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“Why is he so irritating,” moaned Jeongguk.
“That’s a good question,” said Seokjin. The pan sizzled and wafted out the smell of frying onions to the air, adding to the other smells of -Jeongguk sniffed- chicken and spicy soup that were already mingling in the kitchen. It was like this because Seokjin interpreted hyung, can I talk to you? as hyung, please ply me with food and unhelpful comments until I feel inexplicably, weirdly better. It was far from ideal, but Jeongguk was nothing if not pragmatic. And hungry.
“Ah-ah,” Seokjin said with a scowl, and stabbed Jeongguk’s fingers with his chopsticks. “No eating till everything’s done.”
“But I’m upset?” Jeongguk said, testing the waters and finding that his hopeful expression and soulful brown eyes didn’t stand up to Seokjin’s immovable expression. He slumped back in his chair. Maybe later, when Seokjin had his back turned.
“That’s really too bad, Jeongguk,” Seokjin said. He turned to his stir-fry and said offhandedly, “Talk about your feelings. It’s healthy.”
“Don’t put it like that, hyung, makes it sound weird,” Jeongguk complained. “And they’re not feelings. They’re like…attacks. I see him and it’s like he’s a grass type and I’m a water type and even his quick attacks are super effective against me. It’s annoying. I want to punch him, but not very hard? Softly. With, like, my mouth.”
Seokjin did his blink-blink-blink thing at him and Jeongguk colored. “You asked,” he muttered resentfully.
Seokjin said, “I asked,” and his tone was a little strange. He paused. “You should light him on fire,” he said.
Jeongguk choked.
“He’s a grass type, right?” Seokjin said reasonably. “That should give you the type advantage. Set his clothes on fire. Controlled, though. I don’t like the noise the smoke alarms make. Gives me a headache.”
Jeongguk banged his head on the counter. “Why are you like this hyung,” he groaned, muffled on the wood paneling.
Seokjin hummed. At first it was an amused little thing, questioning, pure hm, what are you talking about, you strange little baby gay? But then he didn’t stop, humming bits of their songs as he clanked and clattered around the kitchen. Jeongguk closed his eyes and smiled, because Seokjin-hyung really did have the sweetest voice, so delicate and lovely that it was a shame his personality was so… was so…
“You only get to eat if you beat me at arm-wrestling,” Seokjin said, and laughed when Jeongguk groaned. “Kidding, kidding. No one can beat me at arm-wrestling. But you have to try. No food if I think you’re not putting all your youthful vigor into it.”
“Yes, yes, fine,” Jeongguk grumbled. “You’re terrible at this comforting thing, hyung.”
“Ignoring reality will get you nowhere,” Seokjin said wisely. Then he blinked at Jeongguk again. “Wait, you didn’t tell me who your crush was this time.”
Jeongguk froze. He inhaled and a burst of the smell of spices and chicken -made exactly the way he liked it- burned into his lungs. Seokjin was still waiting for him to answer, his arm propped up on the counter, a hint of a smile still on his lips because of course he’d been smiling at his own terrible joke, which was awful, an absolute travesty, Jeongguk had no idea why he…
Jeongguk flushed, let out a breath, and said, “Well, Seokjin-hyung, it’s like this.”
1.
The first time he’d been drunk. Drunk and slumped over and trying not to wince at loud noises, a little grouchy like he got first thing in the morning. Alone until he wasn’t.
“First time drinking?” a voice asked and Jeongguk opened his eyes (he didn’t know when he’d closed them) and found Seokjin-hyung peering down at him. In the mood lighting of the studio where the party had broken out, he looked like a prince. He had confetti in his hair.
Jeongguk straightened. “Uh, yeah,” he stuttered.
Seokjin-hyung chuckled. “So I’m guessing you aren’t feeling too hot right now. Come with me, I’ll get you some water. Are you hungry, Jeongguk?”
“Yeah, a little,” Jeongguk said, and tried to pull himself together. “Thanks for looking out for me, hyung.”
“Namjoon asked me to,” Seokjin said immediately. “He said he’s no good with these kinds of situations. He looked kind of terrified.”
“Oh. Right,” Jeongguk said, taken aback. “Okay. Thanks anyway.”
“Sit here and drink this,” Seokjin-hyung said, pressing a glass into his hands and hip-checking him into a chair. “I’ll make you something.”
