Archive of Our Own

During his third year of community college, Jungkook’s weekdays look like this: two morning classes, then the closing shift at Hot Topic, then band practice with Golden Closet. Except he usually skips the class part. And sometimes band practice lasts until 3 in the morning. And he picks up extra shifts at work, too.

Homework fits nowhere within that schedule.

He knows he needs to drop out, but he wishes there was another word for it. Brushing his teeth before his shift at the mall on a Tuesday afternoon, he wonders what that might be, how he could say the words I’m not going back to school without having to admit defeat. His parents attribute his brother’s success as an illustrator to him finishing art school, though, and Jungkook feels the pressure from them every time they call. It’s always “How is school?” and never “Do you like it?”

He spits out toothpaste and licks his lips, then stares at himself in the mirror, eyes round and unblinking as he leans closer. Looking like a real, actual Hot Topic employee means a lot to him, if only because it feels like he’s fulfilling some kind of dream he had in high school. His 14 year old self would think he was so cool, but his 20 year old self wonders if he actually is.

The tips of his chin-length hair go abruptly from black to a faded green that needs to be touched up. Someone he saw on MySpace had a mohawk the same color, but he doesn’t know if he’s ready for that yet.

He wraps a studded choker around his neck and swallows to make sure it isn’t too tight. The leftover eyeliner from the night before looks better than it does if he were to touch it up, and anyway he’s going to be late if he keeps dawdling. If he’s late, his lunch break will be cut short, and if his lunch break is cut short, he’ll miss Hoseok.

By the door, he ties up his favorite platform boots and then kicks his backpack out of the way, staring guiltily at the papers spilling out of the top, assignments he’s ignored for days and questions he should have turned in already. He’ll get to it tomorrow, or the next day, or when he has time over the weekend. He pokes his head into the living room and laughs to himself when he sees his roommate, Taehyung, asleep on the sofa with one couch pillow between his knees and the other in his arms.

“Tae,” he says, jingles his keys at him. “You told me to wake you up when I’m leaving.”

“What.” Taehyung blinks one eye open and then the other. His face is so puffy it looks like he’s been hanging upside down for an hour instead of sleeping horizontally.

“Wake up and go to class. See you later tonight, okay?”

“I’m sleeping at Jimin’s tonight,” he mumbles, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye like a baby.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Taehyung blinks up at him, then nods. “Tomorrow. You’re going to work?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving now.” He reaches down and brushes his hair back from his forehead for him, and Taehyung finally opens his other eye.

“Tell Hoseok I said hi,” he mumbles, then rolls onto his side again. “Give him a kiss for me.”

“Okay, stop talking in your sleep,” Jungkook says, giving his hair a tug and then walking toward the door. “I’m leaving.”

“Do it!” Taehyung yells from the sofa, somehow awake enough to give Jungkook a hard time despite all appearances that he is a newborn baby. “Or I’m telling him!”

Jungkook laughs, but doesn’t respond. He’s gotten good at ignoring comments like that over the years—from Taehyung, from Jimin, and mostly from himself.

One of Jungkook’s first memories of Hoseok is from when they were ten and fourteen years old. Hoseok moved in next door when Jungkook was nine, a middle schooler to his fifth grader, and Jungkook thought he was the coolest person he’d ever met, a belief he still holds now that they’re twenty and twenty four.

What he remembers is this: that first summer, there was a 4th of July party in their shared backyard and one of the neighborhood kids, Jack, was using the Jeon’s garden hose to spray people as they came closer. All Jungkook wanted was a turn to hold it so that he could see what a rainbow looked like when he sprayed it up toward the sun, but every time he reached for it, he was pushed away, persistently ignored by the older kids who were too invested in their own game to care about Jungkook’s ideas. He remembers even now the heat of the sun that day pelting his shoulders in his striped tank top, the dried cherry red liquid on his fingers from the popsicle he’d eaten, the grass damp between his bare toes.

It was unthinkably uncool to call out for his mom, to tattle on the other kids for not sharing, but he felt so ignored, and then felt himself getting frustrated—it was his backyard, it was his hose, and he wanted to show the other kids the trick he could do, wanted the satisfaction of a reaction from them. He felt stupid for trying so hard. Defeated and overheated, he almost turned to go get his Gameboy from inside when Hoseok walked over to them.

“Let me see that,” Hoseok said to Jack. He held a can of Sprite in one hand and wiggled the fingers of his other with such command that Jack listened and obeyed without hesitating. Jungkook watched, impressed, and waited for Hoseok to continue the game, but instead he turned and held the hose out for Jungkook to take.

“Oh,” Jungkook said, struck by the small and unexpected act of compassion. Hoseok sipped from the can of Sprite he held as he walked away, resuming his position at the glass table where he carried on his conversation with all of the moms on the deck. Moms loved him. Somehow it made him seem cool instead of like a baby.

Jungkook stared and wished he could have called him back so that he could say thanks or so that Hoseok could see how the rainbow looked when he moved to the middle of the grassy yard and sprayed the hose toward the sky. It worked—it was so fun, it looked so pretty, and all the rest of the kids wanted a turn, too. When he looked over at the deck he saw him carefully selecting baby carrots and talking to the group of adults there. He said something that made them all laugh and Jungkook felt an immense rush of gratitude and admiration toward him. It was the first of many times he’d feel that exact way—like he owed him something, even if it was only a sincere thanks, but he could never open his mouth to say it the exact way he deserved.

It was Hoseok who got him the job at Hot Topic last summer. Though the employees there are viewed as intimidating mini-celebrities, Hoseok’s ability to talk to anyone made him cool with the staff despite being decidedly not punk or even emo or anything remotely resembling alternative. He’s the assistant manager of a Claire’s immediately next to the Hot Topic, and he wears glitter nailpolish and still uses pens with feathers at the ends of them to sign his checks. Everyone, Jungkook is certain, is a little in love with him, or thought he was in love with them.

At 4:15 exactly, Jungkook comes out from the break room as Hoseok walks in through the fake metal gates of Hot Topic. He’s easy to spot; he looks like a nightlight glowing pink and gold in the center of the dimly lit store, greeting associates and customers alike with a telltale sing-song hellooo while he touches alien plushies and straightens piles of folded graphic t-shirts. His voice is clear even over the sound of the Dead Kennedys CD the store is playing, the one that everyone pretends to like for cred but nobody actually enjoys.

“Oh, Jungkook!” He smiles when he sees him and looks excited like he has something important to say, eyes wide and arms outstretched to start plucking at the shoulders of his black hoodie as if there are bits of lint there. Hoseok always does this—assesses him as if he hasn’t seen him the day before, asks several questions in a row. Jungkook loves the direct intensity of his attention, even when he pretends to find it smothering.

“I like this choker, is it new?” He touches it delicately with his middle finger, then starts to lead them toward the exit. “Did you find a good parking spot today? I think I need a ride back to my apartment later because Jimin’s using the car to meet up with Taehyung. He probably told you that. Did you go to class this morning? Are you hungry?”

