Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been a while since Yoongi’s worn a suit.

The last occasion had likely been some piano showcase, back when he was still in college, back when he and Namjoon used to see each other every day. He doesn’t remember which showcase, or what year it might have been, but he remembers the suit: a tweed brownish-grey with a button-up shirt the color of milky coffee. Namjoon had laughed at him, eyes sparkling, and said he’d looked exactly like their elderly music composition professor.

He checks his hair and frowns. His reflection in the mirror is not exactly un-professor-like, even now. 

It’s both predictable and strange how intimately Namjoon’s presence has been interwoven throughout Yoongi’s life over the last ten years or so, whether it’s their semi-regular time together in the studio nowadays or the boundary-testing digs at each other that marked their early friendship.

Once, Yoongi thought there might have been something between them, something green and young and unnamed, unfurling like a tightly-rolled fiddlehead fern, wrought with the kind of addictive tension that sizzles and pops between them like pork belly in a hot pan.

But it had all dried up when he wasn’t looking, somehow, turned to dust and dispersed, and Namjoon had moved on.

Yoongi hadn’t been able to, not yet. Now, on a warm sunny weekend in June, he was readying himself to watch his first love marry someone else.

Yoongi studies himself in the mirror one last time, all done up, shirt tucked in. He straightens his tie and thinks, neurotically, is the purple too much?

He checks his watch: four o’clock.

It’s time.

Yoongi makes his way down to his car, breathing slow and deep.

❀

The lawn at the Grand Walkerhill Seoul slopes down towards the water, buttressed by a stone wall and accompanying hedgerow. The round dinner tables are already set up in two groups to form an aisle down the middle, each tabletop adorned with fabrics in sage and white; the accompanying chairs are hung with soft pastel purple roses, and the arch up front is more like a garden trellis than anything else, more roses clinging to the whitewashed wood, winding around the sides and meeting, like a kiss, at the top.

Yoongi shoves his hands in his pockets, gaping as he stares up at it. It's perfect, really, the whole thing, the whole space. It's exactly right for Namjoon, and if he knew Jungkook half as well, he's sure he'd think it was perfect for him, too.

But, in all honesty, Yoongi hasn't spent much time with Jungkook. He likes him, obviously, because—well. He's likeable, and that's that. He's athletic and charming and objectively attractive; it makes sense that Namjoon, the most warm-hearted, romantic person that Yoongi's ever met, would fall for someone with starry eyes and a little lisp and an intact sense of innocent wonder.

Yoongi takes a meandering lap around the lawn, subtly taking stock of the decorations, the other guests milling about, the bare bones of the paebaek ceremony set up to the side of the dinner tables.

Over his shoulder, he hazards a glance back towards the arch. His gaze traces the green tendrils of thornless stems, the soft purple roses twisting and curling and bursting forth in bunches all the way up. Beneath it, now, head tilted back, is a man that Yoongi’s never seen before. He must be one of Jungkook’s friends; Yoongi would be supremely surprised if Namjoon knew a single soul that Yoongi hadn’t already met.

The man is small, but not delicate; Yoongi can’t help but trace the lines of his body with a distracted gaze. He’s well-groomed for the most part, with a fitted suit and cropped trousers skimming the backs of his velvet loafers, but his hair is an unorthodox shock of cotton-candy pink.

Distantly, detached from any knowable urge, Yoongi hopes that the man notices him, too.

He straightens up his posture just in case.

Only then, as he brings his gaze back to this man beneath the wedding arch, does he realize that he is accompanied by someone else. The second man is much taller, somewhat broader, with dark curls and long fingers pointing up, up, at the flowers hanging above their heads. The pink-haired man opens his mouth to speak, something that will surely be inaudible across the lawn, but Yoongi strains his ears to hear anyway, until—

"Yoongi!"

Yoongi turns, startled. "Fuck! Jin hyung—"

Seokjin greets him with a quick hug. "The rest of us are already here. You coming inside?” He pats Yoongi on the shoulder to steer him towards the steps. “Namjoon's in the back room getting ready, probably fucking up his tie or the flowers or something."

"I—” Yoongi glances back at the man across the lawn. He still hasn’t looked his way. “Sure."

Seokjin grins, glancing around, trying to follow Yoongi’s eyeline. "So—where's your date? You had a plus one, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I just—" Yoongi looks around too, as if to assure himself that there is no ghost of a loved one lingering somewhere over his left shoulder. "I didn't bring anyone. It's just me."

Seokjin slings an arm around Yoongi's shoulders, leading him towards the steps up to Aston House. "He's asking for you, you know," he says, softly. "Namjoon. He keeps bugging me to find out if you've arrived yet or not."

Yoongi feels his lips twitch. "Mm," he hums. "Traffic was—"

"Yeah, yeah," Seokjin says, waving a hand. "It's Seoul, traffic is always awful. Here, this is the room.”

As buttoned-up as he's tried to be so far, Yoongi's still not prepared for the sight of Namjoon in his dark grey tuxedo, his lavender boutonniere, his sage-green tie. He's not prepared, but he gets an eyeful of it anyway, paired with that ever-present dopey grin when Yoongi steps over the threshold.

"Yoongi hyung," Namjoon says, looking much more put-together than he usually does and far too emotionally stable for his own wedding day. It won’t last; it can’t, Yoongi hopes, because how could it be true that Yoongi is more of a mess than one of the grooms themselves?

That would be pathetic, Yoongi thinks. You’d be pathetic for that.

Yoongi hovers for a moment, unsure of where he's needed or wanted in the bustle of preparation and chatter, but soon Namjoon's clearing the distance between them with long strides and pulling him close. He smells like sage, too, and Yoongi can't help but press his nose to Namjoon's lapel.

"You look so nice," Yoongi mumbles into the stiff fabric against his mouth. "Really nice. He's going to—Jungkook's going to love it. The suit and—the little flower thing."

Namjoon chuckles fondly. The sound rumbles deep in his chest, right against Yoongi's ear. "Yeah, I think so.” He pauses, steps back just enough to regard Yoongi with a level gaze. “Do you like it?" he says, and Yoongi looks up.

"I do," he says. "Of course I do, you look like—a guy who spent too much money on a nice suit."

"And that's a good look, huh?"

Yoongi smiles, just a little. He suspects that Namjoon can handle a little teasing today, but not too much. "Yes. You really do—look good."

Namjoon grins. "Good. I was waiting for you to show up, you know, so I could get the opinion of our resident suit-wearer, our little piano man. You must have worn more suits for recitals and shit over the years than I ever wore to church growing up."

Yoongi grins then too, pushing Namjoon off all the way in mock exasperation. “Go finish getting ready so I can take my picture with you or whatever.”

“This is decidedly more relaxed than the whole bride-receiving-room thing,” Namjoon says. “I’ve been taking selfies with people all afternoon and I just fucking realized that my tie’s been undone the whole time.”

"Do you want someone to tie your tie, or are you finally all grown up?"

"I don't think I get the all grown up distinction until after I'm married," Namjoon says, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "I think that's how it works.”

"Oh yeah?"

"Seems like it,” Namjoon says, tugging at the strands of silk around his neck. 

Yoongi rolls his eyes, feigning exasperation. “Aish, Namjoon, don’t you know how to do this by now?” 

“Yes, but I’ve tried it about a hundred times already and it comes out wrong every time.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, shame-faced and a little sheepish. “I guess I’m a little nervous,” he admits.

“Oh,” Yoongi says, softening. His throat constricts, just a little. He swallows. "Okay, come here, you idiot."

With his fingers working quickly at Namjoon's throat, slipping the sleek fabric through itself and tugging it tight, Yoongi practices carefully packaging his own emotions away and setting them aside.

It's hard, like this.

Namjoon’s so close, but their past feels so much farther away than it ever has.

It's hard.

❀

Yoongi visits Jungkook in his receiving room only briefly before they’re ushered to the lawn and seated at the tables; through the curve of the arch, Yoongi can see the hazy bend of the Han River bracketed on one end by a distant bridge. 

When Seokjin approaches the arch with a microphone in his hand, the guests go quiet.

“Good evening,” Seokjin says with his usual bravado, “and welcome to an unofficial-official wedding that is, I should note for legal purposes, entirely unrecognized by the South Korean government. We appreciate your attendance at this unsanctioned linkage of two souls for all eternity.”

Namjoon cracks a grin at the front; Yoongi mirrors it into his napkin.

“Namjoon, I’ve known you for years as the guy who always begged me to be his wingman at parties,” Seokjin continues, “which was embarrassing for you until it worked. And now we’re here! How wonderful. You’re welcome.”

Seokjin rounds on Jungkook then, grinning. “This kid — he’s like a brother to me now, not just because he’s younger, but because we literally get on each other’s nerves like Seokjung and I used to” — he points his own brother out in the crowd — “but Jungkook being younger than me makes it, no doubt, incalculably better than the situation I grew up in. I have to pay for his food a lot more, but I can make him give me the good controller for Mario Kart. It’s worth it. Anyway, let’s reflect on love.”

Seokjin tugs a small stack of index cards out of his inner jacket pocket. “Love,” he recites slowly, like he’s been called on to read a literature passage in front of the class, “is, as we know, both patient and kind.”

He clears his throat. 

“But there’s something to be said for an impatient kind of love, too,” he says, “one that’s had Namjoon leaving our game nights early for a year just because he can’t wait any longer to get home and see this kid.”

Jungkook smiles, bright as the sun.

“And there’s something to be said for a love that allows us to be kind to ourselves, not just to each other.” With a pause, Seokjin slots one index card onto the back of the stack. “What these guys have is a potent reminder that we all deserve to find kindness for ourselves in the way that we love each other.”

Yoongi shifts in his seat, scratches the crown of his head, rubs his thighs with clammy palms.

It’s hard not to think about how, in this moment, Seokjin is describing exactly what he doesn’t have, what he can’t even begin to access.

His mind wanders to the feeling of Namjoon’s tie between his fingers, to similarly platonic acts of care, to searching hard for meaning and coming up dry, to finding no kindness there for himself.

He’s had plenty of moments of vulnerability, plenty of moments that, if kindness were so inclined, might have drawn it into his heart. Yoongi wonders what it will take, how long he’ll have to wait, for it to actually show itself.

“It’s an incredible thing,” Seokjin says, drawing Yoongi’s attention again, “to love wholly and without reservation. It’s the kind of thing that Jungkook, who’s just about the warmest person I know, is a natural at. It’s the kind of thing that Namjoon, who’s always been too hard on himself, really had to learn.” He shoots a quick apologetic smile at Namjoon. “We’re all somewhere on that spectrum. To love like this, you have to let go of expectation and rigidity and whatever else keeps us in our own track with our heads down. We have to be open to risk and compromise and a really radical kind of vulnerability. These guys did that work, and if you look at them standing up here, if you look at their faces, you can see it.”

Seokjin glances back at them again, just for a moment.

“I’ve never seen two people who deserve each other more,” he says. “I’ve never seen such a healing, teaching, purposeful kind of love. Thank you, Namjoon and Jungkook, for giving it to each other so impatiently.”

Namjoon has tears in his eyes, just like Yoongi knew he would. Jungkook, for his part, has had tears running down his face since the whole thing started, since he first faced the crowd.

“And thank you all for coming to witness it here today,” Seokjin continues. “And now — let’s get this done so we can eat.”

❀

The rest of the ceremony is beautiful — and short.

Yoongi’s positioned somewhat near the front, but the sound of the officiant’s voice doesn’t quite reach him. By the time Namjoon and Jungkook’s mothers make their way to the front with their red and blue candles, Yoongi is already lost in thought, folding and unfolding his hands in his lap over and over again. There’s a kiss, and then Jungkook actually tugs Namjoon in for a tight hug, chin tucking over his shoulder. The guests laugh politely, endeared, and Seokjin makes his way back up to the arch.

“Thank you all again for coming,” he says, taking the microphone back from the officiant. “Get home safe and enjoy your night. You all look wonderful. For those who came from out of town, you can get your hotel key at the front desk just inside the double doors, pick up your bags from the porter, and pray that you don’t share a wall with our lovebirds in 217.”

Later, as Namjoon and Jungkook make their way around to each table for greetings and goodbyes, Seokjin leans across his plate and touches Yoongi’s arm.

“Hey, don’t leave just yet.”

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but they want you to stay.”

Yoongi furrows his brow. “Do they?”

“For the paebaek,” Seokjin says. “They want close friends there, too.”

“Oh," Yoongi says, a little surprised. "All right.”

“And,” Seokjin says conspiratorially, “maybe you have a little something to give me? Namjoon told me to get it from you instead of having you pay officially.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says again, “yeah, yeah, I do, sorry.”

He slides his carefully-prepared white envelope out of his inner jacket pocket and passes it to Seokjin. He overshot the customary amount of cash by just a little, because he's living comfortably now, because they're close — because he wants Namjoon and Jungkook to know that, no matter what, he's supportive.

“I’ll pass this along to them,” Seokjin says, tucking it safely inside his own jacket. “You know, I really thought he’d want you to be the emcee instead of me. I get that I’ve got the sort of face that anyone would want to be visible at the front of a room at any given time, but—”

Yoongi shrugs. “It just — didn’t work out that way,” he says. “I’m glad it’s you. It looked like you were having fun with it.”

“Oh, yeah. I wanted the speech to be profound and personal and, where possible, embarrassing.” 

He grins, and then Yoongi finds himself smiling, too.

❀

Namjoon enters in a red hanbok, and Jungkook enters in blue.

Yoongi, still seated as the paebaek begins, loosens his own purple tie.

Asking guests to wear something purple had been Jungkook’s idea — what do you get when you mix red and blue? — and Namjoon, always weak for symbolism and Jungkook’s pleading eyes, had gone along with it.

Yoongi has never been present for a paebaek ceremony before, and he finds this one profoundly beautiful. Namjoon and Jungkook look wonderfully at peace. Their mothers cry; their friends rejoice; they don’t manage to catch a single date or chestnut between them.

And then, just like that, it’s all over.

❀

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over.

Yoongi’s two drinks in, his head’s starting to swim, and the whole thing is starting to hurt.

He’d kept a handle on it for most of the day, kept himself in check and appropriate and respectful; he really shouldn’t have started drinking if he wanted to keep it up. But they’d moved inside to a room full of identical circular tables, and there was a bar, and he didn’t really know anyone left apart from Namjoon and Seokjin, and they were busy—

So he’d gotten himself a whisky, the kind that Namjoon had made sure was stocked especially for him, and now his mind is full of their history, the first meeting in their studio class and the personalized mix CDs and the late-night phone calls and the fact that, despite all his niceties, despite all of Yoongi’s desperate pining, Namjoon had never really noticed him like that at all.

He’d held out hope for a long time, but if he’s honest with himself now, it’s been over for a while. It’s certainly been over since Namjoon proposed, but it was over before then, too, ever since Jungkook had brought Namjoon home to Busan for the first time, since Namjoon had made himself comfortable on Yoongi’s futon and said, faux-casual, so I met this guy. 

If this has to end, though, he at least wishes he could talk to someone about it.

But Yoongi can’t afford a therapist, his older brother probably wouldn’t take his calls, and Namjoon is his best friend and only true confidant in the whole wide world, so that’s — that’s just great.

