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Jeongguk is going to have to tell Hoseok that he loves him eventually.
It’s becoming more of a problem recently. Without the burn of concerts to distract them, keeping Jeongguk sated and tired and wired in turns, they’re anxious and directionless. Hoseok has been taking to their enforced unwilling break with a restlessness that seems foreign, prowling about for something to do at all hours. It’s like last September but worse, because then at least, they could do things. Then, at least, Jeongguk staying home was a choice he made on his own.
Now, tucked away at a vacation home with less staff than usual, Jeongguk thinks he might be reaching a breaking point.
Hoseok is so pretty and Jeongguk loves him so much.
It's everything. It’s nothing. It’s coming home to curl up on Hoseok’s bed and waking up nose buried against Hoseok’s smooth neck. It’s meeting Hobi’s eyes across the room and trading scrunched noses and grins. It’s the way Hoseok’s body is like an extension of his own. All real estate free to touch. All of it a home for Jeongguk’s wandering hands.
It’s the way Jeongguk looks at Hoseok and feels the pulse of “Home home home” settling like roots, like stardust, like truth, deep beneath his skin and into the very marrow of him.
This last year has only made it more true, and as Jeongguk breathes in the smell of water, the smoke from the firepit, he feels it even more. This is the most Jeongguk has seen him laugh in what feels like forever. The open air and lack of schedule is almost foreign, but there’s something Jeongguk really enjoys about it anyways. Hoseok is right beside him, flushed and a little distant, fuzzy and all turned internal the way he gets with a little alcohol in him. Jeongguk’s hands are busy with the guitar or they’d be busy on Hoseok, touching and pulling. Settling. Passing on the truth of Jeongguk’s world with the solidity and certainty that accompanies touch.
Instead, he sings.
(The other way he expresses sincerity, Jeongguk knows. Sound and touch. His voice and his hands.)
Hoseok watches him with wonder. A realization settles in behind Hoseok’s eyes, and Jeongguk opens his mouth-
“We should get inside,” Hoseok says, and in the space where panic could be, there is only certainty.
If Jeongguk wants something to change, he’s going to have to do it himself.
Which is, all in all, an easy thing to say and a much less easy thing to do. Especially tipsy, Jeongguk’s attention flits from one thing to the next without settling down, and now that all of his hyungs are around, he’s even more distracted. He loves them all so much and he wants to curl up beside every one of them, but his eyes keep drifting over to Hoseok time and time again. Hoseok, laughing and red on the low bench by the table. Hoseok, watching everyone take turns singing. Hoseok, meeting Jeongguk’s eyes and smiling wider, his legs slipping a little more open and his shorts riding up his thighs a little-
Jeongguk takes a deep sip of his drink before Jimin pulls him up to sing.
The world is warm and spinny around him, moving a half-second behind his head in a way that makes Jeongguk giddy instead of nauseous. Jeongguk feels amazing. He exists as a glow of heat within his ribs, pulsing and glowing and glittery-fuzzy all the way down his extremities, and Jeongguk realizes only after several moments that Hoseok has a hand wrapped around his wrist.
“Oh hey! Hi, hi, hello,” Jeongguk says, pulling to a stop. Or letting Hoseok pull him to a stop? Did they mutually stop each other? It’s impossible for Jeongguk to know. He’s busy keeping himself upright, a feat which seems much harder than it usually is. He’s the best at staying upright. “Hi.”
“Hello, Jeongguk,” says Hoseok warmly. Jeongguk’s sure he’s saying something else, sure that whatever it is must be very important, but he’s distracted thoroughly by a realization that takes immediate precedence.
Hoseok is fucking gorgeous? Hoseok is stunning, with the way his hair curls at the tips of his ears and his wide, bright smile. He’s the only solid thing in the world right now, hydrogen bright and gilded around all his edges and Jeongguk wants-
Ah, that’s it.
Jeongguk tips forward, distantly grateful (in the way of his sober hindbrain watching everything his drunken mind decides to do like a spectator with a handful of popcorn) that Hoseok is stronger than he looks, full of balance and grace, and already has his other hand on Jeongguk’s hip. Hoseok’s grip sizzles across his nerves. Full of promise. But Jeongguk has a mission, and it also gives him ample leverage to nose along Hoseok’s jaw, the expanse of his cheek. Jeongguk puckers.
Noisily kisses Hoseok’s cheek again, and again and again.
Hoseok cuts off in the middle of what he’s saying with a noise that sounds like a teakettle, squirms in Jeongguk’s overaffectionate hold. “Jeongguk-ah, I’m trying to get you to go to bed-“
“Mm, that’s a good idea. Come home with me,” Jeongguk mumbles, the words fuzzy through his smile-wide mouth. He barely feels the swat Hoseok gives him.
