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It starts out as a tiny little tickle in his left nostril.
Seokjin wrinkles his nose throughout the day as he goes about his chores, stopping every few minutes to reach out for a wad of tissue to wipe away at the trifling, yet persistent, streaks of snot that seem eager to escape his sinuses.
He’s chopping up some fruit when the increasingly problematic urge to blow his nose makes itself known again. “Oh, for the love of God,” Seokjin mutters, bringing up the sleeve of his cashmere sweater to catch the brunt of his impending cold.
Seokjin is still half-hoping it’s some kind of allergic reaction instead of the common cold, except his mind flashes back to the woman manning the grocery cashier hacking up a lung all over his change two days ago.
He rifles through his kitchen drawer to look for some vitamins as a last-ditch effort to ward the germs away, like that would make up for the complete lack of a proper diet and acceptable sleep schedule in his life.
It’s a feeble attempt, but he swallows down a tablet anyway.
Seokjin shuffles over to his couch with a plate of persimmons and a glass of water (because, health) and prepares to binge-watch the entirety of a sappy and borderline cringe-worthy drama that he would absolutely deny enjoying a single second of to the grave.
Five hours (and a mild migraine) later, Seokjin’s apartment is bathed in soft swaths of gold as sundown settles over Seoul. His eyes are starting to sting a little, and the faint itch at the back of his throat has progressed into a dull, blooming ache every time he swallows. He’s also worked through an entire roll of toilet paper at this point, and is tempted to just stick up two wads in his nose as a permanent fixture.
His phone beeps with a message from Yoongi asking him to bring the hotpot grill for the fishing trip they’d planned for the weekend. Seokjin groans. He’d really been looking forward to getting out of the city and getting rid of the slight prickle of anxiety and restlessness buzzing beneath his skin for at least a little while.
Seokjin
i think i’ve caught the flu :( can we move up our trip a few days later
Yoongi
ur weak, and natural selection has come for you.
Seokjin
wow, rude !
Yoongi
drink plenty of water. and stop watching those dramas u claim to hate so much. text us if u need anything
Seokjin grumbles. “I have the right to watch whatever I want, thank you very much.”
He shuts down his laptop, gets ready for bed, and snuggles down under a thick layer of blankets after dinner. His attempts at sleep are periodically interrupted by a chill sweeping past his entire body, leaving him shivering and tossing in his bed in bouts of discomfort. By midnight he’s got two hoodies on, the thickest sweatpants he could find, and purple fuzzy socks over his normal ones. Seokjin kind of feels like the Michelin Man with how lumpy he looks right now.
By sunrise, the black plague seems to have made itself at home in Seokjin’s body, comfortably sitting on his chest and pressing down on every organ it can get ahold of.
He wakes up feeling like a fire truck has run over him about a dozen times at the very least, and his joints protest heavily as he undergoes the mammoth task of reaching over his pillow for his phone. It’s a little over eleven in the morning, and he squints his eyes as they land on a message from Jungkook amidst his other notifications.
Kook
chicken or beef?
Seokjin frowns.
He rakes through his (very disoriented) mind for any previous conversation they’ve had that would provide input as to the possible context of this message, but comes up with nothing.
There’s also another pressing problem, which he realizes a few moments later. The front door of his apartment is currently in the process of being unlocked, judging by the sound of the doorknob being twisted and footsteps shuffling outside.
He contemplates calling for security. Or possibly pretending to be a dead lump under his pile of blankets. The second option seems entirely too appealing, and he hopes that whoever the intruder is considers him as too much of a biohazard to even think about approaching.
A voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Namjoon calls him an idiot and urges him to dial someone for help. He ignores it and waits in blissful acceptance of his fate, aching limbs splayed out under his sheets bearing a striking resemblance to some poor, undignified roadkill.
The sound of footsteps approaching his bedroom are getting steadily louder, like thunder rolling in with storm clouds. His head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, and the only thing he manages to croak out is a pathetic little, “Don’t even think about it; I know krav maga.”
He isn’t quite sure what krav maga actually is, but he’d heard it in the recent Charlie’s Angels movies and it seemed pretty intimidating, so he figures it’s worth a shot.
The last thing he expects to see is Jungkook poking his head in through the door. “Oh, good. You’re still alive.”
He’s dressed in an oversized black shirt and faded ripped jeans. His fuzzy striped socks stand out against Seokjin’s carpet, and his eyebrows knit closer together as he surveys the bundles of rolled-up tissue paper scattered across the room. His long, dark hair curves against the side of his face like a soft curtain, warm and loose and inviting.
The dangly, silver earrings decorated against his skin catches in the morning light.
Jungkook looks like a dream. Seokjin wants to run his fingers through his hair to make sure he’s real.
“Nope, I’m definitely here,” Jungkook says, which means Seokjin must have said that last part out loud, unless Jungkook had tapped into some previously unknown telepathic skills over the few days they had been apart during the break. “In your disease-infested apartment,” he continues warily.
A hundred different questions are building up at the tip of his tongue. What are you doing here? is one of the top contenders. Closely following it is a rather odd: Why do you smell so good, and can I please bury my nose in your shirt?