“This is an open bar situation, right?” Yoongi asks one of his tablemates, who nods. “Great. Amazing.”

❀

Whoa-oh-oh-oh, for the longest time.

Whoa-oh-oh-oh, for the longest time.

Ten years.

It’s been ten years since this all started, since they first met, since Yoongi fell in love.

He almost can’t believe that he’d fallen in love with a guy like this, someone so far out of his league but who still manages to humble his image by doing something as cringe-inducing as choosing a sappy Western ballad for his wedding’s nuptial song.

At least it doesn’t matter anymore, that Yoongi’s in love. At least now, after all this time, he knows that for sure.

If you said goodbye to me tonight,

There would still be music left to write.

There’s already so much of it, is the thing.

Pages upon pages of coded declarations in Yoongi’s lyric notebook, files upon files of arrangements on his external hard drive.

Namjoon’s in all of it, but Yoongi has never told him, not once. His dimple-cheeked smile is the star of every sweet, springlike love song; his forthright, bleeding-heart demeanor is the backing track for every musing, alternative ballad; his fingers intertwined with someone else’s, all ten years long, are the foundation for every hollow-sad or jealous-mad flow.

He wants to write a thousand more songs for Namjoon; he wants to never write another one in his sick, sordid little life.

What else could I do?

I'm so inspired by you—

Yoongi just wants his heart to finally, finally let this be the end. This, the most obvious bookend after ten-odd years of pining in silence, hoping in silence, suffering in silence. He wants to slam the cover closed, to drop his pen, to throw his musings on cowardice and blind faithfulness into the metaphorical fire.

He wants to open himself up to new opportunities. He wants to fuck someone else and not feel guilty for once. He wants to write bright pop melodies instead of dirges.

More than anything, though, Yoongi just wants something to change, something to let him know that he, too, deserves what others seem to bask in so easily.

He wants to wake up and see the sunrise for what it is, not even some poetic watercolor wash, but just mundane. Not a threat; not a promise of dread, of some new day that’s already off on the wrong foot because Yoongi’s bed is cold and Namjoon’s is warm with the heat of someone else’s skin.

He just wants a sign that, somehow, some way, he’ll feel good again.

That hasn't happened for the longest time.

❀

When Yoongi returns to his table with another whisky, the pink-haired man from out on the lawn is there — and he’s sitting in Yoongi’s seat.

Yoongi had almost forgotten about him, but now he’s here in front of him, and he’s striking. He’s made fast friends with some of Yoongi’s tablemates, and the sound of his laugh is — Yoongi’s not sure how to describe it.

The thing is, it’s been a while since he really noticed anyone else like this.

It might not have happened at any other time, at any other place, but tonight, Yoongi’s in deep enough to see this for what (he hopes) it is.

A sign.

“Hi,” Yoongi says, glass in hand, frozen in his tracks.

That gets the man’s attention; all of a sudden, he turns around in his (Yoongi’s) chair and gasps. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry — did I take your seat? I can move—”

“Yes, you did,” Yoongi says, like an idiot. He immediately regrets it. “But — uh, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“No, no, sorry, I’ll just—” The pink-haired man hops up and circles around the table to the other side, dropping into the chair opposite Yoongi’s. “I didn’t realize anyone was sitting there.”

“It’s really fine,” Yoongi says, taking his seat, unsure of what to do when he’s being apologized to. “I’m not attached to the seat or anything. I just — got up to get another drink.”

The pink-haired man leans up out of his chair to peer into Yoongi’s glass. “Ooh, what are you drinking?”

“Whisky.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

Up close, the pink-haired man is almost magnetic.

“What about you?” Yoongi asks, a beat too late.

“Double vodka tonic. Do you wanna dance?”

Yoongi splutters. He has never been to a wedding with this much music before, but with Namjoon and Jungkook’s lives both so shaped by it, it only makes sense. That doesn’t mean that Yoongi’s particularly excited about the prospect of dancing, though. 

“There’s not really anywhere to—”

“There’s room between the tables, come on!”

Yoongi shifts awkwardly in his chair. “Now?”

“You look like a good dance partner.” He grins, and Yoongi notes with vague interest that one of his front teeth is turned inward slightly. “Don’t you want to have a little fun? No offense, but you look miserable.”

It’s a sign, Yoongi’s mind urges. Take the fucking hint.

“Sure,” Yoongi says eventually, “but I’m really not much of a dancer.”

“Well, I am,” says the pink-haired man, smirking. “I’m Jimin, by the way.”

❀

Pressed up against Jimin and swaying with him in the aisle, Yoongi finds himself strangely able to breathe.

“You,” he says quietly against Jimin’s soft pink hair, “you were here early. I saw you on the lawn.”

Jimin’s hands hug around Yoongi’s neck a little tighter. “Oh, did you?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, feeling Jimin’s waist through his jacket. “You were with someone.”

Jimin thinks back, shifting his weight from hip to hip. “Tall guy? Curly hair?”

Yoongi nods. “I thought maybe he was your date.”

“Oh, it was Taehyungie, I think. My best friend.” Jimin stops swaying and stands on his tiptoes for a moment, searching him out and pointing when he sees him lingering by the bar. Yoongi peeks over Jimin’s shoulder at him, watches him chat Seokjin up with a glass of champagne in his hand. 

When Jimin settles back down against Yoongi, he says, “We’re not together or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I just couldn’t bring myself to show up alone to this, you know?”

It sounds like there’s something there, something to pick at, but Yoongi doesn’t pry. 

“I did,” he says, “just so you know.”

When Jimin grins, Yoongi’s stomach fills with butterflies. 

❀

“I always thought I’d get married first,” Jimin tells him later, sipping his drink at the table once more. “Out of everyone in my friend group. Or that I’d never get married at all, and I’d just live in some big house and bring a new hot man over every week.” He grins. “What about you?”

Yoongi shrugs and tugs at the starched fabric of his trousers. It’s bunching awkwardly at the backs of his knees, and it makes him conscious of his body in a way that he doesn’t appreciate, almost more than the dancing did. “I’d like to get married someday,” he says after a while, feeling small.

“Oh,” Jimin says, drawing it out dramatically, “so you’re a romantic.”

“No,” Yoongi says quickly, but then adds, “well, maybe a little,” just for authenticity’s sake.

Jimin giggles, leaning forward across the table conspiratorially. “You’re so cute. Are you seeing someone? Is there someone out there already wearing your ring? You said you came here alone, but—”

Yoongi shakes his head robotically, cheeks burning hot. He’s twenty-eight and perpetually single and deeply, deeply ashamed of the reason why. He’s also very afraid of this prying stranger’s social competence, the potential for him to smile like that and pout a little and make Yoongi spill all of his deepest, darkest secrets right out of his traitorous mouth and all over the Aston House’s pristine white tablecloths. 

“No, I—” he begins, glancing over at Namjoon instinctively. His eyes catch on the line of Namjoon’s arm as he leans to pour Jungkook another glass of wine. Yoongi’s shame buries itself deep in his gut like a stone. “No, I—there’s no one.”

Jimin follows Yoongi’s eyeline. “Are you—you’re Namjoon’s friend, right? You must be, I’ve never met you before. I feel like if you knew Jungkook, you’d know me.” He grins, cocky but still so, so pretty.

Yoongi just nods, staring at the brown liquid in his glass for a moment to reorient himself. “Namjoon and I met in college.”

“Oh, smart boys.” Jimin traces the rim of his wine glass with his pointer finger. “What did you do in school? I know Namjoon’s some hot-shot company man now—”

Yoongi chews his lip. “I was a music composition student,” he says. “So—these days I work for an entertainment company.” Quickly, he adds, “As a producer, not—not as a performer.”

“Oh!” Jimin beams, wriggling forward in his seat. “I always used to dream about being a singer. I tried the trainee thing for a while, but—”

“It’s pretty punishing,” Yoongi says, because it is, because every day at his job he sees good people lose their way from the stress of it alone. “I’m sure it wasn’t for lack of talent that you—”

“Oh, no,” Jimin says, waving a small, silver-ringed hand. “No, the talent was the only thing keeping me there as long as I managed to be. Apparently I wasn’t very easy to get along with.”

Yoongi furrows his brow. “I think you’re very easy to get along with,” he says sheepishly. “I’m having a nice time talking to you.”

Jimin grins, brimming with glee from the praise. Belatedly, Yoongi thinks he can feel Jimin’s velvet loafer pressed softly against the inside of his knee under the table, an intimate accident — or an invitation, perhaps. “I really like you,” Jimin says, plush lips pursed in a sly smile. “Let me get you another drink.”

❀

“So — how long have you known Namjoon? You said since college, but—”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, sipping his drink. “Uh, we’ve been friends for ten years. Best friends.”

Jimin grins. “Did you know that I’ve known Jungkook since we were kids?”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Grew up on the same street. He moved away later, but — we met back up when we moved to Seoul for school.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was nice. It was the craziest thing, though—” Jimin giggles, too many drinks in by this point. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Yoongi shifts in his chair. “Uh — sure, I guess.”

“I used to have the biggest crush on Jungkookie,” he says, eyes shining.

“Oh,” Yoongi says, faint recognition tugging at his heart. “That must — is that hard?”

Jimin shrugs, gaze dropping to his silver-ringed hands. “I’ve been really lucky in love,” he says, “for the most part. When I like someone, they like me. That’s how it goes.”

Yoongi chews his bottom lip. “That is lucky.”

“I had never been rejected before,” Jimin says plainly, eyes darting back up to meet Yoongi’s. “Not until Jungkook.”

Yoongi can’t exactly relate to that sentiment; over the years, plenty of things both big and small had threatened to dash his hopes for something more with Namjoon. On bad days, even the most innocuous things felt like rejection after rejection.

“It must be hard, then,” Yoongi says, swallowing, “to get over something like that.”

Jimin nods. He folds and unfolds his napkin neatly, tucks it down into his lap. “I’m not really over it, if I’m being totally honest with you,” he says, and something shorts out in Yoongi’s brain at that.

Suddenly, he’s not the only one.

Suddenly, he’s aware that someone else knows how it feels to be this specific kind of happy-and-sad, both genuinely congratulatory and vaguely regretful, smooth on the outside and loud grey static on the inside.

“Oh,” Yoongi breathes, feeling a lot less lonely all at once.

“I thought we were going to get married someday,” Jimin continues in hushed tones, “in a ceremony just like this, but maybe with more people or more dancing. I’ve never been to a wedding with dancing, have you?”

“No,” Yoongi says, hollowly.

“It’s so nice.”

In his mind’s eye, Yoongi recalls a book that Namjoon likes, one that he rereads every ten years or so in order to see something new in it every time, or whatever it was that he said. There’s an illustration in it, one of a little prince perched on a lonely planet, surrounded by meticulously-planted flowers. His face is turned away, but now, Yoongi imagines that he might see Jimin’s face glancing over the prince’s shoulder, and that his voice might come out as a warbly, cosmic analogy of Jimin’s own soft one.

“You know, when a person is very, very sad, they like sunsets.”

“And were you very, very sad on the day you watched forty-four sunsets?”

But the little prince did not reply.

With the melancholy way that Jimin stares into his drink, Yoongi imagines that he must be very, very sad.

But here he is, talking about dancing instead of watching sunsets, and in that moment, Yoongi, abandoning all precedent for his personality, has half a mind to ask him to dance one more time.

Yoongi swallows, not wanting to step out of line and especially not wanting to correct Jimin that, technically, this wedding doesn’t have dancing either, that there was only dancing because they had been dancing between the dinner tables like people who were raised without any sense of social etiquette or proper shame. “You’re — you are a very good dancer,” he says instead.

“You’re a very good — well, I won’t lie,” Jimin says, giggling again, “you’re all right. But you’re very nice to look at up close, so thank you for indulging me.”

Yoongi blinks. “Uh,” he says. “You’re welcome.”

They find solace in each other’s silence for a few minutes, watching the small crowd move in lazy circles from the drinks table to the grooms to the family to the drinks again. 

“When I get married,” Jimin says finally, sipping his drink, “if I decide to get married, I won’t let anybody sit around being sad. There’ll be — that’s what the dancing’s for. So that nobody has to sit around and be sad.”

Quietly, Yoongi attempts to confirm his thesis. “Are you sad right now?” he asks.

Jimin pouts down at his glass. “I just,” he says, and then his voice breaks, and then Yoongi starts to worry that he’ll cry. He’s not sure what to do if Jimin cries. “I just — I think that I really hurt Jungkookie’s feelings. I made a big scene about it, the whole — crush thing, and I shouldn’t have. God, I don’t want to be that annoying bitch that homewrecks the friend group or whatever and I’m just so afraid that he’ll never forgive me—”

Yoongi reaches his hand out, then, out of some sort of camaraderie or empathy or something similar. He pats Jimin’s forearm, a little awkward but ultimately well-intentioned. “Jungkook’s really understanding,” he says. “I mean, I don’t know him as well as you do, I’m sure, but — it can’t have been that bad or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I don’t know,” Jimin says miserably. “I really went off and I said some stuff that — ugh, there’s no excuse for it. I’m just always, always, always too much. It’s the most frustrating thing, how being too much can make you not enough for some people.”

Yoongi knows how that feels. It sends Yoongi’s mind reeling for a moment, that a man like this could be anyone’s second choice. He’s curious about this altercation, whatever Jimin’s dancing around in his narrative, but he doesn’t want to make Jimin uncomfortable.

“I get that,” he says instead, preparing to extend a feeble olive branch, packaging his embarrassment up and setting it aside for the sake of Jimin’s comfort. 

He takes a deep breath and wills himself to be brave.

“It’s like that for me too,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s admitted to it, the first time he’s ever spoken it aloud.

Jimin looks up, catching on.

“Oh, Yoongi,” he says, his voice laced with a particular timbre of melodrama. “That’s what it is.”

“That’s what what is?”

“The look on your face. You’ve had this sort of closed-off expression all evening—”

“I really don’t think I have—”

Jimin cuts him off. “You have feelings for him, don’t you?”

Yoongi scoffs, but his eyes betray him. They flick over to the family table, where Namjoon is gingerly uncorking a bottle of red wine with Jungkook’s doe eyes watching him closely. “Who?” he tries, feigning ignorance.

Jimin sighs, resting his chin in his hand, his elbow propped up on the edge of the table. “It’s Namjoon, right?”

Yoongi bites his lip, and it’s all the information that Jimin needs.

“Look at us,” he says, breathlessly incredulous. “We’re a couple of hot messes, aren’t we? Sitting at this wedding wishing we were up there with our boys instead.”

“Jimin, it’s—” Yoongi scrubs his face with his hand, touches the crown of his head, runs his clammy palm down over the back of his neck. “I really haven’t ever told anyone. Please don’t — he doesn’t know and I don’t plan on spreading it around, especially now, so—”

“You just want to let it die.”

Yoongi sighs. “Well — yeah. It’s not actionable at this point. And — I could keep kicking myself for the rest of my life for not saying anything before, or—”

“Or you could move on. Try to, anyway.”

Yoongi nods. “I’ve been trying. If I’m honest, I never thought we’d be a good match anyway, Namjoon and I. So I’m — I’ve always been trying to — to sort of move away from it, to give myself a chance at something better suited to what’s probably reasonable. But it’s been difficult to convince myself that it’s worth it, I guess. Even when I know that he’s — you know.”