Jeongguk sat and drank, obediently.
“Taehyung and Hoseok are getting carried away,” Seokjin-hyung continued. “I should step in and make them stop.”
“Don’t,” Jeongguk said once he’d swallowed up most of the water. “They’re having fun. They’re, um, very cool.”
Seokjin looked at him and Jeongguk flushed. He didn’t know Seokjin-hyung that well--not like he knew Taehyung. All he knew was that Seokjin had broad shoulders, a beautiful face, and a cool, distant demeanor. Aloof and beautiful were two things Jeongguk absolutely had no idea how to deal with in people, so it went that he interacted with Seokjin the least.
Unlike Taehyung, who was beautiful, but also made jokes that were barely this side of appropriate. Taehyung who always nearly got them kicked out of studios with how irreverent and careless he was. Jeongguk thought that Taehyung could very well be the coolest person in existence.
He was drunk enough to mention this to Seokjin, who snorted.
“That’s not the kind of thing that you can say with any authority,” Seokjin said. “You haven’t even met ten people that aren’t your parents, let alone everyone in existence.”
“Hey,” Jeongguk protested. “Are you saying I don’t have friends? I have friends. I have three.”
Seokjin pushed a bowl of noodles into Jeongguk’s hands. He began eating, listlessly then with real enthusiasm. “This is really good, Seokjin-hyung.”
“Right?” Seokjin-hyung said. He was eating with equal gusto, nothing particularly princely about him at that very moment. “Aren’t you feeling better already? Such is the power of food.”
Jeongguk caught himself before he snorted. “Thank you for the food, and the comfort, Seokjin-hyung.”
This dragged Seokjin away from his precious noodles. He looked at Jeongguk for a second.
Jeongguk said, “What is it?” but Seokjin was already shaking his head, returning his attention to his bowl. He was smiling, a bit.
“You should tell Taehyung,” Seokjin said. “No use talking to me, or anyone, about it. Other people ruin good things. If it’s something you feel, the only way you can make a difference is if you tell him.”
Jeongguk said, “What about-”
Seokjin pinned him with a stare, then leaned forward and stole a prawn from his bowl.
Jeongguk didn’t know how to describe how he was feeling, but he summed it all up by saying, “Huh.”
2.
Jeongguk was sick the next time. Cold meds always dragged him to a state of wide-eyed exhaustion that was never fixed by sleeping, so he kept awake, dumbly accepting the get-well sentiments and gifts his bandmates scattered in his lap like shrine offerings. He opened the box of soup packets Jimin had got him and stared at them in incomprehension.
“How am I supposed to make these, Jimin hyung,” he muttered. All his thoughts presented themselves in verbal form when he was sick. “I can’t get out of bed. Thanks for getting them though.”
“Who are you talking to?” Seokjin hyung asked, poking his head into Jeongguk’s room. Jeongguk jerked upright- or tried to, and failed because he was in a throne of pillows. He felt, irrationally, like he should tidy up-- he had started thinking of Seokjin as a cross between his mom and a stranger, which was ridiculous and didn’t help anyone.
Seokjin seemed to have picked up on this, because he said, “At ease, soldier,” and then giggled.
Jeongguk gaped.
“Because you were standing at attention,” Seokjin explained.
“No, I get it,” Jeongguk said faintly. He wondered if he had fallen asleep after all.
It wasn’t the first time they’d been alone since Jeongguk confessed his crush on Taehyung --his ill-fated, nonsensical crush on Taehyung, which dissolved like soap suds when he found out that Taehyung was a fucking psychopath-- but it was the first time they wouldn’t get interrupted. Three weeks after that conversation Jeongguk still only had the vaguest sense of his eldest bandmate, someone he performed with but didn’t really know much about. Neither of them had gone out of their way to get to know each other better. Neither of them had that friendly charisma that Jimin had.
“Jimin, huh,” Seokjin said. Jeongguk started, but he was only looking at the teddy bears and soup that Jimin had given, half-mocking, half-sweet. He looked up and said, carefully, “Taehyung didn’t get you anything?”
“Nah,” Jeongguk said. “Jimin-hyung did, though.”
Seokjin nodded and his lips quirked. “I see.”
And like that, Jeongguk ended up sick, woozy, and rambling about how much he liked Jimin-hyung over soup that Seokjin made for him.