Before Jungkook can answer, his coworker reminds him: “Forty minutes. Yoongi’s closing tonight and he’ll know if you’re late.”

Jungkook nods. He doesn’t mention it, but he knows that the store manager, Yoongi, favors him enough that he wouldn’t actually reprimand him. “I’ll be back in 35.”

“I can drive you home, yeah. God, I’m starving today,” Jungkook says once they’re in the brightly lit center of the mall. He says that everyday—he’s always starving. He’s bouncy, fidgeting with his hoodie strings, unable to ever fully stop. “I think I need Panda Express. Like, a lot of it.”

Hoseok looks over at him while uncaps a pink tube of Lip Smackers and applies it in a circle as he’s speaking. “Do you still not have breakfast at your house, Jungkook? You’ll pass out at work one of these days and somehow your brother will find a way to blame me for it.”

He extends the lip balm wordlessly as they walk. It’s stupid, the way Jungkook hesitates, but he has a reputation to uphold. Hot Topic employees are supposed to be intimidating. He’s wearing all black everything and children scurry when they see him and a strawberry lip balm is nothing adjacent to punk, but he likes the way it smells and the way it makes Hoseok’s lips look and likes the way Hoseok offers, ignoring his aesthetic and overall hygiene concerns to break down a barrier just for him.

Jungkook glances around before he takes it and gives his lips a swipe. If he’s worried about aesthetic, walking next to Hoseok makes that impossible: he’s wearing white jeans and a baby pink t-shirt more tightly fitting than anything Jungkook has ever owned. Every ring on his fingers is neon or rainbow and one of them actually lights up every time he gestures or reaches up to fix his hair.

Hoseok looks like he glows in the dark, a quality that has nothing to do with clothing. It’s inside of him. When people stare at them sharing a little table in the food court, Jungkook has no doubt it’s Hoseok they see first.

But maybe he’s a little biased. His affection toward Hoseok is relatively uncomplicated: he worships him entirely, even if he doesn’t know what to do with or how to act on that feeling. He knows that it feels like the closest thing he can get to a kiss when they exchange LipSmackers, though, and he’ll take the smallest morsels he can get if it means getting any closer to the real thing.

And what does it mean if he wants to talk to him when he wakes up in the morning? And what if he wrecks his sleep schedule to stay up late talking to him until he sees his AIM handle (x0xHopeSock13x0x) go idle?

It’s simple enough: when something funny happens at work, he walks over to Claire’s to tell him about it. And when he can’t sleep at night he thinks of conversations they’ll have over a shared Auntie Anne’s lemonade the next day. That’s friendship stuff, he thinks. They’re close friends. The closest friends. That’s why he doesn’t want to leave when he goes to visit Hoseok’s apartment that always smells like fresh laundry and a Yankee Candle called Home Sweet Home.

He is a comfort to him. Jungkook feels too immature to understand the scope of so many things going on in his life, but he’s incredibly aware of how lucky he is to have met Hoseok, how rare it is to find someone whose patience is outmatched only by their compassion. He gets him. Jungkook just doesn’t think he has enough to offer him in return, and that’s what keeps him humble.

Because Hoseok looks out for Jungkook, but could Jungkook look out for Hoseok? Would whatever he could offer be enough to help him if he needed it?

Over styrofoam platters of fried rice and orange chicken, they exchange stories about good and bad customers and new music they like and what they might be for Halloween next month. While Jungkook is speaking, Hoseok carefully wraps the corner of a napkin around his fingertip and, nodding to show he’s still listening, dabs Jungkook’s cheek where a bit of sauce has migrated.

“I’m going home this weekend,” Hoseok says, leaning back to pick up his cup of Sprite. “My parents are going away to visit my sister so the house will be empty.”

Jungkook stares, uncertain if that’s an invitation or not. He nods, bobbing his head. “Cool.”

“Do you have to work on Saturday? You should come.”

It’s in his instinct to turn down an offer like that, worried of being an imposition even if a momentary escape from their college town seems appealing. Jungkook wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know if I should. I’ll probably have homework to do. I don’t wanna bug you with that.”

“So bring it with you,” Hoseok says. It sounds like he’s insisting, and Jungkook already feels himself bending to his will. “We’ll go swimming. Won’t it be nice to be away from your dorm for a night?”

He’s right: it would be nice. It will be nice. “You sure?”

Hoseok bumps their knees together underneath the table, pleased because he knows Jungkook’s question was rhetorical. He rubs his hands together, shrugs his shoulders up close to his ears. “I’m excited.”

It’s so endearing that Jungkook smiles, too. That’s the Hoseok effect.

They open up the little case of Busch Lite the minute they get out of the car and sit on the lawn with a bag of stale Tostitos open between them. It’s a little after seven and in July the sun would have stayed out enough for them to be sweating a little while longer, but already it’s getting lower in the sky, casting long grey shadows across vivid green grass and bringing with it a breeze that’s just on the chilly side of refreshing.

Jungkook looks across the yard at the house where his parents used to live, now occupied with a new set of patio furniture in the back and a different color of paint on the shutters. His parents live a few blocks over now, but Hoseok’s house still feels like home to him. Hoseok in general feels like home to him.

They finish the bag of chips and talk about how it felt to grow up on this block, where people moved to, where they go to school now. Their beer is barely cold and tastes terrible but after one can Hoseok’s face is a little pink, his eyes a little heavy. Jungkook presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek to bite back the urge to tease him about it and instead just watches as Hoseok gets up first, walks toward the pool, and disrobes at the edge of it.

Jungkook stares, though he’s seen this a hundred times, nothing new or different, just the same thrill of seeing Hoseok’s Gap underwear poke out from his yellow swim shorts. The crush he’s harbored forever has become something more all-consuming lately, something so substantial that the word crush doesn’t seem good broad enough to cover it.

They’ve never talked about it, but it’s never come up in conversation. Jungkook assumes that if Hoseok knows as much about him as he does that he must know, too, that Jungkook feels a lot more than he lets on. He’s just kind enough not to mention it.

Hoseok folds his shirt neatly and places it onto a plastic deck chair, then slides into the water with his body rigid and scrunched up and makes cartoonish sound effects to go along with it: ah! Ack! Yowza! And also a plea squealed: Jungkookie!

Jungkook takes off his baggy Smashing Pumpkins tee and all three of his ball chain necklaces and his triple wrapped leather stud bracelet, too, and then follows after him. It’s a little less humid then and mosquitoes are less aggressive, but the water is still sun-warmed and cool enough to be refreshing when they slip into it right before the sun sets on Saturday night.

“Oh, wow, that’s perfect,” Hoseok says, physically incapable of not narrating his every thought when he’s excited. To Jungkook, this chorus of his string of thoughts is as relaxing as the crickets chirping in the trees at the edge of the lawn. “The water’s the perfect temperature, right? It’s the best.”