Seokjin would argue he gets a free pass for that given his semi-delirious state. Somehow, what he manages to rasp out amidst the sensation of a hundred different needles prickling at his throat is: “Shouldn’t you be in Busan?”
Jungkook maneuvers around one of the sheets Seokjin had tossed out of the bed and onto the floor in the early hours of the morning before answering. “Decided to go back early. I have to finish up some stuff in the studio.”
“I’m also here to make sure you don’t wither away,” he cups a hand around his mouth like he’s whispering a secret, lips curled up teasingly at the sides. There’s a little hint of something else in his tone though, buried under the coats of playfulness, softening out the edges and bleeding out warmth into the room.
It leaves Seokjin a little flustered.
He fails to notice the paper bag Jungkook has been holding the entire time, not until he sets it down on the bedside table and searches through it. He brings out several tupperwares and cups, along with some utensils.
“You didn’t reply to my text, so I got you both chicken and beef broth to minimize the risk of you complaining,” he says. “There’s also some stuff for your cold and sore throat.”
“Oh,” Seokjin replies. There’s a strange lump in the pit of his stomach, heavy and curling and brimming with affection. He doesn’t quite know what to say, head still reeling and somewhat bewildered.
Jungkook opens up one of the containers. The rich scent of the soup wafts in the air, steam chasing after it and billowing out like a hazy cloud. The mattress dips a little as Jungkook settles in sideways, thighs pressing up close to Seokjin’s chest.
Heat flows from him like a furnace. “Open up, hyung,” he says.
Seokjin expects another teasing look, the familiarity and safety of words coated with laughter. A little bit of a show perhaps, with Jungkook raising and swerving the spoon around to mimic a parent feeding their toddler during meal time. Or maybe a short front of grumbling and a pout, coupled with a melodramatic speech on how blessed he was to have Jungkook by his side.
Instead he finds a gaze focused intently on him, a quiet intensity set in the swirl of his eyes, the curve of his mouth.
Raw vulnerability suddenly sweeps over him and rattles his bones. And that just won’t do. Not for Seokjin who’s learned to use laughter and large, expansive motions and ridiculous, overly comical declarations as concrete walls to hide behind, something to prevent him from being truly seen and unraveled.
“Yah, what are you doing?” he asks, mouth pursed downwards and eyes narrowed into crescents. “You don’t have to feed me,” he insists. Seokjin’s eyes fall past Jungkook’s shoulders to avoid seeing the expression that is cast over his face.
He plucks the spoon from Jungkook’s fingers, which nearly falls out of his grasp a few seconds later as a wretched sneeze suddenly rakes through his body violently.
Jungkook gives him a pointed look before seizing back custody of the spoon. “I’m going to ignore what just happened for your sake. Now eat, please.”
Seokjin blows his nose out into a wad of tissue miserably. He accepts the broth headed his way reluctantly at first, but feels a little bit of his recently departed soul make its way back into his body the second warmth seeps through his throat.
He opens his eyes to see Jungkook still staring at him.
Seokjin clears his throat. “Thank you, Kook,” he says softly.
“Of course,” is the only thing he says. Like it would be ridiculous for Seokjin to think he would be anywhere else when he was needed.
The scary thing is, he knows Jungkook means every word.
___________________
The rest of the day passes by in a haze of sore limbs, cold sweats and chills cutting through his skin like knives, and the feeling of heavy dampness clogging his chest. Even the effortless action of breathing is proving to be a mighty task requiring strenuous amounts of effort and willpower.
His eyes flutter open a few hours later, heavy and a tiny bit swollen. The blinds in his room have now been drawn shut, only the faint glow of what seems to be a streetlight filtering in through the window. His apartment is startlingly silent, and if it weren’t for the half-empty mug of ginger and lemon tea resting on his table he would have concluded the whole Jungkook thing had been a very convincing hallucination his mind had cooked up.
Seokjin rips off the layers of sheets over him with the grace of a baby seal floundering for air in desolate Arctic waters. Which is coincidentally what his room feels right now, cloaked in darkness and a touch too frigid.
He shuffles over to the bathroom, socked feet padding noisily against the wooden floorboards. He relieves himself and prepares to crawl back into his nest when someone’s voice floats over into the hallway.
“Oh, you’re awake.” Jungkook’s head peeks out from the couch. He takes out the buds in his ears before resting his chin on the sofa cushion. His face is illuminated only by the dim flicker of lights in the living room. A dark shadow runs from the length of his forehead to the jut of his collarbone.
Not for the first time (and definitely not the last), Seokjin’s fingers itch out to touch him.
“Jungkook-ah,” Seokjin starts out softly, throat suddenly a little too tight, “you should go home. You’re going to catch whatever I have.”
He snorts. “I’ve been inhaling the air in your apartment for half a day now. It’s too late for me,” he huffs out dramatically. He springs up from the couch and makes his way into the kitchen.
Seokjin is struck with the thought that Jungkook looks like he belongs. In his apartment, by his side, in loose, comfortable clothes and that open, relaxed look on his face that only a handful of people have the privilege of seeing.
Another painful squeeze to his gut. An intoxicating flood of adoration in his veins.
