Chapter Text
Jungkook had made three promises to himself before stepping into Seokjin’s apartment.
One: he was not drinking anything mixed in a plastic bowl.
Two: he was leaving before midnight.
Three: he was absolutely, under no circumstances, getting into another argument with Kim Taehyung in front of their entire friend group.
He broke the third one in under four minutes. To be fair, Taehyung started it.
He was sitting on the arm of the couch when Jungkook walked in, one leg stretched out lazily, his shirt half-tucked into his jeans like even his clothes had given up on behaving. There was a red cup in his hand, his hair falling into his eyes, and a smile on his mouth that looked like trouble pretending to be bored.
Jungkook noticed all of that against his will. Then he immediately decided to be annoyed about it. Taehyung looked up. His smile changed. Not much. Just enough to make Jungkook want to turn around and leave.
“You actually came,” Taehyung said.
Jungkook slipped his jacket off and handed it to Jimin without looking away.
“Don’t sound so emotional about it.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“You look bored.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Jimin made a small choking noise beside him. Jungkook ignored it. Taehyung took a sip from his cup, eyes still on Jungkook over the rim.
“I just thought you’d need more time to convince yourself parties are legal.”
Jungkook looked him up and down.
“And I thought you’d need more people watching before you started being annoying.”
The living room made the kind of sound people made when they wanted something to happen and were pretending they weren’t watching. Taehyung’s smile widened.
“There he is.”
Jungkook hated that. Not seriously. Mostly.
Seokjin’s apartment was already too warm, packed with people Jungkook knew, people he vaguely recognized from campus and people who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere with the confidence of long-lost cousins. Music pulsed from a speaker near the kitchen. Someone had spilled something by the hallway. Namjoon was trying to rescue a stack of coasters from under a bottle of cheap vodka. Hoseok was dancing with a girl from his literature class who looked like she had decided he was the funniest person alive.
It was loud, crowded and exactly the kind of thing Jungkook usually liked more in theory than in practice. Jimin leaned close to his ear.
“You’re doing the face.”
Jungkook kept his eyes on the room. “I have a lot of faces.”
Jimin leaned closer and, with the casual cruelty of someone who knew him too well, listed Jungkook’s entire personality in three words: angry, judgmental and secretly enjoying himself.
“I regret coming with you.”
Jimin only patted his shoulder. “You value control.”
Jungkook took the cup from him with a sigh. “That too.”
Jimin patted his shoulder. “Cute.”
“Don’t call me cute.”
“Cute and tense.”
“Jimin.”
“Cute, tense and staring at Taehyung.”
Jungkook turned his head very slowly. Jimin smiled like he had never done anything wrong in his life and kept needling him about Taehyung until Jungkook’s patience thinned. It was not staring, he insisted. It was looking once, then unfortunately noticing again.
“You keep looking at him,” Jimin said, clearly enjoying himself. “With you two, that says enough.”
Jungkook looked down at the red cup Jimin had pushed into his hand earlier, mostly because focusing on cheap beer felt safer than strangling his best friend.
He sniffed it.
Jimin stared.
“It’s beer.”
“That’s what people say when they don’t know what it is.”
“It came from a can.”
“So does tuna.”
Jimin opened his mouth. Closed it.
“Actually, I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Good.”
Jungkook took one cautious sip. It was, unfortunately, beer.
Across the room, Taehyung was still watching him. Not openly. That would have been too easy to call out. He was doing it in pieces, between conversations, between sips, between little turns of his head like Jungkook was a song stuck in the background and he couldn’t quite stop listening.
Jungkook noticed anyway. Worse, he kept checking.
Taehyung slid off the arm of the couch and said something to Yoongi, who barely reacted beyond lifting his eyebrows. Then Taehyung laughed, head tipping back, his throat exposed under the warm yellow light of the living room lamp.
Jungkook took another sip of beer. It tasted worse than the first one.
“You know,” Jimin said beside him, voice too casual to be trusted, “most people just flirt.”
Jungkook choked slightly.
Jimin patted his back with no sincerity at all.
“I’m not flirting.”
“You’re right. Flirting usually involves charm.”
“Do you want to walk home?”
“You’d miss me.”
“I would heal.”
Jimin grinned. “You’re engaging in hostile eye contact.”
“I’m looking around the room.”
“You’ve looked around the room four times. He was in all four.”
Jungkook turned toward the kitchen.
“Fine. Now I’m looking at Seokjin.”
