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Yoongi knows he’s racing against time, but he doesn’t mind. His flight started boarding fifteen minutes ago, and he’s still tapping his foot in the back of a taxi, waiting for his payment to go through. The second the driver pulls his card from the reader, Yoongi snatches it out of his hand and shouts, “Bye!”
The driver grunts.
Now, like a world-class athlete after the gun has gone off, Yoongi races through the airport. There’s a flicker of bliss he gets when he just barely catches a bus or perfectly timed taxi. The adrenaline makes his heart race faster than his legs when he’s running to board a train.
He likes that feeling because no matter how late he leaves the house, how fast the clock races, somehow, he’s always on time—every time. Yoongi has an airtight track record of perfect punctuality.
Except today. Christmas Eve.
“Is the flight to Daegu still boarding?” he asks the attendant behind the counter.
After sprinting through the terminal (an activity he’s not fond of since it robs him of his pride) he hears how desperate and out of breath his voice sounds. But the embarrassment will wear off as soon as he’s sitting comfortable on the plane, nuzzling into his neck pillow.
He’s been in similar situations plenty of times before. Running to the counter of the train station or bus terminal, he asks the same question: Did I make it? and the answer is always a relief-inducing, You’re right on time.
But Yoongi’s about to find out what it feels like when that sweeping adrenaline crashes in his chest and there’s nowhere for the force to go but into his gut. He bounces the pads of his fingers on the counter quietly, not trying to rush the attendant but trying to calm his nerves if only for a moment.
The attendant pushes her lips into a small, sympathetic frown. Yoongi knows what’s coming.
She says, “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve missed it.”
His shoulders fall.
He shuts his eyes tight, trying to decide if he feels like shouting, “Fuck me!” at an airport on Christmas Eve. His voice will echo around the open space and rebound through everyone’s skulls. If anything, it will force the whole airport to acknowledge his frustration. The thought of it sounds validating. But he figures it’ll be better for both him and the attendant if he doesn’t. So he asks, not feeling very optimistic about the answer, “Is there another flight to Daegu that leaves soon?”
The attendant clicks at the keys with vigor, giving Yoongi a morsel of hope. Surely she’s savvy enough to find him something. Yoongi has always had good luck.
He stares at the attendant with wide eyes, believing that if he looks at her hard enough, she’ll tell him some good news.
But all he can focus on are her two canine fangs peeking out and biting softly on her bottom lip.
Thankful for a distraction, he loses himself in thought about how his favorite kinds of vampires are the ones working common jobs, performing trivial tasks. It pleases him to watch vampires forced to use a sanguine customer service voice.
The attendant looks up, and his musings are interrupted.
“The next available flight to Daegu is at ten o’clock tomorrow night.”
That’s in 20 hours.
Even if he catches it, he’ll get to his house after his parents have gone to sleep and will have wasted an entire day of his already miniscule vacation.
By which time, his brother will already have disowned him for ruining their plan to surprise their mom for Christmas. They’d been preparing this for the past 3 months.
His brother was running a start-up in Japan, and Yoongi was working in Seoul, so neither of them had been home for a few years. It was Yoongi’s idea to make the trip to Daegu for Christmas and force both himself and his brother into taking a severely-needed break.
Their flight times were perfectly coordinated. Yoongi’s flight from Seoul and his brother’s connecting flight from Tokyo would both arrive at the airport within the same hour, and together, they would drive to their parents’ house.
His brother is going to be pissed.
“Ten o’clock?” Yoongi double checks. The attendant nods.
Huffing out a sigh, he says, “And I bet there’s no use in checking for any available trains?”
The attendant can’t even manage a convincing smile. “I’m pretty sure train tickets to anywhere have been sold out all week.”
“Shitting hell,” he says, not bothering to keep his annoyance to himself anymore. “Okay, fine, I guess I’ll just do that.”
“You should know,” she says to him in an apologetic voice, “the tickets are on standby.”
The attendant watches curiously as Yoongi tries to contort his wrist into an angle that will allow him to flip himself off. “You idiot, who flies to Daegu on Christmas Eve?”
The attendant blinks and brings a delicate hand to her mouth, trying to hide her disbelief. Yoongi is acting like a fucking clown, and he knows it. To be frank, he’s doing what he can to distract himself from the quiet loneliness that awaits him at his empty apartment.
