Work Text:
“You know, you purr like a cat, hyung,” Jungkook whispered as he turned to face Jimin in bed with him. He pressed soft kisses against his ear.
“Purr?” Jimin repeated in a murmur, his voice a little hoarse. He paused to groan softly when his lover’s lips nipped at the skin on his neck. “I think I did more moaning than purring last night, Jungkook-ah.”
Jungkook laughed and tightened his arms around him, pressing Jimin’s bare chest against his. “You did. But you also mewled and purred and growled and made all these little kitty sounds.”
Jimin ran his fingers over Jungkook’s chest and until they rested against his belly. “How the hell do humans purr?”
“I don’t know, but it’s cute as hell.”
“I must be happy these days.”
Jungkook trailed kisses down Jimin’s throat, and felt sweet, tickling vibrations on his lips as Jimin giggled and whimpered.
“My kitten,” Jungkook sighed, rolling Jimin onto his back and dipping down to kiss his chest.
“What?” Jimin panted. Jungkook’s lips getting lower and lower, kneading deeper and harder.
“I’m calling you my kitten now.”
Jimin hummed his acknowledgement.
Jungkook sucked at the skin below Jimin’s bellybutton. He knew exactly what actions created what sounds out of his boyfriend, and smiled against his skin when Jimin predictably let out a darling little mewl that made Jungkook’s body become hot with need.
“Mm, Kitten,” he murmured.
Before he could go on any further, a hard rap on their hotel door bolted both of them sitting upright.
“Hey! What are you guys doing?!” yelled Seokjin’s voice from the other side. “We have an interview to get to in ten minutes!”
“Jungkook, please tell us about your first impression of Jimin,” the interviewer, a well-known television personality, said politely.
He glanced at Jimin sitting next to him. They exchanged a smile, and Jungkook had to fight the urge to touch his leg or kiss his cheek. This was work, after all, with crew members and the BigHit staff surrounding them with cameras in their tiny set in the nearly empty room.
“I thought he was really cool,” Jungkook spoke up with a smile. He didn’t mind talking about this topic again and again; he always remembered their first meeting fondly. “Kitten was dancing in the practice room and then–”
“I’m sorry,” the interviewer interrupted, her brows knitted with confusion. “Did you just say… kitten?”
Jungkook’s eyes widened, blood draining from his face, his entire body frozen and cold.
Oh. Shit.
They were live.
“Kitten is–” Jimin started hastily, his voice going into a squeak.
“Is that a nickname?” the interviewer asked, smiling again, her eyes lighting up with interest. “I’ve never heard this before, I’m sorry. Jimin is–”
“He’s… cat-… like,” Namjoon said, his inflection bold but his expression showing inward frantics. “His eyes are cat-like.”
“And he… cuddles everyone,” Seokjin drawled uneasily. “Like… a cat.”
“Right, Kitten?” Taehyung said, eyeing Jimin rather pointedly.
Jungkook forced a smile as his hand rose to the hair at the nape of his neck. The interviewer wasn’t buying it. He was sure the crew, the staff, and the fans watching them didn’t buy it, either.
This was going to be everywhere online.
“Yeah,” Jimin said, completely flustered, his face reddening more and more. “I-It’s a joke we have.”
Hoseok laughed and swatted at Jimin sitting in front of him–maybe a bit too hard. “That’s just… how we are!”
Beside him, Yoongi just bowed his head down out of secondhand embarrassment, until it was practically in his lap.
The awkward tension was so thick that Jungkook could cut through it with a knife, and he was dying in it. It choked him and he was sure it was choking Jimin. Between the group’s poor attempts to fix this, the silence was deafening. And god, they were on live television. They will not be able to take this back with editing.
“Uh-huh,” the interviewer said, leaning back in her chair. She showed the camera her shiny television-friendly smile. “Bangtan Sonyeondan, so close that they have many inside jokes none of us may understand.”
Jungkook glanced at the managers watching them, one of which was signalling frantically for the show hostess to call for commercial break.
“Well, I believe it’s time for a break!” the interviewer announced. “We’ll be back right after these messages.”
“Cut!” called the producer. “Two minutes!”
The interviewer tossed a weird smile at them and wordlessly slipped out of her seat to get her makeup touched up.
Jungkook slumped back in his chair and sighed. Next to him, Jimin sank his face into his hands, completely crimson.
“Here he comes,” Hoseok muttered.
Sejin, their tall and sometimes intimidating manager, marched onto set, eyes set in a glare behind his glasses, aimed straight at Jungkook.
The maknae gulped and sat back up with nervous anticipation.
“What,” Sejin began, in a deceptively calm voice, “was that?”
It was Jungkook’s turn to turn red.
“If you want to give each other pet names, fine, but remember that you are celebrities,” Sejin muttered in a collected but angry tone. “Celebrities on a live program whose everyaction will get notated and recorded by social media and get retweeted and re-everything over and ov–”
“Hyung, Jungkookie and I are sorry.”
And suddenly, Jungkook was aware of Jimin standing in front of Jungkook, raising his hands in surrender in front of him. “We’ll be careful, hyung. Just don’t kill Jungkookie–”
“What are you even saying–you think I’d actually hurt your lead singer?”