Jungkook sighs, lets himself sink in up to his neck. “Why don’t we just move back here?”

“Well, when you become a millionaire after headlining War Tour—”

“Warped Tour.”

“Yeah! You can buy a nice house with a pool, how about that? And I’ll keep it clean free of charge if you let me live with you.” Hoseok sticks one foot out of the water in front of him and Jungkook grabs it with both hands, yanking him closer.

“Oh yeah? You’d do that? For me?”

Hoseok nods, starting to laugh, his mouth open wide. He wraps his free leg around Jungkook’s, digging his heel into the back of his thigh. “Uh huh. And I’ll heat up your ramen for you, too. That’s just the kind of friend I am. Ah, that tickles—”

They dive under water at the same time, Hoseok scrambling from Jungkook’s prodding fingers and shooting himself across the pool in a splashing frenzy. When he comes up from the water they’re both in the shallow end, so when they stand up Jungkook sees the entirety of Hoseok’s torso as he presses himself back against the wall, shoulders scrunched up in fear like he’s going to be attacked instead of tickled.

But Jungkook is distracted by something shiny. He flicks hair away from his eyes, rakes it back as he peers closer. There’s something on Hoseok’s stomach. “What is that?”

“What?” Hoseok follows his gaze, then gasps. “Oh! Did I not tell you about this?”

Without realizing it, Jungkook has moved closer, his mouth hanging open. “No. Wow,” he says softly, “You didn’t.”

It’s a ring. Well, it’s a little barbell, and as he gets closer he can see that it sparkles on the top and at the bottom, where it is shaped like a shiny pink heart.

“You pierced it? Your belly button?”

“Yeah!” Hoseok is excited, tugging up the skin above his navel taut so he can see it better as he looks down. A breeze blows by and Jungkook feels goosebumps across his arms at the same moment he sees them scatter across Hoseok’s belly. “It’s cute, right?”

Jungkook swallows. He dunks himself down into the water again, using the sudden chill in the air as an excuse to conceal anything that may or may not be happening in the black board shorts he’s wearing.

“Yeah. Wow,” he says dumbly. Cute is a word for it. There are others, but Jungkook’s brain is a black hole at the moment. “Did it hurt so bad?”

“Not that bad! I was so scared, Jungkook, I think I broke Jimin’s finger squeezing his hand so hard, but by the time they were finished it was like—oh! All done.” His long fingers gently touch the bottom rhinestone, making it glint. “Jimin took a picture on his digital camera, I’ll put it on MySpace so you can see. Look, it goes in the top from there—”

Jungkook wades closer and keeps himself under the water so that he’s almost eye level with Hoseok’s navel. It feels natural to clasp him by the waist to hold him still and he does while he looks at the piercing, fascinated by how clean it is, how well it suits Hoseok, by how badly he wants to press his lips right underneath it, right where it wouldn’t hurt him.

“How do you smell so good even after you go swimming?” Jungkook asks, bumping his forehead to the middle part of his stomach. He sniffs deeply, unafraid to seem weird in front of Hoseok. This is nothing new, after all. He squeezes just to make Hoseok wriggle, to make him laugh.

He lets go and looks up at him then. His frame is silhouetted by the sun setting behind him. Jungkook can’t read his expression from there, but he squints and smiles anyway. “You still have to do my third piercing in my ear, too.”

“Ah, I know,” Hoseok says, dipping his whole body down the water again. They both start to float to the center of the pool where they can stand comfortably while only exposing their skin from the shoulders up. “Well, last time we wanted to do it I had that birthday party come in, remember? Five 17 year olds all in a row.”

He reaches up to tug on Jungkook’s ear, tucks his hair behind it. “You’ll go first next time. Come in early if you can. I’ll do it myself, I’m very gentle.”

Jungkook nods. Hoseok’s eyes look glittery which could be from the roll-on glitter he wears sometimes or from the way the water makes his lashes look heavy. Either way: “You look good with your hair pushed back like this,” Jungkook tells him.

Hoseok brushes his hand away, looks amused but not amused enough to indulge him. “That’s enough. Can you do a front flip?”

So they do front flips into the pool, because Jungkook loves nothing if not a chance to perform, no matter how much he pretends otherwise. They each do a few with varying degrees of success, some landing terribly and others so smooth they swear they could go pro.

How good it feels to do something stupid with bad results just for the love of it, for the peals of laughter they experience each time they go splashing back into the water and for the way Hoseok’s laugh becomes almost a squeal at times, loud and lovely. It’s not indulgent for the sake of appeasing him, like Jungkook feels so often. In his life, he feels like people are only waiting for him to finish speaking so that they can get a word in, but Hoseok makes space for him, wants to volley their laughs and jokes back and forth until they both feel balanced.

Hoseok likes him, genuinely. Jungkook has never doubted that. But how could it be possible for Hoseok to feel even a fraction of what Jungkook feels for him? Who could feel that way about anyone besides Hoseok?

They’ve laughed so hard and so long that Jungkook’s cheeks ache when he finally cuts his hands through the air in front of him.

“No more,” he pleads, holds his hands up so that they can give each other a high five. They link their fingers together overhead and then lower, under the water, clinging with pointer fingers and pinkies looped and bobbing underneath the surface. “This was fun. I wish we still lived here.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight,” Hoseok says, kindly enough that it doesn’t sound shaming. He gives his head a practiced twitch so that a strand of hair flicks back from his eyebrow. There are drops still clinging to his eyelashes and Jungkook stares, waiting for them to drip.

He’s right, though. He’s mentioned it twice but he’s been thinking it all this time, feeling tangible nostalgia for past summers and a longing for some familiarity, even if it’s only this: Hoseok’s yard, cicadas humming, no class in the morning, no work until Monday.

“I think I just needed this,” Jungkook says. “I haven’t felt like I have some kind of routine lately except for band practice. And I don’t think I have it in me to be good at two things at once. Like, I know that our rehearsals sound really tight because I work really hard at it. And I won’t stop until it’s perfect.” He pauses, shakes his head. This frustrates him so much that he can barely form a sentence about it. “But why can’t I be that way with everything else, too?”

“Like what?”

This is the part he hasn’t said out loud, the part that scares him most. Maybe Hoseok can sense it. He squeezes their fingers together and then lets go, taking some pressure off.

“Like school,” Jungkook says softly. Why does it feel so hard to say? Why does it feel like defeat to even acknowledge it? “I don’t think I...it doesn’t feel like it’s for me.”

Hoseok frowns. “People drop classes all the time. People change their minds about things.”

“I know. No, they do, but…”

“But what would you say to me if I dropped out of college? If I told you that right now?”

Jungkook is locked in, stares at him hard. “I would say that was cool. And I would want to do it, too.”

“So why wouldn’t you say that to yourself, Jungkook?” Hoseok tilts his head sideways, patient and generous about it.

