Work Text:
The party was a lot—too much, honestly.
It had started fine—just the nine of them in the dorm living room with a few stray bags of snacks, enough soda, and light drinks to fuel a small army. But as the night wore on and the music got louder, the energy had shifted from relaxed hangout to something more chaotic. Jo had spent the last twenty minutes hovering near the snack table, treating a half-empty bag of chips like a lifeline while the bass thrummed a bit too loudly against his ribs. He was not exactly hiding, but he wasn’t not hiding either.
He watched the others from the periphery. Yudai and Nicholas were leading the charge, their laughter booming over the playlist, while Maki and Harua were engaged in some high-stakes competitive game on the floor.
Then, he felt that familiar shift in the air—the way the space next to him always seemed to settle whenever Yuma was there. Jo did not even have to look up to know it was him; he just recognized the quiet, grounding energy Yuma brought into every room.
Yuma leaned against the counter, his shoulder just an inch away from Jo’s. He held a half-full cup, looking just as content to be a spectator as Jo was. They did not say anything—they rarely needed to—but Jo felt himself relax, just a fraction.
“Alright, alright! Enough of this,” Yudai’s voice suddenly cut through the noise, dripping with the kind of mischief that usually meant trouble for someone else. He stood in the center of the room, pointing at a glass bottle resting on the coffee table. “We’ve been sitting here for two hours. It’s time for a classic. Spin the bottle, but we’re doing the closet rules—seven minutes.”
A chorus of groans and excited “oohs” filled the room. Jo felt a sudden prickle of anxiety. He tried to make himself smaller, hoping to blend into the wallpaper, but it was too late—Nicholas was already spinning the bottle.
It whirled in a blur of green glass, clattering against the wood until it finally slowed. The room went quiet for a heartbeat.
“Oh, no way,” Yudai’s voice rose, sharp and delighted. “Jo? And Yuma? The universe has spoken.”
Jo looked down. The bottle was still wobbling slightly on the hardwood, its neck pointing dead-center at his scuffed sneakers. His stomach did a slow, heavy flip. He looked at Yuma, who had gone remarkably still beside him, his ears already turning a soft shade of pink.
Before Jo could even think of an excuse—I’m tired, I need to finish these chips, I have to go to the bathroom—hands were on his shoulders, steering him toward the narrow hallway closet.
“Seven minutes,” Yudai announced, practically shoving them into the small space with a grin that was way too wide. “No sleeping, no staring at your phones, and definitely no cheating. We’re timing you!”
The door clicked shut, and the world vanished.
The darkness was not just dark—it was heavy. One second, Jo was blinded by the warm party lights, and the next, he was squinting at nothing, his ears ringing from the sudden drop in volume. The muffled bass from the living room felt miles away.
In the cramped square of the closet, the air was already getting warm, thick with the scent of Yuma’s cologne and the faint, crisp smell of winter air clinging to the heavy wool coats pressed against their shoulder.
For the first ten seconds, Jo did not breathe. He was terrifyingly aware of how close Yuma was standing—close enough that if Jo shifted his weight, their knees would definitely knock together. He could hear Yuma’s breath, shallow and jagged, mirroring his own.
“Well,” Yuma’s voice finally drifted through the dark, barely a whisper and sounding way more breathless than he probably intended. “That… just happened.”
Jo let out a breath that he had not realized he was holding. It came out shaky, hitching in his throat.
“Yeah,” he managed. His voice cracked just enough to make him want to actually phase through the floorboards and disappear. “Kei hyung is… he’s persistent.”
“He’s a menace,” Yuma corrected, and Jo could hear the ghost of a smile in his tone—a soft, dry chuckle that seemed to vibrate through the cramped space.
Silence swallowed them again, but it was not the comfortable kind they usually shared on the back of the bus or late at night in the dorms. This was different. Jo’s mind was starting to betray him, running through every possible at a thousand miles an hour.
If he were here with anyone else—Harua, Maki, even Yudai—he would just be annoyed. He would be checking his watch, bored, wondering when he could get back to his bag of chips.
But because it was Yuma, the air felt thick, like it was charged with static electricity.
The closet was so small that every tiny movement felt magnified. Every time their sleeves brushed, it felt like a jolt of electricity. Jo tried to press his back further into the wall, but his shoulder only collided with a heavy winter coat, sending a wooden hanger clattering against the rod. The noise was deafening in the small space.