“I made some dinner,” Jungkook declares after heating up a bowl of what looks to be noodle soup in the microwave. “I hope you don’t mind that I ate ahead. I tried to get you to eat earlier but I think you told me to go to hell.”
His toothy grin is on full display now, eyes crinkled up at the corners.
“Oops,” Seokjin says sheepishly, “Sorry. I renounce any claim over fever-brained Seokjin.”
“He’s not that bad. You when you’re hungry and put on a diet, on the other hand,” he trails off, pursing his lips for extra effect.
“Oi,” Seokjin reproaches with absolutely no heat. He seems to be incapable of addressing Jungkook with anything but barely-concealed endearment and fondness these days. He wonders if everyone else has noticed. Seokjin is hit with an odd vision of Namjoon hunched over his work desk, frantically scribbling out plans for an intervention in his notebook.
He giggles a little in his head. Perhaps the flu has now hijacked his entire frontal lobe.
“You’re lucky I’m sick right now,” Seokjin emphasizes his point with a particularly loud sniffle. It’s accompanied by a huge bubble of snot popping. To Jungkook’s credit, he only manages to look mildly disgusted and not completely horrified. “I’m too scared of infecting you to retaliate.”
Jungkook pulls up a chair in the kitchen table and slides the bowl over to Seokjin, who settles down across him. “You should get sick more often then. I can get away with a lot more stuff,” he grins, eyes shining brightly with mirth.
Seokjin levels the chopsticks he’s holding at Jungkook accusingly. “You are a menace.”
“And you’re a walking health hazard,” he clucks his tongue out.
“You love me anyway,” Seokjin sing-songs cheesily, taking a long sip out of his soup. It’s a few moments later when he realizes Jungkook hasn’t replied, has instead simply taken to staring at him quietly.
Seokjin’s breath stutters a little in his chest. He wonders if he’s crossed a line somehow.
Jungkook eventually replies with a small shrug. “Yeah. I do.”
He looks at Seokjin like it’s nothing, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to blurt out. A simple fact of life. Like the sky is blue. Or that climate change was probably going to kill them all in a few years.
He looks at Seokjin as if he hasn’t just pulled out the rug under his feet, leaving him tumbling with nothing to hold on to. It’s not like they haven’t said it before to each other, or to the boys. They all have. They’ve whispered it to each other during post-concert exaltations, faces streaked with sweat, hair damp and sticky and clinging to the napes of their necks. They’ve mumbled it out amidst the rumblings of drunken laughter, when they’re all a little teary and weepy and had a few bottles too many of soju and are still wondering how they’ve managed to skyrocket into this level of fame and success. They’ve typed it out playfully in their group chats, followed by extra exclamation points and heart emojis after someone’s promised to treat them all out to some barbeque.
It shouldn’t be any different right now. But it is.
Because Jungkook is looking at him with a tenderness that makes his heart swell. Seokjin feels like the blood beneath his skin is humming violently, ready to trickle out through his pores at the slightest provocation.
It’s a little too quiet in the room, like the silence that comes with bated breath. And Jungkook’s face is a cocktail of contradictions, softness and affection carved into the pupils of his eyes as he gazes at Seokjin unflinchingly. Yet there’s a hint of hardness too. Of rough determination, hidden in the dip of his brow and the strain in his jaw.
It’s that look. The one that spells trouble. The one he gets when he’s about to do something risky and stupid, like swing off a cliff upside down in his harness right after blowing him a kiss.
Seokjin’s poor, feverish brain isn’t equipped enough to talk him out of whatever thing he’s planning to do right now. His body decides to do the stalling for him.
He coughs up half a lung, jarring the room into sudden motion. The stillness has been broken, the silence has collapsed with a deafening roar.
And everything comes back to its regularly scheduled programming. Jungkook pretends to hide under the table to escape Seokjin’s warpath and trail of destruction, Seokjin announces his death dramatically and asks for Jungkook’s assistance in his burial, and Jungkook inquires about how much he’s going to be receiving for his services.
They fall into their usual banter like clockwork.
It becomes a little easier to breathe without the weight of Jungkook’s gaze on him, a little easier to finish his meal and retreat back into his room.
Jungkook makes use of his bathroom while Seokjin stares up at his ceiling, ignoring the prickling sensation behind his eyelids in favor of conjuring up images of Jungkook. His startling eyes. Pink lips. The scar on his cheekbone. The dip in his neck. Strong thighs. His veiny forearms. Knuckles splashed with black ink.
“Jesus,” Seokjin whispers to nobody in the dark, suddenly feeling ten times too small. “What am I doing?”
Dim lights spill into the room through a crack in the door. Jungkook soon follows after with a glass of water and a mug of fresh, steaming tea cradled in his other hand.
Seokjin tears his eyes away from a spot in the ceiling to give Jungkook a disapproving look. “All the germs are in my room, Jungkook-ah. You shouldn’t be here. This is the belly of the beast,” he mumbles faintly.
“Don’t worry about me,” Jungkook says. His voice rumbles through the darkness. “I’m a big boy, I can handle it.”
Seokjin croaks out what is supposed to be a laugh. “You can’t beat the flu into submission. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“You can if you try hard enough,” Jungkook replies with a smile.