“Because,” he starts. “That’s different—”

“It isn’t. It’s the same thing as you. It’s important to work hard, but it doesn’t have to be at school.”

“It feels like it does, though.”

“One thing at a time,” Hoseok says. He reaches up for Jungkook’s face, pats it lightly with both hands.

Jungkook grabs his wrists, circling around them with his thumbs and forefingers. “How do you do it by yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have someone like you who can help you like this?”

“I talk to Jimin,” Hoseok says. He shrugs and his mouth goes down slightly. “And Namjoon. But don’t worry about me, Jungkook, I’m alright.”

And here comes another confession, however unfair it is to unload too many of those in one night: “I don’t think I worry enough about other people.”

“Hey,” Hoseok pauses, and when he laughs it’s surprised, not unkind. He starts to squeeze Jungkook’s shoulders, jostling him, shaking him in the water. “Where did this all come from? Being so hard on yourself? You just lifted me up in the air three times and did a bunch of front flips into the water. You’re the strongest man alive. You should be feeling proud.”

He grabs Jungkook’s face again, this time more tightly with both hands, and Jungkook is hyper-aware that they are the only two people in the pool, the only two people in the yard, but Hoseok just lays a kiss to Jungkook’s smushed cheek like he has a hundred times before. Nobody has ever been so affectionate with him while expecting nothing in return: not anyone in his family, not any of the people he’s briefly dated, not even Jimin. Hoseok just gives. And Jungkook takes. And takes. And takes.

Maybe he should give a little without letting fear stop him.

He mirrors him, grabs Hoseok’s face with his two hands, too. Hoseok’s eyebrows go up in surprise but he doesn’t pull himself away when Jungkook gives him a kiss on the cheek in the exact same place, right in the spot between his thumb and the squishiest part of his cheek. It’s about five percent of what he wants to do, but it’s still something.

Hoseok hugs him, a thin arm circled around the back of Jungkook’s shoulders. He’s weightless and he smells nice and his skin is soft under the water when he clasps his hands around his waist and holds him against his torso.

“You’ll figure it out, Jungkook,” he says, and he makes it sound so good that Jungkook almost believes him. He lets his word sink in while Hoseok pauses, then: “Are you hungry?”

The answer is always yes. Inside they lean against the kitchen island and eat the entire industrial sized box of pizza rolls that Hoseok’s mom left in the freezer, which are so unbelievably scalding once they’re heated that they each suffer what have to be third degree burns to their tongues by the time they’re finished eating.

It feels good to be in a real home and to be standing alongside Hoseok as the soapy water splashes them from the sink while they take turns washing and drying dishes. There are touches around them that feel like a mom lives there, which is obvious because one does, but something about the Cucumber Melon hand soap sitting there makes Jungkook nostalgic in a way that fills him with gratitude for this escape.

It’s all like that in his house: comforting, familiar. Hoseok’s bedroom still has the same tennis wallpaper border that it did when he was in elementary school. They climb into the twin bed together without any discussion about whether or not one of them should sleep on the sofa instead. The sheets are thin and pale blue and smell like laundry, and Hoseok looks especially flushed against them before he switches off the nightlight.

They face each other like two kids having a slumber party. Jungkook shimmies down into the bed and Hoseok rolls toward him and starts toying with Jungkook’s flat-ironed fringe, sorting it out for him while they talk. “Did I tell you about Jimin?”

Jungkook is so soothed by Hoseok’s fingers that his reaction time is slow. He blinks, then frowns. “What about Jimin?”

“He and Tae want to move to Los Angeles,” he says matter-of-factly, as if Jimin leaving won’t derail Hoseok’s life in the least. They teach classes together, planned on opening their own studio together. “There’s some opportunity with a dance group out there, and Tae is taking the acting thing pretty seriously.”

The thought of anyone a year older than him having real, concrete, achievable goals to work toward makes Jungkook want to cry.

“That’s cool,” he says instead, feeling suddenly agitated. It must be obvious, because Hoseok’s fingers fall back down to the pillow beside Jungkook’s face and he wears the expression he usually wears when he’s about to deliver some advice.

What he says instead is surprising, though: “Have you thought about dating anyone?”

It’s so sudden that Jungkook lets out a sharp laugh. Was he being especially obvious at that moment? Did he stare at Hoseok’s lips for too long? He swallows and then frowns. “Where did that come from?”

“Just don’t compare yourself to Jimin and Tae.” Hoseok’s voice is light, but he knows he means it. “They’re something else, those two. You have time to do all of that stuff.”

“I don’t even want to move to LA,” he says, and then, automatically, because he means it: “LA for posers.”

Hoseok’s laugh rings clearly when he clutches the front of Jungkook’s shirt, giving him a little shove. “Yes, for posers. I just mean—you know, there’s plenty of time for you to figure things out. But if you like someone that makes things more fun.”

Jungkook just stares at him, feeling like someone gave him a smack at the back of his head. “Oh.” He wrinkles his nose and then Hoseok traces his finger down the length of it, seemingly determined to actually kill him. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Then who are all those songs you write about? Can you write one about me?”

In his greatest impression of someone who finds this annoying and not the most endearing thing in the world, Jungkook rolls his eyes. What he will not say is that every line he’s written in the past year has been about Hoseok, either, except for the one he wrote about his parents not understanding him. “Yeah, but it won’t sound like the Pussycat Dolls, so—”

Hoseok looks offended. “I don’t even listen to them that much!”

“They’re on every time I go into your car,” Jungkook protests, batting away Hoseok’s pinching hands.

“No no no, my new favorite is that song that’s like I’m bossy, I’m the bitch you love to hate,” Hoseok sings, doing a little head bob for effect, his hands raised up around his face. “Jimin wants to choreograph something to it. You should come watch when we do it.”

That’s an easy agreement. Jungkook nods. “Before he leaves.”

“Before he leaves.” Hoseok sighs and draps one of his feet over top of Jungkook’s calf. There isn’t much room in the bed, but they would do this even if there was. He feels sleepy and drifting, Hoseok’s voice and his own getting softer, until: “He wants me to move out there with him.”

That wakes him up. “What?”

“I’m not going to,” Hoseok says, matter of fact like he is when he’s already made up his mind. “But I’ll miss him. And I’m sure you’ll miss Tae.”

He will miss him, and he’ll miss Jimin, too, but the panic squeezing his gut has subsided slightly knowing that he won’t be left alone. He grabs Hoseok’s chin and gives it a little shake. “As long as you’re not going anywhere. You’re not allowed to leave.”

Hoseok seems pleased by this; a giggle escapes and he wriggles closer. Their eyes are both heavy, too tired to keep talking for long, and Hoseok’s voice sounds slurry when he asks: “Am I not?”

“You have to clean my pool, remember?”

Another giggle, and Jungkook closes his eyes, soothed by this quiet conversation, by the open window throwing a breeze gently their way, by the sounds of sheets rustling softly when they shift around. “Oh, yeah. Did I tell you about the new neighbors, by the way?”

