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“yah,” jimin’s voice breaks the silence with a call quiet enough for two am. he says something else after, mumbling a sentence that taehyung can’t quite catch. he thinks it had something to do with hoseok, but he can’t be completely sure.
taehyung’s eyes flutter open slowly, sleepily. he blinks a few times in the dark, focusing on jimin’s side profile; watching the way moonlight filters through the glass and reflects off of his skin, eyeing the way his shoulder is exposed from the stretched collar of his shirt. taehyung remembers he’s not wearing pyjama trousers. he wonders if jimin is cold.
jimin’s eyes are open and he’s looking at the bottom of taehyung’s bunk, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly with a minute clench in his jaw. something akin to recognition is sparked in the back of taehyung’s head, letting a ding, ding, ding ring around his skull until it reaches his conscious brain.
he knows that look. jimin is thinking very, very hard about something.
“huh?” taehyung lets out a deep noise vaguely resembling a prompt when he realises jimin is impatiently chewing on his lip for a reason, awaiting taehyung’s reply.
“did you kiss hyung? earlier, in the living room.”
“yeah,” taehyung says, eyes fixed on somewhere beside jimin’s nose. it comes out a little like a question.
“oh.” is apparently the answer to that.
jimin doesn’t sound angry as such, just a little confused, maybe, with a slight hint of dissatisfaction. there’s a pause where the crease in jimin’s forehead returns with added fervour, and taehyung can feel the movements of his little fists in the sheets lower down the bed.
“how come?”
taehyung doesn’t quite understand why this is an event worthy of conversation, and why jimin is so concerned about it that he’d interrupt his hard-working best friend as he’s trying to fall asleep. it’s all rather simple in taehyung’s head.
“he gave me a massage and so to say thank you, i gave him a kiss.”
“he gave you a massage? when?”
“before you got back.”
“bit of a delayed thank you…”
“oh, well i gave him another one because he said it was okay that i kissed him before.”
“you gave him two kisses?” jimin turns his head to look at taehyung with raised eyebrows and an open mouth. it seems the amount of kisses they shared is somehow a significant piece of information, and jimin looks positively bewildered at the knowledge of it.
taehyung thinks that jimin’s bewilderment is the more bewildering turn in this conversation. he can’t really understand what the difference between one kiss or two is, because if you put 1 on top of 1 then it would still look like 1, so there isn’t really much depth to that argument. and if you want to get into the details, this was actually their second and third on-the-mouth kiss anyway. but what does it matter? technicalities.
oh, but he also kissed him more on the cheek the first time, so you could say taehyung gave him thr–
“why did you kiss him?”
taehyung resists the urge to roll his eyes – he literally just told jimin this – but something about the way there’s still a knot in jimin’s brow, and how taehyung can feel his teeth pressed together from all the way over here makes him panic a bit.
“because he gave me a massage–”
jimin scoffs with an exaggerated movement of his head, “why a kiss ?”
“kisses are nice?”
this seems to put jimin back into thinking mode. he shifts into thinking-face and looks up at the mattress above them again. everyone always says there’s no real point calling it taehyung’s bed anymore; he never sleeps in it anyway.
taehyung watches jimin for a moment as his eyes slide shut. his friend breathes out forcefully through his nose before shuffling himself onto his side, face to face with taehyung's head on the pillow. this usually means ‘deep chat, buckle up’ and a tired taehyung starts wondering how he can get out of this one.
thankfully though, jimin’s expression relaxes when he meets taehyung’s eyes. they look at each other calmly for a few seconds, retinas repeatedly connecting then flitting over the bridge of a nose. taehyung’s mind is mostly quiet––
–but then his impatience kicks in.
taehyung knows jimin is going to say something, and he's never been very good at waiting, so he tries to occupy the silence with what he imagines jimin’s thought process is right now.
jimin looked angry, but he also didn’t shout. jimin shouts when he’s not thinking, but he was thinking very hard. but jimin doesn’t usually think when he’s angry. maybe it was pain. but why would kissing hoseok have anything to do with jimin pulling a muscle? or trapping a nerve? none of this is making any sense ...
taehyung is about to ask if something’s wrong, if maybe he should not have kissed hoseok, and why that would be a problem, but he decides against it. it’s quiet and jimin is going to say something. taehyung feels like he would get yelled at for interrupting him.
jimin finally speaks after almost a minute.
“how come you never give me kisses?”
oh. oh! that makes sense. jimin is an angel, but he has always been a jealous person, a smidge possessive too. (“my kookie!” “why don’t i get ice-cream, hyung.” “tae he said he would cuddle with me!”) he just likes to be treated well. kisses are nice, and when jimin misses out on nice things he gets grumpy.
ah, yes. mystery solved.
but, when taehyung thinks about it, he doesn't really know how to explain the exact answer to jimin’s question.
“he–– he did something nice for me–” it comes out a bit jumbled, slightly unsure.
“do i not do nice things for you? am i not doing something nice for you right now?”
taehyung’s face contorts as he thinks. they’re in jimin’s bed, as usual, it’s late at night and neither of them are asleep yet, jimin just woke taehyung up. taehyung’s left leg is firmly placed next to his right one instead of over jimin’s. they’re actually an inch or so away from each other.
no, taehyung decides. jimin isn’t doing anything particularly nice for him right now.
“no, not really.” he says, which seems to be the wrong answer, because jimin’s expression falls into one of frustration.
almost immediately, jimin shuffles the two of them around in order to accommodate a preferred position. they end up cuddled together, limbs intertwined, and jimin smirks just before he reaches up with his right hand and brings it down to the back of taehyung’s head.
a pleased smile spreads across taehyung’s features as jimin starts petting the hairs at his nape. his eyes slip shut in satisfaction.
bliss.
suddenly, taehyung realises jimin did this for a reason. he opens his eyes to find jimin fixing him with a calculating look.
well?
“jimin…”
“yeah.”
“do you want a kiss?”
“only if you want to give me one.”
taehyung considers. he looks down at jimin’s lips, then to the chub on his cheeks he loves so much, then to his deep, teeming eyes. he takes note of everywhere their bodies are touching, of how nice jimin’s hand feels in his hair, and how warm he is right now. he concludes a kiss, kissing jimin, in this moment, definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing.
taehyung leans forward the few centimeters it takes and gives jimin a two-second peck on his mouth, judging that to be suitable. when he pulls away, jimin’s eyes are wide, stunned, his whole body still. taehyung starts wondering what he did wrong, because jimin asked to be kissed. or did he? maybe taehyung read something wrong again––
then suddenly taehyung is getting his fourth (or fifth, depending on how you judge it) kiss of the night, as jimin firmly, but gently pulls him down by his neck.
wow.
okay then.
jimin looks satisfied at when he sees shock in his best friend’s expression.
taehyung just smiles his signature smile, making jimin blush and snuggle in closer, burying his cute little face in taehyung’s chest.
they drift off to sleep pretty soon after that; warm, whole, satiated. a fleeting thought before his unconscious pulls him under– because kissing jimin was nice, and kissing hoseok was nice, and kisses are nice –is if taehyung will get to kiss jimin a lot more in the future.
he decides he’d probably like that.