surprise. “Where to?”
Hobi shrugged, already leaving the tent, already a little shaky on his legs. “Somewhere dark preferably.” Where people can’t see me cry, hung unsaid in the air.
Yoongi quickly paid and rushed after Hobi who was already leaving towards the Han river and when there sat down on some steps.
Yoongi sat down next to him. After a while he even dared to wrap an arm around Hoseok’s shoulder. He didn’t know how to feel when Hoseok leaned his head on his shoulder. It was a little too much for his fragile heart. But it didn’t matter right now. This was about Hobi and he would do everything he could to make him feel better.
“We’re nearly thirty now”, Hoseok whispered. “I kinda thought I’d be happier by now.”
Yoongi stroked his hair. “It’s going to be fine, Seok. Life is ups and downs but with your positive attitude that you usually exhibit I know your thirties will be amazing.”
Hobi sniffed. “You really think so?”
“Yeah”, Yoongi’s voice was warm and he was smiling in the dark. At that Hoseok also wrapped an arm around Yoongi and that’s how they sat for a couple of minutes.
It was around that time that the alcohol seemed to have really hit Hoseok because he started mumbling stuff that only partly made sense and Yoongi knew it was time to go.
He pulled Hobi up with him. “Let’s get you home, buddy.” Hoseok’s protest was weak.
Still Yoongi had to carry his weight a little, since as the lightweight that Hoseok was he already wasn’t able to walk properly. Thankfully his flat was close.
The only issue was that while Hoseok wasn’t very heavy, Yoongi was still smaller and daintier than him so to him it was quite the task.
But he eventually managed, pulling Hobi into the elevator and going up to the thirteenth floor. Thankfully Yoongi knew the passcode.
He pulled Hoseok into his apartment, and sat him down on his bed. Hobi let himself fall back immediately. Yoongi sighed. “Get back up, you have to get changed into your pajamas.”
Hoseok protested and pulled himself up towards the top of the bed. “Don’t wanna.” Yoongi couldn’t help but smile. Sober Hoseok would never enter his bed in his day clothes. He was way too tidy for that and valued cleanliness too much.
“Just the pants, hm?” Yoongi felt weird saying that.
“Ugh, fine.” Hoseok started pulling at his belt but his drunk fingers failed at understanding the mechanism. “Doesn’t work”, he complained cutely, his lips pouty. “Yoongi-yah, help me.”
Yoongi was blushing immediately. Hoseok was getting impatient. “C’mon”, he whined cutely.
Yoongi had no choice but to comply.
While he opened Hoseok’s belt he couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t the context he had fantasized about undoing Hobi’s belt in.
Then came opening the zipper and pulling the pants over Hoseok’s narrow hips. Yoongi almost forgot to breathe, too scared that he might also accidentally take off Hobi’s boxer briefs with the pants. So he did it slow and careful.
“Hurry uuup”, Hoseok whined and began thrashing his legs which didn’t help at all.
“Stop moving”, Yoongi said through clenched teeth. Finally Hoseok stopped moving and Yoongi could pull his pants down to his knees, uncovering the lean muscle of his best friends’ thighs. He felt the urgent need to leave kisses on that skin. But of course he didn’t, instead pulling the pants off all the way.
“Here you go”, he softly said, throwing the pants on the chair at the other side of the room.
Hoseok simply lay on his side and started hugging his mang plushie. He looked so cute Yoongi thought he was going to die. He knew that this is maybe where he should leave, but he simply couldn’t.
He tried to tell himself that it was because he didn’t know if Hoseok was going to throw up later or get the worst hangover he had had in a long time.
So he stripped off his own pants for sober Hoseok’s sake and lay down on the bed next to Hobi, whose eyes were closed, soft lashed against his round cheeks. Yoongi lay on his side to take in the sight of the man he loved. Because if he was honest to himself that’s what it was, what it had been for so long. It wasn’t just a crush. A crush didn’t last years, did it?
Maybe he should try to talk about his feelings with Hoseok again. Maybe things had changed? He didn’t want to hope. But with Hoseok that wasn’t something he could suppress.
Either way he knew that right now was the worst possible time to confess. Hobi’s feeling were already in turmoil.
And so he just lay there watching Hobi softly breathe in and out. At some point the other started mumbling in his sleep. When Yoongi listened closer he heard him complain “Don’t do that. You know I hate it when you smoke. Can’t have my favorite person die of lung cancer.” Even in his sleep he said that while pouting and Yoongi was incredibly endeared.
“Okay, I won’t”, he whispered a small smile spreading on his face, the warmth of Hobi calling him his favorite person still coursing through his veins.
Maybe not all hope was lost.