And then he starts to, but Jungkook only catches a few words of it. He’s too soothed to stay awake any longer now that he has no need to fall asleep with his volume up loud in case he misses the AIM alert from the one person he’s afraid of missing—he’s sleeping beside him, instead.

Jungkook almost cries brushing his teeth the next morning.

He just doesn’t want to go. When he was little and having fun somewhere he would never even put up a fight about leaving—he’d just start to cry when he realized it couldn’t last forever. That’s how this feels: leaving somewhere so comforting and heading back to the reality of his life with work and school and music makes him drag his feet. He looks at the Kitchen Spice hand soap and the dusty fake flowers on a shelf beside the sink.

When they get into the car, Hoseok doesn’t notice his puffy eyes, or if he does he pretends not to. He gives his thigh a few gentle taps when they slide into the front seat and lets Jungkook pick the music, too, so he pulls out the Transatlanticism CD by Death Cab for Cutie and stares over at him while Passenger Seat plays. He wonders if he knows.

The first few days back at work after a good weekend are a form of harmless but exhausting torture.

It’s too hard to stay focused when Jungkook feels haunted by the amount of school work he hasn’t done and by the persistent flashback of Hoseok’s belly button ring glinting in the setting sunlight. It affects his work when his mind is clearly elsewhere, especially during some of the busiest retaill days of the year, but Yoongi doesn’t let him off the hook for it once—not even when Jungkook brings him back an Orange Julius after his lunch break.

He keeps missing Hoseok, too. The mall is packed full from open to close with students and their parents buying clothes for the first day and having arguments at the cashwrap and occasionally crying in the fitting rooms. It’s not the time for Jungkook to be having a crisis about his college career, and it’s not the time for him to be bothering Hoseok about meeting up for an afternoon coffee when he’s drowning in tweens shopping for accessories, either.

“I’m tired,” is the first thing Hoseok says when he gets into his Ford Focus after work one night. Five days have passed since they spent the night at Hoseok’s mom’s place, but this feels like the first time they’ve had a chance to be alone.

The parking lot is nearly empty when they leave at 10:30, and when Hoseok turns down the radio it’s so quiet in the car that the sounds of their sighs every few minutes are audible over the soft background music of Justin Timberlake on the radio.

Still, even though he’s quiet and even though they’re both too drained to really converse, Hoseok still agrees to come inside and eat frozen pizza on the floor of Jungkook’s room while Tae noisily plays Gears of War in the living room. It’s good to be somewhere that isn’t at work, but surrounded by and reminded of all the assignments he’s been ignoring, Jungkook doesn’t feel entirely relaxed.

Hoseok seems to feel it, too. He paces around the room and Jungkook watches with horror at the look of recognition in his face when he goes over to his desk.

“What is this?” Hoseok picks up a stack of papers.

“Don’t touch those,” he says, already knowing what they are. “They’re just assignments I have to finish.”

But Hoseok is still looking, seeing clearly that the dates on them go back to a month ago and that they all remain unfinished. “Did you get extensions for all of these?”

Feeling panic rising, Jungkook stands up and brushes his hands on his jeans before he takes the stack, sorting them into a neater pile as if that will change the fact that they’re unfinished. He looks down, his voice soft and defensive. “I’m figuring it out.”

Hoseok’s exhale almost sounds like a laugh. “Are you sure? Because if you aren’t going to drop out then you need to do something, you know? This won’t help you, just ignoring everything like this.”

“It’s easy for you to say.”

“It really isn’t, Jungkook.”

“I think it is.” Jungkook takes a step back so that he’s sitting at the edge of his bed, clutching the pages in his hands. “You’re really good at something and you’re just going after it. And I’m just okay at several things.”

“What I’m good at isn’t even what’s paying me right now,” Hoseok says, his voice even and without its typical layer of playfulness in it. “You were still in high school when I got to college and had to work 40 hours a week on top of school, Jungkook, so don’t act like you know what was easy for me.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook protests, already hating that he can’t stop, “but you wanted to do that, you love working at Claire’s—”

“What?” Hoseok stops him there, holding his hand out in front of him. It’s unusual to see him so serious and sharp, and more intense because of its rarity. He goes on, speaking quickly: “I had to pay my mom’s rent for a year when she was out of work, okay? So giving seven year olds ear piercings wasn’t exactly my passion, it was just something I had to do. And I’m lucky because I love that job, but don’t pretend it was my choice. You have a choice.”

He points at Jungkook and it’s too far to make contact, but Jungkook still feels it in his chest, right into his heart, and then he feels his eyes fill with tears. He hates that, too. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, he chants to himself, but when he sees his own hands grabbing the papers in his lap, something about it lays out all the desperation he feels and he doesn’t know if he can stop.

It’s too late, but Jungkook swallows it back, all of it, puffs his chest up and shakes his head. “Well, I didn’t know—that…”

“No, because I never told you.” Hoseok picks up his lanyard from the desk, his Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer clunking against the chair. He must have added a bell to it, too, because it jingles softly, piercing the tension with something that seems so dissonant, the unsettling effect of a moment that would’ve been otherwise humorous only making things worse.

“Wait,” Jungkook says, desperate for him to stay and regretful that he’d snapped at all. This is when he needs him most, but it’s also when it’s easiest to push him away. “Are you really leaving? Is this a fight?”

Hoseok stops by the door and when he turns he seems tired, almost deflated. “I’m leaving, but it’s not a fight, Jungkook. If you need help, you should ask me, you know? Think about that.” He pauses. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook blurts. He gets up from the bed and walks over to Hoseok, who tips his head slightly at him.

“Just finish all of this,” Hoseok says, taking the papers from him and putting them back on the desk. “You’ll feel better once you just do it. Even if you don’t drop out until after this semester, you still need to do something.”

“I shouldn’t have to rely on you to tell me that,” Jungkook says quietly, palming the side of his face. He doesn’t know how anyone isn’t hard on themselves about these things, but he’s never been able to be anything besides this way. What’s acceptable to him is perfect or nothing at all, and he’s never been able to be perfect in school. “I know I need to do it.”

Hosek nods. “Just do some work tonight.”

“Okay.”

“And message me when you’re finished.”

“Okay.”

“And give me a hug,” Hoseok says, already wrapping his arms around him. Jungkook pretends to put up a fight, but he tucks his chin right over Hoseok’s shoulder and shuts his eyes. He smells good and he’s warm and a little bony and he fits against his chest like some kind of baby animal.

Jungkook wants to say thanks, to say that he’s thankful for him, to kiss behind his ear, to hold his hand and ask him to stay the night. He doesn’t think he deserves any of that. He lets go of him. “Talk to you on AIM later.”

Hoseok hums in confirmation. They haven’t let go of each other yet and there’s a moment when they pull back where it feels like a door has been opened and it would be easy to step over the threshold.. Their eyes lock, but they Hoseok backs up first with a sigh and his typical perky nod and closed-lipped smile and they’re back to normal, back to a friendly wave goodbye, and Jungkook goes back to work.