Without another word, Yoongi turns from the counter and heads for the taxi stand.
Feeling somewhat guilty for his admittedly freaky behavior, he calls back to the attendant, “Thanks for trying.”
When he gets into a taxi, the driver smells of mustard, and there’s traffic the whole way home.
---
Yoongi punches in his door code, taking his anger out on the tiny keypad and slamming the pound button three more times than is necessary. After the lockbox screams at him in protest for a few seconds, he opens the door and notices that the lights are still on in his house.
“Idiot,” he murmurs. He must have left them on in his rush to catch his flight. Maybe it was a good thing he missed it. He would have been inexplicably angry at himself to come home from Christmas break only to find out he’d racked up an expensive electricity bill … or worse, had to change a goddamn lightbulb.
Yoongi drops his duffel bag on the floor and flicks the lights off. There should be enough sunlight coming in through the windows for now anyway. But to his surprise, the apartment falls into perfect darkness.
“What the hell?”
He bumps his knuckles against the light switch to turn them back on and nearly shits himself.
“God!” he yells, his voice cracking.
There’s someone on his couch.
They don’t even bother acting startled, and Yoongi realizes that it’s his next door neighbor, Hoseok, who he has only met once but is almost certain is a vampire.
That explains the blinds that have been neatly closed, blocking any natural light from coming into the apartment.
“Why are you in my house?” he shouts, nearly squeaks.
“Why aren’t you in Daegu?” Hoseok says with pouted lips and a furrowed brow as if he’s being inconvenienced.
Yoongi curls his hands into tiny fists that he wouldn’t know how to use, even if he needed to. He can’t decide if he should be scared of Hoseok or not. All he’s doing is lounging on Yoongi’s couch, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he’s an intruder. Yoongi rolls his eyes so far back it hurts.
Sucking in a breath through his nose and blowing it out through his mouth, Yoongi tries to find a part of him that’s calm.
However, when he repeats himself, asking, “Why are you in my house?” it comes out short and clipped.
“I was thirsty.” Hoseok holds up a steaming mug, and Yoongi spies the red liquid dancing close to the brim, threatening to spill over.
Of course.
“Is that my blood tea?”
Hoseok nods. “I figured you wouldn’t need it…considering you’re a human.”
As if that’s explanation enough, he leans back into the couch cushions and pulls Yoongi’s throw blanket over his lap. Yoongi supposes that if he got angry enough, he could fling the blinds open and expose Hoseok to some sunlight. But even he doesn’t feel like seeing the sun right now; its cheeriness will only mock his pain.
Yoongi huffs, crosses his arms across his chest. “You broke into my house for some fucking tea?”
He knows he’s riling himself up, but he can’t stop now. He wants to take out his frustration on someone, and Hoseok is sitting right there in front of him, begging for it.
“The tea is for my cousin, asshole,” he says.
While that technically was true, Yoongi’s cousin hadn’t visited him in at least a year. Really, Hoseok is doing him a service by taking the tea off his hands. The box always falls out of the cupboard when he’s looking for some coffee mix to make in the morning.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Hoseok says, though they both know he’s not. “I didn’t know your cousin was a vampire.”
“I didn’t know you were a trespasser,” Yoongi tosses back.
“And you never would have had to find out if you hadn’t come back home instead of going to Daegu for Christmas.”
Hoseok, it seems, isn’t even upset that he got caught in Yoongi’s apartment. If anything, he’s annoyed that Yoongi came back home at all.
“I missed my flight,” Yoongi explains. Saying it aloud makes him feel so much worse. He still hasn’t called his brother. Then, “…How did you know I was going home to Daegu?”
Hoseok smirks at him. “I can read minds,” he says, wiggling his fingers in the air like a kitschy magician.
Yoongi narrows his eyes. Though he isn’t very well-versed in vampire lore, he’s pretty sure that’s a lie, but the thought of it still creeps him out. He frowns.
Hoseok laughs and points at Yoongi’s desk. “It says it on your calendar. ‘Surprise mom!’” He animates his voice when reading the handwritten memo.
“Okay, well, you’ve had your tea. Can you just get out?”
