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Yoongi shifts, an uncomfortably warm weight holding him down. He tries to turn to his side and finds he can’t move. For a moment he lies there, wondering if he grabbed the thick wool blanket by his bedside at some point in the night. Finally he opens his eyes, crusty with sleep. It’s not his blanket. It’s Jimin.
Jimin’s arm and half his bare torso are draped over Yoongi, their legs tangled together, his face pressed into Yoongi’s neck. Warm breaths tickle Yoongi’s skin. The sheets are twisted around their waists. He stills, drawing careful breaths, suddenly afraid that if he moves he’ll wake Jimin. Or he’ll wake himself and discover that this is a dream after all.
Because Jimin never stays.
In sleep he looks younger, cheeks puffed out from where they press against the pillow. A slight crease mars his brow. Carefully Yoongi shifts, just enough to free one arm. He passes his fingers softly over Jimin’s forehead like he can smooth it out with only a touch. His thumb brushes the curve of Jimin’s cheekbone, moves along his plump lower lip. Jimin stirs, mumbling something incoherent. Yoongi snatches his hand back as if burned.
The blue lights of the clock on Yoongi’s bedside table read 7:06. He begins the delicate task of slipping out from underneath Jimin, gently moving his arm and shifting his shoulder. Jimin mutters again but doesn’t wake. Yoongi tiptoes around the room, sifting through the haphazard mess of their clothing from last night to find something that might be his. He tugs on a pair of boxers and realizes soon enough that they’re Jimin’s. He keeps them on anyway and steps into yesterday’s sweats.
He’s not used to making breakfast. Most days he leaves his apartment chugging a cup of black coffee as he goes. But Jimin stayed. Jimin stayed and Yoongi doesn’t know how to cook for shit, but damn if he won’t try. With a determined air, he washes rice and loads it into the cooker, starting up a pot of kimchi stew on the stove.
The rice is nearly cooked by the time the stew finishes. He tastes a bit and it isn’t right, there’s not enough flavor. He spoons more garlic in and then it’s too much, it tastes like shit. Yoongi swears, grabbing the bottle of pepper flakes to offset it. The cool glass slips from his fingers, crashing against the counter. Rather than shattering, the cap clatters off, and the flakes spread over his cream-colored counter.
“Fucking hell.” His hands are shaking. He leans them on the counter’s edge, taking a deep breath.
It’s not like a perfect breakfast will make Jimin stay.
So he sprinkles pepper flakes by hand and puts the pot on the table with the rice next to it. He’s in the middle of finding spoons and bowls when the soft shuffling of feet alerts him to Jimin’s presence. A part of him expects Jimin to walk out fully dressed with his wallet and phone in hand, ready to leave as soon as Yoongi sets eyes on him. But he doesn’t. He stands in the doorway of Yoongi’s room in nothing but Yoongi’s boxers, rubbing his eyes sleepily. It’s cute. Jimin’s half-naked with a chest marked by hickeys, but all Yoongi can think is cute.
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to stay the night.”
Yoongi straightens, moving to the table. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Jimin looks at him carefully. His gaze seems to say, of course you don’t. “Did you make breakfast?”
“Uh—yeah. Breakfast. You should come eat.”
He hesitates long enough that Yoongi’s stomach starts to sink to his feet. But then Jimin smiles and slips into a chair. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“I can’t.”
“So I may or may not make it out of this alive?”
“At least I warned you.” He sets the bowls in front of them and sits.
Jimin digs in immediately. After a few mouthfuls, he looks up and smiles, cheeks bulging with food. “It’s good.”
It’s not. There’s too much garlic. But Jimin would never say anything different; Yoongi knows that. Considering Yoongi spilled cold water all over Jimin’s lap the first time they met and Jimin had cheerfully assured him it was perfectly fine even as he shivered, Yoongi isn’t surprised. He still remembers how nervous he’d been that day, serving the table of rowdy boys with the especially cute one smiling up until his eyes crinkled.
“Do you have work today?”
Yoongi nods. “Evening shift. You’ve got class?”
“Only one. I might go out with Tae tonight. There’s this new club opening.”
He imagines Jimin swaying his hips with his head thrown back, tight leather pants hugging his thighs, tongue sneaking out to wet his lips. Then he imagines another man’s hands on his waist, another man’s lips against his ear, and looks down. “Oh.”
“My marketing professor assigned so much homework this weekend I think I’m gonna die.” Jimin launches into a particularly detailed explanation.
Yoongi’s not listening. He watches the way Jimin’s small hands paint a picture in the air to match his words, watches the little dimple in Jimin’s cheek appear as he speaks. His hand slips through his hair to push it back, eyebrows raising as he recounts an irritating moment in class. Yoongi never went to university, and five years out of it, the burden of high school homework seems distant. But Yoongi could watch Jimin talk all day.
He pauses for a breath. A speck of rice hangs from the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got something,” Yoongi says, and reaches out to wipe it away.
He freezes, hand hovering over the table, as Jimin’s eyes widen.
“Sorry,” he says, and snatches his hand back before touching him.
Jimin glances away. He picks up a napkin and wipes his mouth. “It’s okay.”
It’s not.
They finish eating in silence. Jimin helps him clear away the dishes even though he insists he can do it himself. Then he mumbles something about changing and disappears into Yoongi’s room.
Yoongi stands at the sink, wiping a plate dry with a dishtowel that’s seen better days. The plate is dry but he keeps on wiping it, hand moving in mindless circles, eyes locked on the wall. He’s stupid. He’s so fucking stupid. Jimin has never been anything but perfectly clear on what he wants. Yoongi has no one to blame but himself.