“We live together, dumbass, of course we’re going home together.”
“Hah!” Jeongguk turns to everyone else, pointing, striking fear in the hearts of all those who behold him. “Take that, suckers! Hottest guy in the bar! Coming home with me!”
“This isn’t a bar! It isn’t even our living room,” Jimin protests, but Jeongguk levels his finger at him threateningly and he shuts up. As he should. “We all live together! And you’re sleeping out on the lake.”
Jeongguk frowns. “Well yeah, but Hobi-hyung and I are different now.”
In his arms, Hoseok freezes. Then, small, he asks, “Are we?”
“We could be,” says Jeongguk. He feels- not reckless, but buzzing and light with adrenaline and the sheer breadth of possibility. Knows that he can step out bravely and that no matter what happens, someone will be here to make it okay. “I really love you, hyung, so I hope we can be different.”
Hoseok tugs at his shirt. When Jeongguk glances back down, Hoseok’s cheek is tilted sweetly up. Smugly, Jeongguk kisses him again and again. They sway side to side. Hoseok tucks the side of his face against Jeongguk’s shoulder.
“So earlier,” says Hoseok. His voice rumbles through Jeongguk’s chest and Jeongguk squeezes him closer as they sway just to feel it more. “You were singing for me?”
Well duh. Jeongguk wrangles the thought back. “Yeah, of course I was. Hyung, didn’t you listen? I was singing you a love song.”
“Oh.” Hoseok coughs, wriggles, not actually trying to get out but just trying to expel his nerves by shaking them out of his body. “I didn’t want to assume it was for me.”
“Should have. It’s always for you.”
Hoseok makes a strangled sound and suddenly pushes Jeongguk away. Jeongguk holds tight to his hands and doesn’t let go, and Hoseok sighs before guiding Jeongguk into an ungraceful spin.
“Are we dancing now? Somehow, I feel like we’ve got this backwards,” Jeongguk says but he lets Hoseok spin him out and, because he’s feeling silly, he points his toes when he stops just to make Hoseok laugh at him. Jeongguk’s chest practically crumples with the devastating force of his affection. A black hole, he thinks but cannot say, ravenous and all-consuming. “Aren’t I supposed to be the one spinning you?”
“Don’t be silly,” Hoseok murmurs, curling up against his chest again. “We’re just figuring it out together.”
Jeongguk noses against his jaw. “Weren’t you supposed to be taking me to bed, Hobi-hyung?”
Hoseok plucks at Jeongguk’s shirt. His ears are very red and very soft when Jeongguk bites them, and Hoseok squeaks, pinches his nipple (hot), and then smacks Jeongguk’s side when he notices that Jeongguk hadn’t been dissuaded at all (also hot, but also Jeongguk sort of thinks everything Hoseok does is hot so maybe he isn’t the best judge.) “Shut up. I’m just. I didn’t notice you were singing to me, and now we’re dancing, and you keep kissing me, and-“
Oh.
Oh, Jeongguk realizes, that’s what the problem is.
“Hyung, Hobi-hyung, I’m in love with you.” Jeongguk tilts his head to the side, the whole room following a half-step afterwards. “You know that, right?”
Hoseok’s sweet mouth drops open. He stammers for a moment, a red flush crawling up his skin, and Jeongguk feels no fear or trepidation because Hoseok’s grip on his hand has only tightened.
And then Hoseok coughs, fiddling with one of his soft earlobes. “Well,” he mutters, warm and embarrassed, “I do now.”
Jeongguk squeezes his hand. “You love me too, don’t you?”
“Yah, Jeongguk-ah, just say it out loud for everyone to hear, why don’t you?” Hoseok whines.
Delight, pure and unfiltered, bubbles up Jeongguk’s sternum. Like a microcosm of everything perfect in life, surrounded by his family with Hoseok’s hand in his, Jeongguk smiles and leans down and kisses Hoseok again and again and again while his hyungs hoot and holler in the background.
“Don’t worry, hyung,” Jeongguk says when he stops a few minutes later, decidedly pinker and his mouth wet and sore in new and interesting ways that Jeongguk is for sure exploring at a later juncture. “I’m going to make sure to tell everyone as loudly as possible forever.”
Hoseok sighs and leans against him. It isn’t enough to hide the curve of his smile, or the way he tucks his slim little hands into the waistband of Jeongguk’s shorts. “If you have to. Just to make sure everyone knows that I love you too.”