“Healthy choice. Emotionally safer. Worse haircut.”
From the kitchen, Seokjin shouted, “I heard that.”
Jimin waved brightly. “Love you!”
Jungkook escaped into the kitchen, which was only slightly less crowded. Seokjin stood by the counter, cutting limes with the seriousness of a surgeon.
“Don’t bleed on the fruit,” Jungkook said.
Seokjin looked up. “I invite you into my home and this is how you speak to me?”
He accepted none of Jungkook’s excuses. According to him, Jungkook had walked in on his own legs, taken someone else’s beer and therefore had no legal right to complain.
“So you’re weak,” Seokjin said, pleased with himself.
Jungkook opened his mouth, then closed it.
Seokjin smiled. “Exactly.”
From behind him, a voice said, “He does that.”
Jungkook did not turn around immediately. That would have been too obvious. He looked at the lime in Seokjin’s hand. Then at the knife. Then at his cup. Only then did he turn.
Taehyung was leaning against the kitchen doorway like he had been painted there for the specific purpose of ruining Jungkook’s evening. Up close, the first thing Jungkook noticed was that his hair was damp near the ends, probably from rain. The second thing was the thin silver chain at his collarbone. The third was that Taehyung’s eyes were not nearly as drunk as his smile wanted everyone to believe.
The third thing bothered him most, mostly because it made Taehyung harder to dismiss.
“Does what?” Jungkook asked.
“Pretends he had no choice.”
Jungkook gave him a flat look. “You’ve known me for six months. Don’t narrate me.”
“I’m not narrating. I’m observing.”
“Observe quieter.”
Taehyung smiled into his cup.
Seokjin, traitor that he was, immediately became very interested in the limes. Taehyung stepped into the kitchen. Only one step. Still annoying.
“You always do this,” he said.
Jungkook leaned back against the counter. “Drink beer?”
“Arrive like you’re being held hostage, then spend the whole night acting like you’re too good for everyone.”
“I am too good for some people.”
“Subtle.”
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
Taehyung raised an eyebrow. Jungkook took a sip. Taehyung’s mouth curved.
“Liar.”
Jungkook lowered the cup slowly.
“Careful. You’re one sentence away from sounding like you’ve thought about me.”
Seokjin made a tiny noise. Jungkook did not look at him. Taehyung did.
“Something to add?”
Seokjin lifted both hands, knife and all. “I love being alive, so no.” Taehyung looked back at Jungkook. He took the insult without flinching, which somehow made it feel less like a victory and more like a trap.
“I’m growing as a person,” he said.
Taehyung’s eyes dropped to his mouth for half a second. Barely. Still enough. Jungkook’s fingers tightened around his cup.
Taehyung looked back up like nothing had happened, which somehow made it worse.
Hoseok shouted from the living room, “Truth or dare!”
The moment broke.
Seokjin put the knife down and pointed between them.
“Good. Yes. Go do that somewhere with witnesses.”
Jungkook pushed away from the counter. “Nothing happened.”
“Exactly. It was very loud.”
Taehyung laughed softly behind him. Jungkook pretended not to hear it.
The circle formed on the living room floor in the usual messy way, with half the group actually sitting and the other half pretending they were too cool for it while slowly moving closer. Jungkook ended up on the couch between Jimin and the armrest. It was a tactical choice. The armrest, at least, could not betray him.
Taehyung sat across from him on the floor, one knee bent, his cup balanced loosely between his fingers. Also tactical, probably.
Or maybe Jungkook needed to stop assigning strategy to the way Taehyung existed in rooms.
“Rules,” Namjoon said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the music. “No dares that can get us arrested. No questions about someone else’s private business. And if someone says no, we move on.”
Yoongi squinted at him. “That was very student council of you.”
“I’m being responsible.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Jimin lifted his cup. “Consent is sexy, though.”
Namjoon pointed at him. “Exactly.”
Taehyung leaned back on one hand, smiling faintly. “Still sounded like a campus workshop.”
Jungkook looked at him before he could stop himself.
“You would know. You need one.”
For one second, no one said anything. Then the circle reacted all at once — laughter, groans, someone saying, “Oh my God,” while Taehyung only raised his eyebrows, slow and amused.
Hoseok, predictably, looked thrilled by the possibility of drama. Jungkook denied there was anything to see so quickly that the denial became evidence all by itself.
The game began harmlessly enough.