Jimin comes out fully dressed. He hovers in the doorway, clearing his throat to get Yoongi’s attention. When Yoongi glances over, Jimin holds a sheet of crumpled notebook paper in a hand. Yoongi’s brow furrows, wondering what it is—
“Fuck.”
He drops the plate back into the sink and surges forward, snatching the paper from Jimin’s hand. He balls it up and tosses it in the trash can, one clean shot.
“Hyung.” Jimin’s mouth curves down prettily, his eyes large and forehead creased.
Yoongi takes a step back. “Forget it. Forget you read that.”
“Hyung.” His tone is infinitely gentle, and that only makes it worse. “Those lyrics. They’re about me.”
“No, they’re not.” He sounds pitiful even to his own ears.
“They had my name on them.”
“A mistake.”
He turns away, shoving his hands into his pockets. He’d written them huddled in the back of the restaurant, like he always did when the stream of customers slowed down. Graduating high school he’d had big dreams; dreams of standing on stage in front of a crowd that stretched out so far it made him dizzy, dreams of a studio to call his own with top-notch equipment. Now he resorted to scribbling words on scrap paper and napkins in between waiting tables of ungrateful customers.
Yoongi and dreams have a rocky history. He should know that dreaming about Jimin won’t amount to anything, either.
“Is that—is that how you really feel about me?”
No, I wrote it down for shits and giggles. He presses the palms of his hands to his eyes, shoulders tight. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Hyung.” Jimin’s light hand touches his back. He pulls away, skin erupting in goosebumps. “Hyung, look at me.”
He does. “Just forget it, okay? It doesn’t matter.”
But Jimin has that determined look on his face. Yoongi is well acquainted with that look. That’s how they’d first gotten to talking, after all, when Jimin trailed after his friends as they left the restaurant. He had stopped by the bar where Yoongi was bent over the back of an advertisement, writing so quickly his fingers cramped.
“Is that a song?” Jimin had asked hesitantly.
Yoongi covered it up with his arm, looking up at Jimin in surprise.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Jimin had flushed, and suddenly Yoongi felt bad for embarrassing the cute boy who had been so forgiving when he spilled water on him.
“It’s okay. I was just—startled.” He moved his arm. “They’re, um, rap lyrics.”
“That’s so cool! You rap?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head, staring at Jimin’s nose instead of his eyes.
“Can I hear you rap sometime?”
Yoongi had been shocked. They didn’t even know each other. Jimin had every reason to dislike Yoongi for the water incident, but here he was, asking if he could hear Yoongi rap. And he’d had that determined look on his face so Yoongi couldn’t even say no.
Just like he can’t say no now.
“Tell me the truth, Yoongi hyung,” Jimin says, stepping closer.
“Fine.” Yoongi can’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “You wanna know the truth?”
“Tell me.”
“I fucking dream about you, Jimin. Think about you when you’re not here, about what you’re doing and if you’ve had a good day and—fuck. I don't want to just sleep with you. I want to sleep with you and wake up with you and do everything else in between with you, too.”
Jimin’s face falls, even though he must have expected it. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“I know we did. I know we had a fucking understanding.” He steps back, hitting the counter behind him, and runs his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“You know I’m not interested in anything serious. I thought we were just casual.”
Yoongi wishes Jimin didn’t have to spell it out like that. “I know. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”
He’d hidden it from himself for a while, too, denied it with fervor. Seokjin figured it out before he did.
That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Seokjin has always known Yoongi a little better than he knows himself. They had been curled under one blanket on Seokjin’s bed with the flickering TV lights playing across their faces, watching some boring superhero movie. Yoongi was hardly paying attention. He had assumed Seokjin had fallen asleep, but then he spoke.
“You love him.”
Yoongi had shifted, startled. His mouth opened to express confusion, a what or a who. Then he closed it. Maybe there was no point in hiding it anymore. Seokjin was too perceptive for that. Very quietly, Yoongi had answered, “Yeah.”
He doesn’t want to be in love with Jimin. Sometimes he feels like he’s part of some stupid teen movie, the hapless romantic who falls for his fuckbuddy. He’s not even a fucking teenager anymore. It was only a matter of time before Jimin figured it out. And now here they are, Yoongi’s heart laid bare between them. He wishes Jimin could have found out some other way. Eavesdropping on a conversation, hearing it through the grapevine. Not reading Yoongi’s lyrics. The words he put on paper were so raw sometimes he didn’t let anyone read them.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin says softly. He looks it. Mouth pulled down, eyes wet. “I’m really sorry.”
Yoongi doesn’t need to hear it. He doesn’t need to hear how he isn’t good enough. “You don’t have to be sorry. It’s my fault. We can just—we can just forget about this, okay? I’m handling it.”
“We shouldn’t do this anymore.”
Yoongi shudders, shrinking into himself, small and helpless. Seokjin keeps telling him to stop seeing Jimin. It’ll only hurt more. But Seokjin doesn’t understand that he’ll do anything to be around Jimin. He’ll do anything just to huddle around the edges and catch a bit of the light Jimin radiates. “I told you, I can handle it. You don’t have to worry about it.”
But Jimin shakes his head. “We have to stop.” He backs away toward the door, pauses with a hand on the knob. “I’m sorry,” he says again. Then he leaves.
Yoongi walks to the trashcan. He fishes the crumpled paper from the bin and sinks to the floor. With careful precision, he smooths out the wrinkles over one knee. For Jimin.