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A loud, dorky laugh echoed through the hotel room. Jin had told another one of his infamous dad jokes and even though he was the only one barking with laughter, he could see some of the others grinning, trying to stifle their laughs.
All seven of the boys had decided to spend their evening in Tae’s hotel room, the empty boxes of their takeout dinner left on a pile in the corner.
Everyone enjoyed their rare off time differently, but they still liked to all be together.
Namjoon was in the corner reading a new book he had bought at the airport the other day, while listening to some of Yoongi’s recent samples on only one Airpod. To people asking his answer would have been, that he didn’t wanna miss out on the others’ conversations completely, when in reality he had lost the other of the pair on a plane recently.
Jin and Hoseok were playing cards at the table, a game they had just recently picked up. They were eagerly arguing about and bending the rules every now and then. Jungkook had decided to offer his services as a kind of referee, but since he neither knew the rules the trio was joking and giggling more than playing a serious game.
Meanwhile Tae was sitting on his bed with Jimin, browsing through the latest fashion collections. They were musing about which pieces would fit whom of the group best and giggling about some weird mental images in the process. Yoongi was already napping, curled up on the bed behind them.
They were all having a fun, chill evening, but they were also exhausted from getting up really early for a TV appearance that day.
When Namjoon looked up from his book, he was just in time to catch Hoseok and Jin yawning and rubbing their tired eyes.
“Maybe it’s time we go to bed,” the leader suggested, making everyone look up from what they were doing. “You especially are yawning like crazy.”
He looked towards the trio at the table.
“Hey,” Jungkook interjected. “I wasn’t yawning, only those two sleepyheads were!”
“You know, when someone yawns and that doesn’t trigger yourself to yawn, it’s a sign that you’re a sociopath,” Jin jokingly countered Jungkooks argument, which made the group chuckle lightly.
“Well then watch out,” the maknae laughed, blaring his teeth at the eldest. “Maybe I’ll haunt you in your sleep.”
Jin shuddered slightly at the thought and grabbed one of his slippers to chuck at Jungkook’s head, knowing full well he would dodge it anyway. As predicted he did and the shoe went flying past his head, across the room and landed right on Yoongi’s sleeping face.
Silence fell over the room and everyone turned to the bed, knowing full well what was to come as a small hand came up to grab the slipper.
“What the fuck,” a sleepy Yoongi murmured, staring at the offending object in his hand and then back at his comrades around the room.
They all looked back at him expectantly, but he was too tired to make a fuss out of it, so instead he took a deep breath.
“I’m going to bed,” he stated simply as he pushed off Tae’s bed. “Goodnight everyone.”
The others watched his retreating back as he shuffled out of the room.
“Phew, that was close,” Hoseok chuckled, before another yawn overcame him.
“Okay that’s the sign. Time for bed,” Namjoon tried again, closing his book loudly.
He went towards the door, dragging a protesting Jungkook with him on the way. Everyone finally gave in and wished the others goodnight, before leaving for their respective rooms to get some well deserved sleep.
An hour later the halls of the hotel were already dark, except for the bright emergency signs and some dim night lighting. That didn’t hinder a certain Park Jimin to find his destination with ease though. He stood in front of room 237 in his blue striped pajamas and prescription glasses and pressed his ear against the door. He was sure to hear some muffled noises, so he carefully knocked on the door.
When there was no response after a while he tried again, this time knocking in a certain rhythm they had made up as a kind of signal the year before. This time it didn’t take long until the door opened and Jungkook looked down to him, surprise clear on his face.
“Jimin-ssi, what are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep and you said you weren’t tired before, so I thought you might still be awake,” he answered quietly.
Lately he had been feeling quite troubled, at night especially. Even though he had the other members, who were taking amazing care of him, there just was no shutting up his brain when he was alone in bed. That was when his thoughts went everywhere he didn’t want them to be and he found it to be the worst when he was the most tired.
Jungkook saw a flash of something in Jimins expression, but before he could pinpoint it further the smaller boy had put on a small smile, silently asking him to be invited in.