Jimin picked truth and admitted he had once lied about being allergic to mushrooms because he didn’t want to eat Namjoon’s cooking. Namjoon looked wounded for approximately three seconds before admitting the mushrooms had been “texturally ambitious.” Hoseok accepted a dare to dance with a broom like it was the love of his life. Seokjin was forced to send a voice note to his own group chat saying, with complete sincerity, that he was the most handsome person in the apartment.
“That’s not a dare,” Seokjin said afterward. “That’s journalism.”
Yoongi picked truth and refused to answer three questions in a row until someone asked him what his most embarrassing playlist was called. He stared at the floor, sighed like the question had personally disappointed him, and said, “Crying, but make it expensive.”
The room lost its mind.
Jungkook laughed despite himself, the alcohol warming the edges of the night, loosening things he usually kept tightly folded. He was not drunk. Not even close. But his body felt a little softer, his mouth a little quicker, the room a little less sharp at the corners.
Across the circle, Taehyung watched him laugh.
Not like he wanted to tease him for it. More like he wanted to remember it.
Jungkook stopped laughing first.
Taehyung looked away a second too late.
The bottle spun again.
It slowed.
Stopped.
Pointed at Taehyung.
Hoseok rubbed his hands together. “Finally.”
Taehyung leaned back on his palms. “Truth.”
The whole room booed. Jimin threw a cushion at him.
“You’re boring.”
Taehyung caught it against his chest. “I’m mysterious.”
“You’re avoiding consequences.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You already used that tonight,” Jungkook said.
Taehyung’s eyes moved to him.
“You’re keeping track?”
Jungkook regretted speaking immediately.
He tried to look unimpressed, which was difficult when Taehyung was looking at him like he had just found something interesting under Jungkook’s ribs.
“Only when people say something worth hearing,” Jungkook said at last.
Taehyung’s smile shifted. “Was that an invitation?”
“It was a complaint.”
“Could be both.”
Jungkook looked away first.
Hoseok clapped once. “Okay, truth. Tae. Who in this room would you hook up with?”
The room went quiet in the immediate, hungry way rooms did when people were pretending not to care. Jungkook looked down at his cup. The beer had gone warm in his hand.
Taehyung did not answer right away. Of course he didn’t. He liked silence too much. Knew how to stretch it until people leaned in without meaning to.
Then he said, “Pass.”
The room exploded.
“No way,” Jimin said. “That is not a passable question.”
“It is if I pass.”
“That’s not how the English language works.”
“It’s exactly how it worked just now.”
Hoseok pointed at him. “You’re scared.”
Taehyung smiled. “Of many things. Not this.”
“Then answer.”
Taehyung’s eyes flicked to Jungkook.
There and gone.
So fast anyone else might have missed it.
Jungkook did not miss it.
His fingers tightened around the cup.
Taehyung looked back at Hoseok. “I’m drinking instead.”
He took a long sip.
Jungkook told himself he felt relieved.
It was a lie but at least it was a familiar one.
The next few rounds blurred into noise and laughter. Someone dared Namjoon to do aegyo, which resulted in three people screaming and Yoongi leaving the room for thirty seconds. Seokjin made everyone drink water because he said he was not dying responsible for “a pack of emotionally stunted raccoons.” Jimin admitted, under great pressure, that he had kissed someone in the campus library during finals week.
“Who?” Hoseok demanded.
“No.”
“Was it good?”
Jimin grinned. “It was quiet.”
Yoongi looked genuinely pained. “I hate all of you.”
The bottle spun again.
This time, it pointed at Jungkook.
Jimin’s smile became terrifying.
Jungkook immediately regretted every choice that had brought him here.
“Truth or dare?” Jimin asked.
“Truth.”
“Coward.”
“Strategic.”
“Emotionally constipated.”
“Do you want my answer, or do you want to keep projecting?”
Jimin put a hand over his heart. “He’s mean because he’s scared.”
“I’m mean because you’re annoying.”
“Same root cause.”
Hoseok leaned forward. “Ask him something good.”
Jungkook pointed at him. “Don’t help.”
Jimin tapped his chin like he was thinking deeply. Then his eyes brightened.
Jungkook hated him.
“When was the last time someone made you nervous?”
Jungkook stared at him.
Jimin stared back, angelic and evil.
“No one makes me nervous,” Jungkook said too quickly.
The entire circle reacted like he had handed them a terrible lie wrapped in a bow.
“Oh,” Hoseok said. “That was awful.”