Jimin smiles a little. “It’s so funny that you don’t think you’d be good together,” he says. “I mean, barring the obvious circumstances, it seems like the two of you would be a really cute pair. The tall himbo guy with the quiet intellectual.” He laughs. “Or am I wrong about something?”

Yoongi shrugs. “We are close,” he says. “I mean, he’s been my best friend for ten years. Of course we’re close. It’s just that — it was — I had — well, when I met Namjoon, I was—”

Jimin cocks an eyebrow, and Yoongi falters. He sighs, sitting back against the chair. 

It’s not coming out right; frankly, it’s never come out at all before. A strange kind of gratitude for this candy-haired stranger, for his little prince, flares brightly in his gut.

“I thought there was something there, and I was wrong,” he says quietly, feeling vulnerable beyond belief.

Jimin’s curious expression melts into a soft pity. “Oh, Yoongi,” he says again. “You and I really are two of a kind tonight.”

“I guess so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Yoongi presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “I’ve never talked about it,” he says.

Jimin smirks. “That’s not an answer.”

“I just mean that I don’t know if I want to talk about it. I’ve never tried.”

“Why don’t you try,” Jimin suggests, kind and patient. “It can’t hurt to just get it off your chest. Besides, I might be the only person who knows just enough and not too much at the same time. I can be your little safekeeping box for tonight, you know?”

Yoongi stares at his lap. “It’s still pretty raw,” he says, as a warning, but it’s clear that he’s budging.

“Just talk if you want to,” Jimin says. “I’m here to listen to you.”

So Yoongi talks, and Jimin listens.

❀

Yoongi tells the whole story from beginning to end, and Jimin gives his full attention to making Yoongi feel heard. He tilts his head, furrows his brow, and doesn’t move to interrupt him even once; it’s almost surprising, with how outwardly gossipy Jimin seems, that he holds his ground in silence here, that he holds this moment down for the both of them.

He’s so pretty. He’s so kind, too, wordlessly refilling Yoongi’s wine glass and listening to him whine and complain — and he really has the nicest mouth, stained red and pretty and plumped in a pout because — oh, shit, he’s been talking and Yoongi hasn’t been listening and now it’s obvious.

“Sorry, what?”

“I just asked — what was it like?” Jimin asks, breathless. “Being friends with someone you were secretly in love with? I mean, were there ever breakthrough moments where you thought he — suspected?”

“He’s an incredible friend,” Yoongi says. “And it’s been amazing, you know. Most of the time. But — whenever I was alone, and sometimes when he was still in the room, I’d just get this — this feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Yoongi shrugs. “I don’t really know how to explain it,” he says. “It’s like — I wanted us to be the same, I wanted us to be equals, but he was so — in my worst moments, I started to think that maybe we weren’t all that similar after all. Like — that he was too oblivious and I was too small or too soft or something. Too weak and — fixated. Too much of a shut-in. Too pessimistic, too squared-off, always feeling sorry for myself, never taking care of anything, just — he’s so — he has this flow, this routine, and — he wouldn’t want to be with someone who can’t even find a way to eat or sleep regularly. If I can’t take care of myself, how the hell — how the hell would he think I’d be able to—”

The wave of shame that washes over Yoongi then is so powerful that it nearly winds him. What, you fucking idiot? Take care of him? You think you could take care of him? You think you could do anything for someone like him?

“Jesus,” Yoongi gasps, and covers his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his jacket to fend off the taste of bile rising in his esophagus. “Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know. I — I don’t know.”

Jimin cocks his head to the side. “Let’s go get some air,” he suggests, and Yoongi finds himself nodding and rising from the table without protest.

Jimin weaves through the crowd, leading Yoongi out onto the lawn. The first burst of fresh air hits Yoongi like a cannonball to the chest, and suddenly he’s heaving, bent in half over the manicured grass, with Jimin’s small hand rubbing firm circles on his back.

When he straightens back up, he realizes that they’re blanketed by a spectacular sunset.

They’re two strangers on the same little planet, no longer alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi gasps, humiliated, leaning a little too hard on one of the oversized pillars guarding the doors. “This isn’t — you shouldn’t have to — you don’t even know me—”

“No, but I know how you feel,” Jimin says, voice soft. “That’s enough, isn’t it?” He slips his hand inside Yoongi’s jacket to rub against his back again; this time, Yoongi can feel the warmth of his pink fingertips through his shirt. It’s more intimate than anything Yoongi’s felt in years.

He could cry.

“I need—” Yoongi starts, patting his back pocket and shifting the cigarette packet out little by little. These pants really are far too tight. “Do you mind if I have a cigarette, I’m — I just—”

“I don’t mind,” Jimin says. “Come on, let’s go find somewhere to sit.”

They end up perching on the stone walls backing the hedgerow, far down the lawn where the ceremony had been. Yoongi crosses one leg over the other, leaning into his cupped hand to light his cigarette. Jimin’s hair blows in the chilly wind rushing off the river, framing his delicate face in soft candy pink.

“I’ve never said any of those things before,” Yoongi says after a long time, ashing his dwindling cigarette on the grass far below their feet. “I’ve never had anyone to say them to.”

Jimin’s profile is bathed in orange and fuchsia and rose; in the light from the setting sun, he glows.

“I wish everyone had someone that they felt like they could talk to,” Jimin says, his lullaby-like voice layering harmoniously over the pulsing beat of Yoongi’s fluttering heart. “I don’t really have anyone like that either, not about this, since all of my friends know Jungkook, too.”

After a moment, he smiles. 

“Maybe we could be that for each other, just for tonight. Let it all out, you know?”

Yoongi can’t lie; it sounds too nice, too cathartic, to pass up.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, maybe.”

“You wanna go back to my room?” Jimin suggests. “It’s cold out, and my shirt’s pretty thin.”

Yoongi nods and slides off the stone wall carefully, helping Jimin down once he’s safely planted in the cool grass. 

“I’m still a little drunk,” Jimin says quietly. “Do you mind if I stay close while we walk?”

Yoongi shakes his head, drawing him near. Jimin’s warm against his side, firm and fit and definitely overstating how necessary this is, but Yoongi doesn’t mind.

It feels good. It feels, somehow, like grace.

❀

Jimin’s hotel room is, predictably, exactly like Yoongi’s. They settle on the bed, a yard apart, minds wandering back to their time on the lawn.

“You said,” Yoongi begins, “you said you had a story, too.”

Jimin sighs. “Please don’t think less of me,” he says. “It’s really immature. I should be better about this stuff by now with all the shit that guys have put me through.”

Yoongi smirks. “I can’t stress enough how non-judgemental I’m prepared to be about what we’re discussing,” he says.

“I guess,” Jimin says, smiling sheepishly. “So — okay, here goes.”

As he listens, Yoongi realizes that his own life has never once been dramatic in the way that Jimin’s has. Jimin rambles through a breathless narrative that makes the last ten years of his life seem to fly by at the pace of a rattling minecart on a forty-five-degree track downwards.

“I’m a wreck,” Jimin moans at the conclusion of his tale, head in his hands and tears in his eyes. “I’m such a mess. Every year I tell myself that I’m going to get my life together, but then something like this happens, you know, I push myself for eighty hours a week just to lose my trainee spot, or I get drunk and make a sugar baby profile, or I bankrupt myself on Chanel just to not feel like a complete loser while I watch my lifelong crush get married to another guy—”

“Jesus Christ,” Yoongi mutters. “I didn’t realize that it was Chanel. I wouldn’t have asked you to sit on a rock wall if I’d known.”

Jimin smiles, just a little. “The pants are from a department store,” he stage-whispers. “It’s just the jacket. And the earrings. I’m a choreographer, not a CEO.”

Yoongi reaches to feel Jimin’s sleeve when he offers it for inspection. “It’s really nice fabric,” he says unnecessarily. “You look — really nice.”

Jimin laughs, tears brimming over when his eyes crinkle into crescents. “So do you,” he says, and then he adds quietly, “You’re really handsome.”

Something catches in Yoongi’s chest then. “You too,” he says, and Jimin laughs again. “No, I mean it. You’re — there’s something about you, I just — I want to look at you, you know? You make me want to look at you forever.”

Jimin ducks his head, smiling behind his hand. “You’re embarrassing me,” he says. “Thank you, I — wow, you’re so sweet. I really look like hell right now, though. When I cry, my eyes get puffy and my nose gets red and—”

“You know, I’m not wearing Chanel,” Yoongi says. “If you want to put your head on my shoulder, you could cry and I wouldn’t be able to see your pink nose or whatever.”

Jimin covers his face again, laughing, shy and obviously charmed. “Okay,” he says, “okay,” and he scoots closer to rest his cheek against Yoongi’s lapel.

They stay that way for a while, Jimin’s hand resting on Yoongi’s thigh, tracing the pleating on his trousers, his cheek pressed softly against his jacket. He does cry, just a little, and Yoongi tucks him closer when he does.

By the time that Jimin rights himself, more time has passed than either of them seem to have realized. Out the expansive window, the sunset is nearly gone, the sky streaked with violet and dusky grey. For some reason, Yoongi’s heart stutters in his chest, a little frantic at the loss.

“The sunset,” he says. “I was wondering—”

Jimin looks at him, wipes his face, hugs himself. “Hm?”

Yoongi takes a deep breath. He thinks of the little prince on his lonely planet, of the flower garden, of turning round and round with Jimin before, orbiting the tables in their own little galaxy. 

He finds that he wants that again, wants Jimin to smile like that again, one more time before this night is over.

“Do you want to dance like we did before?” he asks, and Jimin lights up like the sun.

❀

This dance, while just as simple as the one in the dinner hall, is much more intimate. When Yoongi sets his stance, Jimin steps in close, closer than before, not just hand to hand but hip to hip this time. They move together in lazy steps to absolutely no music at all, only individual silent soundtracks inside their own heads. Yoongi’s not exactly sure what he’s doing, but all he wants is to be just good enough at this that Jimin won’t step back and break their seal.

“I love your cologne,” Jimin says after a while, voice low and sweet. “It’s like — pine needles or something.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, a little breathless at their prolonged proximity. “Yours is — citrus? It’s really nice.”

“You say that about everything,” Jimin says, teasing a little. “You said my Chanel jacket was really nice, too. It had better be a little more than just really nice given what I paid for it—”

“Sorry,” Yoongi says, and he means it. “I’m not the best at expressing myself on the spot. But — maybe — it’s kind of a compliment that I’m speechless when I look at you, right?”

Jimin hums happily, nestling even closer to Yoongi’s frame as they sway together. “You’re flirting with me,” he says, warm and a little sultry. “If you’re so speechless, maybe we shouldn’t rely on talking to get to know each other better, huh?”

Yoongi huffs a quick, disbelieving laugh. “You can’t be serious,” he says. “You can’t want a guy like me to kiss you, Jimin.”

“If you don’t do it, I will,” Jimin says, “and just so you know, I like guys more when they take the lead.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says, like he’s making a mental note, because he is. He steadies himself, readies himself. He breathes in, and then he breathes back out. “Well, let me give myself a fighting chance, then,” he says, and leans in even closer.

When their lips meet, it’s soft at first, a contrast to the sharp taste of alcohol lingering on their tongues. They stop swaying, but they don’t stop holding each other, hands roving under jackets to find space, to find each other without all the trimmings. Yoongi’s the first to get impatient, pushing at Jimin’s jacket, but when it starts to slip off his shoulders—

“Wait, wait,” Jimin says, “sorry, let me just — I want to hang it up, it was really expensive.”

Yoongi laughs, undoing his tie and tossing it on the nightstand while he waits for Jimin to come back. He breathes in and out, in and out, and watches the line of Jimin’s shoulders as he hangs the jacket up delicately and stows it inside the wardrobe. He’s really not used to how this feels anymore, this kind of tension, the way it expands and fills the room right before it bursts.

It’s driving him crazy. If Jimin asked anything at all of him right now, he’d do it, no questions asked.

Thankfully, he gets his chance once Jimin moves toward the desk, fussing with his earrings.

“Okay,” Jimin says, “oh, shit, hold on. Sorry, could you actually—”

Yoongi nods, comes close again, works the earring backs off with cautious hands. He places them on the desk, and before Jimin can back away, he gets both hands around his small waist and presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his neck.

“Oh, fuck,” Jimin says, faltering in his arms.

“Pretty boy,” Yoongi says, already losing himself a little in the feeling. “A little high-maintenance, aren’t you?”

“That’s what people tell me,” Jimin breathes. “It’s not a point of pride or anything, it’s just a reality of—”

“You look good,” Yoongi says, cutting him off, lips against his throat. “Sorry, I — not just good. You look incredible, don’t get me wrong.”

Jimin grins, letting himself melt into Yoongi’s embrace. “Oh yeah?”

“Brat,” Yoongi says, grinning right back. “You know what you look like.”

“But I don’t know how you’d describe it, you know, with words—”

“I’m actually — it’s been a while since I’ve done anything like this,” Yoongi says, “so it’s hard for me to think straight, and you — I just — you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen, and I’m just trying very hard to be patient, is what I’m saying. I’m not trying to complain about you taking your clothes off, because — obviously — I’d be fucking stupid if I did.”

“I won’t keep you waiting,” Jimin giggles, pushing on Yoongi’s shoulders until they’re sitting close on the bed again. “I just like hearing you compliment me when you’re all worked up like this.”

Yoongi tries his hand at a little bravery. “Give me some new material, then, if you want it so bad,” he says.

Jimin squirms under Yoongi’s grip, pleased. “You switch up pretty quickly, don’t you? You were so shy just a minute ago—”

Yoongi flushes, embarrassed because it’s true. “Can you blame me?” he asks, tracing Jimin’s trim waist through his white shirt.

“Well, no—”

Yoongi laughs, a high-pitched huff of breath, and kisses the side of Jimin’s head just because it’s close. “I want,” he begins, but hesitates. “I want to be clear about — where we’re going with this. To make sure that you want — this.”

“Oh, it’s clear already,” Jimin says. “We both showed up to a wedding miserable and in love with men we can’t have, and now we’re going to fuck each other until we forget how painful this whole thing is. Right?”

Yoongi tightens his grip on Jimin’s waist. “If that’s what you want,” he choke out. “It’s — yes. That’s what I want. So — yes, if you—”

“Please, please kiss me,” Jimin says, “I’m actually so desperate to get wrecked by a hot guy that it’d be mortifying if I weren’t being so fucking serious.”

“Jesus,” Yoongi says under his breath as Jimin’s hand traces the inner seam of his trousers. “Fuck, Jimin.”

In what Yoongi is learning is an unwavering, bewildering personality trait, Jimin cuts right to the chase. “You want me, right?” he says, matter-of-factly.

“Yes—”

“You want to touch me, right?”

“Fuck yes—”

“So touch me,” Jimin says, and Yoongi groans and tugs him into a kiss by his hair.

Jimin’s in his lap before long, Yoongi’s hands caressing that perfect ass as Jimin’s tongue slides against his own. Yoongi’s hot under the collar in a very literal way, straining at his slacks, too desperate to do anything but let Jimin touch him how he wants to.

“These are really tight,” Jimin says, hand working at the front of Yoongi’s trousers now.