Jungkook leaves a few minutes later after making Seokjin promise to hydrate himself and soothe his throat with some tea. Seokjin listens to the sound of footsteps fade away into the hallway, the finality of his door locking shut. It leaves him feeling a little hollow inside, like he’s been carved out and spilled into the open.
His apartment suddenly feels enormous without Jungkook occupying bits and pieces of the space it had to offer.
I’m a big boy. Jungkook’s words echo in his brain like an unrelenting, annoyingly catchy song on the radio.
Seokjin doesn’t quite think he’s pertaining to just being able to take care of himself against the flu. There had been a defiant tilt to his head, a hard pinch to his mouth. The same expression he wore whenever Seokjin would ruffle his hair patronizingly before saying “You’re still a baby, Jungkookie. Listen to your hyung,” in velvet-coated words, dripping with saccharine and honey and maybe the shadow of a threat whenever Jungkook would complain about having to do chores.
Seokjin knows he’s grown. He sees it in the way he takes care of all of them, the quiet sacrifices he’s made without so much as a single mutter of complaint. The way he mulls over his words before speaking, turning them over in his head like pebbles instead of rushing them out sharply like he’d used to as a teenager, biting and stinging and just a touch too rough.
He sees it in the sharp curve of his jaw, the strong lines in his neck. In the bands of ink running along his skin, declaring his freedom and passion in stark letters and swirling imagery. He knows he’s grown. He doesn’t have to prove it to anyone.
But Seokjin has allowed himself to be a little too selfish, he supposes. The teasing little quips about Jungkook’s youth had been more for his own peace of mind. He’d rolled those words out of his tongue despite the flash of annoyance that crossed Jungkook’s face every time, because he didn’t want to think of a time when Jungkook wouldn’t need him anymore.
He wants to keep him close, where he can dote on him, where he can pet his hair and run his fingers through them and feed him some rice rolls without Jungkook laughing it off and claiming he was much too old for that.
The universe seems to be entirely against him and all too willing to make him the butt of their jokes, because it seems like the older they get, the more Seokjin needs Jungkook instead.
Seokjin swallows down the wave of pity that rises in him. He sinks into his blankets in a fretful sleep.
___________________
In retrospect, Seokjin had felt the shift in their relationship a long time ago, a gradual little tilt in the axis of their universe, a changing of the tides.
It had been subtle, at first. Jungkook had always gazed at him a little too brightly: doe-eyed, crinkled looks accompanying wide, dimpled smiles from across the room and stage. Seokjin had been convinced Jungkook looked at the rest of them the same way. Jungkook wore his affection on his face clear as day, could be seen in the contentment oozing out of him as he snuggled up to Hoseok, at his giggly laughter when kicking back a shot (or five) with Taehyung.
Except. The little things had started to nag at the back of his mind, stacking up on each other and taking up space until they were no longer insignificant, could no longer be filed away somewhere, never to be touched.
It was in the way Jungkook stared when he thought nobody was looking. The furtive glances from beneath his lashes, a little hint of skittishness, a smudge of embarrassment when Seokjin would accidentally catch his eye.
The almost imperceptible blush, high on his cheekbones, when Seokjin would tilt his head inquisitively, “what’s wrong?” or “do you need anything?” and other variations thereof swimming in his face, all bizarrely ignored by the younger.
It was odd, to say the least. Jungkook had never been one to shy away from anything, and for a brief, uncomfortable period, Seokjin had thought he had unknowingly done something to hurt him. Except he still responded to his touches (sought them out like a moth to a flame, in fact), still gave him that bright-eyed, burning look, still broke out into loud, piercing laughter at the ridiculous things Seokjin would do.
So what was it?
Seokjin had asked Yoongi once. He had long forgotten what prompted it, but the exhaustion and late hours had made him a little more loose-lipped than usual, had fogged his senses, leaving them hazy and blurred at the edges, words freely tumbling out of their prison.
“Yoongi-yah,” he had started out, stretching out his arms on the futon like a starfish, “have you noticed Jungkook staring at me a little...weirdly, lately?”
The sound of pencil scribbling on notebook pages had stopped for a moment. Yoongi had gnawed on the little red eraser bit at the other end.
“That’s disgusting,” Seokjin had wrinkled his nose.
“You’re disgusting,” Yoongi mumbled back without hesitation, voice a little scratchy from disuse.
Another beat of silence. “What do you mean?” he asked. Yoongi had set aside the notebook and had taken to reclining on his mountain of pillows.
Seokjin had swallowed thickly. Tiny prickles of nervous energy had taken to poking and pressing at his lower gut. “I dunno. He looks at me sometimes, when he thinks I can’t see. Like he’s plotting something,” he added the last bit with a chuckle to disperse the second wave of anxiety that had rolled over in his stomach.
“Well, do you?” Yoongi asked.
“Do I what?” Seokjin frowned.
“Think he’s plotting something,” Yoongi continued to stare at him like he was boring a hole straight into his skull. Seokjin had resisted the urge to rub at his forehead.
“Of course not,” Seokjin wrinkled his nose, frustrated. He flopped over onto his belly, tilting his head slightly to allow one eye to peek out from between the cushion rolls. Yoongi stared down at him like a looming, mysterious, chaotic-neutral force in the sky that was vaguely disappointed with humanity.