This was the problem. Jo had spent months perfecting the art of being just a friend. He had become a master at hiding the way his heart did a double-tap whenever Yuma’s eyes crinkled in that specific way when he laughed, or how he had memorized the exact melody Yuma hummed while focused on a new demo. He had tucked all those little observations away, locked in a corner of his chest that he never intended to open.
But here in the dark, there was nowhere to look and nothing to distract him. The truth was becoming impossible to ignore. He did not just like Yuma. He was terrified of how much he liked him—of how much he wanted to just lean forward those few inches and see what would happen.
“Jo?”
Yuma’s voice was closer now. Jo could feel the shift in the air as Yuma moved, a blind hand reaching out in the pitch black. His fingers grazed Jo’s wrist—just a feather-light touch—but Jo flinched as if he had been burned.
“You’re really quiet,” Yuma whispered, his hand lingering near Jo’s pulse point. Jo could feel the warmth radiating off him. “Are you… okay? You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
The shift in the closet was palpable. When Jo flinched, Yuma did not pull his hand away immediately—instead, his fingers hovered just a hair’s breadth from Jo’s skin, trailing a ghost of warmth that felt louder than any shout.
“Sorry,” Jo whispered, his voice sounding small even to his own ears. “I just—didn’t expect you to be close.”
He could hear Yuma shift again, the sound of his sneakers squeaking against the wood as he fully turned toward him. It was not just a sleeve brushing against a sleeve anymore; it was a sudden, overwhelming heat of another person in a space that had grown far too small.
“It’s a closet, Jo. There isn’t exactly anywhere to go,” Yuma’s voice had lost that playful, teasing edge he used with the others. It was soft now, grounded. “You’re shaking. If you’re comfortable, we can just walk out. Kei hyung can’t actually lock us in here.”
Jo shook his head, then realized Yuma could not see the gesture in the pitch black. “No, it’s fine. I’m not… uncomfortable—not because of the space, anyway.”
The confession hung in the air between them, heavy and sweet.
Jo could hear his own heart thudding, a frantic rhythm that he was certain Yuma could feel through the mere inches of air separating them. To be honest, the moment the bottle had slowed down, a part of him had been terrified—not because he was trapped, but because he was trapped with the one person he spent all his energy trying ot to stare at.
“Then, why?” Yuma asked. His hand finally settled, certain and warm, wrapping around Jo’s wrist. He did not pull him closer, but he did not let go either. “Why are you acting like you’re afraid of me?”
Jo swallowed hard, the scent of Yuma’s cologne—something woody and clean—filling his head until he could not think straight.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Jo breathed, the words tumbling out before he could filter them. “I’m afraid of… this. Of being in here and not knowing if I’m allowed to want to stay. Because the truth is, when the bottle stopped—I was relieved. I was actually hoping it would be you.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Yuma’s side. The silence that followed was different—it was not awkward anymore; it was expectant.
“Jo,” Yuma murmured, his thumb making a small, slow circle against the inside of Jo’s wrist, right over the pulsing pulse. “You’ve always been so hard to read, you know that? I’ve been standing here wondering if you were miserable, while I was secretly glad the bottle didn’t point at anyone else.”
Jo felt a jolt go through him that had nothing to do with the cramped space. He was frozen, his mind scrambling to catch up with what he had just heard.
He had spent so long convinced that his feelings were a one-way street—a secret he had to protect so he would not ruin the easy comfort of their friendship—that hearing Yuma admit the same felt almost impossible.
“You… were glad?” Jo breathed, the words barely finding their way out.
In the dark, Yuma let out a soft, huffed breath that sounded like a confession in itself.
For months, Yuma had been playing a different version of the same game. He had been the one lingering a second too long whenever they practiced choreography, the one who always made sure there was a seat next to him on the bus or the company’s car, hoping Jo would take it without being asked.
He had watched Jo from across practice rooms and dorm kitchens, frustrated by the very poker face Jo had worked so hard to maintain. To Yuma, Jo’s silence had not felt like mutual pining; it had felt like a wall he did not know how to climb.
“More than glad,” Yuma admitted, his voice dropping to a low, rougher register. “I spent the whole night watching you by the snacks, wondering if I should come over or if I’d just be bothering you. Then, the game started, and I just kept thinking that if it had to be anyone, I wanted it to be you. I’ve wanted it to be you for a long time, Jo.”