“I know,” Yoongi says miserably, trying and failing not to buck up into Jimin’s hand. He’d like to retain a little bit of propriety, but it doesn’t seem likely. “I bought them a few months back and I gain weight easily, so—”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Jimin says. “We’ll just take them off.”

Yoongi makes a strangled noise.

“You’ll let me, right?” Jimin asks, toying with the button, tracing the zipper with his finger. “If I opened these up for you right now, you’d feel so much better, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi breathes, too turned on to overthink the fact that no one’s seen his dick in months, maybe a year, maybe longer. He doesn’t remember what people used to say about it, whether it’s impressive or not, but the way Jimin’s stroking it through his trousers means that he barely remembers his own name, so he figures that it doesn’t matter all that much.

When Jimin works Yoongi’s trousers open, Yoongi sighs from relief. “Tight,” he mutters. “Was — too tight.”

“Oh, fuck,” Jimin says, ignoring him, eyes trained on Yoongi’s dick. “That’s big.”

“Yeah,” says Yoongi, trying out a little bit of arrogance, heart pounding hard in his chest. “Big enough for you, huh?”

“Oh, plenty big.”

“Think you can work with that?”

Jimin rolls his eyes. “Jesus, all guys really do talk the same, huh?”

“You’re a guy, you would know—”

“I’m not obsessed with my own dick,” Jimin says, fingers tracing the prominent vein on the underside of Yoongi’s cock. “But I could pretend to be obsessed with this one, for sure.”

“Don’t want you to pretend,” Yoongi says, his filter already half-gone, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“I’m happy to get obsessed for real, but that’s up to you, Yoongi-ssi,” Jimin says, teasing, leaning forward to kiss him even as his hand works slow and deliberate between Yoongi’s legs. “Just so long as you know that the rest of tonight is up to me.”

Yoongi furrows his brow. “I thought you said you liked when the other guy took control—”

“I said I liked when people make the first move,” Jimin corrects him, tightening his grip and forcing a gasp out of Yoongi’s throat. “It’s just polite to let the other person open the game, you know, court me a little bit, make me feel special. But once we’re playing, I make all the other moves.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says, almost relieved at being able to relinquish control, “sounds good.”

Jimin grins. “Sit back,” he says, and Yoongi does as he says without a word.

❀

The way Jimin kisses him should be illegal.

They've stopped and started dozens of times since this thing began, negotiating and adjusting and asking questions, but Jimin's addictive mouth keeps finding its way back to Yoongi's, even in the awkward moments. Yoongi takes some odd kind of comfort in the fact that they're not having the kind of sex that people have when they're trying to impress a new partner; it isn't performative. The way they navigate this very new thing isn't false or put-on or contrived. They're not even really working together, necessarily; they're not trying to prove their compatibility for the sake of making anything work. Instead, they're free to focus on settling the scores within themselves, transparently and mutually using each other to work through the intensity of this night, of what they've seen today, of what the last decade has wrought.

“You should go get us a bottle of wine to share,” Jimin says after they’ve messed around for a while, sly and crafty, still perched in Yoongi’s lap. “Take my room key and come back with something nice. You know?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, because his confidence is fading along with the whiskey buzz from earlier, and Jimin has spent the last half-hour making it exceedingly clear why Yoongi should be trying very hard to seal the deal. If Yoongi fucks this up now, he thinks he might as well die.

So, somehow, Yoongi is convinced against all his most basic instincts to shove his dick back in his pants, extricate himself from the hottest man alive, and strike out into the chilly darkness to pick up a modestly-priced cabernet.

It’s not until Yoongi’s already in the short checkout line at the convenience store that he realizes why he’s here, why Jimin really sent him here under the guise of getting something to drink.

Shit, he thinks all of a sudden, scrambling to duck out of line and booking it to the health and wellness aisle. Shit, that was close. You’re a fucking idiot, Min Yoongi.

He buys a box of condoms and some lube along with the wine, bowing his head quickly to the shop worker before heading back out to meet his taxi.

Jimin is perched on the desk when Yoongi lets himself back in, but he’s changed; instead of his button-up and slacks, he’s now swathed in a cloud-like terrycloth robe with an embroidered hotel logo. His hair is slicked back and shiny in the light from the desk lamp, his skin a soft pink from the heat of the shower. 

Yoongi thinks, he’s naked under that robe. Holy shit.

“I missed you,” Jimin says, teasing, but Yoongi’s so gone that he falls for it anyway and comes close to bury his face in Jimin’s neck. “Did you bring glasses from the bar, or are there some in the little fridge—”

There aren’t any, as it turns out, so Yoongi and Jimin just pass the bottle between themselves until they’re doing more kissing than drinking, lips a matching stain of red.

Jimin takes the bottle from Yoongi a final time and, after taking one last sip, he sets it to the side and opens his legs, drawing Yoongi in between them for a deep, bitter-tasting kiss.

Yoongi sighs against his mouth, sliding his hands up Jimin’s bare thighs and under the robe, skimming over his hips to grip his waist like before. “You feel so good,” he mutters against Jimin’s mouth. “Your body is so — you said you were a dancer?”

“I’m a choreographer,” Jimin says, “it’s a higher pay grade,” and then he tugs on the tie around his robe until it all falls open for Yoongi to see.

“Oh,” Yoongi says, unable to tear his eyes away from Jimin’s body. “I’m — I’m so sorry, but I’m going to stare.”

Jimin grins. “Mm,” he hums. “You’d better do more than stare.”

Yoongi’s enamored enough that he doesn't have to be told twice. He kisses Jimin absolutely everywhere, from the jut of his collarbone to the plane of his shoulder, from the dark bud of his nipple to the furl of his belly button. He’s about to go lower, to go as far as Jimin will let him, when Jimin speaks.

“Do you have anything?” Jimin asks, hushed and husky-sounding.

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, “yeah,” and he relishes in the absolute win he’s given himself as he reaches for the convenience store bag.

“Oh, good,” Jimin says mildly, like he had expected it all along. “Let’s move to the bed, all right?”

❀

The way Jimin kisses is, as it turns out, a very accurate predictor of how well he can do other things with his mouth.

He takes Yoongi in his mouth like he was made for it, takes him into his throat, even, just a little bit but certainly more than anyone else Yoongi’s ever been with has managed to do. He maintains eye contact the whole time, pupils dark, gaze heavy and heated. Yoongi’s never been more thankful that he can give it just as good as he’s getting it; there’s only so much he can take of watching his own cock slide in and out of Jimin’s plump, wine-red lips before he has to beg to eat him out.

“Gonna get me ready for you, huh?” Jimin asks sweetly as he settles on his belly, and Yoongi whines, and it would be horribly embarrassing if he cared about anything but getting his tongue inside Jimin right now—

“Oh,” Jimin moans as Yoongi laves the flat of his tongue over his hole, “oh, fuck—”

Yoongi pushes Jimin’s thighs farther apart in response, his fingers gripping the thick muscle there. 

It’ll bruise, Yoongi knows. 

He hopes Jimin won’t mind.

❀

When Jimin finally sinks down onto Yoongi’s cock, hovering over his lap with his hands braced on Yoongi’s chest, the sound that leaves them both is obscene.

“So tight,” Yoongi says, at the same time that Jimin whines, it’s so big, oh my God, you’re so big.

“You can slow down,” Yoongi tells him, hands on Jimin’s hips, eyes locked on the furrow of Jimin’s brow.

“I know what I’m doing,” Jimin snaps, eyes falling closed as he works himself down little by little, bouncing over Yoongi’s waiting lap.

“You’re kind of a size queen, aren’t you?” Yoongi asks, eyes trailing over the body above him now.

“Guilty,” Jimin says as his ass meets Yoongi’s hips. They both groan, and it’s all Yoongi can do to keep his hips from kicking up.

“You’re not a virgin, are you?” Jimin asks, grinding a little to test the waters.

“What? No, I’m—” Yoongi grips Jimin’s hips tighter, struggling to catch his breath. “I’m twenty-eight, of course I’m not—”

“There’s no shame in it or anything,” Jimin says. “I just know you were in love with a guy who—well. And sometimes people like to wait around for the one.”

Yoongi grits his teeth. “That’s not what you did, huh?”

Jimin grins. “No, can you tell?”

“Kind of,” Yoongi admits. “But, I mean—this is great, it’s great, so—”

“Just stop,” Jimin says, “stop talking,” so Yoongi does.

❀

Jimin rides him until Yoongi can’t take it anymore, until he works Jimin into an oversensitive orgasm so that he can feel as good as Yoongi feels in that moment, until he has to beg him to pull off so he can fuck Jimin against the mattress.

“You’re so perfect,” Jimin mumbles as they take a moment to reorient themselves. He reaches up to brush Yoongi’s sweaty fringe from his face, letting his head loll to the side against the plush hotel pillows. “Fuck me however you want it, okay, I love how it feels when I finish first—”

“Gotta,” Yoongi breathes, head ducked against Jimin’s chest, “gotta take a second or—”

Jimin laughs a little in recognition. “God,” he says, “you’re so pretty, Yoongi, has anyone ever told you that?”

Yoongi’s head comes up, beads of sweat collecting on his forehead, along the line of his neck. “I’ve never heard pretty,” he rasps, throat dry from the wine and the exertion of the last few minutes. “You don’t have to — say things like that if you don’t—”

“I mean it,” Jimin says, and he laughs.

“Don’t laugh,” Yoongi pleads. “What?”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Jimin assures him. “I just — I can’t believe how funny this whole thing is, meeting you like this and — now we’re here, you know, feeling good and having fun and — it’s so much better than what I expected.”

“The sex?”

“The whole thing,” Jimin says, swatting Yoongi’s shoulder. “The wedding, and — well, yeah, the sex, too.”

Yoongi kisses him then, slow and languid, and Jimin moans into his mouth, spreads his legs wider and hikes them up over Yoongi’s shoulders.

“Jesus,” Yoongi says, grasping at Jimin’s strong thighs. “You’re so flexible, I—”

“I know I made a point about saying I was a choreographer before,” Jimin says, “but I’m a dancer first, obviously.”

“I can tell,” Yoongi says, and Jimin smiles.

“Promise me you won’t go easy on me,” he says as Yoongi lines up once more. “Dancers can get away with having lots of bruises.”

❀

Once it’s over, once they’re washed up and warm again in bed, Jimin curls up against Yoongi’s chest, his naked body flush against Yoongi’s own.

“Good night,” he says, simple and soft, and Yoongi tucks him close in response.

Jimin’s breathing evens out after a few minutes, and only then does Yoongi let himself relax.

He feels good. For the first time in a long time, it isn’t fleeting, isn’t being stolen away by the anxieties that often plague him in the nighttime. His problems aren’t solved, his life isn’t any less complicated, but his mind is quieter, at least for right now.

He’ll have to remember the value of this feeling once the melancholy creeps back in.

For now, though, Yoongi just presses a soft kiss to the top of Jimin’s head. He holds him like that until the moon hangs high in the sky, until Yoongi can barely keep his eyes open.

When he decides to finally settle into sleep, it comes easily.

❀

Yoongi had predicted that this perfect peace wouldn’t last, of course, but it still hurts to have it snatched away as soon as the sun rises.

“Well?” Jimin says, shoving his puffer jacket into his carry-on bag. “Are you coming?”

Yoongi lifts his head from the pillow just enough to get a peek at what Jimin’s doing. “What, you need me to share a taxi with you or something? I drove here last—”

“No way,” Jimin says. He’s burning bright this morning, eyes glinting in the sun, lips plush and peachy, grinning hugely. “We’re going on an anti-honeymoon, just you and me.”

Yoongi blinks. “A what?”

Jimin lets out a sparkling kind of laugh, just once, short and sweet. “An anti-honeymoon. It’s when your best friends and should-be lovers get married to each other and fly to Jeju, so you and your wedding hookup do them one better and spend a week getting drunk in some big, fancy Spanish hotel room.”

Jimin’s still grinning, wide as the night was long. Yoongi almost can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“I—” he starts, and finds that he doesn’t quite know what to say to this most spontaneous of propositions. “I have a job, Jimin. I have a deadline this Tuesday, and it’s already Sunday, and I’m—”

“And you’re boring,” Jimin intones, “I guess. Come on, didn’t I give it to you good enough last night? Don’t you want to see a little more of me? Don’t you want to run away from it all and forget about the heartbreak and just find something special with somebody else for once?”

Yoongi sits up a little more, feeling numb and sleep-laced and very, very confused.

“Jimin, I—”

“Listen,” Jimin says, abandoning his carry-on bag to seat himself in front of Yoongi on the bed. The terrycloth robe from the night before is slipping down over his tanned shoulder, and Yoongi can’t look away.

That is, until Jimin touches Yoongi’s chin with his small fingers and tilts it up. When their eyes meet, Yoongi’s mouth goes dry.

“Don’t you want me?” Jimin whispers, his hand coming down to rest on Yoongi’s thigh. “Don’t you want to feel what it’s like to be wanted for once, no strings attached? No baggage? That’s what we’ve been fighting with this whole time, for years, and now—we could have it all, even if it’s just for a week. It might be enough. It would at least help us break out of this rut we’re in. Right?”

“Maybe,” Yoongi says, and Jimin’s eyes glint like a siren watching a ship turn towards it on the horizon.

“Come on,” Jimin says, tantalizing, impossible to look away from. “My own little proposal. They got theirs, so now we can get ours, you know?”

Yoongi bites his bottom lip, considering.

He really is thinking about it, which is very off-brand for him, but then again, nothing he’s been doing so far in this life has been working out the way he wanted it to, so—

Jimin looks so beautiful here, perched here on the hotel mattress in front of Yoongi, the picture of glee, not exactly unlike the sultry vision that he was last night, but softer now, brighter now.

Yoongi thinks of his boss, angry and short with him for using up his personal days on such short notice, but he doesn’t really care about that, not really.

He thinks of his apartment, bare and cold, with no one there to miss him.

But then, he’s struck by a promise he’d made, a tether, an unavoidable, emotional force.

He thinks of Namjoon’s plant, the little bonsai tree borrowing space on Yoongi’s kitchen windowsill, and the note that says water me, please :) every 2-3 days to avoid dry soil. you’re the best! - joon.

No matter how wonderful Jimin is, no matter how mindless it was to put the last ten years aside in bed with him last night, Yoongi can’t make a clean break that easily.

“I can’t,” Yoongi says, and Jimin withers before him. “I really do have — a deadline.” 

The plant has to be watered on Tuesday. The plant needs to be fertilized, and checked for bugs, and—

“You’re kidding,” Jimin says, his voice monotone and grey.

Yoongi shakes his head. 

“It’s just not a good time,” he says.

Jimin’s eyes narrow a bit before he stands, visibly hurt, and resumes packing his bag. “Fine,” he says. “That’s your call.” He tosses his shirt and pants from the night before inside his suitcase, delicately folding his Chanel suit jacket over his arm and tucking that in on top. “But, just so you know, it could have been wonderful.”

Once Jimin is showered and dressed and standing in the doorway, he turns to drop his key card on the desk.

“I hope you let yourself have wonderful things someday, Yoongi,” Jimin says, a little kinder than Yoongi was expecting, and then the door shuts behind him and he’s gone.

