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"Hey," Taehyung's voice comes across the fuzzy line, and Jimin keens a little. He pulls the device from his ear momentarily to check the time. It’s 6:17am.
“Why are you awake?” He chooses to say instead of a greeting, “it’s a holiday.”
There is shuffling on the other line. Jimin can practically see the image of his friend shifting around in his bed to get comfortable, burrowing under his comforter, before loud rustling that indicates he’d just pressed his phone right up the side of his own face.
“I fell asleep last night,” Taehyung’s low gravelly morning voice explains, “and forgot to wish you a happy new year.”
Jimin wants to curse himself for letting the corners of his lips to pull upwards, twitching into this dumbass smile he only ever allows himself when he’s alone.
“Stupid,” he falls backwards onto his own neatly made bed, “It doesn’t make a difference if you do it or not.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be that best friend who forgets to bring in the new year together,” he pauses to yawn full-on into the receiver, “so happy new year, Park Jimin, may you have many many good returns blah blah and hopefully get laid this year.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jimin scoffs, lifting his legs up to casually clench his core, there can never be a bad time to work on his abdominals, “like you’re any better off.”
He assumes the strange grunting and chortling sound is supposed to be Taehyung voicing his indignance, so he chuckles in response, loud and ringing. By the time they both settle down, a comfortable silence hangs in the air.
There’s still a whole lot of hours before the year ends for him on this side of the world. He’s not sure if he should tell Taehyung that, but eventually decides against it. It isn’t as if he doesn’t keep his phone in Korean time, just so he can ponder on what the other is doing at that moment, every time he glances at it.
“I’m gonna go eat lunch now, Tae,” Jimin finally says, half convinced that Taehyung had fallen back asleep when he doesn’t get any acknowledgment, “Taetae?”
“I miss you, Jiminie.” He stills at the sleep-laden voice. Now it’s his turn to be waited upon for a response. “Miss you,” Taehyung repeats, fuzzy voice small through the receiver, even smaller miles and miles apart.
Jimin takes a deep breath as quietly as he can. A sensation crawls across his chest as he pictures his best friend curled up in his baby blue blankets, eyelids fluttering shut, but waiting. It’s yearning, he realises, yearning to be ten again and right there beside Taehyung, playfighting on his mother’s fluffy rug; yearning to be seventeen again and next to Taehyung, thighs touching, marathoning Naruto while both eating out of one takeout box.
He yearns to be next to Taehyung right now, kissing his eyelids closed, holding his fingers, watching his chest rise and fall as he sleeps in a little bit more.
Jimin clenches his eyes shut tightly, willing the feelings he’s kept so well under wraps to return below the safety line.
“Jiminie?” Taehyung’s small voice jolts him, “hey you still there?”
“Yeah,” Jimin can barely hear himself above the pounding of his pulse in his ears, feeling his lips coming dangerously loose, “yeah, Taehyung, I-” really, really fucking like you, “-miss you too. I’ll see you during summer break, ok?”
“Summer is so far away,” Taehyung is pouting, Jimin knows, but he’s also drifting off slowly.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Jimin sighs, carefully listening to Taehyung’s whine of disapproval, before the line goes quiet again and he knows Taehyung has fallen back asleep. He allows himself to continue listening to the static-y sounds of Taehyung’s rhythmic breathing for another minute, before resolutely deciding to hang up.
“Good morning, Taehyung.”