The honesty was staggering. Jo’s heart was hammering against his ribs so hard that he was sure Yuma could feel it through his grip on his wrist. The shock was starting to melt into something warmer, something that made the air in the tiny closet feel less like a cage and more like a sanctuary.
“I try to be,” Jo finally managed to say, referring back to being hard to read, his voice trembling. “I was just—I didn’t think you’d ever feel the same way. I thought I was the only one.”
“Well, stop trying,” Yuma whispered.
In the dark, Jo felt Yuma’s other hand reach up, searching, until his fingertips grazed Jo’s jawline. The touch was tentative, giving Jo every second he needed to pull away, to make a joke, to break the spell—but Jo stayed frozen, his breath hitching as Yuma’s palm finally cupped his cheek.
“Because if you’re waiting for a sign,” Yuma said, his face so close now that Jo could feel the warmth of his breath against his lips. “I’ve been trying to give you one for months. I didn’t just want to be picked for the game, Jo. I wanted to be picked by you.”
In the pitch black, Jo found himself searching. His eyes had adjusted just enough to see the faint, pale outline of Yuma’s face, but he was looking for more—he was looking for the spark in Yuma’s eyes that he had spent months trying to decipher from across practice rooms.
“Can I…” Jo started, his voice barely a tremor. He swallowed hard, his heart hammering against his ribs so loudly that he was certain Yuma could feel it through the sheer proximity. “Yuma? Can I kiss you?”
The silence that followed was only a second long, but it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. Then, Jo felt Yuma’s hand—the one that had been softly cupping his cheek—slide back into his hair, his fingers lacing through the strands with a sudden, firm possessiveness that made Jo’s knees go weak.
“Please,” Yuma breathed. It was not just an answer; it was a ragged, desperate whisper against Jo’s lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”
When they finally collided, it was not the tentative, shy first kiss that Jo had spent a hundred nights imagining. It was a total collapse of every wall they had built.
Jo’s hands found Yuma’s waist, pulling him flush against his chest until there was not a single inch of air left between them. The scent of Yuma’s cologne and the sheer, radiating heat of his skin were everywhere, overwhelming and intoxicating.
It quickly spiraled into something more.
Yuma’s hands moved from Jo’s hair to his shoulders, pulling him down, while Jo squeezed his eyes shut, losing himself in the rhythm of Yuma’s mouth against his. Every time Yuma let out a soft, muffled sound against Yuma’s lips, Jo felt a fresh wave of settle in chest. His hands slid from Yuma’s waist to the small of his back, drawing him in even tighter, desperate to bridge the gap.
Yuma tilted his head, deepening the kiss with a hunger that suggested he had been wanting this just as long, his breath hitching as Jo’s thumb grazed the skin just beneath his jawline.
Jo completely lost track of the muffled music outside. He did not feel the heavy wool coats pressing into his back or the hard edge of the shelf digging into his shoulder. All that existed was the taste of Yuma and the way they were swaying slightly, anchored by each other.
It was intense—the kind of intense that made the rest of the world feel like static. They were so deep in their own private orbit, lost in the slide of lips and the frantic beat of their hearts, that they did not even notice the rowdy footsteps approaching the door or the muffled chanting from the hallway.
“Five! Four! Three!”
The countdown was a roar on the other side of the woods, but inside the closet, it was silent. Jo did not hear it—he was too busy feeling Yuma’s hands grip the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as if seven minutes would never be enough. He did not hear the jiggle of the handle or the mischievous snickering of Nicholas and Maki right outside the door.
“Two! One! Time’s up!”
The door swung inward with a violent thud against the wall, flooding the tiny space with the harsh, yellow light of the hallway.
Jo and Yuma did not spring apart—they could not. They were so tangled together—Jo’s fingers white-knuckled in Yuma’s shirt, and Yuma’s face tilted up, eyes still half-closed and lips swollen—that it took a full, agonizingly slow second for the reality of the situation to sink in.
The hallway was a sea of shocked faces.
Yudai stood at the front, his hand still frozen on the doorknob, his jaw literally dropping. Behind him, Maki’s eyes were the size of dinner plates, and Nicholas was caught mid-cheer, his hands suspended in the air like he had forgotten how to move.
The silence of the members was even louder than the music had been.
“Uh,” Yudai finally managed, his voice cracking as he took in the sight of Jo’s reddened lips and the way Yuma was still clutching Jo’s shirt for balance, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. “So… I guess you guys weren’t just sleeping in there?”