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someone’s been leaving smiley faces in the snow on yoongi’s car for the past week. yoongi doesn’t mind. on the contrary, it makes his mornings significantly better. it brings a smile to his face at 5am when he starts his commute towards the radio station on cold december mornings.
he doesn’t find out who’s been doing it until one day in early january when he sees a lanky figure very carefully drawing the smiley face on the hood of his car. yoongi stops a few steps away and clears his throat, the stranger having not yet noticed him. and yoongi doesn’t want to be dramatic, but if he were to ever tell the story of how he first met taehyung, he’d make it a movie and be sure to have this scene in slow-motion. he swears the falling snow was not only shimmering around the man standing in front of him, but it was also reflecting back in his eyes that were blown so wide from being startled when yoongi coughed that it made taehyung look like an angel.
“uhm.” yoongi doesn’t think anyone other than taehyung himself could play his part in the movie. there is simply no one who could do justice to his voice.
“so you’re the one who’s been making me smile.”
yoongi’s really in check with his feelings. he knows taehyung has friends, other friends, of course he has friends because he’s naturally friendly. and yoongi thinks that is great. yoongi thinks, okay, i get it. it’s great. it’s good that he has friends. but shit, i thought we had something special, but then i saw you doodle a smiley face in jimin’s notebook and that shit hurt a little, you know. but he’d never say that out loud, because yoongi is really in check with his feelings, so he knows he is just being jealous. because even though they’ve only known each other for a few months. and even though they’ve really, truly been friends for only the past month maybe, after taehyung came to yoongi’s birthday celebration and met all of his other friends. and then somehow taehyung had convinced yoongi to merge their friend groups because, hyung, i really think hoseok and jimin would have so much in common, even though they agreed that seokjin and jungkook should probably never meet because they would feed off of each other’s chaos. so even though they haven’t been friends for that long. and even though taehyung and jimin have known each other since they were in middle school, yoongi knows he is jealous, because he really-really likes taehyung.
taehyung is great at avoiding things. he thinks that if he had a superpower that’d be it. he’d be the greatest disappearing act. the best of the best at switching the subject. world renowned in how bad he is at feelings. because taehyung knows yoongi likes him, so he makes sure yoongi knows that, ah, cmon we’re all friends here, ha-ha. because taehyung’s so bad at feelings. and he’s afraid no one could really like him, because there’s so much of him. so he tries to ration his affection. a little bit to everyone, even though he’d like to smother yoongi with it. he wants to give his everything and more to yoongi. because yoongi is so gentle and understanding and warm and kind. and yoongi just gets it. he gets taehyung. he doesn’t push taehyung. he just – taehyung is thinking love, but he shakes his head really fast, because no. they’ve only known each other for 4 months. this is not love. they’re acquaintances. barely friends. are they friends? they have to be friends. their friends are friends. but taehyung is so afraid of slipping up and having all of his big scary feelings show that he can’t even call yoongi his friend.
it doesn’t really come as a surprise when yoongi gets hurt. it’s taehyung saying: “we don’t even know each other.” and suddenly the room is too cold. and it’s weird because taehyung is nothing but warmth. but yoongi feels like his heart is shrinking. he looks around taehyung’s living room. sees the books he loaned to taehyung on the shelf. they have his notes in the margins. taehyung’s read them all. yoongi’s never let anyone besides namjoon read his notes before – and that’s only because they write songs together. there’s the little fern he gave taehyung as a ‘hey, i know you’ve lived here for a long time, but i’ve never been, so i brought this’ not-housewarming gift. or his sweater that taehyung’s currently wearing. and thinks of the other 3 in taehyung’s closet. his socks and sweats mixed with taehyung’s in the laundry basket. taehyung’s begun to keep coffee beans at his place. he bought a grinder from a second-hand shop because yoongi grumbled one time whilst having to settle for instant coffee at a 7-eleven: “ugh, i can’t believe i have to drink this when fresh beans and coffee-grinders exist.” or how taehyung always gets the spicy sauce too with his chicken now. or how yoongi makes tteokbokki more mild. or the dozens of packs of taehyung’s favourite instant ramen at his place, because he can’t eat the spicy ones. or how taehyung knows when yoongi’s had a bad day at work because his shoulders are stiff. or how taehyung knows yoongi’s tired because his eyebrows are knit together. or how yoongi knows taehyung’s been pushing his homework off because he keeps fidgeting. or how yoongi knows that taehyung was anxious and couldn’t sleep at night because of the way the corners of his mouth are slightly frowning. and how yoongi knows what tea to make to get taehyung to relax. and he keeps it at his place. two packets, just in case. and he knows how to wrap his arms around taehyung to ground him.