He’s ready to be alone to sulk. And he has to get it over with and call his brother, who will most likely tell him he’s a dumbass to try to lighten the mood. But he can’t stop thinking about how his mom’s face would have lit up if he had made it home for Christmas this year, and that makes him feel like shit.
Hoseok rolls his eyes before standing. “I’m taking my tea,” he says, clutching the mug to his chest like it’s a baby bird.
“My tea,” Yoongi corrects.
“I’m taking my stolen tea.”
That’s good enough for Yoongi.
“Fine. Now go home, and…don’t break into my apartment again, or I’ll tell the landlord.”
Hoseok whispers, “Tattletale,” under his breath as he passes by.
Yoongi slams the door behind him.
---
Yoongi was right.
His brother called him a dumbass and made a few jokes that actually had him laughing. If he’s honest, the phone call did make him feel a lot better. His brother has never struggled to put him in a cheerful mood.
“Whatever you end up doing, just don’t sulk all alone,” his brother says before they hang up.
“Hyung, all my friends have already gone home,” Yoongi whines. Even Taehyung had managed to catch his train home to Daegu, and Taehyung never catches his trains on the first try. Yoongi has a sneaking suspicion that Jimin had something to do with that.
“Don’t be a baby. There are plenty of people spending Christmas alone in Seoul. Go find one of them.”
Yoongi grunts. “Oh, yea, that sounds like something I’d do.”
A few minutes after they say goodbye and the quietness of the apartment settles around him, Yoongi struggles to hold onto his lifted spirits. The analogue clock hanging on his wall ticks obnoxiously at him. He has half a mind to take it down and throw it in the trash, but then he remembers that his mom gave it to him.
He slumps deeper into the couch and rubs his face with his hands.
Through his fingers, he looks at the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. He just changed the batteries on the lights yesterday, so they light up his apartment well. Usually they reflect nicely off the open window, but the blinds are still closed from Hoseok.
With his tired legs cracking, Yoongi stands and peaks out the window. The sky has darkened in the couple hours since he got home, so he opens up the blinds to make his Christmas lights twinkle sweetly across the glass.
If he’s going to be alone on Christmas Eve, he might as well make himself cozy. Which reminds him. He still has hot cocoa mix.
He slides his way into the kitchen, opens up the cupboard, and, as always, the blood tea falls onto the counter.
He pauses. Chews on his lip for a moment. Rolls his eyes.
Makes a decision.
---
Yoongi shoves his hand into his coat pocket after knocking.
It’s been a few seconds, and he hasn’t heard anyone stirring on the other side of the door. There’s probably nobody home.
Just when he thinks he should trudge across the hall and back into his own apartment, Hoseok swings his front door open, and a dramatic swoosh of air blows in Yoongi’s face. His bangs tickle against his forehead.
“You’re annoying,” Yoongi says, not making an effort to put his best foot forward.
Hoseok squishes his cheek into the doorframe, pouting. “So are you.”
“Don’t you have any special plans for Christmas?” he asks like it’s an accusation.
“Mmm,” Hoseok contemplates the question as if some grand plan for the holiday break is going to come to him if he thinks hard enough. “No,” he decides.
They stand quietly for a couple seconds, looking at each other. Yoongi thinks he’d better change his mind and not invite Hoseok over. Hoseok furrows his eyebrows. Odds are, Hoseok won’t want to hang out with Yoongi anyway.
“Do you…” He rubs at the back of his neck. “Want any more blood tea?”
Hoseok tilts his head. “Is this you giving me a Christmas present?”
“No,” Yoongi says. “This is me asking you to spend Christmas Eve with me.”
The look on Hoseok’s face makes Yoongi think he should be blushing. But then he remembers that vampires can’t blush. And for some reason, thinking about Hoseok blushing makes him blush.
If Hoseok notices, he doesn’t mention it. “I thought I was annoying,” he says.
“You are,” Yoongi shrugs. “But, I missed my flight home, and I really don’t want to spend Christmas Eve alone.”
He hadn’t realized he had been looking at his feet this whole time, so when he finally meets Hoseok’s eyes again, he’s smiling back at him.
“I’ve never celebrated Christmas before,” Hoseok beams.
