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It’s a Thursday. Jungkook feels like Thursdays are actually the worst day of the week. Mondays are automatically bad because you have to work. Tuesdays aren’t as bad because you’ve gotten through Monday and now you’re in the groove of it. Wednesdays are usually good because you’re halfway through the week and you can splurge on the good ramen for lunch. And obviously Fridays are good because it’s the last day of the week. You just need to make it through that last bit and it’s the weekend.
But Thursdays are nothing days.
Made it through the middle of the week but not close enough to the end to make it feel like you’ve accomplished anything.
Sometimes Jungkook feels like a Thursday.
He stands on the subway staring out the windows without looking at anything, the train softly swaying him back and forth, side to side. He’s keeping track of the stops, counting down how many until his own. The soft voice telling him which station they’re at, reminding everyone which side to exit from, flows over him.
Jungkook is working as a receptionist at a data management company. He spends his days answering phone calls and emails and filing paperwork and scanning documents. He talks to his coworkers and smiles warmly to every appointment that comes in. The pay is decent and he’s never had to work over time. He can’t say he hates it though, because that would require having any sort of intense feelings towards it. If anything he’s indifferent towards it.
He goes to work every morning, he comes home every night. And on the weekends he tries to do more. Paint. Dance. Run along the Han River. Last weekend he convinced Yoongi to have a picnic with him by the river and it was nice. They held hands and tried to come up with stories in the clouds and Jungkook laughed so hard he thought, for just a moment, that if he wasn’t already in love he would’ve fallen in love again right then and there.
He wondered if you could fall in love with the same person over and over again, or is it just expanding the same love? Like how humans are made up of stardust, are we too expanding exponentially in our ability to love? Building upon our own universes until they encompass everything.
He thinks he’s lucky his universe found Yoongi’s.
They met at a pottery class. Jungkook was using the studio space to work on pieces for his class. His professor held classes for non-students on certain nights so usually the students would avoid going in on those nights, but Jungkook liked it. Liked the sound of the studio filled with laughter as people try to make a bowl on the wheel and accidentally spin it too fast. Liked hearing the whispered compliments shared between friends. The gentle reassurances his professor gave as people were sure they weren’t doing it right.
It made the studio brighter. Reminded him why he fell in love with art.
Jungkook doesn’t remember what he thought when he saw Min Yoongi for the first time. He thinks people are supposed to remember. Couples on TV make it seem so important. The first time I saw him it was like the world stopped. I could only think that I would marry that man. I thought of steamed buns when I saw his cheeks the first time he smiled.
He doesn’t remember any of that. He remembers sitting in his area, one earbud in to listen to background music. He remembers his professor explaining the process to the class. It was an intermediate class that met once a week for two months. He remembers staring for a moment too long when Yoongi arrived.
He remembers looking up too often to watch Yoongi work. He remembers how Yoongi would roll up his sleeves instead of just wearing a t-shirt like everyone else. He remembers the way Yoongi’s hands molded the clay. How his problem at first was spinning the wheel too slow and pressing his clay too soft. He remembers the soft oh the first time Yoongi really pushed against the clay and saw that it didn’t break.
He remembers the blush on Yoongi’s cheeks when their eyes met afterwards. Jungkook thinks he smiled at Yoongi, but he doesn’t remember that part. He hopes he smiled. He smiles now.
It took two more classes for them to talk to each other. Jungkook was packing up with the class and Yoongi asked if he knew anywhere good to eat. They ate lamb skewers together as they talked. Jungkook found out Yoongi worked for an architecture firm and liked to take different art classes in his downtime. He usually didn’t have time to change after work, but he didn’t mind. He just liked making things.
Jungkook remembers how he didn’t want to wait a whole week to talk with him again.
That was two years ago. Jungkook had graduated and Yoongi had gotten a small promotion since then. They moved in together almost seven months ago. They split chores and when Yoongi cooked Jungkook liked to hug him from behind and rest his chin on Yoongi’s shoulder. Yoongi would say it’s so hard to move around to cook with all this extra weight, but he would never try to shake him off. Yoongi was like that.
Sometimes he liked to complain just for the noise of it all. Sometimes it was to call attention to something so that when he didn’t move away Jungkook would know the specific thing he liked. Sharing blankets, holding hands even when it was hot outside, Jungkook taking a bite of his ice cream when Jungkook had just said he didn’t want anything.
Their weekends together were special. They felt special. Saturdays were coffee in bed discussing what they wanted to do that day. Usually it was going out somewhere. A walk, a bookstore, the closest wet market. They’d cook together, some recipe that takes too long but makes the apartment smell good for days.
Sundays are for sleeping in until the blankets are too warm. They’re for creating. Sometimes they paint together on the floor with an old sheet laid out. Sometimes Jungkook paints and Yoongi reads. Sometimes Jungkook paints Yoongi reading. Sometimes Jungkook will catch Yoongi watching him, soft and warm, and Jungkook thinks Sundays are for love.