Taehyung isn’t home when he gets back to his apartment after work. There’s so much he has to do: papers to write, reading to finish, emails to answer from professors, emails to send to a few, too, about why he’s missed his classes. He tackles much of it over the span of a few hours thanks to a much-needed pep talk from Hoseok

Eventually, around midnight, Jungkook opens MySpace against his better judgment, feeling agitated as soon as he navigates through his own page. He cultivates it obsessively but it never feels right, especially not tonight—there are too many colors and too many people he rarely even speaks to sitting there in his top 8.

He clicks through his own photos and realizes that the most recent one he posted is three weeks old, but the bathroom mirror at Hot Topic has been cleaned recently and is no longer as legit now that it isn’t covered in years’ worth of stickers and graffiti. He’d never take a picture in his bathroom at home—everyone would know he used Victoria’s Secret Love Spell body wash and Bath and Body Works Sugar Plum lotion. Those are his secrets, ones he only shares with Hoseok and, somehow, Yoongi, who addresses his lunchtime purchases with a grunt and a single raised eyebrow. Jungkook has spotted him sniffing the caps with begrudging curiosity in the break room, though, when he thought nobody could see him.

He finds Hoseok’s face in his Top 8 and navigates to his page, squaring his shoulders and peering closer to get a good look as if he didn’t just see him in person a few hours ago. He takes the best pictures of himself, finds the best angles, uses the best contrast in Paint Shop Pro to make the photo look like it was taken with something nicer than his old PowerShot.

There’s a photo he hasn’t seen before and Jungkook clicks it, smiling at him and Jimin arm in arm, each doing a peace sign and pushing their lips out in a typical if not slightly embarrassing MySpace post. He stares at it for a long minute before his eyes flick down to the caption:

LA here we come!!!!! :o)~

It feels like someone has taken a pin to the swelling balloon in Jungkook’s chest. So was what he said back at his mom’s house not true?

He leans closer, inspecting in a panic. This photo was uploaded two hours ago, so maybe plans did change—he must be moving with Jimin and Taehyung, then. Of course he is, and he should, but Jungkook’s hopes and dreams of making Hoseok fall in love with him won’t work if he moves across the country. More than that: Hoseok is his main source of comfort and his ultimate support system and he smells like the best load of laundry that’s ever been washed and he’s the only one who understands him so deeply that just knowing he exists makes him feel at ease. The way he sounds when he laughs is something he’ll always remember. He wants to hear it everyday.

He doesn’t want him to leave in a month. He doesn’t want him to leave ever.

Jungkook wipes away a tear and stares at the wall while The Last Lie I Told by Saves the Day plays on his tinny Dell speakers.

“Fuck,” he whispers. Another tear escapes and falls onto the space bar of his keyboard and he wipes that off, too, feeling pathetic. I guess this is what it’s like to be really down, Chris Conley sings, and Jungkook rests his forehead onto his fist, sighs. He feels much younger than 22, stuck in time while everyone around him grows and moves and figures it out. The only thing he’s figured out is how to swing his microphone like Adam Lazzaro and how to make Hoseok laugh, but neither of those are enough to solve his problems, to make him stay, to sort out the mess of his brain.

The show at the Elk Lodge has been in the works since July. They have a five song set playing second to last, which might as well be headlining if they were playing somewhere besides the Westville Elk Lodge. The posters are hung around campus and on the counter of the cash wrap at Hot Topic and Jungkook feels, for the first time, intensely proud that he’s living one of his dreams.

It’s not Golden Closet’s first gig, but it’s their first since they have new songs written, and it’s their first since Jin made friends with Joon, a classmate of his whose presence in the local music scene was strong enough to get them on the line-up with other local acts.

Jungkook is overwhelmingly nervous. His hands shake so much when he’s looping his necklaces around his throat that he can barely do up the clasp until Jin steps in, joking and capable, teasing him the entire time and finishing with a reassuring and affirming squeeze that feels special coming from someone who still prank calls him regularly.

He’s not sure if it makes it better or worse that most of his friends can’t be in the crowd that night—they’re either working or out of town. In a way he’s relieved that if he crashes and burns on stage they won’t be there to see it, but the settling effect of Jimin’s encouraging smile from the back of the room would, he thinks, carry him through even the most nerve-racking set.

Hoseok is the only one rearranging his plans to try to make it, but even he isn’t a sure thing. No one else has a Nokia charger and Jungkook’s phone is dead after Jin stole it to play Snake all morning, so there’s no way for him to know for certain whether or not he’ll have at least one familiar face in the crowd.

Before the show is strange: an empty hall and the dissonant noises of guitars being tuned, the errant slam of a kick drum being moved around, Jin and Joon laughing with a box of pizza between them. Everything that follows is a blur in the best way: shuffling on stage to spotty applause, feeling at home with the mic in his hands, Jin’s jokes between songs, squinting his eyes shut as he hits every high note and—

Midway through the set, glancing down to see a pink hoodie pressed up to the front of the stage, Hoseok’s smile beaming up at him.

After, when the rest of the boys are piling amps into someone’s mom’s purple minivan, Jungkook finds Hoseok standing alone with his Nokia clutched in his hand, shivering slightly in the middle of the blacktop parking lot behind the venue. He doesn’t have a jacket, only his purple American Apparel zip-up hoodie over a deep white v-neck. He turns to Jungkook just as the wind blows the flattened, sweat-damp lock of hair away from his forehead and he lifts his hand in a wave.

“Hi,” Jungkook calls, almost skipping when he sees him, over-eager and so pleased that Hoseok came, that he survived his first show, that he called off work just to be there and surprise him. When he gets closer he can see something pink on Hoseok's face, though, and he pauses. “Wait, whoa! Are you okay?”

Standing beside him, he can see that one of Hoseok’s eyelids is dark pink and puffy enough that his eye almost disappears when he smiles—which he is still, somehow, doing.

“That guy crowd surfing elbowed me in the face,” he explains, gesturing back toward the venue. “That’s what I get for trying to be up by the stage. Does that happen at every show? I didn’t know people would get so violent!”

“Who was it?” Jungkook looks around, like he’ll notice the guy now, or notice someone he can snap at for injuring the one person he wanted to be in the audience. “Shit, I’m sorry, I should have told you not to be right up there, that happens sometimes—”

“No, it’s alright, it isn’t that bad—“

“But it looks like it hurts,” he cuts him off, gently places his hand on the unhurt side of Hoseok’s face and peers closer at the swollen part. His bedside manner is terrible: he winces, then catches himself. “Damn.”

“Can you drive us home?” Hoseok asks firmly, but doesn’t tilt his head away from Jungkook’s hands. “I just can’t see very well out of it.”