and then taehyung says that they don’t know each other. and yoongi…for a second yoongi wants to take back every little piece of him he’s ever shared with taehyung. because this is so incredibly unfair. but he’s shut himself away before. he’s been closed off before. and it’d be unfair to deny his feelings again. so he just looks taehyung in the eyes, shakes his head, and tells him that he does know him. that they do know each other.
“you know me better than anyone has ever known me before,” he says, “sometimes i think you know me better than i know myself.”
and taehyung just sits there with wide glistening eyes, he looks afraid. taehyung looks like he wants to run. and he does. he wants to run. because he’s so afraid. because he loves yoongi. but he can’t ever say that because it’s too much. it’s too much too soon. and everything can come crashing down so fast. taehyung thinks, it’s easier if you hurt yourself. you can see it coming. no surprises. and taehyung doesn’t like surprises.
but yoongi refuses to give up because he’s never actually felt like this before. and he thinks taehyung is worth everything, absolutely everything. so he doesn’t give up. yoongi doesn’t want to make taehyung uncomfortable though, doesn’t want to scare him away. he knows that taheyung would run the minute he had a reason to, so yoongi doesn’t really say anything. doesn’t push. just continues showing and sharing his love. starts showing and sharing it more. more stargazing dates on the roof. he doesn’t consider them dates, not really, not when he can’t call them dates because taehyung is still so afraid. but he starts initiating hugs, which is hard for an introvert like yoongi who struggles with eye contact, but taehyung likes to be wrapped in other people’s warmth. yoongi starts bringing tea to taehyung in the morning before his classes. goes to walk him home from work, because taehyung said he’s a little afraid sometimes on his commute at 4am from the 24/7 library. so yoongi holds his hand.
and taehyung feels guilty. he feels guilty, because he loves this. he loves lying on the roof in the middle of warm september nights squinting to spot the stars in the light-polluted sky. he loves the way yoongi curls around him when they’re watching movies, hugs that turn into cuddles. the tea yoongi brews always tastes sweeter than whatever he makes himself, it always warms him up more. yoongi’s hand in his feels like it belongs, walking side by side, taehyung feels like he always has a piece of home with him. taehyung knows that he loves yoongi, but he’s still so afraid, and he knows that if they were to put a label on it, he’d be gone in an instant. a modern disappearing act. the best in the world. he’s done it before. he considers himself an expert. he has all the steps down: remove them from every social media platform. don’t block, blocking is petty, blocking makes it look like you have something to hide, like you regret it, like you’re actually avoiding. you can’t let them know you are. delete their number. you’re weak. you know you’ll text and call at 3am when time feels a little different, when you think that, hey, maybe things are still the same, maybe everything can stay like that forever. change your daily schedule. pick a new coffee shop to become a regular at. take a different route to work, to school. but this is different. because yoongi has never told taehyung that he’s too much. didn’t tell taehyung to shut up. didn’t tell taehyung to stop bouncing his leg. didn’t tell taehyung to get over it. didn’t tell taehyung it’s all in his head. so maybe it’s okay to love too much, because yoongi loves him too. and yoongi keeps loving him. and taehyung knows it’s selfish and cruel toward yoongi, but he doesn’t want to give it up yet. so he lets yoongi lead him to the rooftop to stargaze. hugs yoongi back. accepts the tea with a smile. holds yoongi’s hand when they walk home at dawn. taehyung feels guilty. but he doesn’t want to stop yet.
so it goes on like this for months. and yoongi doesn’t mind because he’s happy. he’s happy being just friends with taehyung. he’s happy as long he has taehyung in his life.