“He’s so cute. And funny. And his arms,” Jeongguk mumbled, angrily scooping up pieces of crab from his soup. “If I had to pick they’d be, like, number one for sure.”
He looked up when Seokjin made a noise, nervous suddenly, because he was an oversharing idiot when he was sick and there was no way Seokjin-hyung wanted to hear any of this no matter how chill he was--
But then he quickly found out that Seokjin had been expressing disagreement. “The only way you can say that is if you haven’t noticed his thighs,” he said, “and the only way you haven’t noticed his thighs is if you’re blind.”
Jeongguk swallowed. “Ah,” he said. White noise filled his ears for a bit.
Maybe Jeongguk had misunderstood. Maybe Seokjin had meant something innocent, meant that anyone, even a straight man, could appreciate Jimin’s thighs. It was a weird sentiment but it made sense, sort of, more sense than Seokjin…
What?
“I didn’t know,” Jeongguk said recklessly, “that you were the type that appreciated Jimin’s thighs, Seokjin-hyung.”
Seokjin got it. Jeongguk knew Seokjin got it because his eyes twinkled like stars, and he bit his lower lip like he was trying not to laugh.
“Oh, I am absolutely that type, Jeongguk,” Seokjin said in a husky voice that took years out of Jeongguk’s lifespan. “Not that I’m out as, ah, an appreciator of Jimin’s thighs,” and he laughed when Jeongguk made a noise like he was dying, “but I think the rest of our band mates know.”
“Oh,” Jeongguk said.
“Oh,” Seokjin agreed, a final tease before he sobered. “Have you told him?”
Jeongguk turned his eyes away. “Still not sold on your plan to confess to the person you like as soon as possible, hyung,” he said ruefully. “I mean…I don’t like going into things without knowing what I’m getting into. If I’m confessing to someone, I want to be sure I like everything about them. Even if they end up rejecting me.”
“Spontaneity…zero….” Seokjin pretended to write on an imaginary writing board. He sighed sadly when Jeongguk raised his eyebrows. “Zero for sense of humor as well. Fine. The path to love is going to be difficult for you, young one.” He fished out chocolates from the pockets of his hoodie and opened one. “Not that I’m looking down on you, or anything. I don’t like jumping in headfirst into anything, either.”
“Oh,” Jeongguk said for the third time. Then, feeling stupid, he bit into the chocolate Seokjin offered him, and smiled at the hint of caramel on his tongue. His favorite.
3.
Now that he knew that Seokjin --his laughing, food-fanatic troll of a hyung-- was like him, Jeongguk talked to him with a freedom that he found exhilarating. He stuck his head in Seokjin’s room when the half-dazed flush of his crush on Jimin had passed and found Seokjin with his earbuds in, doing pushups. His first few tries at speaking failed; scowling, he cleared his throat and managed, “Seokjin-hyung. Are you busy?”
There were things he could talk with Seokjin, and there were things he could only talk with him. Seokjin took one look at his face and smiled, a quick little thing before he jumped to his feet and shut the door.
“So I didn’t actually repay you for taking care of me while I was sick,” Jeongguk said. He idly wondered when Seokjin had picked up his preference for not having even his inane private conversations overheard.
“You didn’t,” Seokjin agreed. “I should at least be in the top ten by now. In that list of cool people in existence.”
“I don’t remember saying anything like that. Never happened,” Jeongguk said firmly.
“Then you should at least treat me to a five-course meal,” said Seokjin.
“What is it with you and eating? And hyung, you’re not really supposed to take me up on it. Say I don’t owe you anything because you did it out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I didn’t. I did it so you’d take me to a five-course meal,” Seokjin said, and Jeongguk groaned, Hyung. “So? What brings you here?”
“Ooh, honey butter chips,” Jeongguk said. “Want one?”
“Those are mine, you little--”
Jeongguk hadn’t expected Seokjin to headbutt him; stunned, he went down. Seokjin began to pry his fingers off the packet and Jeongguk tightened his hold automatically. They wrestled for a bit and Seokjin ended up triumphant, holding the chips aloft like a trophy. Jeongguk nursed the bump on his head.
“Want a chip?” Seokjin asked peaceably.
Jeongguk did. Munching, he said, “Hoseok-hyung helped me with my footwork today.”
“I bet he did.”