“Sure, come in,” Jungkook finally answered and stepped aside to let the other through. He was still in his black sweatpants and white T-Shirt from before and his laptop was propped open on the bed. Apparently he had still been working on something, Jimin concluded. The TV was also on, some kind of horror movie playing quietly.
All the while Junkook was eyeing Jimin wearily, not sure what to make of this situation. Not that he minded having him around, but he was worried about him. He had noticed lately, that his friend often sported deep dark circles under his eyes and had already suspected something was going on. He just never seemed to know how to bring it up with Jimin, so he had made the resolution to talk to Namjoon about it, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
“Is everything okay? Is something bothering you,” he finally asked carefully. That made the other turn around, an unreadable look on his face. He mused about his response.
“You know, it’s kinda hard to explain. But don’t worry about it, I just thought we could maybe hang out for a while until I get tired enough to sleep.”
“You say I shouldn’t worry about it, but you’ve been more exhausted than usual these last few weeks.”
A small humorless chuckle came over Jimins lips, which was so unusual for him, that it made Jungkook worry even more. He stepped a bit closer to the other boy in hopes of reading his expression a bit better.
“So it was that obvious? Jin and Namjoon had already asked me about it, but I didn’t think the rest would have noticed.”
A frown found its way onto the taller boys face.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to. Can you just keep me some company? You can do whatever you’ve been doing before, I just wanna hang out here for a little bit. Is that okay?”
“Sure thing, get comfy. I was just editing my newest film anyways.”
“Always working so hard, Junkookie! Thanks for letting me stay!”
The younger of the two quickly slid back under his covers, putting his notebook and continued editing his film, as Jimin laid down on the other side of the bed on his stomach, starting to watch the movie on TV.
They stayed like that, until Jungkook noticed that Jimin was shuffling around an awful lot and looked up to see what was wrong. From the looks of it had been writhing from being scared by the movie. Jungkook had forgotten, that not every one was so fond of horror movies and that especially Jimin became was quite troubled with some of them.
At this point the older boy had pulled a blanket over his eyes, so he didn’t have to watch the demonic scene in front of him. Jungkook caught him peeking out from the side though, still interested in what was going to happen. He smiled at him from behind. Jimin could be so cute sometimes, it made his heart heavy to know there was something burdening him.
Junkook was lost in thought, when Jimin suddenly jumped under the blanket and scrambled to him. Apparently there was a pretty frightening jumpscare in the movie, which the other boy didn’t expect. He was now curled up next to Jungkook, still a startled look on his face, as the younger one started chuckling.
“Don’t laugh at me, it’s your fault in the first place! How can you enjoy such movies? You must really be some kind of psycho, just like Jin said.”
“Don’t know, I just like them. But I’m not really watching, you can change the channel if you want,” Jungkook answered nonchalantly, ignoring the comment.
Jimin gladly accepted the offer and reached across Jungkook to reach for the remote on his nightstand. The two boys had always been close, so Jungkook didn’t even look up when Jimin laid on top of him like that. He had always been comfortable around him and their connection felt natural, almost intuitive.
Jimin huffed a little as he had to really stretch to reach the nightstand, but when he finally did he quickly turned off the TV.
“Why did you turn it off, completely? Didn’t you wanna watch something,” Junkook asked, looking down on the boy in his lap.
“I thought I’d rather just watch you edit a bit if, that’s okay. Our last trip was so nice and I’m sure you got some great recordings from it. I always wanted to see how you do this. Also that way I can stop you from putting embarrassing stuff in there,” Jimin joked.
“It’s really not that big of a deal, but sure. Also I don’t think I have any embarrassing clips of you…just dorky ones.”
“But that’s the same!”
“I don’t think so. You’re cute when you’re dorky, not embarrassing,” Jungkook argued sternly.
Jimin blushed at the compliment and crawled back to the other side of the bed, resting his head against the taller boy’s shoulder. He sighed deeply, feeling happy and content next to Jungkook, where his bad thoughts didn’t reach him.
