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Hoseok hesitates in front of Jimin's hotel room door, then he knocks, knuckles tapping on the heavy wood twice. steady, sharp—nothing like the mess he feels inside. He's tired, exhausted from the concert, but Taehyung had told him, hurried and distressed, that Jiminie needs you, Hyung, please. Just for tonight? So here he is, anxious and worried.
There's a call from inside the room, unintelligible, and Hoseok is left standing at the door for a minute before he realizes with a start that Jimin won't be coming to push it open. The door is unlocked, waiting for him.
Jimin's room is cold, air conditioning on high. It's a mess—the television is on but on mute, a tray of food has been left on the table, clothes are strewn across the sofa. And at the center of it all, there's Jimin. a figure under the pile of blue blankets, silent, save for the soft ruffling sound as he breathes in and out. Hoseok breaks the silence, his voice piercing through.
"Taehyung said you need me?"
Jimin doesn't answer. There’s no indication that Jimin has heard his words and he lets his thoughts take over, memories of their years together flickering by until Jimin finally lifts the covers off the bed. It's a silent invitation that Hoseok accepts, climbing onto the bed and slipping under the blue soft material, a small safe distance between them. Hoseok turns around to get a good look at Jimin—his bandmate. his close friend, his ex. Jimin was once the center of the universe. Now it's tilted off its axis without him, unbalanced.
Jimin has his head on the pillows, his body engulfed in his pyjamas. His face is red, and Hoseok can see past his body to the tissues surrounding the wastebasket where it has missed its goal. Hoseok tries to ignore the bird's nest mess of Jimin's hair, the skin on Jimin's face irritated from the force of him rubbing at his tears. His eyes are watery, and that has always been Hoseok's weak point—he can't stand to see his baby cry, even now. Even after he knows he's the cause of those tears, somehow.
Hoseok's hands go to wipe at Jimin's face, and Jimin stiffens but doesn't move back. He continues, fingers on the corners of Jimin's eyes, wiping away his tears, like he would have, six months ago. He would have left a kiss on the tip of Jimin's nose, would have smoothened his hair, and promised to take all of Jimin's worries away. But that was six months ago, and it feels like a lifetime.
He has no right, anymore. Hoseok doesn't know what he's allowed, after how he ended things after five years of a relationship that looked perfect, felt almost too perfect. It's been six months, but they've been tiptoeing around each other, Hoseok dodging the angry glares from Taehyung and Jungkook, nodding along to the advice Namjoon, Seokjin and Yoongi give him—and when he doesn't listen, he buries his pain at their saddened looks too.
None of them understand why Hoseok broke up with Jimin. He has his reasons, but each day it becomes harder to stick to his ground. They've started exchanging smiles now, him and Jimin. The way Jimin's eyes light up, how his cheeks bunch up and turn pink—it makes Hoseok second-guess himself, wonder if he did the right thing after all. Jimin's smile always does down after a few seconds, eyes dulling and looking away as he remembers how fractured they are.
"What happened, Jimin-ah? Couldn’t sleep?"
Taehyung had knocked on the door loudly until he woke up from his restless sleep, stormed in, and then told him to get his shit together, go talk to Jimin—harsh, but Taehyung has always been protective of Jimin, not unlike Hoseok.
Concerts always leave them with a rush, an emotional high that inevitably crashes. Jimin and Jungkook always feel it the most. They’re meant for the stage, living for those moments. It's silent for a while, the flickering of the television in the corner of Hoseok's eyes helps to keep him tethered to the bed and this moment with Jimin.
"After concerts, we used to share a room," Jimin starts, voice hoarse and unsteady, a little slurred. He's been drinking, a lot, enough to make him tipsy, enough to make him break down. "And you used to hug me to sleep once the adrenaline wore off... but Taehyungie doesn't feel the same."
Ah.
Hoseok comes closer, an awkward shuffle, sits down on the covers and hesitantly wraps an arm around Jimin. He can feel the warmth of Jimin's body under the covers, can hear Jimin's slow breaths. This is the closest they’ve been next to each other in a long time, outside of public appearances and concerts. He tried not to be alone with Jimin those first few months, but soon came to realize that it was impossible—Jimin is electric, and Hoseok is always drawn to him, from the first time he saw Jimin dance before they debuted, to the first time Jimin laughed fully in their small dance studio, falling into Hoseok’s chest.