Yoongi bites the inside of his cheek, stares at his slumped reflection in the dark television screen, and tries very, very hard not to cry.

Chapter Text

It’s all too easy to get swept up in the competitive headspace of the underground rap scene, but at some point, Yoongi gets even more swept up by who he’s in that headspace with.

As a seventeen-year-old in an overager scene, Yoongi doesn’t have a lot of friends. He does have a rival, though, and that’s Kim Namjoon, one of the only other students who sneaks out to make a name for himself on small, grimy stages in the bad neighborhoods of Seoul.

Yoongi’s new here, having left home and all the things he never had behind to come here, into Kim Namjoon’s territory, to make this music thing work.

It being Kim Namjoon’s territory is, of course, a coincidence, but it gives Yoongi an opportunity to flex his diss track muscles. Namjoon's a formidable match, too, but Yoongi would never admit that to him; he's barely able to admit it to himself. He doesn’t win every time they go up against each other, but he wins enough, and Yoongi relishes in how it riles Namjoon up to be beaten on his own turf like this by someone new and untested.

It’s so satisfying.

But then, after a year of comfortable competition, Yoongi gets the shock of his life.

He’d told himself when he came to Seoul that he was coming here for a reason: to put himself out there, to risk it all for music and the only kind of future he could actually stand to work towards. So he’d made himself uncomfortable, gone to auditions and open-mic nights and shows with enough of a crowd that it made the blood whoosh in his ears as he fought his own anxiety.

Finally, he gets a bite.

It comes in the form of an acceptance letter and a full-ride scholarship from Seoul National University’s music composition program, the farthest reach of all his efforts, the one no one had expected him to be worthy of, least of all himself.

He gets called a sellout, of course, when he informs the open-mic organizers that he won’t be able to keep his reserved spot on the set list once he starts his classes. It stings, but it’s not surprising.

What is surprising, though, is that Kim Namjoon comes through the door right as Yoongi is walking out of it. 

Comically, they collide; horrifyingly, Namjoon immediately braces Yoongi’s smaller frame with his big hands, steadies him, strongarms him into a stable upright position like he’s a weightless doll.

“Whoa,” Namjoon says, “sorry, Yoongi.”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi says, shaken.

“I’m pretty clumsy,” Namjoon babbles. “I shouldn’t have come through the door like that—sorry, shit, I almost knocked you out.”

It’s almost believable; up close, Namjoon towers over him. Yoongi stares up into his face, and for the first time, he really looks at him, really sees him, and—

Namjoon doesn’t look anything like he does on the stage.

He’s in a forest-green turtleneck sweater and khakis; he’s got some thick-rimmed dorky glasses on; his edgy haircut is well-hidden under a warm beanie.

“It’s fine,” Yoongi says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say. The words are drying up off the surface of his tongue for the first time in his life. “Sorry, I was just — going.”

Namjoon smiles down at him kindly, like he wasn’t insulting his mother last night in this very same building. “I’ll let you get back to it. Uh — going, that is. Let me get out of the doorway—”

He shuffles awkwardly to the side and heads towards the organizer near the bar. Yoongi takes a second to shake himself out of his reverie, wiggling his toes and furrowing his brow, but what finally does it is what comes out of Namjoon’s mouth.

“Hey, the SNU decisions came out today, so — I may not be able to keep my slot at the same time. I’m so sorry for the short notice. I’ll try to get my schedule quickly—”

“You’re going to SNU?” Yoongi says, a little too loudly.

Namjoon winces. “I know, I know,” he says, “I’m a sellout.”

He looks shamed, almost apologetic, but Yoongi, for the first time since he’s known Namjoon, doesn’t chide him.

Instead, he just holds up his own letter, and smiles a little when Namjoon’s eyes widen.

❀

Yoongi and Namjoon become inseparable after that, newly bound together over the very thing that had once made them rivals. As the token sellouts of the community, they don’t get much traction at open mic nights anymore, but that hardly matters now; they have a new plan, a new frontier. They’re both here for music, but they’re not taking up the same space anymore, no longer crowding each other out. Instead, Namjoon is taking on the business side of the industry while Yoongi remains committed to production. Together, they can’t possibly lose.

It’s about more than music, too, this newly-forged bond. Yoongi finds that he appreciates Namjoon’s depth and intelligence and intentionality; Namjoon is often waylaid by Yoongi’s dry sense of humor, and he swears up and down that he’d die if Yoongi weren’t there to turn off the stovetop or lock the door behind him.

It just works.

❀

Namjoon takes to their time at university exactly like Yoongi had expected him to: like a fish to water. If, as Namjoon alleges, Namjoon had been a big fish in a small pond before, then moving to Seoul and getting into SNU clearly didn’t change much; he was now, if possible, just a decently-bigger fish, a nurse shark or something, in a slightly more elitist pond than before, where the water is crystal-clear and even the bottomfeeders have trust funds.

Yoongi, for his part, keeps his head down and just works. With a subsidized roof over his head and 24-hour access to professional studio-grade equipment, Yoongi has become a machine, burning through four or five tracks in a week on top of his (admittedly often rushed) classwork. But Namjoon, now his roommate in a five-by-ten dorm room, helps him fill in the gaps, and Yoongi, eternally grateful, learns to return that particular kind of care in small, quiet ways.

It’s not until Namjoon invites Yoongi to spend Chuseok with his family in Ilsan that Yoongi realizes that they’re friends.

Best friends, even.

It’s jarring, after so many years of struggle, to look around and realize that he’s actually content.

Yoongi knows, intellectually, that he’s probably going to make a mess of this, because he’s always made a mess of things like this. His parents, his brother, his exes — he doesn’t speak to any of them anymore, not because he doesn’t care about them, but because he cared in all the wrong ways, in ways outsized or out of step with the other side’s expectations. 

He doesn't want that to be true for whatever he and Namjoon have. He doesn’t want to be that kind of person anymore, the kind of person who ruins things. Somehow, moving out of lockstep with Namjoon feels like a death, and it takes all the mental self-control he has to remind himself that messing things up is not a foregone conclusion, that it’s not over until it’s over, that it’s not real until it’s real.

But he also knows that, in order to avoid fulfilling this precedent-led prophecy, he has to put the work in to keep things on track. He has to take himself in hand before it’s too late.

So, when he starts getting an inkling of a crush, he quickly and quietly shoves it down.

❀

When Namjoon moves into his own apartment the next year, Yoongi doesn’t follow, solely because the proximity to the university music studios is too precious to lose. But they don’t drift apart as Yoongi had privately feared; instead, they seem to make more time for each other now that the ease and routine of roommatehood is no longer an option to fall back on in otherwise unoccupied evenings.

“You know,” Namjoon says over dinner and drinks one night, “it’s almost like you’re all holed up in your tower on campus while the rest of us are sprawled out all over the city, like you’re the spider in the middle of this giant web.”

“Who’s the rest of us?” Yoongi mumbles through a mouth full of rice.

“Seokjin,” Namjoon says, “and, you know, Seokjin’s friends.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a web.”

Namjoon grins. “We’re partly here to network, Yoongi hyung,” he says. “We have to think about these people as being part of our web, you know?”

“I don’t think about it like that,” Yoongi says, pulling some barbecue onto his plate. “I always just think about it as — the two of us.”

Namjoon regards him with an odd expression then, but it disappears in a cloud of hissing smoke when Yoongi dumps the bowl of marinated beef onto the grill between them.

❀

Sometimes, Namjoon makes him mix CDs. It’s innocent enough; they’re both aiming to enter the music industry, both creators themselves, both willing to eat up anything new or alternative or underground.

It’s innocent enough — until it isn’t.

Namjoon hands Yoongi a jewel case one day, casually, like it’s nothing, and when Yoongi slides the disk into his CD player hours later, he realizes that Namjoon had written and produced it all, all of it for him.

Namjoon has called it rainflower, scrawled in his pretty English script across the holographic front of the CD.

“What does it mean?” Yoongi asks him over the phone that night, two drinks’ worth of bravery flowing through his veins. He picks the CD back up, balancing it gingerly on his fingertips, and sounds out the English letters. “Rain-flow-er. What is that?”

“You know the saying about the cold envying the flowers?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like that, but in English, it’s like ‘April showers bring May flowers’, sort of. It’s not exactly the same, but it basically means that after the worst has passed, there’s always something beautiful and bright to look forward to. An acknowledgement that even after the coldest, rainiest winter, spring will always come.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says softly.

“It reminded me of you,” Namjoon says out of nowhere, and Yoongi’s stomach swoops dramatically. “You and I are in that phase right now where it’s raining hard on us, you know? We’re young, we’re broke, music’s so fucking hard to break into—But I think—I see flowers in our future, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Yoongi says, breathless. “Yeah, I do.”

For once, he’s not thinking about music.

❀

When Yoongi falls for Namjoon, he knows it.

It’s not some prickling warmth that seeps into his unsuspecting heart for years and finally makes itself known in a quiet, affirming moment; Yoongi’s a bit of a hopeless romantic, if he’s honest with himself, so he’s all Namjoon’s within two weeks of listening to rainflower.

He supposes the base attraction had been building for a while, since they started sharing space and watching each other get dressed in the mornings, or since Namjoon had held Yoongi steady in his strong hands back at the bar, or maybe even since they first took the stage together, built their early careers around turning each other inside out for everyone to see.

But this feeling is all new. Now, when Namjoon tugs Yoongi closer to him on the train to make room for the elderly ladies passing by, Yoongi’s heart flutters; when Namjoon lends him a hoodie one autumn evening, Yoongi can’t bear to give it back for weeks. 

There’s a moment, though, that he can’t come back from, a moment that tips it all over the edge.

He’s over at Namjoon’s one night, working through lyrics and half-watching some psychological thriller, when Namjoon asks him to cut his hair.

He’s holding a pair of clippers and some dull kitchen shears, and Yoongi just blinks up at him, unsure of what to say.

“I don’t know how to cut hair,” he says eventually.

“Well, neither does the lady I’ve been going to,” Namjoon says. “You know I like it kind of edgy, you’re the only one who saw me back then when I had all those crazy haircuts—”

Yoongi worries his bottom lip, chewing the chapped skin there. “I guess I could straighten it up,” he says, “like, give it a trim, or—”

“You’ll do great,” Namjoon says, “please just try,” and then he seats himself on the floor, back resting comfortably against Yoongi’s knees, and passes the instruments up to him.

“If I do it myself, I’ll ruin it,” he tells Yoongi. “But I trust you.”

So Yoongi sets the length, flicks the clippers on, and lets bits of Namjoon’s hair fall over his lap and onto the floor as he buzzes the sides. He uses the scissors for the top, carefully running his fingers through his fringe, over the crown of his head, out to the tips.

All the while, his heart is in his throat, tight, choking him, and he knows why.

He knows why.

When he’s done, Namjoon checks it over in the mirror, smiles, and comes to hug him tight. Yoongi can’t help but bury his face in Namjoon’s neck, in the fabric of his sweatshirt that smells like sleep and spilled coffee and aftershave, and he feels tears prick at the corner of his eyes.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says, his deep voice reverberating in Yoongi’s own chest. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He pauses, and Yoongi clings tighter to him.

“I don’t know that I could do anything without you now,” he says, and Yoongi hopes against hope that he knows why.

❀

Yoongi’s never made a move on anyone before. He’s always had people come to him, approach him at bars and ask to buy him a drink. His high school girlfriend had been pretty forward, too, seating herself on the bleachers at his basketball practices to support him before they were even dating.

But now, with Namjoon, Yoongi thinks he might be able to do it.

He debates it for days, weeks, nearly a month after the haircutting incident, before deciding to shoot his shot. He’s a shooting guard, after all; what are the chances that he misses?

And, if Yoongi’s being totally honest with himself, he thinks there’s something there for Namjoon, too, something that makes him sit closer than he has to in the studio, something that gives him the courage to hug around his shoulders at parties and not let him go, like he belongs to Namjoon, like Namjoon wants to keep him safe and here, tucked up under his arm, in full view of everybody.

But they’re not anything until they say so; it’s not real until it’s real. Yoongi wants so, so badly for it to be real.

He decides, then, to be brave.

He’s going to ask him out.

So, on Wednesday, he tugs on his favorite black 3XL shirt, orders their usual drinks at the campus coffee shop, and marches with them over to Namjoon’s building just as Introduction to Business Management lets out.

“Hey,” he says, catching the look of surprise on Namjoon’s face when he sees him. “I got coffee for—”

“Thanks, hyung,” Namjoon says, beaming as he takes the cup, “you’re the best.” Glancing over his shoulder, he adds, “Suran, this is my roommate, Yoongi—”

Yoongi blinks, only just now realizing that there’s someone with Namjoon, that this pretty girl next to him hasn’t bustled by like the others streaming out of the classroom, that she’s waiting for Namjoon, too.

“Hi,” he croaks, confidence fading fast.

“Hi,” she says. “Are we still on for lunch, or are you splitting off, Namjoon oppa?”

“I’m still good for lunch,” Namjoon says quickly, glancing at Yoongi apologetically. “Hyung, I gotta go, but you should come over tonight, I think Seokjin wants to play games—”

“Sounds good,” Yoongi says, and then he watches them leave together, and then he leaves alone.

❀

Without thinking, Yoongi pulls himself inward. He still goes to game nights, still sees Namjoon almost daily in the studio, but he’s quieter now, more aware of his place now. He’d read too much into too little, he knows, and it hurts that he could be so stupid.

When Namjoon calls to tell him that he and Suran are going out to dinner one night, Yoongi’s hardly surprised.

“Have fun,” he says, and turns back to his computer, and doesn’t turn away from it until his phone rings again hours later.

“How was it?” he asks, knowing who it is without even looking at the screen. Their near-nightly calls are the thread between them even on thin days, when Yoongi can’t get his head out of the music and Namjoon is buried behind stacks of papers.

“It was okay,” Namjoon says, but he doesn’t sound overly excited. 

Yoongi bites his lip. “You sure?”

“It was fine, but I think — I don’t know. The more I talked about what I wanted to do, my goals or whatever — she got less and less interested, I could tell. She was like — hoping I’d be more into what she’s into, I guess, corporate law or something.”

“Boring,” Yoongi says, uncorking his whisky bottle.

“No kidding. And, like, she’s super smart, it makes sense that she’d want to connect with someone about work or whatever but — I don’t know, it just sucks when no one really takes music seriously, no matter how serious you are about it. No matter how solid your plan is. You know?”

“I know,” Yoongi says, pouring a little more of the dark liquid into his glass than he normally would. “It’s hard to talk to other people about it.”

“And, like, I want to ask her out again because she’s so — she’s really great, you know, really easy to talk to and she likes going to museums and she’s so smart, I could listen to her talk for hours, but — I don’t want to get my heart broken. And I feel like — if I try — then that’s what will happen, I don’t know.”

Yoongi leans back in his chair. “I don’t want that for you,” he says. “At the very least, she sounds like a good friend. But I mean — there’s also no harm in trying again, since it’s so early. There’s not much on the line if you decided that you wanted to go for it.”

“I don’t know,” Namjoon sighs. “I’m really not in the right headspace to put myself out there right now, I guess. Not unless it’s right.”

“It’s hard to know, though,” Yoongi muses. “But I understand. I’m obviously — not putting myself out there right now either.”