“It was an answer.”
“It was a cry for help.”
Jungkook ignored him.
Taehyung was quiet.
Jungkook could feel him across the circle, feel his attention like a thumb pressed lightly to a bruise.
Jimin tilted his head. “No one?”
“No one.”
Taehyung laughed under his breath.
Jungkook’s eyes snapped to him.
“Something funny?”
Taehyung lifted one shoulder. “Not really.”
“That sounded like really.”
“It was more of a private reaction.”
“You laughed out loud.”
“Quietly.”
“That doesn’t make it private.”
Taehyung looked at him then, really looked, his expression too calm for how bright his eyes were.
“Maybe you’re just listening too hard.”
Jungkook felt the room disappear around the edges again.
He hated that.
He hated that Taehyung could do it with one sentence.
Jimin clapped once, loudly. “Okay. Jungkook refuses to be emotionally honest. Drink.”
“I answered.”
“You panicked.”
“I did not.”
“You said no one so fast I think your ancestors flinched.”
The room laughed.
Jungkook drank.
The beer was terrible.
The night went on.
It got louder. Warmer. Messier. Someone opened a window and cold air slipped into the apartment, carrying the smell of rain and wet pavement. It brushed the back of Jungkook’s neck every few minutes, grounding him just enough to notice each time Taehyung shifted, laughed, lifted his cup, looked away.
At some point, Taehyung disappeared into the kitchen with a guy Jungkook only vaguely recognized from Yoongi’s music theory class.
Jungkook did not care.
Obviously.
He especially did not care when the guy leaned close to say something into Taehyung’s ear and Taehyung smiled at him with that lazy, open-mouthed amusement that made people feel chosen for a second.
Jungkook took another drink.
Jimin followed his gaze and sighed.
“Oh, this is painful.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You breathed like you had an opinion.”
“I do. Several.”
“Keep them internal.”
“My concern is internal. My judgment is public.”
Jungkook glared at him.
Jimin patted his knee. “You’re doing amazing. Horribly but amazing.”
“He can talk to people.”
“Can he?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re fine?”
“Yes.”
“Say it without looking like you want to bite a glass.”
Jungkook looked away.
Jimin hummed. “Thought so.”
Taehyung came back a few minutes later without the guy from music theory. Jungkook did not feel better about that.
Not at all.
The bottle landed on Taehyung again.
This time, before anyone could boo, Taehyung said, “Dare.”
Hoseok made a sound of pure joy.
Jungkook’s stomach dropped for no reason.
“Okay,” Hoseok said, looking around the circle. His eyes landed on Jungkook, then Taehyung, then back again.
Jungkook knew that look.
“No,” he said immediately.
Hoseok blinked. “I haven’t said anything.”
“I can feel you being annoying.”
“That’s rude.”
“That’s accurate.”
Namjoon pointed vaguely with his cup. “Sometimes intuition is a form of intelligence.”
“Thank you,” Jungkook said.
“I didn’t say it was good intelligence.”
Hoseok grinned.
“Sit on Jungkook’s lap for one minute.”
The room exploded.
Jungkook sat up so fast his knee hit the coffee table.
“No.”
Taehyung turned his head toward him, eyebrows lifting.
“No?”
Jungkook hated the way he said it.
Soft. Amused. Like he had found the loose thread in Jungkook’s sweater and was deciding whether to pull.
“I said no.”
“It’s a dare, not a marriage proposal.”
“Still too much commitment for you.”
Someone laughed.
Maybe Jimin.
Probably Jimin, because he had the survival instincts of a spoon.
Taehyung’s smile sharpened.
“Is that what this is about?”
Jungkook froze for half a second and sat down.
Jimin made a strangled sound beside him, half laughter and half prayer.
“Can both of you stop doing that thing where every sentence sounds like a breakup and foreplay at the same time?”
“Jimin,” Jungkook snapped.
“What? I’m suffering.”
Taehyung stood.
Jungkook’s mouth went dry.
The thing was, Taehyung moved like he knew people were watching him. Like he had never once entered a room by accident. He crossed the small space between them with his cup still in one hand, then set it down on the table beside Jungkook’s half-empty beer.
Jungkook could have gotten up. He could have made another joke. Could have pushed Taehyung away with a laugh and turned the whole thing into nothing.
Instead, he stayed exactly where he was.
Taehyung stopped in front of him.
The noise around them dimmed, not because the room got quieter but because Jungkook stopped being able to hold more than one thing in his head at once.