“Jungkookie learned his lesson. I did, too. We’ll be careful. We’ll be fine. Let everyone speculate whatever they want. We don’t need to comment on it for the rest of the interview or after that.”
Sejin stared at Jimin, then at Namjoon, the group leader, and at Jimin again heaved a sigh. “Okay, Jimin-ah.” He shot Jungkook a short glance, much like daggers aimed warningly at his face. “Okay.”
“Thirty seconds!”
The interviewer returned to set with the makeup artist, who started approaching the members and touching up their makeup.
“Just be careful of what you say from now on,” Sejin finished before walking off the set.
“Thank you, Jiminnie-hyung,” Jungkook whispered, extremely grateful.
“Anything for you,” Jimin replied, smiling a little.
Discreetly, Jungkook reached out to link his pinky through Jimin’s until the camera started rolling again.
No one said anything about Jungkook’s slip-up as they left the interview, even though all of them managed disgusted looks at some point between then and the next part of their schedule–a fansigning event.
Jungkook was sure kitten made it into all the social media outlets. He noticed it in the way their fans looked at them as they scooted down the table to get their photobooks and other paraphernalia autographed. The bright lights of their stage made the seats in the audience look like a sea of darkness, but he could still see the fans whispering to each other and giggling at their phones.
I hate live television.
The manager forced Jimin and Jungkook to sit apart; further than usual, with Jimin on one end and Jungkook on the other.
Jungkook didn’t get to get near him until the very end, when the boys could come out of their seats and talk to their fans before saying goodbye.
“Jimin oppa!”
“Oppa, wear them!”
“Jimin-ah! Please!”
What were the fans shouting about?
Jungkook looked over at Jimin, his feet already wandering to where he stood, in time to see a furiously blushing Jimin slip the headband he was holding over his head.
Jungkook’s jaw dropped in a slight gasp.
Cat ears.
Cat. Ears.
And god, he was so cute, with the fluffy fringe of his hair, the fuzzy over-sized sweater, and the cherubic cheeks Jungkook kissed every chance he got. His eyes were heavy with eyeliner but they still curved cutely to match the smile on his lips.
Jungkook laughed, for a moment forgetting where he was, who he was with. He only had a shy, shy Jimin beside him, waiting to be loved and messed with.
He lifted his hand to rub one of the soft, furry ears.
Jimin’s face was redder than ever. He made no noise, but Jungkook could see his name form on his lips.
“Kitten,” Jungkook whispered in reply, his voice so soft that it seemed like no more than an exhale of breath.
The squeals from the fans instantly brought Jungkook back to reality. He and Jimin weren’t alone–they were standing with their group members and being stared at by their fans. And Jungkook’s whisper wasn’t one at all–he had murmured it directly into his microphone.
Oh, hell.
“Not again,” Yoongi hissed through a fake smile, and raised his microphone to start defusing the situation.
“Kookmin is real,” Taehyung read from his phone. “Jimin-oppa, when are you going to love me. Jungkook-ah, you look better with Taehyung-ah. Let’s see… ah–Jungkook-oppa is that a bedroom name for Jimin-oppa–”
“Stop!” Jungkook cut in, annoyed.
“I’m just letting you know what the damage is.”
“There’s no damage,” Jungkook snapped, craning his neck to look at him in the back van seat. “Didn’t Jimin-hyung say that everyone is free to just speculate–”
“Speculate?” Hoseok repeated from beside Taehyung, furrowing a brow doubtfully. “Are you sure? When you do that kitten thing twice in one day? And it’s, you know, you who started it?”
Jungkook sighed, frustrated. He felt movement against his shoulder, and remembered that Jimin was curled into him, napping. His expression appeared calm; as if Jungkook hadn’t embarrassed the both of them on-air and at the fansign. Sure, Jimin said it wasn’t a big deal, but Jungkook still felt guilty.
But a little part of him hoped he could still call Jimin his kitten.
“So gross,” Namjoon commented, never looking up from his phone, half-turned toward them in the front passenger seat. “I don’t think anyone needed to know what Jungkook calls Jimin in bed.”
“Hopefully only the fans notice these things,” Sejin spoke up from the driver’s seat. “Because the way you guys tried to cover it up at the interview was not believable at all. Better at the fansign, but ARMY records all those things, you know. It’ll be on the internet forever.”
Jimin shifted again. Jungkook looked down at him, a hand combing soothingly through his hair. His boyfriend woke up this time, blinking tiredly but not straightening in his seat.
“Still talking about it?” Jimin mumbled.
“Yeah, you dirty jerk,” Seokjin chuckled from Jimin’s other side.
Jimin whined sleepily and fell back into his boyfriend, his nose and mouth pressed lightly against Jungkook’s neck.
“Is it really that bad?” he asked.
“You were embarrassed when you were actually awake,” Taehyung pointed out. “You don’t care anymore? Sejin-hyung and the rest of the staff do.”
“But in the end,” Jimin said, smiling into Jungkook as the latter grazed his lips over his forehead and tightened his arm around him.
Jimin fell back asleep before he could finish. Instead, Yoongi let out a disgusted grunt.
“Is he fucking purring?”