“Why else do you think he’d be staring at you, then?” Yoongi had asked with a shrug. He picked up his notebook again, the sound of graphite scratching against paper filling the room once more.
“I dunno, to build up the courage to tell me he’s accidentally purchased a second car with my credit card?” Seokjin had pouted. “You are the worst therapist ever. Why are you making me answer my own questions?”
Yoongi continued to scribble what could very well be the next lyrical masterpiece in their upcoming album, or an offensive doodle of Seokjin being attacked by an obscenely large, hairy penis. It was kind of hard to tell with him sometimes. He finally looked up. “Because I think you already know the answer.”
Seokjin had opened his mouth to give Yoongi shit for being so cryptic, except the words died a little on his tongue when creeping realization had started to take root in his chest. It burrowed firmly in his ribcage, spreading out tendrils between the intercostal crevices and taking him over from the inside.
He felt spread open, raw.
But he had put on a bewildered face instead, pouted up a storm, and rolled over in his bed where he proceeded to stare at the wall for a good twenty minutes, pretending to fall asleep. Yoongi had shut the lights at some point before his breathing had settled into even, steady breaths, yet sleep had not come for Seokjin, not even an hour after their conversation had ended.
Yoongi was brutally honest. Always had been. And if he refused to answer Seokjin’s question, had circumnavigated around it with artful evasion, then, well, maybe the answer had to come from Jungkook himself.
They both knew that.
___________________
Seokjin wakes up the next day and feels considerably less like his insides have been put through a blender. He gets out of bed before noon, feet treading heavily against the kitchen floor as he refills his water container.
He wrinkles his nose at the wads of tissue strewn across his room, mismatched layers of rumpled sheets, and various assortments of mugs and plates left at his bedside table courtesy of Jungkook’s mother-henning yesterday.
“I can’t live like this,” he declares to himself dramatically before he sets out for a cleaning-spree. Thirty minutes later, his apartment is looking marginally less like it’s been bulldozed over by a typhoon and Seokjin has relocated to the couch to stop inhaling the stuffy, clogged air in his room.
Going through a cleaning frenzy and moving around so much had, evidently, been a mistake when the fatigue creeps up on him a little later. Seokjin drags his favorite duvet to the couch, grumbles menacingly to no one in particular, and prepares to cocoon himself for the unforeseeable future.
A flash of black by his feet catches his eye before he can pass out until the next sundown.
He wriggles a little out of his blanket burrito to blindly grope at it. His fingers curl around the soft piece of fabric, and his stomach twists a little when he realizes Jungkook must have left his hoodie here yesterday.
For some inexplicable reason, he tugs it close to him, bundling it up under his chin and inhaling the cottony sweet smell clinging to it. Comfort fills his chest, a rising tide swelling and crashing and receding only to build up again, even greater than what it once was.
He falls asleep to the scent of Jungkook tickling his nose.
Seokjin wakes up to the gentle touch of fingers kneading at the base of his neck.
An odd sound makes its way out of his throat, a cross between an appreciative moan and a mumbled question. Jungkook’s amused face soon comes into view as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes. “You know,” he says, voice whispered lowly, “you really do look like a hamster like this, hyung. Wrapped up in a blanket with your puffy cheeks.”
“You are insanely lucky I’m currently incapacitated right now, or you would face the full force of my wrath,” Seokjin replies. His eyes are narrowed into crescent slits, and his sleep-swollen cheeks bear the markings of his woven, layered quilt.
Seokjin looks a very far cry from intimidating right now, yet Jungkook runs his other hand gingerly through his hair to placate him. “Feeling any better?” he asks. He doesn’t respond for a while. Just drifts off a little under the influence of Jungkook’s loose, nimble touch, preening like a cat soaking in the sunrays through the window.
He mutters out a vaguely affirmative response but keeps his eyes shut. He listens to the soft rise and fall of Jungkook’s breath, to the scratching of fingers against his scalp, to the tune Jungkook absent-mindedly lets slip between his lips.
“That the new song you’re working on?” Seokjin asks. It’s a catchy tune, and even when Jungkook is just playfully letting the words flow out, not putting in any real effort like he would for a performance, his voice is beautiful. Honey golden and sweet, the kind that curls around you, intoxicates and captivates.
“Yeah. I wrote most of the melody earlier. I’m really happy about it,” he smiles.
“You should be,” Seokjin mumbles. “Everything you make is amazing.” He hadn’t quite meant for it to come out sounding so reverent, adoration laced in every syllable. It floats and lingers in the air like heat that’s seeped out of the cracks and fissures in the pavement, a warm and heavy summer day haze.
Jungkook ducks his head shyly, trains his toothy grin to the ground. “You’re too nice, hyung.”
Seokjin pouts. “Yah, who said you could stop massaging me?”
“You aren’t even paying for my services,” Jungkook shoots back, but his hand starts making its way through his neck again, expertly kneading the soft and tender flesh between the pads of his fingers.
“I’ll pay you back soon with hugs and kisses, Jungkook-ah.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” There’s a challenge in Jungkook’s eyes when he says it, a quirk in his eyebrow, a subtle inflection in his tone.
