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Jeongguk sometimes forgets that he’s all of twenty years old and should really know how to have fun.
They’re all on the rooftop, drinking. The neighbourhood is quiet except for the racket they’re stirring up and although there are no strobe lights or thumping bass, the flowing drinks leave Jeongguk feeling brave all the same. Alcohol runs hot down their throats as they chase away the stresses of the day: all of the cameras have been put away, they don’t need to be “on” and Jeongguk doesn’t know if the tears prickling his eyes are a result of the booze or the relief. Jeongguk takes another deep sip of soju, staring at the night sky as he lets the headache melt away into pleasant numbness.
It should have been a bigger milestone, Jeongguk thinks to himself about his birthday. He used to think that his twentieth year would feel more than this, more than drinking, more than smiling at presents from fans and the promise of future “mature” concepts. He used to imagine close friends and a euphoric rush of unadulterated freedom, of heady liberation, but Jeongguk has been practicing, preparing, working for so long that he wonders whether the real transition to adulthood happened a long time ago without him noticing.
He wonders when the taste of childhood faded to this unknown bittersweetness.
They’re all seated close together and across from Jeongguk, Hoseok is asleep, out like a light and lying on Yoongi’s lap. The latter is still sober, professing a dislike of being inebriated on a clear night like this. The sight makes Jeongguk’s heart warm and unconsciously, his eyes glance over to where Taehyung is, loose-limbed and giggling. He wants to lay his head down too.
“To growing old,” Namjoon says and they toast to that.
They gather and chat, words that fly on the breeze and disappear into the wastes of time. Jeongguk doesn’t think any of them would remember what they said but Jeongguk knows he would remember what tonight felt like for the rest of his life. He feels happy, the sort of easy happiness that comes with being awake for too long. But Jeongguk enjoys revelling in it: the contentment of being surrounded by his closest friends, all the possibilities and hope spread thick before him, feeling like he could do anything if he only tried hard enough. Jeongguk takes another sip and laughs when Jimin stumbles over a rickety plastic chair.
But even their energy has their limits and while they’re celebrating, the weight of tomorrow is still a heavy burden to bear. The chatter dies down to comfortable silence and it isn’t long before Jimin stretches and announces he’s going to sleep, trudging downstairs under Seokjin’s careful eye. Namjoon follows and as the taller man walks away. Jeongguk recognises the tired slope to his shoulders, the fatigue lined in every one of the members. He wishes he could forget about the schedule they have the next morning, the CF photoshoot, the long dance practice sessions, the concert brainstorm after. He just wants to lie in this quiet corner of the universe and close his eyes.
The stars twinkle and Jeongguk blinks.
Yoongi shoves Taehyung away when the younger attempts to snuggle up to Hoseok, the older not wanting the exhausted dancer to wake up. Jeongguk doesn’t know why Taehyung tries, Yoongi is more protective of the dancer than anyone else in the group and it would be a cold day in hell before Yoongi would let anyone deprive Hoseok of some much-needed sleep. Rejected, Taehyung pouts before turning his disarming grin on Jeongguk instead. Taehyung’s eyes are teasingly inviting, his smile painfully charming, and Jeongguk has never ever been able to resist him.
Taehyung is chaos incarnate. He laughs too loud, eyes always bright with mirth, mouth stretched in an easy grin more often than not. And Jeongguk likes that, he likes the intensity that Taehyung treats everything with but that isn’t why he’s hooked. Because there’s something about Taehyung that’s more than mere innocent cheerfulness. There’s always a dark mirror’s edge to his joy, a flash of sharpness underneath his gaze that’s too adult, too real. He’s like a whirlwind, so swept up and enraptured in his own manic energy that he fails to see the destruction he leaves behind.
Maybe that’s why Jeongguk’s so attracted to him, like a moth attracted to a fatal candle flame.
Taehyung folds easily in Jeongguk’s arms and he nuzzles into his neck, mumbling something about Yoongi being mean before degenerating into incoherence again. Jeongguk smiles and nods along to the older’s nonsensical words, patting his hyung’s head. He likes it when Taehyung comes close and lets Jeongguk pet him, it’s almost like the highest form of regard.