Taehyung leaned down slightly.
“You can tell me to stop,” he said quietly, too quietly for the others to hear.
That was what made Jungkook’s chest tighten.
Taehyung knew when to make things a joke.
And he knew exactly when not to.
Jungkook swallowed.
“I know.”
Taehyung’s gaze flicked down to his mouth.
“Do you want me to?”
Jungkook should have said yes.
He did not say yes.
Taehyung waited.
Just one second longer than he needed to.
Careful.
Patient.
Infuriating.
Jungkook’s voice came out low.
“No.”
Taehyung’s eyes searched his face.
“Okay.”
Then he sat down.
For a second, Jungkook forgot there were other people in the room.
Not because Taehyung was heavy. He wasn’t. Not really. It was the warmth of him, sudden and real, the careful way he settled across Jungkook’s thighs, as if even now he was leaving enough space for Jungkook to change his mind.
One of Taehyung’s hands rested on the back of the couch instead of Jungkook’s shoulder.
It should have made things easier.
It did not.
Jungkook’s hands curled against the couch cushion.
Taehyung’s eyes dropped for half a second, just enough for Jungkook to know he had seen it.
“Timer,” Hoseok announced, sounding far too pleased with himself. “One minute.”
Taehyung turned his head. “No talking?”
“That includes you,” Yoongi said.
Taehyung looked personally offended. “Cruel.”
“Public service,” Jimin muttered into his cup.
The timer started.
Taehyung shut his mouth.
For the first ten seconds, Jungkook thought he might actually survive it.
Then Taehyung looked at him.
Not with the usual smile. Not with that familiar challenge he wore whenever they argued in front of everyone. He just looked and somehow that was worse.
His face was close enough for Jungkook to notice details he had no business noticing: the tiny mole near his nose, the damp sweep of his lashes, the faint flush on his cheeks from the heat and alcohol. He smelled like rain, beer and something warmer underneath, something Jungkook had noticed before and pretended he hadn’t.
Taehyung shifted slightly.
Jungkook inhaled through his nose.
Bad idea.
Taehyung’s eyes flicked down to his chest, then back up again.
Jungkook knew what he had seen.
The breath.
The reaction.
The fact that Jungkook was sitting there like a statue because if he moved, he might do something stupid.
Taehyung’s mouth curved.
Barely.
Jungkook narrowed his eyes.
Don’t.
Taehyung tilted his head.
What?
Jungkook hated him.
Jungkook wanted him.
The two feelings had been standing too close together for months, borrowing each other’s clothes and confusing everyone.
Thirty seconds.
Someone whispered something. Someone else laughed. Jimin made a noise like he was physically fighting the urge to comment.
Jungkook did not look away from Taehyung.
That was his mistake.
Because Taehyung’s expression changed.
The teasing loosened at the edges. His eyes went quieter. Less performance, less dare, less room full of people watching them pretend this was funny.
For a moment, he looked almost unsure.
Jungkook’s hands unclenched before he could stop them.
His fingers brushed Taehyung’s knee.
It was nothing.
Less than nothing.
A reflex. A mistake of balance. A touch so small no one else could have seen it.
Taehyung felt it.
His breath caught.
Jungkook heard it.
The timer went off.
The room cheered.
Taehyung stood immediately.
Too immediately.
Jungkook’s hands felt cold.
“Well,” Seokjin said from somewhere near the floor, “that was incredibly normal.”
Jimin put his face in his hands.
Namjoon looked at the ceiling like he was asking a higher power for patience.
Taehyung picked up his cup but he did not drink from it.
“I need air.”
The words were casual.
His voice was not.
He walked toward the balcony.
Jungkook watched him go.
For three seconds, he did nothing.
Then Jimin kicked his ankle.
“Go.”
Jungkook looked at him.
Jimin was not smiling now. Not teasing, not smug, not enjoying the disaster he had helped create. He just looked at Jungkook like the answer was obvious and Jungkook was the last person in the room willing to admit it.
Jungkook hated that most of all.
He stood.
The balcony door was half-open, letting in the cold. Jungkook stepped through it and shut it behind him, cutting the apartment noise down to a muffled pulse.
Outside, the city was wet and shining. Rain clung to the streetlights. The air was sharp enough to clear his head, but not sharp enough to fix him.
Taehyung stood by the railing, both hands wrapped around his cup.
He did not turn around.