so now they’ve known each other for almost a year. christmas came and went. they decided not to give each other gifts because the economy. so they just spent christmas eve eating good food, snuggled under a blanket watching all three john hughes’ home alone. on christmas day they went to a café to have stupidly overpriced seasonal drinks with all of their friends, and on the way home ended up having a snowball fight. and when they got home yoongi was shivering so bad taehyung thought his teeth were going to crack. so he awkwardly stripped them down to t-shirts and underwear and covered them in 3 blankets on yoongi’s bed. snuggled really close because body heat. it’s physics, taehyung tells himself. it’s physics, it’s not weird, it’s physics, it’s not leading him on, it’s physics, and he doesn’t want yoongi to get sick. and when yoongi finally stops shivering, and his feet between taehyung’s legs no longer feel like blocks of ice, taehyung untangles himself from yoongi and goes to make tea. while the kettle boils he runs a warm bath, puts in one of yoongi’s favourite bath bombs, a deep citrusy scent. taehyung thinks it smells like home.
he sets the cup of peppermint tea down next to the bathtub. drags a sleepy and compliant yoongi from the bed, turns his back, and orders him to get in. hands him the tea and sits down on the tiled floor. too afraid to leave, what if yoongi falls asleep. they sit in relative silence until the water gets cold, the tea finished 10 minutes before.
“you gonna leave so i can wash myself and get dressed?” there’s a little smirk on yoongi’s lips and taehyung just rolls his eyes, stands up and leaves, mumbling, “you better not slip and fall and hit your head.” yoongi just snorts. and taehyung can hear the shower running from where he’s standing in the kitchen placing the washed mug on the dish rack.
yoongi comes out of the bathroom, cheeks flushed rosy pink, dressed in the clothes taehyung left out for him: sweats, a knit sweater, 2 pairs of socks, the top ones fuzzy and the colour of his cheeks. taehyung’s warm all over.
yoongi sheepishly scratches the back of his neck, “im gon’ go back to bed. take a nap maybe.” and it’s 8pm, so taehyung thinks maybe it’s time to just turn in for the night. he says as much, “okay. i should go as well. it’s getting late anyway.” he grabs his satchel, starts shoving his art supplies inside, not really wanting to leave, but i have to i have to i have to i have to i have to. but yoongi, hand still on the back of his neck, “you could stay, you know?” taehyung stops packing and lowers his bag on the couch. doesn’t say anything. doesn’t know what to say. i want to stay i want to stay i want to stay i want to stay i want to stay. doesn’t have the courage to stay.
“what if i get cold during the night? or suddenly spike a fever? what if i get really sick and can’t get to the phone and then my poor old landlady’s going to find me lying in the hallway barely breathing or worse – dead – and she’s going to be so shocked that she’ll have a heart attack and then we’ll both be lying there with no one looking for us and 3 days later when the smell gets really bad they’ll find us and – “
taehyung snorts, “im pretty sure hobi and jin will be at your door 10am tomorrow morning, doesn’t matter if you’re sick, dying, or just trying to sleep in.”
“okay, yeah, fair point, fair point,” yoongi hums. taehyung’s smiling a little. starts to gather his things again.
“what if i get lonely?”
and taehyung’s staring at yoongi again. eyes wide, frozen in his spot. please ask me to stay please ask me to stay please ask me to stay please ask me to stay please ask me to stay.
“please stay.”
taehyung puts his satchel back on the floor next to the couch. straightens up. “o-okay.” and he feels guilty.
he feels guilty when he’s standing next to yoongi’s bed after taking a shower and changing his clothes. the older already covered under three blankets, a small soft smile on his lips. and taehyung smiles back, hopes yoongi can’t tell he’s nervous, hopes yoongi can’t tell that all taehyung wants to do is wrap his arms around yoongi, pull him close, kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and never stop kissing him. but that would be unfair. so taehyung just hugs him close. thinks, this is home. and even though taehyung is still scared, for the first time ever he doesn’t want to run away. he wants to pull yoongi closer and never let go.
taehyung is sitting at the kitchen table watching yoongi cook them breakfast. it’s 10:37am and hobi and jin are punching in the code and coming through the door, just like taehyung predicted. but it’s alright, because seokjin texted yoongi a little before 9 and asked if they could come over.