It’s that look again, the one that’s given Seokjin grief on numerous occasions where he (unsuccessfully) tries to stop Jungkook from doing the Stupid Thing. He realizes a little belatedly that he would be the Stupid Thing in this situation, but frankly speaking, he isn’t quite sure he’d want Jungkook to retreat, to take a step back and to think this through.
He puts a lid on the thoughts currently raging inside his head right now, begging to be materialized in words, in gestures, in warm touches. Jungkook stays for a little longer. Carves out a space for himself in that sofa cushion, unknowingly stakes a claim on Seokjin with feather-light touches a blazing imprint on his skin.
He feels like a balloon ready to burst with the faintest hint of a prickle, has the strangest urge to crawl out of his skin to stop the unbearable itch building inside him.
Later, when Jungkook makes his way through the living room to lace his shoes back on, he’ll leave his worn and frayed hoodie, the one Seokjin had clung onto in his sleep, behind again. He’ll tell Seokjin it’s so his hyung will have a piece of him to get him through the fever-chilled night and the aching tiredness. Seokjin will joke that Jungkook doesn’t want to bother having to wash the infected piece of clothing, and will swallow down the tidal wave of panic rising in his chest.
Because he doesn’t want him to leave.
It’s the knowledge that Jungkook would stay if he asked, would continue to run his fingers through his hair until dusk took over the sky, until the glittering city lights and moonshine filtered in through his windows and painted everything with their glow that eases the knot pressing down on his chest.
But Seokjin doesn’t ask. Not right now, anyway. He thinks in silence, regroups. Because the next time?
There was no way he was letting Jungkook leave without knowing and mapping out the taste of his mouth.
___________________
Seokjin reclines in his seat and heaves out a deep breath. The lake glitters a little under the afternoon sun, its perfect stillness periodically disturbed by random ripples cutting out across its surface. “I love nature. Don’t you? I actually felt that breeze pass through my unclogged nostrils this time. Being not sick is amazing.”
“There’s one downside, though,” Yoongi replies from beside him. His bucket hat is a little too large on his head, essentially swallowing up half of his face.
“What?” Seokjin frowns.
“You’re even more obnoxious than usual.” Seokjin can’t see the look in his eyes courtesy of said hat, but he’s fairly certain it could cut through stone.
“Aww, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin coos while reaching out for another sour gummy from the packet in his lap. “Enough with the sweet talk. You must have really missed me this past week.”
He grunts in response, but Seokjin can see the tiny smile peeking out from under the shadow of his hat.
They’ve been sitting at the edge of the bank for a little over an hour now, fishing lures cast and bobbing along beneath the water surface. Seokjin is also currently debating with himself if he should broach the subject of this weird, dancing around each other thing he and Jungkook have been doing for ages when Yoongi spares him one sideways look and beats him to it.
“Let me guess,” Yoongi starts out, “You’re going to talk about some kind of fever-induced epiphany you’ve had over the course of the past few days.”
Seokjin scoffs very unconvincingly. “What makes you think that?”
In return, Seokjin receives the full weight of Yoongi’s dead man stare, complete with dark eyes slanted into judgmental slits and a disapproving curve set into his mouth.
He resists the urge to fold back into himself. “Okay, fine. You’re right. A fever-induced epiphany has indeed been nagging at me as of late.”
Yoongi shrugs. “Just talk to Jungkook,” is the only thing he offers. Something disturbs the water surface a few meters out, which sends both of them sitting up a little more alertly.
“In no way, shape, or form have I ever mentioned or even hinted at Jungkook this entire conversation,” Seokjin points out. His fingers are starting to feel a little clammy, and the fishing rod slips a little in his grasp.
“Did he not attempt to seduce you with soup while you laid in your deathbed a few days ago?” Yoongi says, face completely straight aside from a tiny hint of teeth flashing at the corner of his mouth, gums cheekily on display. “I was the one who texted him by the way, to let him know you were possibly dying of the plague. You’re welcome.”
“Oi!” Seokjin sputters out, laughter bubbling out of his chest. “There was no seduction involved, you dirty old man. I looked and felt like a gremlin the entire time.”
“You still do. Look like a gremlin, that is.”
Seokjin flicks him in the ear in retaliation.
The mood dies down a little as they soak in the silence.
“But seriously,” Seokjin says, hesitantly pushing out the words that've been clawing at his mind for the past hour. “Wouldn’t it be...I dunno...weird? We’ve been friends for so long, and the band…” he trails off, staring at the horizon like it would offer him some answers instead of what was beginning to feel like a sunburn across his nose.
“You’re overthinking again,” Yoongi tuts. He gives Seokjin another look, and continues, a little uncertainly, like he isn’t sure he should say anything at all. “What you guys have...it’s special. You don’t find that often. Take care of it, hyung.”
Seokjin doesn’t say anything, just clings to his gummies and fishing rod like a lifeline, the challenge in Jungkook’s eyes, begging and waiting to be met, swimming behind his eyelids like an unrelenting vision.
___________________
It happens a little anti-climatically.
Seokjin shows up at Jungkook’s apartment with a couple of beers and chicken a few days after his fishing trip with Yoongi. He had it all planned out, a detailed itinerary of how exactly this was going to go down now that his brain wasn’t deep in the depths of a fever and preoccupied with trying to keep all his organs functioning normally.
