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Yoongi likes to know where he stands with people, likes to think that it avoids any mishaps towards touch barriers and general informality he can express with someone. It’s more for himself than the other person since being touched by people who are essentially strangers makes him fight to not clam up. This is exactly why he’s flooded with irony when the one person he can’t figure out waltzes into the room humming ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’.
“Hey, sweets,” Hoseok says, flopping down onto the couch cushion next to him, legs spreading across Yoongi’s lap, head propped on their sole pillow, “have you eaten yet?”
Yoongi hums, leaning over Hoseok’s legs to turn on the screen of his phone, the time reading 3:11 pm. “Not yet. Too busy, need to read this.”
“You won’t be able to see straight with the lack of body fuel in a few hours. How’d you get through first year without me, hm?” Hoseok leans over to playfully pinch a cheek, only to pull it away like he’s been burned.
“Is my skin that dry?” Yoongi grumbles, eyes trained on the text in front of him.
“Your skin is as dewy as a fresh spring morning, and as fucking cold as it too.”
“Oh,” Yoongi says, “must’ve forgotten to turn the heating on.”
“It’s November.”
“Correct.”
“That wasn’t a question,” Hoseok whines, swinging himself upright, feet resting on the floor instead.
“I know.”
Yoongi ignores the way Hoseok glares at him. He’s used to this cycle of being scolded for not keeping himself warmed enough and he’s sure that Hoseok thinks he must be some kind of cold-blooded lizard-person, but he’s not ready to tell him that he never forgets. Nor is he ready to express that it’s because Hoseok is always so warm, sleeping in duvets thin enough to just be a layer of thin fabric and Yoongi would willingly let the frost catch him than have him complain about the temperature of their apartment.
What Yoongi finds himself unable to ignore, however, is the quick dissipation of the hard stare in place of the gentle furrowing in Hoseok’s brow when he leans to press the back of his hand against Yoongi’s cheek. Maybe he’s a little surprised that he didn’t gain a few degrees just from the contact. “You really are cold, you know? Do you not feel it?”
“Not really,” Yoongi replies, omits the ‘not with you’ sitting on his tongue, heavy as lead. He thinks it’d be bad practice going forward to lean into the warmth Hoseok’s emitting, so he stays still.
“Even so,” Hoseok says, pulling his hand away to clap them together, Yoongi can breathe a little easier, “a good temperature is good conditions for your genius little brain. You can’t complete a joint degree in Chemistry and Philosophy with your brain operating with the speed of the original iPhone.”
Yoongi huffs a laugh, pushing the papers on the coffee table back to stand and make for the kitchen. The footsteps behind him are all the indication he needs that he’s being tailed.
“I’m serious, prodigy boy,” Hoseok says, voice taking on its familiar whiny tone again, “you’re going to catch your death and I won’t cut your foot off for you when you get frostbite.”
“We’re living in a two-bedroom apartment, not trying to sail the Antarctic.” Yoongi pulls a slice of bread out of the packet, holding it in his mouth while he reseals the bag. He takes the slice back in hand when the loaf is stored away to continue. Yoongi gives a grin to Hoseok, hoping it might be pacifying. “Besides, all the members of Endurance’s voyage survived.”
“See? This is what I mean. You knew exactly what I was on about. That’s freakish fact recall. You won’t have that when you’re frozen.”
Yoongi knows this is Hoseok’s way of taking care of him, even if he’s aware from all the years of knowing each other and now the few months of living together that he’s never receptive to the help. Yoongi would never push him away, even so, never could. “What do you suggest I do, Shackleton?”
It’s Hoseok’s turn to grin, abandoning trailing after Yoongi to stand right in front of him. “Are you ready for my suggestion, officer?”
Yoongi opens his mouth to answer but the hand not holding his shitty excuse of a meal is slipped into one of Hoseok’s. His mouth clamps shut on its own and he wouldn’t dare look away from where Hoseok’s hand is engulfed by his own.
“Come with me?” Hoseok asks. He must’ve felt the shift in the atmosphere because he sounds softer, more intimate. It’s a contrast to his usual Hoseok and Yoongi finds that he likes it. He likes that his tone feels as if it’s only for him.