Weekends like that are what make Mondays so bad and Fridays so good and Thursdays… Thursdays.
Jungkook is listening to the soft jingle as the train leaves another station and all he wants is for it to be Sunday. He wishes he could live in Sunday. But instead he’s trapped in Thursday.
He’s not sure how long he’s felt like Thursday. He’s not sure how to reset the calendar so he can finally change days. The train announces his station is next. He focuses on his reflection in the glass. He thinks his hair is too long. He looks tired. He sighs and moves out the open train doors, following the mass of people going in the same direction.
It’s not a long walk from the station to their building. Spring is finally starting to peek through the snow banks of winter, but the chill at night hasn’t gone away yet. Jungkook pulls his jacket close as he walks through the busy streets and tries to imagine his breath bleeding through his face mask, fogging up the world around him. His breath making pieces slowly disappear around him. Reality slowly falling away as soon as he walks through the smoke.
He hopes pieces of himself would also fall off. The pieces of Thursday.
Opening the door to his apartment with Yoongi feels like putting on his favorite hoodie right after it comes out of the dryer. It’s warm and fresh and comforting. It’s home.
He can hear Yoongi cooking while he slides his shoes off and hangs up his jacket. There’s a soft humming between the sounds of the searing and Jungkook knows Yoongi heard the door open but he remembered when Jungkook admitted he thought it was cute that Yoongi sings while he cooks. It makes Jungkook smile, small and soft and just for him.
He walks up behind Yoongi and buries his head between his shoulder blades and breathes him in. Jungkook knows that people smell like stuff. Cinnamon or pine trees or apples. He knows Yoongi’s favorite cologne and he knows he drinks too much coffee so he should maybe smell somewhat like that. But if anyone ever asked him, if he ever thought about it, Yoongi just smelled like Yoongi.
“Long day, Kook-ah?” He pauses his stirring to wrap Jungkook’s arm’s around his waist.
“Hyung,” he sighs in response and Jungkook can feel the way Yoongi’s muscle’s change. He thought he’d said it soft enough, kind enough, blank enough. But Yoongi knew. Yoongi always knew.
There’s a soft click of the burner being turned off, pots and pans being shuffled as Yoongi says, “You have good timing. Our food just finished.”
Jungkook just hums as an answer. He’s not hungry. Well he is. If he thinks about it. But then he thinks about the energy needed for the act of eating. Maybe he’s not hungry.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yoongi asks, his hands are running soft circles on the backs of Jungkook’s hands and it’s nice. He shakes his head against Yoongi’s back and feels the way his body shakes as he tries to hold in a small chuckle. “Do you want to take a shower?” He takes a second to consider it. He knows the warm water will help him feel better. Knows that standing in it until his skin gets pink will help. But he shakes his head no. He doesn’t want to leave. Doesn’t want to move from his spot with Yoongi holding him close.
“Can you give me something to work with, Bun?” He leans his head back so it’s on top of Jungkook’s and he can’t stop the slip of a smile when he hears it.
He doesn’t remember when it started, doesn’t remember a time Yoongi didn’t call him Bun. He remembers watching a romance movie together and Yoongi teasing him afterwards and calling him Honey. He remembers cringing away in embarrassment that it was too much, too sincere. He remembers Yoongi coming up with rhyming words to call him instead. He remembers Yoongi’s big smile as he said bunny. He remembers how soft Yoongi kissed him afterwards.
He’s not sure how to put his feelings into words. He’s not sure how to explain Thursdays as a concept. He’s not sure why this specific Thursday has hit him harder than any before. He’s not sure where to start.
“My hair is too long,” he mumbles into Yoongi’s shirt.
“It has grown out a lot. It looks good.” Yoongi squeezes his forearms. “Do you want to cut it?”
Jungkooks feels the no on the tip of his tongue but his head moves first. “Will you cut it, hyung?” slips out instead. And he feels lighter.
“Hyung to cut it?” Jungkook can imagine the way Yoongi’s eyes are big and bright. “I’ve only cut my hair once and it was... Are you sure?”
Jungkook finally lifts his head. He turns Yoongi around and sees the soft smile of hello beneath the uncertainty of Jungkook’s request.
“Please?” He sees the way the words settle into Yoongi. The way it slides beneath his bones until they find his heart. Yoongi carefully moves the strands of hair out of Jungkook’s face, “Okay, Bun.”
They don’t have a lot of scissor options. They have cooking scissors to cut meat, they have a pair of safety scissors that neither of them know how they got them but Jungkook is sure he accidentally stole them from the University’s studio at some point, and then Yoongi’s nice scissors that he uses for work. They’re meant just for paper, they’re long and thin and sharp. Jungkook thinks they remind him of Yoongi, in a way. Pretty and delicate and strong.