But nothing ever really went according to plan with Jungkook, did it?
First, the brat had declined his offer of drinks because he wanted to stick to his diet (that he truly, truly did not need). Seokjin had set aside the beers and refused to drink as well in solidarity, which, in essence, is where his entire plan crashed and burned into tiny particles of ash and dust.
He was relying on a little (i.e. a minimum of two bottles) liquid courage to get through the rest of the night, and okay, fine, maybe he lied about having a detailed plan in this very awkward seduction he was about to do.
“Are you okay?” Jungkook mumbles around a particularly large drumstick in his mouth. “You’ve been staring at your food like it’s personally offended you for the past few minutes.”
Seokjin startles out of the mini breakdown his last two brain cells are going through before pouting. “Because it has! There’s barely any garlic in this. I’m completely incensed.”
Jungkook rolls his eyes before plucking out a large piece of chicken from his plate. He hands over the juicy piece to Seokjin, its skin glistening with garlic and soy seasoning. “Here, you can have mine, hyung.”
He stares at the piece of meat being offered to him, at Jungkook’s large, doe-eyes, at the soft, happy crinkles at their corners, and promptly undergoes an internal meltdown. If asked in the future by any of the other boys what precipitates the next set of events, Seokjin will vehemently deny the involvement of being handed the most aesthetically pleasing and delicious piece of chicken in his decision-making process.
However, the fact still remains that what triggers Seokjin to reach out his fingers across the table and to twine them with Jungkook’s is the most mundane, humiliating reason. Both their fingers are fraught with chicken grease and oil, and Jungkook’s mouth is half-way open in its quest to devour another wing. He gradually lowers the wing to his plate, and he casts Seokjin an inquiring look.
“Hyung?” he asks. He doesn’t pull away from Seokjin’s touch, rather he curls his fingers around his, hooking their pinkies together.
“I’m paying you back, remember?” Seokjin replies, eyes darting down to catch a glimpse of Jungkook’s lips.
“Is that so?” Jungkook murmurs quietly. The corner of his mouth is tugged up into a small smile, eyes wide and sparkling.
Seokjin wonders, for a brief moment, if Jungkook has been waiting for his go signal this entire time they’ve been circling around each other over the years. Jungkook, who refuses to look before he leaps, who jumps into things headfirst without a safety net, who would swing off a cliff with laughter trailing after him, not an atom of fear in his veins. Jungkook who, despite this, waits patiently for his hyung, for Seokjin to thread their fingers together and to finally close the gap between them that’s been growing infinitesimally smaller each day.
His lips taste like garlic and salt, and Seokjin resists the urge to lick his way into his mouth like a complete heathen. There’s the rather unfortunate presence of a table in between them which Jungkook soon maneuvers around without breaking apart from Seokjin, lips sealed to his like a prayer, soft and hard and burning all at once.
Seokjin is only faintly aware of the fact that his back is now pressed up against the carpeted floor. It’s entirely possible that his water glass has toppled over judging by the steady dampness spreading throughout his socked foot, but he doesn’t care.
Not when Jungkook has his hips pinned down in between his thighs, hands roaming throughout his body, hot and heavy, like he wants to permanently carve a space for himself into Seokjin’s ribcage.
Seokjin would let him. He realizes that he probably already has.
He kisses a trail down Jungkook’s lips, from the sharp curve of his jaw, to the line down his neck, to the delicate space between his collarbones. He exhales hotly, presses his palms deep into his back to bring them closer together, feels the lean muscles bunch and ripple beneath his hand as liquid heat pools and tugs at his gut.
“Jungkook,” Seokjin manages to say in between fervent kisses and searing touches. Jungkook pulls on his bottom lip which causes visions of stark color to burst behind Seokjin’s eyelids, momentarily interrupting his train of thought.
“Hmm?” He murmurs back dazedly. His dark hair falls over his eyes in tangled waves, cheeks alight with a rosy glow, lips raw and shining and bruised with Seokjin’s imprint.
Seokjin wonders how he ever managed to resist him for this long.
“Your floor isn’t exactly the most comfortable place in the world,” Seokjin says pointedly. His tailbone is already starting to feel slightly abused. “Maybe we could move this to your bedroom?”
“Right,” Jungkook says hastily, nervously wiping down his hands on his jeans as he stands upright. He reaches out a hand for Seokjin to cling to as he gets on his feet. Jungkook leads the way into his room. His foot not-so-subtly nudges away a pair of worn sweatpants and banishes it to the space beneath his desk. Seokjin catches him smoothening down the creases in his bedsheets and clearing out the clutter in his bedside table with fidgety hands.
Seokjin’s lips curl up in amusement. “Jungkook-ah,” he calls out. Jungkook turns to look at him with something akin to guilt hovering in his eyes as he brushes away some stray crumbs.
His finger clasps around the belt loops of Jungkook’s jeans as he tugs him closer, chests pressing flush against each other. “Are you really attempting to hide your mess from me? I did your laundry for years, you brat. Why are you being so shy all of a sudden, huh?” he pouts teasingly.
