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It’s 3:18 in the morning when Seokjin is wrenched from sleep by a pair of hands clumsily shaking his shoulders. Too sluggish to be a kidnapper— it’s kind of a sleepy, wobbly motion. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. The bedside lamp switches on, a burst of orange behind his eyelids.
“Hyung, do you know that I love you? Do you really know?”
Ah. This again.
Seokjin squints at the intruder for a moment before giving up and closing his eyes again. Yoongi’s all rumpled and sweaty from the club (did he walk here, after? He has his own key, must have let himself in)-- Seokjin can make out dark circles under his eyes and two white hairs on the crown of his head. It’s been a long time since he’s last done this. He looks older now, a little more worn out this late at night. His going-out clothes are more casual, more expensive. He’s just as cute as he was a decade ago and Seokjin is never going to tell him.
Yoongi used to do this back when they lived together. The first time Seokjin had woken up to a twenty-three-year-old Yoongi crawling into his bed, all done up in drugstore eyeliner and cheap chains with those fake leather pants plastered to his skin, he’d felt his heart nearly beat out of his chest. They’d both been so young. The fact that Yoongi liked boys, and the quiet, sneaking possibility that Seokjin might like them too, had suddenly felt terrifyingly solid and real. Yoongi, who never looked him right in the face when he talked, was staring at him with flushed cheeks and glazed eyes. Seokjin could smell the soju he’d been drinking. Close enough that their lips could touch, if only they tipped their heads a little and fit together.
Seokjin had lain there with his mouth open, conjuring and discarding a dozen different scenarios, reasons this might be happening. He’d stayed so carefully still, afraid that if he made any sudden moves, Yoongi might not— what? What did he think was going to happen?
Then Yoongi had pressed his flushed little face into Seokjin’s neck, mumbled, “d’you know I love you? Hyung?” and passed out without even brushing his teeth. Seokjin had lain awake underneath him for another half hour in the dark, trying to slow his breathing. He hadn’t known whether to feel touched or disappointed. He was embarrassed to have felt confused at all.
When he woke up the next morning, Yoongi was already gone.
The next time it happened, Seokjin had been more prepared. He’d turned it into a game, whacked Yoongi’s sweaty, hair-gelled head with a pillow and commanded him to take a shower. The time after that, he’d answered Yoongi’s whining with more whining, telling him to go to bed already, alright, I know, okay, I know— it had been easier to say it, I know you love me, when they were both laughing. He never said it back. It was too embarrassing, too real, to say it fully sober when Yoongi only ever talked like this when he was out of his mind. The thought of replying so earnestly made Seokjin feel exposed, like all his nerve endings were just out in the open. It was always right there, on the tip of his tongue— I know, of course I know because I love you too, I love you—
The nighttime confessions became a lot less frequent when they moved into separate rooms, and all these years later, Seokjin doesn’t even remember when exactly they’d stopped. He’s careful not to let himself get too nostalgic about it. They’re comfortable right now, comfortable enough for Seokjin to joke about it in front of the cameras and watch Yoongi roll his eyes. He likes being neighbours. He likes being friends. He’s not unhappy with the way things are. He could probably love Yoongi more, or differently, if he chose to allow himself, but it’s just— there, in the background, easy to put aside. A loose thread he chooses not to pull.
Seokjin always assumed that being around one another way too much would eventually ruin the magic. That he’d stop feeling so impressed by Yoongi once he’d seen him run to the bathroom half a dozen times before shows, so nervous his stomach hurt, and get so in the zone while working that he forgets to shower and throw away his garbage. It’s probably true the other way around, after all. He’s embarrassed himself way too many times in front of all of them for the celebrity sheen, the supermodel allure, to still be intact. It’s not even just the gross stuff, the food poisoning and the flu season misery and the sweaty ten-hour practices. They’ve just known one another so long and so well. They’ve all seen him be mean and childish and thoughtless, say the wrong thing countless times.
He loves them more than almost anything, and would never trade all that history away, it’s just— Seokjin thinks people tend to find him more attractive, generally, the less they know about him.
Last summer he’d seen Yoongi— Agust D, really— live with Hoseok, like real fanboys, clapping and chanting and jumping up and down, both of them so happy to see Yoongi, and each other, grinning like crazy. And none of that history had done a thing to squash down the screaming bright feeling welling up inside him. He’d watched Yoongi pour his heart out on that stage and felt the real, fluttering thrill everyone else in that crowd was feeling, of being handled by someone who really knew what they were doing. He'd held his breath during the sad songs even though he’d heard them all before. He’d felt the blood rushing to his cheeks when Yoongi stared down the crowd like he knew he could make them do anything he wanted.
He kept reminding himself afterwards, flushed and heart rabbiting and leaning on Hoseok a bit, that this was the same Min Yoongi who’d roomed with him for years and who Seokjin had witnessed on more than one occasion dead asleep at his desk, drooling on the keyboard. But it didn’t change anything. Seokjin could lie to anyone but himself. There had still been that moment when Yoongi had licked his lips and stared down the stadium like he owned the entire world and everyone in it. Seokjin had felt a real jolt of want go all the way through his body, a hot and terrifying pulse. After all this time, he’d thought, a little hysterically. Still, after all this time.
