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“You’re doing it again,” Jimin sighs after the ninth time he catches Yoongi, trying and failing to be subtle, gawking at him from where he’s seated on the opposite end of the couch. They’re supposed to be watching television, but Yoongi is choosing to watch Jimin laugh at the variety show playing instead.
“Doing what?” Yoongi grumbles, focus snapping back to the screen the second he’s called out.
“Staring.”
Scoffing, Yoongi claims, “I never do that.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I won’t notice,” Jimin admits, softer. It’s been happening for years, at least half as long as Jimin has known Yoongi. Most of the time he acts as if he’s oblivious, finding it easier than the moments when he’ll meet Yoongi’s eyes and Yoongi will flush red and twist his neck like he’s just glancing around the room and their eye contact was entirely coincidence. Yoongi is cute when he’s embarrassed. It makes Jimin want to confess things better kept secret.
He’s never said anything before, but he does notice. And he wants to know why.
Peeking through his peripherals at Jimin, Yoongi’s tone is a harsh blend of disbelief and afraid when he mutters, “Yeah? What way?”
The exact look is hard to name. It’s a quiet awe, a kind of fascination, like Yoongi can’t believe that Jimin really exists or is actually there with him, and the corners of his lips are just barely curved up in the tiniest grin and Jimin, when he catches it, thinks that it’s the happiest Yoongi ‘s ever looked. Jimin’s only seen the smile in those short moments when he faces Yoongi in the midst of his one-sided staring contest and Yoongi takes two seconds too long to react, Jimin trying to memorize the expression that inevitably disappears once Yoongi realizes he’s not as inconspicuous as he thought. It’s a strange gentleness that is rare for Yoongi. There’s always something sweet about the way he looks at Jimin, even if Jimin isn’t supposed to know. It’s like the way his brother looks at his wife. The way his mom looks at his dad.
The way he looks at Yoongi.
He doesn’t know how to explain it, at least not concisely, and the only thing coming to mind is a quote that Yoongi once showed him, in the form of a badly made graphic with white, cursive script text laid over a black and white photo of a couple. They had laughed about it at the time, but Jimin uses it anyways, “Like I’m the one who put all the stars in the sky.”
Jimin expects teasing. He expects vicious jokes from Yoongi’s sharp tongue. He expects Yoongi to tell anyone who will listen for three days just how cheesy Jimin can be. He expects, at the very least, adamant denial.
Instead, he gets an entire commercial break worth of silence while Yoongi suddenly finds the tear in the knee of his jeans so interesting he can’t bear to look away.
“So, you noticed?” There’s something so self-deprecating about Yoongi’s verification that Jimin can’t understand. He can’t think of a reason for Yoongi’s fleeting looks to be so terrible.
“Why?” Jimin asks, simply.
Yoongi may have spent years sneaking glances but, now, he won’t even spare Jimin a glimpse.
“I think I’m in love with you,” Yoongi says it so quietly, so nervously, Jimin almost doesn’t hear him over the television speakers, “and I’m terrified.”
Like being struck by lightning, shock runs through Jimin’s veins at the sound of the confession, happy affection following closely after it. It should’ve been more obvious, Jimin thinks, but the hushed doubt in the back of his mind, telling him it’s impossible even as Yoongi himself says otherwise makes it hard for Jimin to believe that Yoongi would ever love him back.
They fall back into silence, Yoongi fidgeting nervously as he waits for a reaction and Jimin stiff while he processes the information.
Jimin should probably wonder about why Yoongi is terrified, whether it’s of being in love or of Jimin or just of admitting it and maybe ask how long, ‘cause he thinks that’s something people do, or, more importantly, ask Yoongi on a date, or to be his boyfriend, or whatever, because he definitely loves him too.
Eventually, Jimin slides his hand across the cushion that separates him from Yoongi, catching Yoongi’s wrist. He pulls it towards him, so it rests between them, Yoongi finally glancing at him out of confusion.
Jimin slips his hand beneath Yoongi’s and turns his palm up so he can twine their fingers together, and promises, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”