“Yeah, of course. But God, I feel so fucking bad that this happened.” He can’t help himself: he knows it won’t help to lament it, but he wants to do something, feels powerless that he can’t. It’s even more crushing bumped up against the bliss he felt being on stage with his best friends with more of them in the crowd. “Let me see if there’s an ice machine inside—“

“No, JK, let’s just go.” He clasps his hand around Jungkook’s wrist, slides it down to turn his palm over and tugs at it until Jungkook looks at him. When their eyes meet Hoseok is smiling again, or trying. “But hey, you were so impressive up there. I never heard you sing like that before.”

Jungkook shakes his head, then shrugs, not wanting to reject the compliment altogether, but all he can think and what he says is: “I could’ve been so much better.”

He wishes he hadn’t missed those two cues, that he made better eye contact with the audience, that he swung the mic like he’d practiced every night. It’s all on a loop in his head, interrupted only by Hoseok’s puffy red eye, his perfect untarnished face now puffed up and angered by some dickhead’s elbow. That feels like a mistake on his part, too, like this was all preventable if he’d only done something to help it.

“Hey, what do you mean? You sounded perfect,” Hoseok bumps his shoulder into him as they walk, and it’s easier to deflect the compliment than it is to get into the reasons why he did, in fact, fuck it up.

“Take this,” says Jungkook. He drapes his peacoat across Hoseok’s shoulders and glances around at the scene: girls dressed in all black are hanging around in groups of three and four, braces glinting in the streetlights every time they laugh. They’re waiting for something—to be noticed, to be picked up, to sneak into someone’s van—and there was a time when he started singing that he thought it meant something to be wanted by those people specifically.

Beside him, for no reason, Hoseok reaches his hand out to smooth the hair at the back of Jungkook’s neck. He knows now that this, to be treated with care, means more than being wanted by someone he’s never even met.

Back in Hoseok’s apartment, Jungkook wraps four ice cubes into a dish towel and Hoseok rests his head on Jungkook’s lap while he holds it to his eye. It looks pink, but not so swollen anymore. Jungkook’s heart aches when he strokes his hair back away from his face and feels how deeply Hoseok sighs.

“You’ll put me to sleep like that, Jungkook.” His voice is weary and whispery, like he’s been through battle or much more than a mediocre show at the Elk Lodge.

“So go to sleep,” he says, his voice just as quiet. He can’t stop looking down at him. His eyelids look so soft that he almost can’t stop himself from touching them very gently with his forefinger, but he holds back, knows it wouldn’t be very soothing. “I’ll watch Conan, or something.”

Hoseok’s eyes fling open and he looks up at Jungkook like he’s lost his mind, all serenity drained from his expression. “But I haven’t even washed my face yet.”

In Hoseok’s room the light is dim except for the pink string lights hung up around the borders of the ceiling. The walls are full of prints without frames, photos he’s printed in the school library of varying degrees of quality. There’s a small picture of Legolas he’s pretty sure has been cut out from the DVD insert and taped up with a bunch of heart stickers at the corners, too. It’s next to a photo of Britney Spears and one of Tweety Bird, too. Jungkook is soothed by this living collage, how it changes every time he comes over, how Hoseok’s way of expressing himself is so unapologetic.

He scoots toward the edge of the bed and leans forward to get a better look at Hoseok, who’s just pulled on a Golden Closet t-shirt.

“I always wanted that,” Jungkook says quietly, staring with wide eyes. The tee is so oversized it comes down to the middle of his Hoseok’s thighs.

Hoseok pulls at the front of the shirt, rolls the sleeves up a little so it looks more like a very baggy tank top, or like some kind of sack turned into a dress. He looks good in everything, cooler than anyone really should be in a stark white crispy new band tee, practically still warm from Seokjin’s mom pressing them with an iron all day in her living room.

“Wanted what?”

“For someone to wear one of my band’s shirts to sleep at night.”

Hoseok raises his eyebrows, delighted by this. “Really? Like a girl, or something?”

He is, Jungkook thinks, either painfully oblivious or purposely obtuse. “Or like you, Hoseok,” he says, tossing a Snoopy plush doll at him.

“Oh, me?” Hoseok laughs, points at himself in surprise. “Oh, I’m not sleeping in this, though, sorry.”

“What?!” Jungkook lies back and then onto his side on the bed, cheek propped onto his palm. “Is it not soft enough? Does it smell bad? We washed them before, I used a new fabric softener.”

“Because I can’t sleep in a shirt,” Hoseok says as he tugs it off from the bottom up and folds it with care: in half and then half again and into a small rectangle that looks as compact and perfect as a passed note in class. He slides it into his drawer and bumps it closed with his hip.

And then he comes toward Jungkook, toward his bed, taking his time getting there. He’s tan all over, even soft skin, a star hanging at the end of a gold chain around his neck, the sparkly ball at the end of his belly button ring glinting above a narrow soft trail of hair that lies beneath it. Jungkook wants to reach out and make grabby hands at the air, impatient in those ten seconds it takes Hoseok to cross the room.

He can’t stand it much longer, so he looks away, rolls to the other side and inhales deeply to sip in what he misses when they’re apart, a clean warmth he knows he’ll remember forever. Home is wherever you can find it when you’re away from the place you know best, and here is where he finds it: amid Hoseok’s pink lava lamp glow and The Grey’s Anatomy CD soundtrack on his boombox and the way he’s quietly narrating his every move as he turns off various lights, silences the music, makes his way over to the bed. To Jungkook.

Hoseok wedges his back up against him and, instinctively, Jungkook slides his leg between Hoseok’s until they’re entwined, like he’s trying to keep him from falling off even if he’s not especially close to the edge.

“Hope,” he says. He’s decided that he has to do it now or he just won’t, ever.

“Hm?”

He waits a moment, then presses his face to the back of Hoseok’s head, inhales right at the nape of his neck. Tentative, he presses a kiss there. It feels like cheating to do this without talking about it first, like living out one of his actual dreams.

He can feel Hoseok’s body tense against him. He can feel it when they both take a breath at the exact same time, and when Hoseok presses his body back into Jungkook’s, a silent request for him to do that again.

They’re seamed from knee to hips to chest now, locked inti place. Jungkook presses his hand to Hoseok’s flat sternum and gathers him even closer, presses his lips to the same place and then an inch to the right—further from his hair, catching only warm skin. His lips make a sound this time, giving him away, and he wants that, for Hoseok to know that this is on purpose, that it’s not him pretending to fall asleep and taking what he can get.

And Hoseok does seem to know, because he exhales so heavily it makes a sound and then tilts his head just so that it extends the outside of his neck into a long, taut line. Jungkook stares down at it for a second and then presses his lips to the divot where his neck meets his shoulder and, at the same time, presses his hand down against his belly, thumbs across the ring there and wonders if he could even move past this point. This is as far as he gets when he lets himself think—really think—about the reality of this ever happening.

Hoseok decides for him after a moment: he turns his head back enough so that it’s directly underneath Jungkook’s, position perfectly for nothing else besides a kiss. He can take a hint. This one is obvious; this one is easy.