“Okay, well…” Yoongi hesitates, “I’m going to get changed, and then you can…we can…I don’t know…watch a movie.”
“Well, if you’re changing, then I’m changing,” Hoseok says.
“That’s fine.”
Hoseok pulls at his ear nervously. “What, uh, what are you going to wear? Pajamas? A suit?”
Yoongi blows air out of his nose. “I don’t know yet. Not a suit. Something comfortable.”
“Okay,” Hoseok whispers and slowly closes the door like he doesn’t want to stop looking at Yoongi. Yoongi holds his gaze until the door finally clicks shut, and he wipes his sweaty palms on his coat.
Excitement buzzes through him, making him feel like a little kid looking forward to a playdate.
---
“How did you even get into my apartment?” Yoongi asks once they’ve settled on his couch and popped on a movie. He had let Hoseok choose whatever he wanted, so Cindy Lou Who is singing a heart-wrenching ballad on the screen.
Hoseok shrugs, eyes glued to the TV. It’s probably just the reflection of the lights, but Yoongi thinks he might be teary-eyed at the song. He’s delicately nursing his fourth mug of blood tea, which Yoongi did an excellent job of preparing. (Hoseok had said so himself.)
“I guessed your passcode,” he eventually answers.
Yoongi stops for a second to think. “No, you didn’t.”
“Okay. I shapeshifted into a bat and flew in through your balcony window.”
Yoongi just stares at him, waiting for him to answer the question seriously. He doesn’t.
“I meant,” he says, lightly thumping a fist on Hoseok’s leg. “How did you get in without being invited?”
Hoseok curls both his lips into his mouth, trying to suppress a laugh. Neither of them acknowledge Yoongi’s fist that is still resting on Hoseok’s thigh.
“Why are you making that face?”
“Technically, I cheated the system,” Hoseok says cryptically.
Yoongi raises an eyebrow.
“Remember when we met in the stairwell?” Hoseok doesn’t wait for Yoongi to respond. He just charges on telling the story, excited that he knows something Yoongi doesn’t. His hands are moving energetically as he talks. “I had just moved in, so I introduced myself, but you got a phone call before we could say anything else.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Hoseok holds up a hand as if to say, Just wait.
“You invited the person on the phone into your house. You said something like ‘just head into my apartment on your own.’” Hoseok makes his voice grumbly to imitate Yoongi.
“Are you actually serious?”
“You think I’m making it up?”
“But I didn’t invite you in. I invited my friend in. That shouldn’t have worked.” Yoongi is beginning to think the vampire rulebook is unfairly skewed to favor predators over prey. He’d very much like to speak to the manager.
“I was skeptical at first, too. But mostly curious to see if it worked, so I went straight to your apartment after that and walked in.” Hoseok smiles in satisfaction.
“That’s bullshit.”
“I agree,” he says, but he’s still smiling.
“Then how did you guess the door code?”
“Oh, you said it on your way down the stairs. Even if I didn’t have a bitching sense of hearing, I still would have heard it. That’s on you. You’re lucky all I wanted was your tea.”
Yoongi opens his mouth to start bickering, but Hoseok relaxes into the couch, getting cozy, and whether it’s conscious or not, he slides his pinky finger along Yoongi’s wrist and stops right at the hem of his sweatshirt.
Yoongi’s cheeks burn. He must have drank too much hot cocoa. He’s feeling a little warm. Any minute now his palms are going to start sweating.
Unwilling to speak for fear of his voice coming out shaky or nervous, he mirrors Hoseok’s body language and slumps farther into the couch.
They are both quietly aware of Yoongi’s pulse.
---
The movie comes to an end, and Hoseok readjusts on the couch, folding his legs under himself. As he does, one of his feet brushes against Yoongi’s skin, which causes him to pull his hand back, hissing.
“God, your toes are freezing,” he says.
“I know. I’m trying to warm them up,” Hoseok insists and shoves his feet under Yoongi’s legs.
Yoongi tries to push Hoseok’s feet away, but they really are so cold he thinks his toes might turn into little ice cubes. He stands and jogs into his bedroom.
“Come back and warm my toes!” Hoseok whines after him.
Yoongi laughs to himself. Digging through his sock drawer, he finds a pair of fuzzy green socks with sheep on them.