"He doesn't smell like you, or feel like you, and I thought I could sleep through the night but I can't, and I told Taehyung to go back to his room to sleep," Jimin takes in a deep breath, then exhales, shaky, "and— and I miss you Hyung, so much."
The last words are more breathy sobs than words, and Hoseok presses himself closer to Jimin, his hands on Jimin's back and Jimin's face on his chest. Hoseok's throat feels like it's clogged up. Words are fighting to get out of his mouth and into Jimin’s ears, to finally be free of this heavy burden of sadness, but he can't say them—doesn't want to say them, and risk the hope, risk giving hope to himself or Jimin, when the house they build together could fall and tumble to the ground in a cloud of dust in one second.
He doesn't know how to tell Jimin that he's been struggling to sleep for weeks now, always waking up and searching for him in the middle of the night. He misses the soft lullabies Jimin would sing to him at night, making Hoseok join in—and they'd laugh as they made up words to fit the tune.
Hoseok broke up with Jimin in the hopes that he could become less consumed by his love for Jimin, trying to find himself and not just a half of a whole, a whole that is HoseokAndJimin and find the Hoseok that he can be by himself—and he’s achieved that, to some extent, but he can’t ignore that burn, that small hole in his chest, the Jimin-shaped empty space in his bed and his heart.
Jimin has always been his comfort, his safe place. They have years of memories between them — as friends, as more. There's a crack now, uncertainty when they used to be so sure of each other. So sure of each other, in love and together and complete, before Hoseok ruined this for them.
He'd been fine those first few months, or so he’d believed. It’s hard to find that balance, carve his place as Jimin’s friend and bandmate, not boyfriend. Relearning how to act as one person while still being surrounded by Jimin's presence, ignoring the negging feeling that something, someone is missing, trying and failing to restrain himself from the lingering thoughts of wouldn’t it be nice to take Jimin here on a date, this scarf would look cute around Jimin, he would love this shirt, this snack, this place.
If he was to be honest with himself, really truly honest, tearing away this mask he's perfected—if he was being true to himself, Hoseok would be able to say this: what he has been feeling from the moment of the breakup is like a glass with an infinite number of small cracks, too tiny for the human eye to see, ready to shatter into millions of broken pieces if one thing goes wrong.
Breakups don't just happen because you stop loving someone, I love you so much Jimin-ah, Hoseok had told Jimin that day, sometimes it's just not the right time. And Jimin, a betrayed look on his face, stubborn, confused—so confused—trying to process this unexpected left turn, had asked him so when is the right time? When is our right time? When you say it is?
He'd been so sure—their relationship was more fights than hugs then towards the end, a negative cloud that affected their whole group, the stress of their fame and schedules mixed in with their relationship. He'd told Jimin if we're meant to be, we'll know when it's the right time.
Hoseok’s shirt wets up with Jimin's tears, his ears ring with the sounds of Jimin's soft cries, and Hoseok thinks why did we break up if we both love each other so much, need each other like this? He rubs gentle circles on Jimin's back, counting the inhales and exhales Jimin takes, one, two, three…. four. Jimin falls asleep like that, in Hoseok's arms, like he would in the past.
The glass shatters, sudden and without fanfare, leaving Hoseok's heart in fragments, sharp enough to cut his hand on, messy and unwanted. His cries are silent, body frozen as his tears slip down his face. Tears that Jimin will hopefully mistake for his own when he wakes up. He rubs at his face roughly, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.
Hoseok will leave before Jimin wakes up tomorrow. He'll pretend tonight never happened. He'll avoid Jimin for a few days, just enough to recenter himself. If it happens again, he’ll let it, then erase his memory again. When they get back to Korea, after the tour, after months of being surrounded by Jimin’s presence, he'll go back to his hometown, and Jimin will go to his, a week of distance. And then, once they get back, everything will get back to how it was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Uncomfortable distance, mild awkwardness, safe. It's for the best.
He can't allow himself to think of the alternatives, good or bad.