“Also you’re just as dorky, you just never film yourself. Next time I’ll rip the camera from your hands, film you and then force you to put it in the video!”
Jungkook grinned widely.
“I’ll be waiting, but you’re too soft to do that, anyway,” he chuckled in response.
Jimin lightly slapped Jungkook’s arm at that, but he really couldn’t deny, that the other was stronger than him.
“You’re so mean,” the older one murmured under his breath, as he turned his attention back to the screen.
Jungkook was editing the videos from their latest trip to Paris. They were lucky to have witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets over Champs-Élysées and now its warm light reflected in Jimin’s glasses once more as he thought back on the beautiful memory.
“It really was so beautiful there," Jimin breathed out silently and could see the taller boy nodding, a nostalgic smile on his lips.
After he had watched Jungkook click through some of the footage to search for the right clips he noticed something.
“Isn’t there an awful lot of footage of me? I mean all seven of us were there after all,” he finally questioned carefully.
Jungkook paused his work and blushed at the question. He was really glad that it was dark enough for Jimin not to notice.
“Well it’s not my fault, you always follow me around,” he murmured, immediately regretting his choice of words. Like he had feared Jimin drew back a bit to look him in the eyes, a serious expression on his face.
“Does that bother you? I can give you more space if you want, you know. I just enjoy myself a lot with you,” he offered quietly, but the younger one was already shaking his head.
“That’s not what I meant, of course. I like exploring cities with you. All I’m saying is that it’s natural to have more footage of those you hang out with more…”
“Ah I see,” Jimin replied briefly.
Jungkook was sure to have heard relief in his voice and he was glad that the other did seem to understand. Because he genuinely liked hanging out with Jimin and to be honest it was probably him who clung more to the older boy than the other way around. He didn’t want Jimin to feel guilty about that at all obviously, when in fact he was acting so selfish, demanding so much of his time and attention.
A comfortable silence fell over the pair as Jungkook picked up his work again. After a while he started to feel Jimin’s breathing becoming slower and when he looked over he saw that his eyelids had fluttered shut. The young boy felt a warmth spread in him as he looked at his friend.
The glasses lay slightly crooked on his beautiful face as his sinfully full lips were slightly parted. The dim lighting made his skin look so soft, that Jungkook felt the urge to stroke his hand across one of his rosy cheeks.
He looked so peaceful and adorable like this that Jungkook tried to take a mental image of that moment. He felt glad that Jimin could apparently forget his troubles and finally fall asleep. Even though he was the youngest one and the others cared for him most of the time, he really wanted to return the favor as much as possible.
He didn’t want to wake him, so he just carefully pulled the glasses off his nose and put them on his nightstand together with his notebook. Carefully he pushed the petite body further down on the bed, so Jimin could lie comfortably.
When he had finally turned out the lights and lay down next to him, Jungkook couldn’t resist the urge and wrapped his arm around Jimin’s sleeping form. He pulled himself close by the waste, bathing in the other’s familiar warmth.
They often found themselves to be close to one another and Jungkook had the feeling that both could feel an equal kind of attraction between them. It was hard for either one of the boys to be without the other for a long period of time. When that did sometimes happen though, somehow Jungkook often found himself sleeping over in Jimin’s bed making up for lost time together. A smile came to Jungkooks lips as he thought how accepting Jimin had been of this weird habit of his.
Still worried about Jimin’s troubles that made him come over in the middle of the night, he pressed a lingering kiss on the other boy’s temple, silently wishing for him to feel better soon. Right then he was just happy to know him safe in his arms, sleeping soundly.
When he pulled the blanket over them he knew he couldn’t deny it any longer.
“I love you,” he softly whispered, tears starting to well up in his eyes.
Would he ever be brave enough to tell him face to face? He didn’t know yet, but that was a problem for another day. His hand reached out to stroke the beautiful blonde mop of hair, but stopped mid-way, when he heard a low whisper.
“I love you too, idiot.”