Jungkook stayed near the door.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Taehyung laughed softly.
It was not a happy sound.
“You know,” he said, still looking at the street, “for someone who wasn’t nervous, you looked like you were about to pass out.”
Jungkook leaned back against the door. “Romantic.”
Taehyung turned his head slightly.
“Was it supposed to be?”
Jungkook did not answer.
Taehyung looked back at the street. His thumb moved over the rim of his cup once, then again.
“Sorry.”
Jungkook frowned. “For what?”
“The dare.”
“You didn’t make the dare.”
“I still did it.”
“I said no when you asked if I wanted you to stop.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you sorry?”
Taehyung was quiet for a second too long.
Then he said, “Because I liked that you didn’t.”
Jungkook forgot the cold for a moment.
Taehyung turned then. His hair was messier from where he had pushed it back, his cheeks still flushed, his mouth set in a line that looked too honest for the Taehyung Jungkook knew how to fight with.
“And that’s probably not something I should say while we’re both like this.”
Jungkook let out a short laugh but there was no humour in it.
“Now you care about timing?”
Taehyung blinked.
Jungkook looked away.
Mistake.
“What does that mean?” Taehyung asked.
“It means you make everything a joke until someone else has to be serious first.”
The words came out sharper than Jungkook meant them to.
Taehyung looked down at his cup.
For once, he did not have a comeback ready.
“I didn’t know you wanted serious,” he said.
Jungkook laughed again.
Quieter this time.
Helpless.
“That’s the problem.”
Taehyung looked at him. “What is?”
“You don’t know anything.” Jungkook swallowed, hating how exposed the words made him feel. “You just act like you do.”
Taehyung’s mouth parted slightly.
Inside, the music changed. Something slower now, softer at the edges, bass humming through the balcony door.
Taehyung set his cup on the railing.
“You’re right.”
Jungkook stared at him.
That was not how this usually went.
Taehyung rubbed a hand over his face, then gave a small, breathless laugh.
“Don’t look so shocked. I’m capable of personal growth.”
“Since when?”
“Since about ten seconds ago. Let me have this.”
Jungkook looked away but his mouth twitched.
Taehyung saw it.
The air loosened for half a second.
Then his voice dropped again.
“I don’t know with you.”
Jungkook’s almost-smile faded.
Taehyung stepped closer.
Not much.
Enough.
“I know how to joke with you,” Taehyung said. “I know how to make you glare at me. I know how to get under your skin.”
His eyes moved over Jungkook’s face, slower now.
“I’m good at that part.”
Jungkook swallowed.
“Congratulations.”
“See?” Taehyung pointed at him faintly. “That. You do that.”
“What?”
“Make it easier to keep joking.”
Jungkook’s jaw tightened.
Taehyung’s voice softened.
“But I don’t know what to do when you look at me like you did in there.”
Jungkook could have stepped back.
He didn’t.
Taehyung was close enough now that Jungkook could see the way his fingers tightened at his sides, the way his bravado had thinned into something more fragile.
“Like what?” Jungkook asked.
Taehyung gave him a look.
“Don’t.”
“I’m asking.”
“No.” Taehyung’s voice was quiet. “You’re hiding inside a question.”
Jungkook hated how accurate that was.
Taehyung took one more step.
“You looked like you wanted me to stay.”
The words landed softly.
Too softly.
Jungkook looked past him, toward the wet street beyond the balcony. A car passed through a puddle. Someone laughed inside the apartment, distant and bright.
He should have denied it.
He would have, normally.
But there was something about the cold. About the alcohol sitting warm at the edges of his blood. About Taehyung standing in front of him without that easy smile.
“I didn’t want you to leave like that,” Jungkook said.
It was not the whole truth.
It was more than he usually gave.
Taehyung seemed to understand that, because he did not push.
He only nodded.
Then, after a second, said, “Okay.”
Jungkook looked back at him.
“You always say okay like it means five different things.”
“Right now it means I’m trying not to mess this up.”
Jungkook’s breath caught.
Taehyung looked at his mouth.
Jungkook saw it.
This time, neither of them pretended he didn’t.
“You’re staring again,” Taehyung said.
Jungkook’s voice came out lower than he intended.
“You’re standing in front of me.”
“That’s your defence?”
“It’s a pretty solid one.”
Taehyung’s mouth twitched.
There.
That almost-smile.
Jungkook felt it like a hand around his wrist.
“You’re easier to read when you stop trying to look bored,” Taehyung said.