“I don’t want to ruin your good scissors, Hyung,” Jungkook almost pouts. He’s sitting on a chair in the bathroom with a towel around his neck and his hair in his face.
Yoongi runs a hand through Jungkook’s hair, “I don’t think you could ruin anything.” He stands behind Jungkook to look at him in the mirror. “How much do you want me to cut off?”
He shrugs and peeks through his bangs to meet Yoongi’s eyes. “I trust you.” He sees the soft blush bloom on Yoongi’s cheeks and it makes Jungkook think of Spring.
Yoongi’s finger’s move through Jungkook’s hair, scraping against his scalp carefully to section pieces off. Jungkook wants to get lost in the feeling. Wants to close his eyes and try to imagine the way Yoongi’s fingers look, camouflaged between strands of Jungkook’s hair. Wants to imagine how carefully they slide through and detangle windswept pieces.
Jungkook loves Yoongi’s hands. Loves how his fingers are long, his nails are bitten, his knuckles a little knobly. Loves knowing that they spend the day planning and building and creating. His hands can hold Jungkook together when he’s falling apart.
Yoongi’s hands were made to protect.
He hears the soft scraping of the scissors behind him and he can breathe again. He’s not sure what causes it, knowing he’s choosing to change something or knowing it’s Yoongi he’s trusting for this moment.
Maybe it’s both.
His eyes are closed as he listens carefully to Yoongi’s breathing intermixed with the sounds of the scissors. “I feel stuck, hyung,” he whispers. He feels the moment of pause, of acknowledgment, before the movement in his hair begins again.
The way Yoongi listens is one of Jungkook’s favorite things in the world. It’s like you can feel a shift in the room and you know his attention is entirely on you and what you’re saying. It’s intoxicating to know he thinks what you have to say is important. Sometimes it makes Jungkook want to never say anything. Sometimes it makes him want to never stop.
“I feel like everything is a Thursday. Just taking up space and doing nothing. And no matter how many days pass it’s still Thursday. Like I’m trapped in some terrible curse, stuck in nothingness for eternity. I look out and it’s just… Thursday.”
He breathes in for a moment, the smell of their bathroom with some soft candle Jungkook convinced Yoongi to buy because it was floral and pretty, burning on the counter. The towel around him smells a little like their detergent mixed with the scent that everything inevitably gets from sitting in the closet for too long. It’s grounding and comforting in a way that only those things could be. Items haloed with importance just from the memories tied to them. Smells so familiar they must be home.
“I just feel like I finished school and worked so hard to accomplish something and I’m… here. I have a job I don’t care about and I feel like the human embodiment of Thursday. Just taking up space, waiting for something to matter. Waiting until I can finally do something.”
He looks down at his hands in his lap, a few cut strands of hair litter his lap. “I wish every day could be Sunday.”
He feels Yoongi rustle his hair for a moment before the cutting starts up again. It’s quiet for a long moment before Yoongi finally says, “It’s a big jump from Thursday to Sunday.”
Jungkook looks up at him in the mirror and his face is calm and focused on Jungkook’s hair. He sees the strands between his fingers and the scissors carefully snipping pieces off. “You skip two big days trying to get to Sunday.” He moves to another section and Jungkook is captivated by how the scissors shift in Yoongi’s hands.
“I get it, though. Thursdays are Thursdays. But if you skip straight to Sunday, what happens to Fridays? There’s few joys in the world like starting on your second cup of coffee and realizing it’s Friday. And skipping Saturdays too? Well that’s usually our outdoorsy day. Picnics and hikes and shopping for things we don’t really need but make us kind of happy anyway. There’s a spontaneity to Saturdays that can’t be beat.”
He pauses and leans against Jungkook, looks at him in the mirror. “I think days are only as special as you make them. You can have good Mondays and shitty Sundays. And I think everyone gets stuck on Thursday, every once in a while. Because that’s how life is sometimes. It can’t always be Sunday because then you lose sight of why they’re so good. And I know you feel like it’s been Thursday for far too long, but this Thursday you got Hyung to cut your hair, so I’d say it’s pretty special.”
Jungkook’s throat is tight and he wants to look away because he thinks he might cry, thinks he really could, probably should, but he doesn’t want to look away from Yoongi. Yoongi with his kind eyes and his warm words and his hands built to hold him just right.
“Now close your eyes and let Hyung finish,” he leans down and kisses Jungkook’s cheek softly before moving in front of him to work on his bangs. So Jungkook closes his eyes and let’s his hyung take care of him. Lets the words sink down into his chest, letting them take root so that next Thursday he remembers. So that he never forgets.