Jungkook flushes a bit in response. His hand settles on the small of Seokjin’s back, forehead resting lightly against Seokjin’s chest. His breath tickles at his collarbone. “Yeah but. It’s a little bit different now, isn’t it?”
Seokjin’s fingers come up to play with the hair curling around Jungkook’s ear. “I witnessed all your disgusting habits for years. It’s a bit too late for me to back out now.” He takes Jungkook’s chin in between his fingers to catch the look on his face.
Seokjin realizes, with startling clarity, that Jungkook’s only ever looked at him this way. That he held a certain kind of burning, bright-eyed, doe-eyed look only for Seokjin. That Jungkook was fearless and confident and independent, yet he would still worm his way into Seokjin’s bed at night when life was a little too heavy and lonely, would demand his affection with the exuberance of a toddler that’s been denied it’s favorite toy, would push at his buttons, rile him up on purpose, just to be the subject of Seokjin’s full, unwavering attention.
“Good. Because it took you way too long to do this.” Jungkook finally grins. “You gave me blue balls for years, hyung,” he whines, narrowly avoiding the indignant forehead flick Seokjin sends his way.
He takes Seokjin by the hand, tugs him onto the bed, and they fall into each other in pairs of flailing limbs and laughter, familiarity and this all-encompassing newness blending into each other seamlessly.
___________________
Jungkook takes him apart with his mouth and hands, leaving Seokjin quivering and trembling beneath him like a man possessed by his touch. He fucks into Seokjin with the intensity of someone who might never get another chance to do this again, yet holds him with the intimacy that only someone who’s loved him for years could ever do. He looks at Seokjin with a reverence reserved for saints, yet leaves searing, open-mouthed kisses against his skin like Seokjin is a filthy sinner.
They fall apart into each other eventually, heavy strokes dying down into lazy, languid kisses, all loose limbs tangled with each other and whispered affirmations in the dark.
Seokjin tucks his head into the crook of Jungkook’s neck, uncaring of the beads of sweat that cling to his cheek. The younger wraps an arm around his side, fingers trailing feather-light touches down his hand. “That was a suitable payment for my slaving over you while you were sick. Though I think I’ll need to avail of another session. Probably two. Or make it a couple hundred, actually-”
“I am going to smother you with this pillow if you don’t shut up,” Seokjin warns with a completely straight face.
“Really? Because not even five minutes ago you were saying, and I quote, “I don’t know what I’d ever do without your dick--”
The sentence cuts off in muffled sputters as a throw pillow covers Jungkook’s face.
“Idiot,” Seokjin says fondly.
___________________
Epilogue:
“You guys are unbelievable,” Jimin screeches with a finger wagging in their faces. “You’re not even going to tell us how it happened? We’ve been placing bets for years. We deserve this closure.”
“Speak for yourself. I took no part in that betting pool,” Yoongi pipes in from across him.
“Well I did!” Hoseok throws his hands up in the air. “Jimin and Taehyung have nearly got me broke.”
“You just bought a 20,000 dollar watch last week,” Namjoon points out from where he’s laying on more pork on the grill.
“That’s completely irrelevant to this conversation,” Hoseok smiles faux-sweetly.
“You guys are all so annoying,” Seokjin finally says. “We were just in his apartment having dinner. We kissed. Ta-da! That’s it.”
“Is that true, Jungkookie?” Taehyung gives him a look, like Seokjin is a lying liar who lies and Jungkook is the beholder of all that is true and good in this world.
“Uh,” he starts out, but Seokjin can see the way his shoulders are starting to shake while holding in the beginnings of laughter.
“I’m going to break up with you if you say another word,” Seokjin kicks at his shin from across the table.
“I knew it!” Jimin gasps. “I knew there was something more. Seokjin seems like the romantic type, wouldn’t you say?” He says to Taehyung. “There has to be something else that happened.”
Someone starts to hum out the saxophone tune to Careless Whisper (Taehyung) while someone else (Hobi) starts to sway in his seat, arms wrapping around his own shoulders tenderly.
“God, help me,” Yoongi says despondently into his bowl of rice.
“Please, hyung,” Jungkook pouts. “They’ll never stop being embarrassing if we don’t tell them.”
“I can dance all night,” Hoseok warns. Seokjin is a hundred percent certain he isn’t joking.
Seokjin is absolute putty when subjected to the powers of Jungkook’s pout (and the other boys’ persistence and dedication to making his life hell.) “Fine!” he groans, ears already reddening.
“He--” Jungkook wheezes out, choking on the laughter bubbling out of his mouth. Seokjin is already thinking of withholding blowjob privileges for at least a week. “He kissed me because,” another pause as he heaves in a lungful of air, “--because I gave him the juiciest drumstick from my plate.” Jungkook has now descended into hysterical laughter, and Seokjin has definitely decided to extend the no blowjobs punishment for a month.
“I’m...kind of disappointed,” Jimin says, pouting into his drink. “Where’s the romantic in you, hyung?”
Yoongi wipes the tears from his eyes, laughter clinging to the lines of his mouth. “What are you talking about? That sounds exactly like Seokjin.”
Everyone murmurs out choruses of agreement.
“I truly hate all of you.”