“Just give me a second!” he calls out.
By the time he strides back to the couch, which took him a total of three short seconds, Hoseok has splayed his body across the armrest and stuck his tongue out like he’s a corpse.
“Oh, good. I don’t have to use this stake on you then,” Yoongi says.
One of Hoseok’s eyes cracks open skeptically. Upon seeing the fuzzy socks in Yoongi’s hands, he sits up straight and swings his feet over the edge of the couch. His toes wiggle like an excited puppy’s tail.
“You’re kind of squirrely for a vampire,” Yoongi mumbles as he slips the socks onto Hoseok’s feet.
“You’re pretty Grinchy for a human,” he responds.
Yoongi grabs Hoseok’s feet and twists him around the couch by the legs. Hoseok squawks at him. He puts on a fake-serious face, his lips form an exaggerated pout.
“I could kill you, you know,” he says in a low voice that sounds like a little boy imitating a villain.
Before he even stops to think about what he’s saying or if it’s crossing a line, Yoongi says, “What, you want to bite me or something?”
They both go a little quiet. Hoseok is still in Yoongi’s face from his killer vampire performance, but neither of them pull away. Yoongi can’t quite recognize the energy that’s hanging in the air right now, but it makes his heart start pounding frantically.
Gently, Hoseok says, “I’m okay.”
Yoongi ignores the way it feels like a polite rejection.
Hoseok’s eyes are soft. The warm glow from the Christmas tree makes him look saccharine sweet, a real life Christmas card. “I kind of wanna kiss you, though,” he says.
The words push all the air out of Yoongi’s chest. “But we’re neighbors.”
Hoseok pulls a face. “Would you rather we be cousins?”
Yoongi shoves at his shoulder and sighs, “Don’t be gross.”
When Hoseok says nothing to change the subject, just blinks at Yoongi with sincere eyes, Yoongi knows he has to say something. Do something.
“Are you serious?” he asks.
One of Hoseok’s eyebrows twitches up ever so slightly. “If it’s okay with you.”
And with perhaps the last breath he thinks he’ll ever breathe, Yoongi whispers, “It’s okay with me.”
With granted permission, Hoseok touches the tip of his nose to Yoongi’s, a small dash of anticipation.
They both timidly close their eyes, and Yoongi knows Hoseok can hear his heartbeat now. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he rests one on Hoseok’s knee, coy. With the other, he picks at the edge of the pillow he’s sitting on, trying to expel his nervous energy.
With a touch so light Yoongi can barely tell he’s there, Hoseok brings their lips together. It’s achingly slow and does nothing to ease Yoongi’s racing heart. But he likes it so much that his hand tightens on Hoseok’s knee.
Hoseok smiles against his lips. Then devilishly, he pulls Yoongi’s bottom lip with his teeth. Still gentle, still soft, but playful. Yoongi had no idea kisses could have personalities of their own. And this one feels just like Hoseok. Almost like he always knew this was how kissing him would feel but didn’t realize it until it happened. It’s just like déjà vu.
He thinks for a moment that Hoseok is about to bite him, draw blood, lick it from his lips. And he kind of wants him to. He wonders if kissing him would feel so intoxicating if he weren’t a vampire. The feeling of his fangs lightly scraping against his lips is an added layer of delight.
But before he gets lost in his thick, swirling thoughts, Hoseok sways back with eyes still closed, smiles, and squeezes Yoongi’s hand.
“Do you want to sleep under the tree?” Yoongi whispers.
Hoseok blinks at him, clearly still reeling from the kiss. “Hmm?”
“My brother and I…” Yoongi trails, trying to give Hoseok a minute to focus. “We would sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve when we were little.” He can’t hold back the shy smile tugging at his lips. “Do you want to?”
Hoseok puts his hands on either side of Yoongi’s face and squishes his cheeks in. “You’re cute.”
“You’re annoying.” He blows a raspberry.
Hoseok shoots in for a quick peck on Yoongi’s puffed out lips.
“I know,” he smiles.
Hoseok agrees to stay the night, and by the light of the Christmas tree, they wordlessly set up a makeshift blanket fort and lie down, socked feet intertwined, breathing in each other’s silent breaths until they both fall asleep.