“oh, hey tae! did you come over for breakfast?” hobi gives him a quick hug from behind and sits on the chair next to him.
“uhm,” taehyung can feel himself blushing, can see yoongi’s hand freezing where he’s stirring the soup, “no.” he doesn’t think he could say it out loud, afraid of the implications. even though they’re friends, and their friends know they are friends, so it’s not even like it’s a big deal. but taehyung doesn’t think he could do with the teasing when he’s only just got comfortable with the idea of having enough courage to tell yoongi he loves him. so he suffers through the most awkward breakfast of his life with hoseok and seokjin trying to keep the conversation alive. he thanks yoongi for the food, for the company, unable to look him in the eye, grabs his bag from where it’s still beside the couch and leaves to the chime of the door locking. taehyung runs to jimin and cries, can’t stop crying. because he feels so guilty. and he’s so in love. and he’s so scared. because he’ll still afraid to ruin it. because there’s too much of him, there will always be too much of him. so jimin keeps drying the tears that fall, catching them on the sleeves of his oversized sweater, and tells taehyung what taehyung already knows, “yoongi loves you too.”
seokjin gives yoongi a look. yoongi would roll his eyes if he weren’t actually desperate for some input and advice from his friends. so he just sighs and drops his head in his hands.
“i don’t know. it was weird. or like, it was weird because it wasn’t weird, you know? i was freezing and it makes sense. it’s physics! it’s just physics. it was just him making sure i get warm again. and then he made me tea and ran me a bath, and hyung, he put in my favorite bath bomb, and it’s stupid, but hyung, he went through the trouble. and then we sat in silence the entire time and – “
“wait wait wait wait you guys took a bath together? because that is definitely not just physics.”
“no,” yoongi groans, “no, he just sat beside the door. i was sleepy and droopy and he said he was afraid i’d fall asleep or fall and hit my head. the physics part was him hugging me after we got home to warm me back up again.”
“oh.” yoongi thinks seokjin sounds a little bit too disappointed. hoseok just snickers beside him, tries to cover it up with his hand. yoongi doesn’t mind. he’d be laughing too if he wasn’t so desperate for answers, for solid ground. he offers hoseok a small smile so he won’t feel bad for laughing.
“anyway, i came out of the bathroom and told him i was going to take a nap. and he said he’ll head home. but i didn’t want him to leave?” yoongi’s shoulders drop, “i never want him to leave.”
“i know,” seokjin says. because he does know. because they’ve known each other for ten years. because yoongi trusts him. because seokjin was the first person yoongi told. two months after figuring out who had been leaving those silly smiley faces on the hood of his car. “im in love with him, you know?” yoongi said, matter of fact, when taehyung had left the table to go to the bathroom. they were out for dinner, no one else was listening. hobi and jungkook too immersed in their own world. jimin and namjoon were arguing about something again, never too serious, jimin just liked to prod, and namjoon liked to discuss anything and everything. sometimes it just got very loud.
and seokjin hates seeing his friend so defeated, but he doesn’t know how to help. he only knows taehyung loves yoongi too. so that’s what he tells him.
taehyung’s birthday’s coming up. and yoongi writes him a song. a melody. something warm, something hopeful, a little dramatic, a lot magical, melancholy, a little sad, a little anxious. something that feels like it’s a little bit too much. something that says I love you.
taehyung’s been avoiding him, has let his fears get the best of him. listened to yoongi’s birthday present, felt the ground beneath his feet shake and crumble, and he disappeared. and yoongi hates it because he can’t even call taehyung out on it. he’s too good, too subtle about it. taehyung’s been saying he’s too busy to come over. he’s been saying he has too many projects to finish for school to go out. and maybe yoongi could reply to the fifth text of ‘hyung, i’m sorry, i need to finish this essay’ the week after taheyung’s birthday that you’re avoiding me, you are avoiding me, because you got scared. you’re avoiding me because the song was too much. yoongi thinks about texting him, saying we can pretend the song doesn’t exist. we can pretend i never gave it to you. we can avoid it like you’ve been avoiding me. yoongi doesn’t. instead he calls seokjin over and they sit in silence watching a drama that yoongi uses as an excuse when he tears up during the night.