He realizes what he says too late to stop himself, so he settles further back in his chair and hopes that Namjoon won’t press him on it, that he won’t take the bait and pivot to talking about Yoongi’s nonexistent love life as a distraction from his own.

But he doesn’t, thankfully. Instead, Namjoon just says, “I guess,” and then Yoongi hears a long, shuddering sigh from down the line.

“Yoongi,” Namjoon says after a minute. “Do you ever wanna get married?”

Something in Yoongi’s chest constricts. He takes a sip of whisky before speaking, uncertain and quiet, even for the late hour. “Like—?”

“I just mean,” Namjoon says, “eventually. Is that something you see yourself doing?”

Yes, Yoongi thinks, yes yes yes.  

Shamefully, he pictures himself in a place that he’s found himself in his mind’s eye many times, a sunny yellow kitchen making eggs and rice for two; he pictures Namjoon’s broad back shielding the coffee maker from view, can almost hear him muttering as he fumbles with the scoop. He pictures his keys on the table, his car in the drive, some stable producing job waiting for him downtown, if he ever manages to leave this calm and peace he’s made for himself and Namjoon. 

It’s almost embarrassing; once, on some early mixtape in high school, he’d rapped about a big house, a big car, and big rings. When he thinks about it these days, he still wants those things, but the house has another person in it now, someone to love, and the car is still a Bugatti, but it’s meant to drive him to a comfortable 9-to-5 at some entertainment company instead of flashy parties or red carpet events. The rings, he often imagines, are on two people’s fingers — his and Namjoon’s — and they mean something more than success or money or fame.

It’s embarrassing, the silly stupid dream of a closeted kid who’s fiercely in love with his dopey, oblivious, ostensibly straight best friend, so he’s not sure if he can ever bring himself to admit it.

“Well,” he says, measured, because he’s not sure what Namjoon’s implying, if he’s implying anything at all or if Yoongi’s just reading too deeply into things again. “I guess so. I don’t know if I could, though.”

“No?”

“No, well.” He takes another sip. “It’s complicated.” Legally, sure, but emotionally, too.

“Hm.” Namjoon sounds almost displeased with Yoongi’s answer. “I do. I really want — a nice wedding, outdoors, with all my friends and family. Not too big or fancy or anything. I just want it to mean something, you know? And I want nice pictures to hang on my wall, you know, when I buy a house someday.”

“Aish, you really think weddings are that important?” Yoongi says, because he’s always been a little bit of a contrarian, and because it’s easier to tease Namjoon than to agree with him and show his hand.

Namjoon should know this; they’ve always bantered like this. But now, Namjoon just sighs. 

“Well, obviously—no.” The line crackles quietly for a moment. “You’ll be there when I get married, right?”

“Of course, Namjoon.”

“Right by my side. Won’t you?”

Suddenly, Yoongi has a new vision, some horribly self-defeating, idealistic picture of himself up at the front of a church, standing beside Namjoon not as the emcee or officiant, but as his fiancé, his husband—

“Yeah, right by your side.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise.”

❀

Suran is the first, but she isn’t the last. There are lots of wonderful, good-hearted, beautiful women that Namjoon goes after, and later, there are wonderful, good-hearted, beautiful men, too. Yoongi’s quietly jealous, sometimes, that everyone can see what he sees in Namjoon, that everyone recognizes his kindness and humility and bulked-up figure and wants a piece of it for themselves. But Yoongi doesn’t really listen to that part of himself, the part that wants to gatekeep his best friend from other people and the potential for personal happiness. 

Instead, he curls up with Namjoon on his couch and listens to the latest of his dating updates through a wavy whisky haze, smiling softly until his eyes drift shut and he awakens in the early hours of the morning huddled against Namjoon’s shoulder or with his head resting on his lap.

It goes on like this for years — years that, all things considered, are still the happiest of Yoongi’s life — until they’re in the final stretches of their respective degrees.

It’s then, in the bitter cold of a Korean December, that everything changes.

❀

That moment is when Seokjin, Namjoon’s friend from his corporate internship, decides to throw a party at the expense of his chaebol-CEO father. The cocktails are courtesy of his beauty-queen mother, or rather, the recipes are; the drinks themselves are being made to order in the kitchen by a guy named Hoseok, apparently a dance student at K-Arts.

It’s hard not to have a good time when Yoongi's snuggled back against Seokjin’s plush couch, a drink in his left hand and Namjoon pressed against his right side. It feels like every person that Yoongi’s ever met in his three years at SNU is here, and they’re quickly pairing off with a similar number of people from K-Arts. Seokjin’s apartment seems almost impossibly large and small at the same time. It’s so full of people that it seems prohibitively difficult to maneuver through the crowd towards the drinks table, but Yoongi’s content to sit here all night with Namjoon laughing and leaning hard on him, making him feel small in just the way he likes.

Seokjin, though, has other plans. He dodges Hoseok and another person dancing by him and leans in close so that Namjoon can hear him over the joyful din.

“Hey, you know how you asked me to wing for you?”

Namjoon blushes a little, barely glancing back at Yoongi before he nods. “Yeah, yeah—”

Yoongi frowns.

“Well, there’s this guy,” Seokjin says, and Namjoon groans. “You’ll really hit it off with him, I think.”

Namjoon shrugs somewhat helplessly. “I don’t know, Seokjin, I’m really not sure about—”

“Just trust me,” Seokjin says. “Do you want my help or not? Do you want the benefits of having the best wingman available, or do you want to die alone?”

“I don’t want to die alone,” Namjoon mutters.

“Just talk to him,” Seokjin presses. “I’ll cut in and talk about boring shit with Yoongi. You see him? He’s the guy with the tattoos.”

Yoongi follows the line of Seokjin’s finger. He’s pointing across the room at some young guy with big, bright eyes and a fully-inked forearm peeking out from under his rucked-up sweater sleeve. He’s chatting to a couple of other guys, one with dyed orange hair and another in a leopard-print button-up, but Yoongi only has eyes for Namjoon right now.

He’s staring at him, watching him watch this perfect stranger, as the walls of Seokjin’s apartment seem to close in around him.

“He’s a little younger than you,” Seokjin’s saying, hiking Namjoon up off the couch and shoving him towards the crowd. When he takes Namjoon’s place beside Yoongi, he throws one arm over Yoongi’s shoulders and makes a shooing motion with the other. “But he’s really fun. His name’s Jungkook.”

Namjoon just nods dumbly, shoves his hands in his pockets, and meanders over to the bright-eyed boy. Seokjin tugs playfully at Yoongi’s hair, and just like that, Yoongi’s eyeline is broken.

“Yah,” he exclaims, “what was that—”

“Let him do his thing,” Seokjin says, tugging again, but lighter this time. “I won’t leave you to wallow over here on the couch without him. I get it, I kind of self-isolate after a while at parties, too.”

Yoongi just nods, because that’s not what’s wrong, but he doesn’t know how to say what is wrong — nothing is wrong, strictly, because it’s perfectly all right with him if Namjoon messes around with other people (he’s been doing it for years!) or if the people he messes around with are dangerously hot (hotter than Yoongi!). And it’s not like there’s any reason for this to be any different than any other time, it’s just that—

It’s a little like being left behind, Yoongi thinks, even though he himself has been with people here and there, boys and girls, just the same as Namjoon. 

But it’s not real until it’s real, he tells himself. So he hums in response to Seokjin’s chattering, buying in little by little to the welcome distraction, until he’s so caught up that he doesn’t even notice when, across the room, Namjoon leans down and kisses Jungkook for the first time.

❀

There’s something about Namjoon and Jungkook’s relationship that feels different from the rest. Maybe it’s that they’re still together after six months; maybe it’s that Jungkook brings something out in Namjoon, something fresh and optimistic, that has lain dormant beneath the dusty books and papers of his academic life until now; or maybe it’s just the little things, like the fact that Jungkook will eat the unwanted cheese off the top of Namjoon’s tteokbokki.

Namjoon’s absolutely gone over him, and Yoongi gets it. He does.

He’s felt that way, too.

At first, it’s wonderful. The time when you’re first falling for someone is the best feeling in the world, Yoongi thinks. Everything holds meaning; everything feels like a shared secret.

It’s not until it drags on far longer than it should that it starts hurting.

Yoongi’s not sure when he first began to realize that Namjoon didn’t feel the same way. It wasn’t like he was waiting at a bus stop for 0713 northbound to somewhere called TRUE LOVE, staring at the map, tracing the expected route. It’s not like he was reading the signs, looking for hints, and all of a sudden the posted time had come and gone with nothing on the horizon.

It’s not like that, but it feels like it, sometimes.

It feels like it when Namjoon’s mixtapes stop coming, when Yoongi starts thinking that maybe their senior year has just rendered Namjoon too busy for that sort of thing, but then they all ride to a party in Jeon Jungkook’s gigantic black sedan and he’s blasting American hip hop from a CD with Namjoon’s scrawl on the front of it and Yoongi has no choice but to get blacked out as fast as possible on cupfuls of shitty vodka and Chilsung cider.

It feels like it now, watching Namjoon fall in love with someone else, when Yoongi hasn’t ever kissed anyone and had it mean something, not even once.

Yoongi doesn’t feel sorry for himself, not really. This isn’t about him; this is about his best friend. He should want what’s best for him, and he does.

You love him, Yoongi tells himself one night, point-blank and dispassionate. And he doesn’t love you. You know what that means. 

You know what you have to do.

So, over time, Yoongi pulls away. He packages his feelings up in neat little boxes; he makes the path forward clear for them all. He stops laying his head in Namjoon’s lap on movie nights. When they’re in the studio, it’s strictly business. When they’re off the clock, he doesn’t overstep, doesn’t let himself think too much about how it would feel if he was the one tucked up under Namjoon’s coat as they all walked back to Seokjin’s from the bar.

He turns, like always, to music, and throws himself once more into the work.

If you love him, let him go.

❀

As it turns out, it’s not as easy as Yoongi had hoped to box feelings up, to compartmentalize, to kill them off.

Yoongi puts a brave face on, of course, but it’s hard; suffocating the life out of something hopeful and warm means that he feels every rapid beat of his own heart when he presses down on it, every flare-up of his fight-or-flight response as he tries to escape from his own capture.

In some ways, it throws everything into relief.

What was once a crush is now something forbidden, something shameful and painful and tightly-wound. He wants so badly to be a better friend, to be the kind of person that Namjoon deserves, but not like that, because it can’t be like that. It had been so innocent once, but now here he is again, fulfilling his stupid, fucked-up prophecy. He hates himself for it, but it’s so hard to feel right about wishing it all away.

That’s how he sees it on his worst days.

But there are other days, too, when he remembers the feel of Namjoon’s hair in his hands as he trimmed it, the weight of him against his side, the inherent romance of rainflower, and he thinks, it was there once, what happened?

Where did it all go?

❀

They meet for coffee. It’s a Wednesday, and Yoongi’s first senior semester schedule is finally starting to feel routine. The weather’s still nice; it’s a little windy, but they still choose to sit on the patio because Namjoon’s always preferred to at restaurants, and Yoongi would follow him anywhere, even to a slightly rain-damp wooden bench outside a trendy cafe.

“So I decided to propose,” Namjoon says, as soon as they sit down.

His words hit Yoongi like a blow to the solar plexus. His chest constricts; his breath catches in his throat, stuck somewhere between what he wants to say (“no, wait—”) and what he actually says (“oh, wow”).

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, like he somehow also finds it awkward to admit. “So.”

Yoongi almost can’t believe what he’s hearing. They’re not even out of college yet; Namjoon and Jungkook have only been together for a year.

“You—propose, like—like you want to get married?”

“Yeah.”

“To Jungkook?”

Namjoon takes a sip of his tea. “Yeah, I mean—we’ve been together for a while. We really see a future in each other.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says again, his heart squeezing painfully, his face remaining carefully neutral. “Wow.”

“I’m graduating soon,” Namjoon continues, either oblivious to Yoongi’s plight or willing to ignore it for both of their sakes. “And he’s not, and I don’t want us to fade out. I think he could be the one, and—I want to have a reason to stay close, I want to be intentional about this. I want to commit.”

If Yoongi were more of a meddler, more of a selfish asshole or sociopath or something, he might say out loud what’s on the tip of his tongue: Wouldn’t a promise ring be good enough? You know you can’t actually get legally married in Korea, right? Isn’t he a little young for that anyway? He seems kind of flighty, would he even want commitment at this stage?

But he’s not, so Yoongi swallows it all with the next mouthful of noodles, congratulates his best friend on the most significant event in his life so far, and saves his hyperventilating sobs for later, in his car, long after Namjoon has unlocked his bicycle and sped away back home.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, slamming his hands on the steering wheel, his face a blotchy mess in the rearview mirror. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

❀

Later that night, Namjoon calls him.

“Hey, are we good?” Namjoon asks as soon as Yoongi picks up.

Yoongi blinks. 

He’s too drunk for this. 

If he’d known that Namjoon would call him and try to make him talk, he wouldn’t have — well, he probably would have, if he’s honest. It’s been an uncharacteristically trying day.

“Yeah, I—” Yoongi grips the back of his desk chair, leaning his hip on it, and sighs. “We’re good. Why wouldn’t we be good, Joon?”

“I just — at lunch today — it kind of seemed like you were—” 

Namjoon’s choosing his words carefully, Yoongi can tell. 

“You were just quiet. And you’re not — I mean, everybody thinks you’re quiet but you’re not always quiet, not like that. So I just wanted to — to check. On you. And us.”

Yoongi’s mouth twitches. He wants to hang up and fling his phone into the Han River, because Namjoon’s doing that thing where he proves how much he understands him while simultaneously, effortlessly illustrating how little anyone else does. It’s the simplest shit, too, like knowing that Yoongi talks sometimes. It’s so—

“Yoongi?”

“We’re good, Namjoon,” Yoongi says, only just now aware of how deep in his thoughts he was. “I — sorry, I’ve just — I’ve been drinking a little tonight, so—”

“Oh,” Namjoon says, voice low and worried, even though some other satellite friend would think, no big deal, Yoongi drinks every night. It’s true, but what has Yoongi’s jaw clenching is the fact that Namjoon’s the only one in the world, seemingly, who knows that Yoongi doesn’t drink like this every night, not enough to mention it, not enough for anyone to notice. “Are you sure you’re okay? I could come over, if—”

“No,” Yoongi says, because he knows that if Namjoon showed up at his door he’d do something stupid like tell him the truth, and it would ruin everything for Namjoon’s perfectly reasonable life trajectory. 

Or, more painfully, more realistically, it wouldn’t, and Yoongi would be left to deal with the knowledge that he’s not good enough. Not that he wants to break them up, it’s just that—

Namjoon’s in a happy, committed relationship. Why would Yoongi’s confession change that? Yoongi’s not worth dumping someone like Jungkook for. 

He laughs out loud, a quick little bark of ugly mirth, and then covers his mouth with his hand.

“Sorry,” he says into the phone. “Sorry, sorry. No, don’t come over.”

“Yoongi,” Namjoon says, and it sounds like a warning, or a plea, or something else that Yoongi can’t handle with grace right now. “Is this about — what I told you earlier today?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Yoongi says, waving his hand as if Namjoon could see it, as if he’d believe the dismissiveness of it in the first place. “I really like Jungkook, and I’m really happy for you. I’m just — celebrating, you know, with something to drink.”