Bottle almost empty, Jeongguk finishes the soju with one last gulp and reaches for another bottle, ignoring Yoongi’s disapproving stare. Taehyung’s words meld together into a stream of unconscious syllables and consonants, clicking around uncomfortably in his head and although Taehyung’s cheeks are as red as his pretty pretty lips, Jeongguk feels emptier than before. When Jeongguk looks up at the stars now, he feels a yearning that leaves him cold and lonely.
He doesn’t think twenty year olds should feel like this.
“Kookie,” Taehyung murmurs, mouth brushing the shell of Jeongguk’s ear even whilst the latter shivers. “Kookie Kookie Kookie. You love me, don’t you? You love me more than Yoongi-hyung right?”
Taehyung pulls away to stare deeply into Jeongguk’s eyes and it’s easy to see that he’s drunk. He’s flushed, slurring and his eyes can’t even focus properly, drifting away to stare at some point behind Jeongguk’s right ear. But still so unimaginably lovely that it takes Jeongguk’s breath away.
“Don’t you, Kookie?”
Taehyung’s eyes are brown, the exact shade that Jeongguk likes. But where Jeongguk wants to see affection returned, all he sees is his own desperation reflected back to him in flecks of dark amber. With the alcohol, Taehyung’s inhibitions have been taken out back and shot and Jeongguk knows that the older would spend the next day hiding from the realities of his drunken antics. But when Taehyung gazes into Jeongguk’s eyes like that, when he tilts his head questioningly like that, Jeongguk sees it. The shadow of something else.
It disappears when Jeongguk nods.
When Taehyung smiles, satisfied, he extricates himself from Jeongguk’s hold. The older stands up and ruffles Jeongguk’s hair before announcing to nobody that he’s going downstairs as well. Jeongguk tries not to watch him leave and fails miserably. Jeongguk still has two fingers of soju left and he doesn’t like to waste things or at least that’s the excuse he gives himself when his gaze turns to the dim neighbourhood beyond the rooftop railings and he continues his drinking.
It’s a long time before anyone says a word. Yoongi runs his fingers through Hoseok’s hair, newly-dyed light brown even if it looks black in the dark of night and Jeongguk is content to let the alcohol slide down and not think. But he ends up thinking anyway, his thoughts getting the better of him, as he dreams about what they could be. In the recesses of his thoughts, Jeongguk wants to hold Taehyung’s hand when they arrive at Incheon and kiss him on the mouth in the waning evenings, he wants to close his eyes and feel Taehyung’s steady breathing against his neck and open them to his smile illuminated by the morning sun. Jeongguk won’t ever say a thing but in his own naïve imaginings, he thinks they could be together forever.
Yoongi’s sigh breaks Jeongguk’s reverie and the younger looks over.
“He’s not the type you let yourself fall for,” Yoongi says and his eyes are pitying.
Jeongguk watches Yoongi stroke Hoseok’s head distantly just as he watches how tender Yoongi always looks when he’s around his boyfriend, he has watched them both orbit each other like natural satellites over the years and he’s never seen a pair so naturally perfect for each other. Jeongguk feels his heart sink at the advice even if it’s years too late in the coming.
He wishes he could have fallen in love with someone like Hoseok, someone sweet and bright and loyal to a fault. He wishes it wasn’t Taehyung, that his devotion and regard aren’t returned with fleeting attention and careless touches, that he doesn’t have to stand at the side and watch as Taehyung dances around some other person, newer and more interesting. That’s the worst part of loving him, Jeongguk thinks. Taehyung is intelligent, gorgeous and manipulative enough to pretend not to know it.
“I can’t help it,” Jeongguk says lamely. “I can’t help loving him, hyung.”
Yoongi looks away then and Jeongguk thinks it’s better that way. He doesn’t want to have to see the disappointment in his eyes.
Jeongguk leaves when the sky is brightening to pale blue, when he drunkenly sees Hoseok wake and sleepily press kisses to Yoongi’s cheek, just as the last faint stars cede to the dominance of the sun. When Jeongguk reaches downstairs, he comes through the door just in time to see Taehyung turn from his perch at the kitchen island, the pale morning bathing him in a soft light. And he looks so radiant.
So radiant.