Right now, world-famous artist Agust D is swaying on his feet, drooping forward onto Seokjin’s middle.
“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin says. He’s so tired; his tongue still feels heavy. “Whad’ya get so drunk for? Haven’t in a while.”
Yoongi grunts and flops down harder, resting his dead weight on Seokjin through the comforter.
“I have nice friends,” he mumbles. Was— happy, earlier. It was almost Jiyoung’s birthday and Jun's wife is expecting and I’m almost done with service. We were having fun. I bought everyone a lot of drinks, wasn’t careful. We all had a bit too much.”
Seokjin smiles, even though his eyelids are still too heavy to open. Military service is rarely easy for anyone, but he knows it’s been hard on Yoongi. And Yoongi’s friends really are nice. An artsy, razor-sharp bunch, but not pretentious. He's met them a few times, and even though he knows he’s not really cool enough to hang with most of them on his own, they never get weird about BTS or their whole coworkers-celebrities-family-bonded soulmates thing. They’re really good to Yoongi.
Yoongi used to get drunk a lot more often when he was younger, and usually not because he was happy. Not all his friends were nice, or even really safe to be around. Sometimes he’d come home angry, or lethargic and sunk down somewhere inside himself, or he’d stay out all night to blow off steam just to return looking even more stressed and tired than before. It was only the rare times when he was really well and truly trashed but still ready to come home that he would tuck his grimy, liquor-stained self into Seokjin’s bed in the middle of the night and whine hyung, hyung, wake up, hyung do you know—
Yoongi, sensing Seokjin is drifting off again, nudges him insistently. Through the pang of annoyance at being jostled awake, Seokjin is very, very fond. It’s so rare for Yoongi to be bratty like this around anyone that he always savours these moments. He often, strangely, wishes Yoongi would be more demanding with him. Yoongi has always been a little too stoic for Seokjin’s liking, mature and uncomplaining in that way people are sometimes when they learn too young not to ask for help. Seokjin wants Yoongi to ask him for help. He wants Yoongi’s dirty clothes on his floor and his shaving cream on his bathroom counter, wants his mugs to leave rings on Seokjin’s pristine coffee table. He wants all that mess, all that noise. He wants him to be grabby and needy and childish. He wants to complain about it loudly, and then he wants to give Yoongi everything he wants anyway.
“Hyung,” Yoongi whines, sliding forward until his head lolls awkwardly onto one of Seokjin’s shoulders. “Answer me seriously. Do you really get it?”
“I do, really, okay— “
“‘Cause sometimes I feel like you don’t.” Yoongi’s slurring something awful, but he sounds genuinely stressed now. “Sometimes you pretend you dunno. And sometimes I think you really don’t. You say you do but you don’t really… get it. You’re not seeing what I’m seeing. Hyung is so stupid.”
Yoongi shifts around on top of him, dirtying every inch of Seokjin’s freshly washed sheets until he’s settled into a comfortable position. Seokjin will have to strip the bed again in the morning.
“Maybe it’s my fault,” Yoongi continues. “I don't say it enough. It’s so easy for some people but I just can't. Do you know? Do you know even when I don't say it?”
Seokjin fights through the exhaustion and opens his eyes again, squinting in the light. Like this, he can pretty much only see Yoongi’s hair, tousled and a little sweaty; how his pretty face is squished up against Seokjin’s chest, slack and soft and drooping, eyelids starting to flutter closed before he blinks awake again. He really does look like a lap cat, trying so hard not to fall asleep. Seokjin registers vaguely that Yoongi reeks of the club; that it’s not just the sheets, he’s smearing his sweat and his sharp, synthetic cologne all over Seokjin’s pyjama top. He couldn’t be mad at Yoongi even if he tried.
A wave of affection wells up in him, so strong it catches him by surprise. He thinks of that first night when Yoongi had crawled into his bed, how he’d been all skinny and silent and boyishly tough, and then how he’d gotten drunk and hadn’t been able to stop telling Seokjin he loved him. He thinks about all the nights after that, and lets himself wonder what it could mean, for Yoongi to make the trip down the street in the dark and come back here again, after all this time. Winds his fingers around the loose thread he’s been trying not to tug.
Seokjin really hasn’t changed one bit. He softens his voice, tries to clear the sleep from his throat and speak clearly.
“Hyung knows, okay? I promise. I promise I know. It’s not your fault, Yoongi-yah. Hyung is very stupid.”
Yoongi hums in agreement— brat— but he nuzzles into Seokjin’s chest in clear relief and starts to relax. “Mmm. Okay.”
Seokjin brings his free arm up to rub at Yoongi's back. Gentle, soothing circles, lingering on the bad spot on his shoulder that still gets tense sometimes. He keeps at it until he can tell Yoongi’s fallen asleep, from the sound and feel of his breathing.
“I love you too,” he says, very, very quietly, like maybe no one will hear if he’s quiet enough. “Very much.”
They’ve both been waiting so long to talk about it. It’s a Friday night and Seokjin doesn’t work this weekend, so they have time tomorrow, enough time for Yoongi to sleep in and laze around and maybe stay over to make breakfast. Seokjin can tell him tomorrow. He’ll say it back in the morning.