“You’re celebrating,” Namjoon intones. “Alone in your dorm room. With hard liquor. On a Wednesday.”

“Yes,” Yoongi tells him, and it doesn’t exactly sound convincing, but maybe it’s just because Yoongi knows the truth. “I drink every night, Namjoon, you know this.”

Yoongi doesn’t register it as a challenge, as a test, until Namjoon drops the ball.

“All right,” he says, sounding tired. “I guess — yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Yoongi blinks. 

He swallows; his throat feels tight. 

He wants to say, you should know better, I know you know me better than this, but he doesn’t. 

He doesn’t want to start something, not like this. Not tonight. Not ever, if he can help it. Namjoon’s happiness is too precious.

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, it is true, because I’m a fucking alcoholic, right?”

“Yoongi, what? That’s not what I—”

“Nothing,” Yoongi says, gripping his hair. “Nothing. Listen — it’s not about you. And Jungkook. It’s not.”

“Are you sure?” Namjoon says carefully. “You know that — we’ll still be best friends, right? Even if I get married — it won’t change anything between us, Yoongi.”

Yoongi grits his teeth against the searing jolt in his heart. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know.”

“Well, good,” Namjoon says, but his voice is guarded. “I’ll — let you get back to—”

“My brother called me,” Yoongi blurts, and it’s a lie, a necessary cover so that this doesn’t all blow up in his face later on. “My brother called, and he — you know how my family is.”

“Oh, shit,” Namjoon says, buying it immediately, tone changing completely to one of shock and sympathy. “That’s — I’m sorry, Yoongi, I know that has to be so fucking uncomfortable. Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that it was — I was being an asshole, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t — apologize,” Yoongi says, because he doesn’t want to accept an apology for some fake problem. “Just — I just wanted to tell you. That it wasn’t you.”

“Thanks,” Namjoon says. “I was really worried. You know that — I care about you more than most people in my life, Yoongi, so — listen, I’ll let you go, but — you should meet me for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Mm?”

“Yeah, on me. You’re gonna need something for that hangover.”

“Sure, sure. You might have to come drag me out of bed, but — yeah, I’ll — yeah.”

“See you tomorrow, then,” Namjoon says, adding, “don’t sleep on your back, you’ll choke on your own vomit.”

When Namjoon hangs up the phone, Yoongi pours himself another drink.

❀

Yoongi is wallowing. It’s a Friday night, so he can do so with no need to be up for classes in the morning, and he’s taking full advantage of it.

He’s not quite sober, not quite drunk; not quite awake, either, to the point that he almost thinks he’s imagining it when he hears a knock on the door.

When he swings it open, Yoongi finds himself face-to-face, alone, with Jungkook.

What?

For the first time ever, he’s alone with Jungkook, and Jungkook’s crying.

Oh, shit.

“Hey, kid,” Yoongi says easily, like it’s not the middle of the night, like Jungkook isn’t crying big globby anime tears all over himself in front of him.

“Hyung, I don’t know what to do,” Jungkook babbles, “I don’t know what to do and you know Namjoon better than anyone else and I just—”

Yoongi’s stomach sinks. “Is — something wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, no, nothing bad, just — overwhelming—”

Yoongi furrows his brow, steps aside, and ushers Jungkook into his dorm room. “Here, come in, sorry, I—”

“I just need a good hyung right now,” Jungkook says as he totally ignores Yoongi’s proffered desk chair and instead settles on Yoongi’s loft bed like it’s his. “And if I go to Seokjin hyung he’s just going to tell me to brush it off, so—”

“You can always come to me,” Yoongi finds himself saying, and he finds that he means it, too. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but — anyone who’s important to Namjoon is important to me.”

Jungkook sniffs. “Thanks. Sorry for — waking you up, probably, I don’t know, it’s late—”

“It’s not that late,” Yoongi says, brushing it off. “I was, uh, just working on some music stuff. Listen, what’s going on?”

Jungkook sniffs again, tugs his sweater sleeves up over his knuckles and wipes his tear-streaked face on them. “Sorry,” he says again, “I don’t mean to make people worry about me or whatever but — it’s not even a bad thing, it’s just that — I don’t know if you know, you probably do, but — um, earlier today, while we were at the botanical gardens — Namjoon proposed, um, like, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, like, for real, and—”

Yoongi sucks in a breath. It hits him hard, but he tries not to show it. “I knew he was planning to,” he says gently. “Is — did it not go — I mean — do you want to talk about it? Or—”

He watches Jungkook blot at his flushed face with his sweater sleeves for a minute, watches this gangly boy curl up on himself in Yoongi’s bed as he gathers his words. Yoongi finds, in that moment, that he’s endeared by Jungkook and his big round nose — red and runny right now — and his baggy clothes and his messy triangular haircut. It’s strange seeing him like this, sniffling and hiccuping and hugging himself when he’s normally the very picture of brazen confidence.

“I said yes,” Jungkook says eventually, “because I really, really love him. I really think he’s so amazing. I fell in love with him the second I saw him and I knew I wanted a guy like that, some big strong guy to hold me and kiss me and match push-ups with me, but—”

He meets Yoongi’s eyes, then, the deepest dark chocolate orbs, lashes long and stuck together from crying.

“I just don’t know if I’m the right guy for him,” he says, and it sounds like it hurts to come up through his throat.

“Jesus,” Yoongi says before he can think about formulating a more measured response, “of course you are. He loves you. Of course he does, Jungkook.”

“I’m just — a lot younger and a lot dumber than he is and—” Jungkook sniffs, but when he moves to wipe his face on the hem of his oversized sweater, he sobs into it instead. When he speaks, his voice whines in desperation. “I always thought he’d go for somebody more like you, hyung—”

All of a sudden, it hurts, that attachment wound that Yoongi’s been nursing for years.

It’s paradoxical, really, to the point of being tortuous rather than actionable: he wants nothing more than for Namjoon to bind his wound up for him, to stop the bleeding and burrow away with him in some modernist apartment building for the rest of their lives, but he also desperately refuses to show his red hands to anyone.

It was better when no one else could see it, Yoongi thinks, because then he could pretend it was a ridiculous fantasy rather than something that makes sense to other people, people who know them, people who matter.

“No,” Yoongi assures him after a split-second hesitation, “No, it’s — he would never — think of doing this with anyone but you. You’re his happiness, seriously, you’re the — the one that pulls him out of the studio and makes him eat ice cream or whatever. You’re the one that keeps him energized. I just — all I do is shut him away. It’s not — please don’t compare yourself to me.”

“Hyung, that’s not fair,” Jungkook wails, “it’s not fair to say stuff like that about yourself. He loves you, too, he—”

“We’re not talking about me,” Yoongi says firmly. “Listen, can I get you a drink? Let me get you a drink and we’ll just — uh, hang out, and if you want — we can talk about it. Okay?”

Jungkook wipes his face one more time, with both sweater-covered hands at once. “Okay,” he says.

❀

Once everything is ironed out, Namjoon and Jungkook begin doing the rounds to tell all their friends.

They’re at Seokjin’s today, and Namjoon invited Yoongi along for some reason, so Yoongi’s here on Seokjin’s floor, his back resting up against Seokjin’s couch.

“Can’t believe you’re taking yourself off the market this early, Jungkook,” Seokjin teases. Jungkook aims a kick at him and nearly causes the spill of all four cups of tea in Seokjin’s hands.

“Hey,” Yoongi says, flapping a hand at Jungkook. “Don’t ruin my chance at a hot drink, it’s cold out and I walked here.”

Seokjin passes Yoongi’s to him first out of pity. “So — we’ve got a wedding to plan,” he says, settling into an armchair with his own mug.

“Yeah, but it’ll be a couple of years out,” Namjoon says, tucking Jungkook close to him. “Jungkook’s family wants him to graduate first, which — makes sense.”

Seokjin nods. “It’s just good to know it’s coming.”

“Yeah.”

“My parents got married young, too,” Jungkook says, “so I don’t think they mind so much about that part of it. It’s just — school.”

“Still, though,” Seokjin says, “you’re lucky to have met your guy so early. Me and Yoongi here will still be old bachelors by your fifth anniversary at this rate.”

“Maybe not,” Namjoon says, shrugging. “You always talk about how handsome you are, Seokjin, so—”

“Yah,” Yoongi says, teasing, “you’re gonna leave me out of that part, huh?”

“Yoongi doesn’t need me to defend his bachelorhood,” Namjoon says, grinning.

Seokjin grins back. “And I do?”

“I mean, Yoongi’s been with people, though,” Namjoon says. “He just doesn't ever let them meet his friends.”

The room falls silent for a beat too long.

“What?” Jungkook asks, confused.

“I mean,” Namjoon says, rounding on Yoongi. “You’ve definitely been getting with guys or girls or whatever. It’s just that—” He turns back to Jungkook, pulling him closer on the couch, tender and familiar in a way that makes Yoongi’s heart cry out with abstract longing. “Yoongi’s just a lowkey kind of guy. It’s not supposed to be a personal offense to anyone. He’s just not an oversharer.”

“Telling your friends that you’re seeing someone isn’t oversharing,” Jungkook says. “That’s kind of—that’s what being friends means.”

Namjoon’s brow furrows slightly, but he looks at Yoongi. “I think Yoongi would think it was private first and foremost, though, huh?” he says, ostensibly still to Jungkook, but Yoongi knows it’s really a question for him.

Yoongi looks down at his hands resting on his thighs. His bottom lip twitches. “Yeah,” he manages. “It’s — I like to keep that stuff private, yeah. Until — until I’m sure.”

“So you’ve never been sure yet,” Jungkook muses unnecessarily. “You haven’t ever really been in love?”

Yoongi sets his jaw. He can feel their eyes on him, can feel Namjoon’s compassionate caution, Jungkook’s blustery curiosity. He can feel what they have and what he doesn’t have, what he’s never had, in equal measure.

“No,” he says, but it’s a lie.

Namjoon blinks, then, like he’s surprised. That doesn’t make sense, Yoongi thinks, because he seems so sure that Yoongi’s been with someone in secret before, but—

Maybe—

Does he know?

Yoongi’s heart races all of a sudden. He glances up, meeting Namjoon’s eyes.

Does he know?

Does he?

“I would have thought you’d have given it a try, just so you could finally write a convincing love song someday,” Namjoon teases, eyes glittering.

“Oh,” Yoongi mutters, his heart sinking like a stone, settling somewhere deep and hidden in his gut. “Yeah.”

He laughs, but it’s a lie, too.

In this moment, he wants to burn all his lyrics up in this fancy little electric fireplace, wants to throw all his work shit out the window and let it siphon off into the sewers of Seoul.

He’s not a robot. He’s not a workaholic, at least not the way people seem to think he is. It’s not that he works so much because he doesn’t want anything else. He works because there’s nothing else, and it hurts, it hurts, it—

“Hey,” Yoongi says, standing abruptly. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Down the hall,” Seokjin says, and Yoongi’s on the move before he finishes giving the direction.

❀

The engagement party comes later, after the wedding plans begin to materialize. It isn’t extravagant, but it is warm. Everyone they’ve ever loved is there, everyone from both Namjoon and Jungkook’s lives, and they all laugh and talk and drink late into the night. They tell story after story, regaling parties and road trips to the countryside and awkward moments and all that enters the repertoire of a group like this, who have seen and felt so much together over so many years.

It’s been a while since the news broke, and it’s been a while since Yoongi committed to taking the high road. In that time, his heart has settled as much as it’s willing to. But it still feels uncomfortable to be here, like he’s a spy or something, like if Namjoon knew how he really felt, he wouldn’t have let him in the door.

At some point, the whole thing gets too much for Yoongi.

He steps outside for some air and a cigarette, and he’s not sure why, but he’s not surprised when Namjoon follows him.

“Hey,” Namjoon says, and Yoongi sucks in a breath that’s mostly smoke. He coughs, and Namjoon’s big hand rests on his back, steadying him, just like it had on the day they’d first stepped across the line in the sand towards one another. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, voice gravelly from clearing his throat of ash. “I’m okay. Just — it’s a lot, you know?”

“I know,” Namjoon says. “I think I know, anyway.”

Yoongi furrows his brow at that. “You think you know what?”

“What you mean,” Namjoon says carefully, “when you say that it’s a lot.”

Yoongi frowns.

“It’s just a lot of people,” he says. “A lot of people and a lot of noise. That’s all.”

Namjoon nods, appearing to allow Yoongi to get away with his excuse, at least for now. “It’s a lot for me, too,” he says. “Being the center of attention is — I’m not used to it.”

Yoongi smiles a little. “You used to get on stage in front of a crowd and do the whole battle rap thing,” he says. “Don’t tell me you don’t like the attention.”

Namjoon chuckles, and his hand rubs up and down on the curve of Yoongi’s back. “It’s just been a while, I guess. I forgot what it feels like to have all these eyes on you.”

“It’s just a party,” Yoongi says, knocking his shoulder against Namjoon’s side. “You’re not being judged or anything.”

“It kind of feels like I am, though,” Namjoon says. “Like — everyone in there probably has some opinion about — whether we’re making the right choice or not, me and Jungkook. Whether we’re even good for each other or not.”

“You’re good for each other,” Yoongi says. “Don’t start.”

“I hope so,” Namjoon says. “I want to be good for him.”

After a while, he sighs.

“I’m not the best at being good for people, I think.”

Yoongi furrows his brow at that. “What are you talking about?”

He feels Namjoon shift his weight beside him. The hand on Yoongi’s back stills, but it stays.

“I don’t think I’ve been all that good to you,” he says, and Yoongi looks over at him.

“Namjoon,” he begins.

“No, no, hear me out,” Namjoon says, hurried. “I just — I feel like — before all this happens, before there are no take-backs, I want — I just need to say—”

There’s an uneasy feeling creeping into Yoongi’s gut; he frowns, takes the last drag of his cigarette, and crushes it beneath his boot.

“I just need to say,” Namjoon repeats, “fuck. Listen, you know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

Yoongi blinks.

“No,” he says, but he thinks, horrified, that he might.

Namjoon sighs. His hand disappears from Yoongi’s back and instead makes quick work of Namjoon’s jacket cuffs, rolling them up and down, buttoning and unbuttoning them. “I think,” he says, “I think that — back then, in college — we didn’t talk about stuff. When we should have. Maybe.”

“Namjoon,” Yoongi says, starting to worry now. “I’m sorry if I ever — listen, I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re — but if there was ever a time that I did something to—”

“No, no,” Namjoon says, shaking his head, distress clearly growing with every back-and-forth volley. “Listen, do you remember when I told you that I was going to propose? Do you remember that conversation?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says. “Of course I do.”

“That was really hard for me,” Namjoon says, choosing his words warily. “It was really hard to tell you — something like that.”

“Why?”

Namjoon sighs again.

“I swear I’m not being deliberately obtuse, Namjoon,” Yoongi says. “I just — could you just say it so we can go back inside? It’s cold out.”

Namjoon presses his lips together in a thin line. “Think back,” he says. “And — be honest with yourself. Was I imagining this — this tension? I just need to know—”

He lets out another shuddering breath.

“I need to know if I was imagining it.”