“I’m not bored.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because I wanted to hear you admit it.”
Jungkook huffed. “You’re so annoying.”
Taehyung stepped closer.
“And yet.”
Jungkook’s back touched the balcony door.
The sound from inside vibrated faintly through the glass, but it felt far away now. Everything did, except Taehyung’s hand setting gently against the door beside Jungkook’s shoulder. Except Taehyung’s eyes. Except the careful pause before he lifted his other hand and touched Jungkook’s collar.
Not his skin.
Just the collar of his shirt.
Two fingers.
A small adjustment.
A nothing gesture.
Jungkook’s entire body reacted like it was not nothing at all.
Taehyung noticed.
His voice dropped.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Not bored.”
Jungkook closed his eyes for half a second.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
It should have sounded like a joke.
It didn’t.
Jungkook opened his eyes.
Taehyung was right there, close enough now that their noses almost brushed, close enough that Jungkook could feel the warmth of his breath and the restraint shaking quietly between them.
For a second, Jungkook wanted to forget every smart thing he knew.
He wanted to pull Taehyung in by the front of his shirt. Wanted to ruin the careful distance they had spent months building. Wanted to make Taehyung stop looking so unsure and so certain at the same time.
Taehyung’s fingers brushed his collarbone.
Jungkook caught his wrist.
Both of them froze.
Not because Taehyung had crossed a line.
Because Jungkook had.
Taehyung looked at Jungkook’s hand around his wrist. Then he looked at Jungkook. His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Too much?”
Jungkook’s grip loosened immediately.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Jungkook breathed out slowly.
The truth sat heavy in his mouth.
“We’ve both been drinking.”
Taehyung went very still.
Jungkook forced himself to continue, even though every word felt like dragging himself backward through glass.
“And I don’t want this to be something we can blame on that tomorrow.”
Taehyung stared at him.
For one terrible second, Jungkook thought he had ruined it.
Then Taehyung’s expression changed.
Not disappointment.
Not anger.
Something softer.
Something like understanding.
“Oh,” he said.
Jungkook looked away.
“Yeah.”
Taehyung’s wrist was still in his hand.
Neither of them moved.
Then Taehyung turned his hand slightly, just enough for his fingers to brush Jungkook’s palm.
It was small.
Careful.
Devastating.
“Okay,” Taehyung said.
Jungkook looked back at him.
Taehyung’s smile was faint now, almost private.
“But just so we’re clear.”
Jungkook’s throat tightened.
“What?”
“I’m going to remember wanting to.”
Jungkook’s fingers tightened around his wrist before he could stop them.
Taehyung saw it.
The balcony door slid open behind Jungkook so suddenly he nearly jumped out of his skin.
Jimin stuck his head out, took one look at them and immediately looked delighted.
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. Am I interrupting emotional development?”
Jungkook dropped Taehyung’s wrist.
Taehyung stepped back.
“Yes,” they said at the same time.
Jimin beamed.
“Cute.”
“Leave,” Jungkook said.
“Seokjin says if you two are going to keep brooding in the cold, at least bring the good cups back inside.”
Taehyung picked up his cup from the railing.
“Tell Seokjin his priorities are admirable.”
“I won’t. It’ll encourage him.”
Jimin disappeared again, leaving the balcony door open this time.
Noise spilled back out with him.
Whatever had been stretching between Jungkook and Taehyung snapped loose but it did not disappear.
That was the dangerous part.
Taehyung glanced at Jungkook as they moved toward the door.
“Midnight, right?”
Jungkook frowned.
“What?”
“You said you were leaving before midnight.”
Jungkook stared at him.
Taehyung smiled, small and knowing.
Of course he had heard that. Of course he had remembered.
Jungkook stepped back into the apartment first, mostly because the cold had started to reach under his shirt and because staying on that balcony any longer felt like making a promise he wasn’t ready to explain.
Behind him, Taehyung followed.
Inside, the party was still loud, still messy, still moving as if nothing had changed.
But something had.
Jungkook felt it in the space between his shoulder blades, in the place where Taehyung’s gaze landed and stayed. He felt it when he sat back down beside Jimin and did not immediately look across the room. He felt it when Taehyung returned to the floor opposite him, closer than before.
The bottle spun again. Someone laughed. Someone groaned. Another dare was thrown into the room. Jungkook barely heard it. Because Taehyung was looking at him. And this time, Jungkook looked back.