“Ugh, Hyung, don’t be like that,” Jeongguk said. “He was so…kind. I mean, he’s always messing around so I forgot how nice he was.”
“Hm,” said Seokjin thoughtfully.
“And, like, really patient! I had to do this kick and I thought I would die, seriously, but then he recorded himself doing it and played it back in slow motion till I got it.”
Seokjin handed him more chips. Jeongguk smiled at him in thanks, settled down, and started talking.
4.
“So, Yoongi-hyung,” Jeongguk said when Seokjin came down for breakfast.
“Ugh,” said Seokjin. “No.”
5.
“Namjoon’s straight,” Seokjin said. He had a funny look on his face, not a smile, but it had the shape of one.
Jeongguk didn’t ask why Seokjin had told him. He couldn’t explain why it mattered, when none of the others hadn’t-- maybe because if Namjoon was gay, then it would have made a difference. Maybe Jeongguk would have taken the plunge.
Maybe he’d have been too late. He’s seen the way Seokjin looks at him.
“You really should confess, this time,” Seokjin said gently, and Jeongguk couldn’t bear-- he really couldn’t put up with how sad Seokjin sounded at the prospect of Jeongguk getting rejected. “This one isn’t like the others. You should get closure. Namjoon will be kind.”
“Was he?” Jeongguk asked. “To you?”
Seokjin looked startled for a second. His lips parted on a quick breath. Then he looked away.
“Yeah,” he said softly, and the ache in Jeongguk grew. “Kinder than you could ever imagine.”
0.
“You still haven’t told me who you like this time,” Seokjin complained. The score was 2-2. Jeongguk’s biceps hurt but he had his pride, and the stir-fry smelled like heaven, so he pushed on.
“I mean, it has to be someone I know because you haven’t been out of my sight for as long as I can remember,” Seokjin continued. He sounded strained, but just barely; mostly he sounded like he always did, a demented songbird. “And he has to have green hair, because he’s a grass type.”
“Will you let the Pokémon thing go,” Jeongguk hissed, exasperated. “Hyung, you’re too literal-minded.”
“Maybe I need things spelled out,” Seokjin said, looking at Jeongguk in a way that made him feel, suddenly, a little shy.
Jeongguk didn’t register him pinning his arm on the counter. He leaned forward and slammed his face against Seokjin’s, lips against lips.
“Ow,” Seokjin cursed.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk said angrily. “Why are you like this, it’s so irritating, you’re so-- come here,” and then he kissed him again, properly this time. He brought his free hand up to Seokjin’s face, running his fingers slowly, feather-light, down Seokjin’s cheek, ghosting his thumb over his cheekbone.
Seokjin tilted his head and pressed himself close. A low, breathy noise escaped Jeongguk’s mouth, and into Seokjin’s. Seokjin trembled softly as they kissed, and it felt like a change in vibration, in frequency, both of them coming into tune with each other.
Jeongguk was shaking too. He didn’t know how long he’d wanted this. He never wanted to stop.
Seokjin stopped. He pulled back and his lips were pinker than usual, looked bee-stung and dangerously sexy. Jeongguk bit back the whine that wanted to escape his throat.
“I really, really like you,” he said, in a rush, before Seokjin could say anything. “I think I love you, Hyung, so you have to give me a chance--”
“You liked every single member of our band at some point,” Seokjin said, his eyes turned away, voice unsteady. “Jeongguk--”
“Before I knew them,” Jeongguk explains fiercely. “You saw how my crushes fizzled out when I got to know them better. But, but you, I didn’t like you to begin with, see? I didn’t even know when I first fell for you, but I fell a little more every time I got to know you, how amazing you were, Hyung, you have no idea.”
His voice wavered, and that was what it took for Seokjin to finally look at him. Seokjin’s eyes were shining in an expression Jeongguk knew, hated and adored; his Hyung was fucking with him.
“Ten for youthful vigor,” Seokjin sang, giggling, and Jeongguk made a pained noise. Seokjin grinned and kissed Jeongguk again, smooth and perfect in a way Jeongguk felt down to his bones. Their hands were still tangled together, and Seokjin’s fingers rubbed little circles into Jeongguk’s palm as he kissed Jeongguk within an inch of his life.
The soup had cooled when they finally sat down to eat. Jeongguk wrapped his arms around Seokjin and watched it reheat, sending up a little prayer for the constants in life.