it’s the first week of february when yoongi’s walking home after a shit day of work. he was covering for another dj so he’s been awake for too long on too little sleep. it’s way past midnight and he wants nothing more than to curl up at his couch and cry himself to sleep and wake up cursing himself for not moving to his bed because all his joints will be aching and he’s barely thirty but fuck, he’s getting older. and he’s planning to do just that as he’s rounding the corner of his house.
there’s a smiley face drawn in the snow on yoongi’s car.
he’s thrown back all the way to the previous year when he had only just met taehyung and his heart pangs with how much he misses the other. it’s been too long since they’ve seen each other and yoongi takes two steps at a time running up the stairs aching to see taehyung again, to be in the same room with him. as he gets to his door he realizes how silly he’s being. takes a moment to breathe in deeply, taehyung might not even be the one who left the smiley face. just because he knows the code doesn’t mean he’d use it. why would he suddenly stop avoiding you, yoongi, it’s been over a month. damn it. yoongi still chooses to hope as he punches in the code.
taehyung is curled up on the couch. there’s tteokbokki on the table, the tv displaying a paused intro of a nature documentary. yoongi sets his bag on the floor and takes off his shoes, careful to make as little sound as possible. then he’s standing next to the couch, looking down at taehyung’s sleeping form. his brows are furrowed like he’s having a bad dream, so yoongi gently cards his fingers through taehyung’s hair. the younger blinks his eyes open and stares at yoongi whose hand is still playing with his locks. and yoongi doesn’t really know how he went all this time without spending it with taehyung, how he could bear missing him this much. being with taehyung like this, just existing in the same room, feels like being home, and yoongi thinks that even though he’d rather have taehyung as a friend than not have him at all, would take all that he has given back just so he can have taehyung again, he needs to be completely honest with the younger.
but before he can open his mouth, taehyung breathes in and then says on an exhale, “i love you, hyung. i hope it’s not too late.” taehyung licks his lips, his nose turning red.
“of course it’s not.”
“i’m sorry.” taehyung sits up and wipes at his eyes. “it shouldn’t have taken me this long. it’s not like i haven’t loved you this entire time. i just-,” he breathes in. yoongi, now sitting beside him, is the one to catch the next tears that fall, cradling taehyung’s face in his hands, “i was just too cowardly to say anything. too afraid that if i give you this final piece of me i would never get it back. but that’s not fair to you because i know you would handle my love with so much care. hyung, your hands are so big,” yoongi snorts a little laugh, “and they’re so gentle. so even though sometimes there’s too much of me for everyone, i think, i think maybe i’m just enough for you.”
“you’re exactly the right amount, taehyung. and the more of you i get to know, the more of yourself you show, the more i fall in love with you. i love you so much.”
“i love you too.”
“and i love you.”
taehyung throws his hands around yoongi, burrowing his face into yoongi’s neck, breathes in deep and whispers, “i love you.”
yoongi chuckles, “you already said that.”
“i know,” he sighs again, “i still love you though.”
“i love you too.”
“the tteokbokki is cold, i think.”
“do you want to sleep?”
“yeah,” taehyung hugs yoongi a little tighter.
yoongi laughs, “you’re going to have to let go of me, so i can get out of these clothes and we can brush our teeth.”
so taehyung reluctantly lets go. they get ready for bed, brushing their teeth side by side. this time, when taehyung is standing next to yoongi’s bed he’s not feeling guilty about it. he snuggles under the blankets, facing his hyung, and asks instead, “can i kiss you?” and when yoongi nods, taehyung wraps his arms around yoongi, pulls him close, and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, doesn’t ever want to stop kissing him. but they need air, so taehyung just hugs him close. thinks, this is home. and he doesn’t want to run away. so he pulls yoongi as close as he can and promises himself to never let go.