So, he just nods in response, letting Hoseok pull him towards the couch. He goes easily when he’s made to lay down across it, the single cushion now supporting his head. Hoseok lets go of his hand then, showing both palms to him with a quick, “Stay,” before scurrying into his room. Yoongi lets his eyes slip shut, tearing off pieces of bread to feed himself with until it’s gone, thinking about his coursework to distract him from how he could just lift his head to see what Hoseok was doing in his room. But he said to stay, so stay he shall. That is, until all the fumbling inside Hoseok’s room stops. “Hobi?” Yoongi calls out, crossing his arms over his chest.
Yoongi sighs when he doesn’t get a response, heaving himself up to sitting, to standing and finally opening his eyes. His eyebrows raise towards his hairline when he sees that Hoseok had closed the door at some point and knocks on the door for good measure just in case before pushing inside. Scarily enough, the room seems empty, curtains drawn, lights off and he doesn’t know whether to feel for the light switch along the wall to his left.
“Welcome,” Hoseok says, voice coming from somewhere in the room. The Christmas lights they bought together when they first moved in light up, illuminating the whole room. Hoseok’s usually bare bed now stuffed with throw blankets and pillows, the lights wrapped right around the bed frame and haphazardly stuck on to the wall behind the bed frame. Yoongi giggles when he spots Hoseok, crowded under his desk to get to the plug socket he always struggles to reach.
“What, uh, what is this?” Yoongi asks, he can’t seem to shake the smile on his lips.
Hoseok backs out from under the desk, wipes his pants of any invisible particles when he plops onto his bum on the floor. “It’s the Yoongi heating station, officer.”
“In your bed?”
Hoseok’s lips drop to form an ‘o’ as if he hadn’t realised he’d done it in his own bed until it was done. “Want me to move it? It was a snap decision, I’ll admit.”
Yoongi waves a hand in front of him. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s just,” Yoongi says, tutting in between at his hesitation, “what if you, like, need to use the bed?”
“What do you mean?” Hoseok asks, head tilting.
“What if I’m heating up and you decide on a nap?”
Hoseok scratches at his cheek and pulls his eyes away to the bed. Yoongi hasn’t seen that gesture from him before. He doesn’t have time to analyse what it means. He settles for just hoping it’s from shyness rather than regret. Either way, they’re two emotions he’s sure he hasn’t seen from Hoseok yet. “I’d let you stay if you wanted. I’m not sweaty or anything, just sort of like a hot water bottle. It’s not that I’d cling onto you and make you overheat, but I sort of like hugging a pillow and I don’t know-“
“I’d like that,” Yoongi interrupts, before flinching at himself.
Hoseok is silent for a few seconds, enough for Yoongi to worry that he’s said something wrong. “You’d be okay with that?” Hoseok asks. Always misplaced worry when it comes to Hoseok.
“I’d like that,” Yoongi repeats, punctuating it with a nod this time, “I would.”
The smile that Hoseok gives him is so wide that Yoongi does not doubt that Hoseok glows even more than the lights. He mirrors it back as best he can, he finds himself wanting to glow too. He feels so much calmer than he thought he would when Hoseok stands to cross the room and take his hand. He feels so much more endeared when Hoseok speaks to him with that special tone that he’s starting to theorise is only for him. “Yeah?”
He feels so much warmer already, just holding his hand. “Yeah.”
When Hoseok lays down first and pulls Yoongi in to rest his head on his chest, he wonders if he cools Hoseok down just as much as he warms him up. “This okay, little iceberg?”
Yoongi tilts his head up to look at him. “Perfect, Shackleton.”
“Maybe it is,” Hoseok says, grabbing two blankets off the pile to drape over them, “maybe it’s that thing, from Chemistry, the one where things are in perfect balance or sync, or something.”
Yoongi rests his head back down when Hoseok’s arm drapes across his body. “Equilibrium.”
Hoseok hums. “Yeah, maybe together we’re in equilibrium.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees, closing his eyes, “I think we could be."