Jungkook doesn’t know how long he imagines Yoongi’s words spreading throughout his body. He doesn’t know how long he waits for Yoongi to finally move away with one last ruffle to say, “All done.” But when he opens his eyes his bangs are short. Not too short like when he was in middle school and everyone got their hair cut like that. Not right at his eyebrows like when he was in high school and it took him an hour to perfectly style each strand to stay. This was different. Better.
It was parted just off from the side and Jungkook didn’t notice his hair had a swoop there. It curved with his face in the front leaving it open and fresh, while the rest was choppy but even. Like it would always look perfectly rustled and windswept. “How did I do?” Yoongi asks. He hasn’t let go of the scissors yet, like he’s ready to fix whatever Jungkook hates. Like he’s expecting Jungkook to hate it.
He smiles, “You did good, Hyung. Really good.” The lights in the bathroom are almost yellow and the sky outside is definitely dark but it doesn’t stop Jungkook from seeing the flush on Yoongi’s cheeks as he finally puts the scissors down. He pulls off the towel carefully and wraps it up, trying to keep the mess as contained as possible.
Yoongi leans over and turns on the shower, “Come on, let’s wash up.” He helps Jungkook stand and they undress, carefully watching where they step. “We can clean it tomorrow,” Yoongi shrugs and Jungkook laughs softly as he steps into the shower.
The water is warm, on the edge of too hot, just the way they both like it. He turns into the spray and closes his eyes, letting the water hit him softly, loosening up his muscles slowly. He feels Yoongi lean against him, place his head between Jungkook’s shoulders and kiss him softly. It’s a comfort. A reminder. It’s I’m here, I promise.
Jungkook turns around to face Yoongi and puts their foreheads together. “Thank you,” he whispers. He’s not sure if Yoongi can hear over the water, but he thinks it’s okay. He thinks Yoongi knows.
Yoongi moves away and grabs the shampoo. He puts some in his hands and rubs them together before reaching up to scrub it into Jungkook’s hair. Jungkook puts his hands on Yoongi’s waist, making sure he doesn’t slip as he stretches to reach. Yoongi’s hands softly massage his scalp, carefully spreading the shampoo around. The shower continues like that. Careful movements, washing each other delicately. Stolen kisses under the spray of water as the suds wash down the drain. And even as the water starts to get colder, Jungkook thinks it’s perfect.
They change into pajama pants and Yoongi reheats the food while Jungkook decides to clean up the bathroom. He imagined getting ready for work the next morning with the mess on the floor and decided he might as well clean it up now. It doesn’t take long, shaking the towel out, sweeping it all up. It’s easy. And in the background he can hear Yoongi shuffling in the kitchen, calling out different shows they could watch.
They decide on the newest producing show. They like to watch them together. Jungkook doesn’t remember when they started watching them. He doesn’t remember how they came up with their rules for it, but he can’t imagine watching any other way. He remembers how they both watch the first episode together and try to learn as much as they can about each group. He remembers how they each chose one group in the first episode to root for all the way through. He thinks it started because Yoongi swore his teams would always win. He remembers the first time Jungkook’s team won.
He smiles as Yoongi leans into him and mumbles about his team picking a tough song. Jungkook wraps the blanket tighter around them and mumbles back that his team seemed to pick a good song to really highlight their dancing this week. He laughs when Yoongi elbows him in response.
They stay curled up together on the couch until Jungkook notices how often Yoongi is yawning and how his blinking seems to be getting slower. They turn off the TV and get ready for bed. Jungkook looks at his hair in the bathroom again while he’s brushing his teeth. It’s dry now, product free and a little poofy, but it’s perfect. He runs his free hand through it and smiles around the toothbrush. He leans over to give a full toothpaste kiss to Yoongi’s cheek and almost chokes on the toothpaste in his mouth when Yoongi groans and whines as he wipes it away and calls him gross.
Their bed is cool, the sheets soft and cozy around them. Jungkook loves that their bed smells like them. He loves that they share shampoo and body wash. Loves that it mixes in with their detergent to create a smell so distinctly them that it can only warm him from the inside out.
He pulls Yoongi close to him, wraps an arm around him. Yoongi takes his hand and intertwines their fingers together. Jungkook kisses his shoulder softly as Yoongi continues to rub his thumb against Jungkook’s. “Thank you, Hyung,” he whispers with another soft kiss.
Yoongi pulls Jungkook’s hand up and softly kisses it, breathing out an ever so soft, “Happy Friday, Kook-ah.”
Yoongi’s breathing gets deeper and slower and Jungkook thinks he could listen to it forever. Thinks there should be symphonies inspired by the soft, sleep breath of Min Yoongi. He thinks maybe on Sunday he’ll paint Yoongi napping in the soft sun in their living room. But for now, he’s in bed with the man he loves who loves him back.
And it’s Friday.