He presses his thumb to Hoseok’s top lip first, right against the freckle at the curve of it, and then holds it there even as he leans in to kiss him. It’s warm and damp and kind of a mess, a rush he’s just chasing now that they’ve started. He drags his thumb down after a second to savor the way their lips fit together, and it takes everything Jungkook has to muster tenderness when all he wants to do is grip him tight, squeeze every inch of him, to coil him up.

They’re good at this together, Jungkook can tell. He hasn’t kissed anyone in months and he hasn’t kissed that many people, really, but he knows this is not typical. He knows that the way they move together is unique, that it normally takes him longer to make it feel this good. It’s better, somehow, than he’d been imagining it. He feels like his bones are liquifying.

When they first break apart it’s Hoseok who lifts his chin enough to close the space between their mouths again, raking his long fingers back through Jungkook’s hair to keep it from falling into their faces. He gives him one more kiss, a quick one.

“What were you going to say?” Hoseok asks. His voice is deep and hoarse like it is in the morning.

Jungkook turns him over in his arms so they’re facing one another. He loves the way Hoseok looks all the time, but right now the pink glow from the string lights is making him look so aggressively like he needs to be kissed that Jungkook can barely form a coherent thought.

He remembers that he was asked a question. “What was I going to say when?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Jungkook murmurs. “Just that—I just wanted to kiss you.”

Hoseok traces the outside of his face with one soft fingertip. He looks thoughtful. “How long have you wanted to kiss me?”

Jungkook swallows. “For a while.”

Hoseok nods and kisses him then, and it’s still so new that it sends a fresh shimmer of chills down Jungkook’s spine. He swallows hard.

“What about in the pool last week?” Hoseok asks, and Jungkook nods. “And even before then?”

“Stop,” Jungkook whines, wrinkling his nose. “Stop it.”

“Jungkookie, you should have said something sooner,” Hoseok insists. His fingers curl around the outside of Jungkook’s neck and create a distraction too intense to really focus on their conversation. “I didn’t know.”

“I don’t know how you didn’t know, though.”

“You never told me.”

Jungkook stares at him. “I’m the worst liar, Hoseok.”

“So?”

“Do you think I treat everybody the way I treat you? You’ve seen me around people who try to hit on me before.”

“You’re nice to everyone.”

“I’m nicer to you.” Jungkook kisses him again and speaks close to his mouth when he stops. “You’re not everyone.”

Hoseok’s finger traces a line from Jungkook’s hairline down his nose and then his lips. He doesn’t remember to breathe until it’s on his neck, where it stops, and only then can Jungkook continue: “It’s why I never said anything until now. Because you’re nice to everyone, too.”

Hoseok only nods, his expression serious. It’s such a stark difference from when he looks amused and his eyes look so happy that people are moved to smile back just from a look at him. But Jungkook knows this face, too, the one he wears when he’s taking him seriously, or the one he wears when someone is having an issue that he knows he can fix. And maybe that’s the difference—that not everybody else knows this version of him. Maybe this is something Jungkook gets specifically.

“I wasn’t sure if I would be holding you back somehow,” he says softly. “I thought you thought of me like—just as a brother. As someone who can look out for you.”

“You do that, too. But it’s a lot more than that. I feel a lot more than that.” Jungkook’s eyes fall to Hoseok’s lips again. He knows he’s being obvious and for once he doesn’t need to pretend to be anything other than enamored.

Hoseok doesn’t say anything else and what happens next is blurry, too dizzying to track clearly: it’s just kisses so indulgent that they go on for minutes, Hoseok doing things like raking his nails over Jungkook’s biceps and kissing his jaw and Jungkook kissing Hoseok on the throat and touching his soft little waist and wondering, again and again, how he’s gone without this for so long.

Their kisses slow down until they stop altogether. Hoseok’s mouth is pink and as raw looking as the way Jungkook's feels. He speaks without thinking: “I don’t want you to move, though.”

Hoseok blinks a few times and licks his lips. “Where?”

“I saw on MySpace,” he admits, curling his hand around the side of Hoseok’s shoulder. “The picture with Jimin.”

“I told you I wasn’t going,” he says softly. “I’m not moving. Is that why you were weird about the going away party?”

Jungkook freezes and feels something uncoil in his gut. “You’re not moving?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Hoseok asks, laughing as he brushes his thumbs underneath Jungkook’s eyes and then pokes his cheeks. Jungkook still doesn’t blink, not until he knows this is for real.

“I was like...I convinced myself you were leaving. I thought that’s what that picture meant.” He lets out a sigh and then shakes Hoseok by his bony shoulder. “Write better captions, Hoseok. You made it seem like you were leaving.”

Hoseok’s laughter bubbles up, almost musical, amused at Jungkook’s distress. He lays his palm across the side of his face and kisses him again until it calms them both, makes them lean into it, building in heat and familiarity each time.

“I’m not leaving.” He kisses Jungkook at his temple. It’s still the same type of open, easy affection Hoseok has always given, but it’s a special kind, now, different from the way he hugs Jimin on the sofa, or the way he kisses the top of Taehyung’s head when he says something cute, or the way he would sling his arm around Jungkook’s shoulder when they walked through the dark mall parking lot at the end of a closing shift.

“Actually,” he continues, “ I was thinking you can stay in Jimin’s room until you find a place after Tae moves.” He pauses to sort out some of Jungkook’s longest pieces of hair, tucking them behind his ears as he inspects his face. “What do you think?”

It’s a better idea than Jungkook would’ve even been able to come up with himself.

“Okay,” he nods, and their noses bump together. He nudges closer, presses two firm kisses to Hoseok’s chin, one to his jaw. “Yeah, if you’re sure about it.”

“I’m really sure. I was going to ask you that even before tonight, actually.” Hoseok meets his eyes, then bites his lip before he continues. “I didn’t know how much longer I would have been able to wait for this. I was just going to end up kissing you someday for real and we would’ve just had to figure it out.”

It would have surprised him a week ago, but Jungkook feels it now: the way this had all been moving in this direction for so long, all the lunch breaks and late nights they spent together, all those times Hoseok lingered a little too long when Jungkook got out of the shower, all the times they’d stay up until embarrassing hours to send each other jokes back and forth on AIM. Hoseok changing his plans to see his show that night. Hoseok picking him up from work even on days he was off. Hoseok everywhere, doing everything for him, with him, movie nights and inside jokes, holding hands under blankets, going out of his way to be the one even before he’d confessed to a single thing.

It was always going to happen.

Jungkook runs his hand down the side of Hoseok’s neck to his chest and lays it over his chest just as Hoseok grabs his face with both hands and makes a small noise of delight, the kind of sound that can only come from him. He can feel Hoseok’s heart thudding hard against his ribs under his hand and he’s never felt closer to anyone. It’s a lyric he’ll write someday, maybe.

“So let’s figure it out.”