Yoongi’s still frowning, still afraid of being caught out, of being accused of harboring his feelings for so long and making things awkward for the lot of them. But he’ll humor Namjoon, of course, because he always does.

He remembers it so clearly.

“So I decided to propose,” Namjoon says right away.

Yoongi remembers the panic, of course.

He remembers saying, “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, messing with the paper napkin tucked underneath his plate. Now that Yoongi’s really thinking back, he did seem pretty awkward. “So.”

“You—propose, like—like you want to get married?”

“Yeah.”

“To Jungkook?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, tone heavy. “I mean—we’ve been together for a while. We really see a future in each other.”

“Oh.” Yoongi says again. “Wow.”

“I’m graduating soon,” Namjoon says. “And he’s not, and I don’t want us to fade out. I think he’s the one, and—I want to have a reason to stay close, I want to be intentional about this. I want to commit.”

The way he looks at Yoongi then is evaluative, like Yoongi’s one of his college students, like he’s the TA in his own life but not the instructor of record, making sure to stay a careful and cautious distance from the real gut of the thing.

He’ll let Yoongi decide if they ever talk about this, it seems, because Namjoon’s played his hand.

For the first time, despite having played this memory back more times than he cares to admit, Yoongi realizes that Namjoon was giving him an opportunity, laid out in front of him at that cafe table in Gwanak-gu.

He had given him a chance to speak up, to say: it should be me.

The realization twists in Yoongi’s stomach, and once again, he tastes bile.

It’s not romantic. It’s not a story for the missed connections section of the newspaper. 

It’s just cruel.

It’s cruel to Yoongi, sure, but it’s crueler to Jungkook, the oblivious pawn.

He supposes it’s real now, what those two have, because Yoongi’s meekness had allowed Namjoon and Jungkook to grow together in some more substantial way.

“There are lots of things,” Namjoon says back in the present, “lots of things left unsaid between us, I think.” He says it quietly, like he knows it’s wrong. He says it quietly, like a coward. “I hope we’ll get a chance to say them someday.”

Yoongi sees it now, remembers it now, digs it up from where he hid it. He’s always done that, buried things like this in his own metaphorical backyard like a fucking dog, all the old shit he’s never quite had the time or the strength to work through.

He can picture it perfectly because it’s here, now, too, on Namjoon’s face, dulling the color of his eyes, those hot coffee eyes that Yoongi could have drowned himself in, should have drowned himself in long ago.

“Cut the bullshit,” Yoongi says. “Say them now, or forever hold your peace, or whatever. I can’t keep doing this, having conversations like this that make me want to rip my organs out of my chest—”

Namjoon furrows his brow. “It’s nothing you don’t already know,” he says, “but — I don’t know, I’ve just always thought that — we miscommunicated. About — a lot of things. Never about music, which is good. But — we’ve always been different people, living life at a different pace, don’t you think?”

“No,” Yoongi says truthfully. “No, I don’t fucking think that, Namjoon, what are you talking about?”

“I thought we’d link up,” Namjoon says desperately, “like, you know those math problems that are like, if hot dogs are sold in packs of five and hot dog sticks are sold in bundles of eight, then how many do you need to buy before you get the same number of each? That’s how I feel like we’ve been living, one step ahead or two steps behind—”

“Where the fuck are you getting that from? We spend every day together, Namjoon—”

“You’re always at work, though,” Namjoon spits, and Yoongi flinches. “Even when we’re just talking at the dorm or going out to dinner or sitting at a party or something, you’re mentally at work. I’m always — interrupting your process or whatever. Every time you’re with me, you could be off somewhere else doing music stuff, getting ahead, whatever. Well, sue me if I want to feel something other than backbreaking fucking stress and wasted potential, okay, I—”

Yoongi blinks. “That’s not how it is,” he sputters. “That’s not how I feel when I’m with you. You think I’m ignoring you or something?”

“You’re not ignoring me, you’re just — holding back from enjoying yourself all the time. It’s exhausting.”

Exhausting.

Namjoon thinks that it’s exhausting to be around him.

Noted, Yoongi thinks dully. He files that away for his near-guaranteed three-in-the-morning anxiety attack.

“I promise it’s not that,” he says, knowing what it really is without being able to say it, but Namjoon’s not buying it.

“You weren’t always like this,” he says. “It’s just since — I don’t know, the last year? Like, you’re really slipping into this workaholic shit and I don’t get—”

“Namjoon,” Yoongi hisses, irritated but not willing to yell. “It’s not about work. Trust me.”

“But work’s the only thing that ever gets done. You barely even sleep anymore, Yoongi.”

“I work because there’s nothing else,” Yoongi says, cheeks hot with mortification. “It’s not because — I don’t want it to be like that. It’s because there is nothing else, okay?”

“Well, there could have been,” Namjoon says bluntly. “There could have been, if you’d let it in.”

They stare at each other.

It’s uncomfortable, the space between them simmering with something deeply intimate and taut with tension.

“You’re kidding,” Yoongi says, his heart skipping what feels like several beats.

“Kidding about what?”

“I swear to God, Namjoon, if you say what I think you’re going to say—”

“I’m — what, Yoongi—”

Yoongi sets his jaw.

Namjoon’s face freezes in a near-comical expression of incredulity. “What,” he urges again.

“Was it me once?” Yoongi asks, voice breaking, even as quiet as it is.

Namjoon sighs and drops his gaze to the gravel beneath his shoes. Yoongi wants to throttle him.

“Start talking,” he spits instead, ever-merciful, even if Namjoon doesn’t particularly deserve it right now.

“I gave you my mixtapes,” Namjoon says, like it’s an answer. “And you never — you didn’t — I never got anything from you. It was like — you were completely walled off. I thought you weren’t interested, I thought I was being a creep or something. So I stopped.”

Yoongi is struck by a vivid fantasy of breaking Namjoon’s fucking nose right then and there.

“So it’s my fault,” he says, measured and far too calm. “It’s my fault that I didn’t pick up on your cryptic fucking symbolism bullshit. It’s my fault that I was trying to guard my heart, is that it? I was already—”

“I was trying to say something with rainflower,” Namjoon says, urgent and desperate-sounding. “I thought you’d get it. Music was all we ever fucking had — but, honestly, maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t get it because — because now — I have Jungkook, and he—”

“Yeah, congratulations,” Yoongi spits. “Thank God he understood that the only reasonable way to proposition someone is to never actually proposition them at all—”

“It’s romantic, Yoongi, I was trying to—”

“It’s childish,” Yoongi says, cutting through Namjoon’s pleas. “You really thought music was all we had? You’re a fucking idiot, Namjoon.”

“Well, you’re a fucking sky-high brick wall, Yoongi, can you blame me for not being able to read your mind?”

Yoongi hugs himself, fingers digging into his ribs. “Stop it,” he says, quiet and harsh. His stomach rolls with a discordant mix of anxiety and adrenaline. “Stop, you’re gonna make me cry.”

“Oh, well, it’ll be the first emotion I’ve witnessed in a while, so bring it on—”

Yoongi’s shoulders hitch up. “Stop,” he says again. “Fucking stop it. I can’t — this is—”

“Don’t fucking make me try to feel sorry for you,” Namjoon shouts. “You’ve been moping for months, years if we’re honest with each other, and I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to have your fucking attitude dragging through every happy event in my life—”

“So leave,” Yoongi says, and then his body can’t hold him up anymore so he drops, crouches to the ground and hides his face in his hands. “Just go back inside and — we’ll fix this later. I can’t — I’ll just go home, I don’t want to ruin your night.”

“Get a cab, don’t drive home like this,” Namjoon says, and it still sounds mean somehow, probably because his back is turned and he is, in fact, leaving. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

If Yoongi had a single shred of self-esteem, he’d block Namjoon’s fucking number before he could call.

But he doesn’t, so the next day he calls out of his hard-earned producing job and waits by the phone instead.

❀

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, just because it’s Namjoon, he actually does call.

“Sorry,” Yoongi mutters as soon as he picks up the phone.

“I’m sorry, too, but let’s not talk about it over the phone,” Namjoon says, patient and soft-spoken. “Would you meet me for lunch later? You may not want to see me, but—”

“No, no, I want to see you,” Yoongi says, too quickly. “Just — let me pay.”

Namjoon laughs at that. “We’ll see who gets to the check first,” he says.

Yoongi smiles a little then, in spite of it all. “I’m the hyung,” he complains. “You’ll see. Where and what time?”

❀

When Yoongi arrives at the cafe, the mood is already dark.

“I said last night that there were things I hadn’t told you,” Namjoon begins, unfolding his napkin too carefully for it to be natural. “I think — there are some things that you haven’t told me, either. Is that fair to say?”

“Maybe,” Yoongi says evasively, choosing to be difficult.

Namjoon nods. “Well, let me go first, since I started it,” he says. “There was a time — when I thought we could work together, you know, as a couple.”

Yoongi stares at the sandwich that the server is placing down in front of him. “Mm,” he hums.

“And there were so many times when I was trying to gauge your interest, you know, with the mixtapes and stuff.” Namjoon clinks his coffee spoon on the side of his mug and rests it gently on his unfolded napkin. “But I thought that you were shutting me out, so I stopped. I didn’t want to come onto you if I thought you didn’t want it.”

Yoongi sets his jaw. “How,” he says slowly, “how was I shutting you out, exactly?”

Namjoon shrugs, helpless. “I just felt like — I had sensed something between us, some kind of tension or something, but — whenever I put myself out there, you pulled back.”

Yoongi sets his jaw.

“Does Jungkook know you’re here talking to me about this right now?”

“He knows I’m here,” Namjoon says, but he sounds ashamed. “But — I mean, look, Jungkook knows. That — I used to have feelings for you, and that it didn’t work out. I wouldn’t keep something like that from him, Yoongi.”

“Good,” Yoongi says, “good, because all I could think about after that fight was — how Jungkook fucking loves you so much and — I never told you this, but he came to me the night you guys got engaged, crying to me about how he didn’t think he was good enough for you—”

“Oh,” Namjoon says, eyes going wide. “He — I didn’t know that.”

“He was telling me,” Yoongi says, “about how he got the impression that you’d want someone like me more than someone like him. I hope you didn’t fucking do anything to give him that impression, Namjoon, because he doesn’t deserve to be jerked around like that.”

“I never — look, no, no, I never said — I never weaponized it,” Namjoon says. “I didn’t — we only talked about this after that, and — he gets it, he—”

“Look, you don’t have to defend yourself to me,” Yoongi says. “Your relationship is your business. But — holy shit, Namjoon.”

“I know,” Namjoon says, sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, just — say that you love him,” Yoongi says. “That’s — what matters. That you didn’t just paint yourself into a corner.”

“I love him,” Namjoon says, and it’s genuine. “I love him so much. It’s — I really do want to marry him. I’ve meant every good thing I’ve ever said about him.”

“Well, good,” Yoongi says, still put off. “But it was still fucking cruel of you, you know. To — go forward with one before you were totally done with the other, or whatever it looked like from your end. I don’t fucking know. Is that — how it was?”

“Kind of,” Namjoon says, apologetic. “But — it’s not like that for me anymore. It’s not because—you never did anything wrong, Yoongi. I just need someone who can — speak up and tell me they love me with their whole chest, and — neither of us could do that for each other. Jungkook pulls me out of my shell. He’s never done anything halfway—”

“I haven’t done shit for you halfway,” Yoongi spits. “If you only fucking knew how much I—”

“Yoongi, come on,” Namjoon says. “Please, don’t do this again, not — now. Not here.”

“You’re gonna tell me not to do this? Is that why you asked me to come to some public place, so I couldn’t get mad at you? When you came to me — you came to me, Namjoon!”

“I did,” Namjoon admits, hanging his head. “I did, and I shouldn’t have.”

“You pay the bill, I actually can’t fucking talk to you right now,” Yoongi says, and turns on his heel, and leaves.

❀

Three days later, Yoongi gets a card in the mail.

To my bonsai protector, my mixtape collector, my lyric dissector, my very best friend,

Would you do me the honor of being the emcee at my wedding?

I told you once that I wanted you standing beside me on my wedding day. I made you promise, I think, but I want to ask again, now that it’s happening. Now that it’s real.

Just so you know, if you accept, you will have to give a speech (in return, I’ll stock the bar with your favorite scotch and you can pick the music for the whole event).

How does that sound?

Much love from your demo supporter, your ad libs recorder, your sick beats exporter, your very best friend,

Namjoon

Yoongi calls him right away.

“Namjoon,” he says. “I got your card.”

“Oh,” Namjoon says, clearly awkward. “Right. Sorry, I—I would have warned you, but—I forgot. I had them sent out before the party. I’m sorry.”

“So—I mean, I was an asshole to you this weekend.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon admits. “But—I was an asshole first.”

“Whatever,” Yoongi says. “So does the offer still stand or not?”

Namjoon’s response is immediate, assured. “Of course, Yoongi, are you kidding?”

Yoongi bites his lip. “It means a lot to me,” he says. “More than I—it means a lot. Would you let me think about it?”

“Take all the time you need.”

“There’s just a speech? Nothing else?”

“Nothing else at all.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know when I—yeah.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

Yoongi doesn’t move to hang up when he’s supposed to, but neither does Namjoon.

“Hey, Yoongi?” Namjoon says eventually.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to forgive me,” Namjoon says, and that’s surprising. It’s painful, actually, and Yoongi’s mind rejects it categorically. “You don’t. But—there are no hard feelings on my end, okay? About any of it.”

Yoongi smiles a little in spite of himself. “All right, you fucking sap.” He leans his hip on the counter and hugs his middle with his free arm. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Talk to you later, man.”

When Namjoon’s name disappears from the call screen, Yoongi’s mind is already made up.

❀

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Yoongi says. “I can’t do it. The emcee thing.”

Namjoon, to put it mildly, looks floored. His tone is measured, though, like he doesn’t want Yoongi to feel bad about it. “That’s all right,” he says. “All that title stuff is optional. Are you still—you’re still going to come, though, right?”

“Yes,” Yoongi tells him, “of course, I wouldn’t miss it,” and Namjoon breaks out into a wide grin.

“Good,” he says, “good, I’m so glad.”

“I just—I looked into the emceeing stuff,” Yoongi says, fiddling with the straw poking out of his iced Americano. “And it seems like—you know, you have to give a speech and—I just think maybe Jungkook’s brother would be better for—I don’t know, or—or Seokjin or something, you know—”

“I’m not concerned with who’s hypothetically a better emcee or whatever in this imagined scenario,” Namjoon says with a smile. “I asked you because I want it to be you. But if you’re really not into the idea—that’s fine. I’m happy to have you by my side however you feel the most comfortable.”

“It can’t be me,” Yoongi says, “but I’ll be there. With you. No matter what.”

❀

Yoongi’s halfway through a cup of coffee and two-thirds of the way through a cigarette when the mail comes through the slot. Bills, bills, coupons, bills, and—

Yoongi slides a finger under the flap of the cream-colored envelope at the bottom of the stack.

It’s not real until it’s real.

Now, after all this time, it’s real.

Together with their families

KIM NAMJOON

&

JEON JUNGKOOK

invite you to join them

in celebrating their marriage

on Saturday, June 13, 2020

on the lawn at Aston House, Grand Walkerhill Seoul

with dinner to follow.

To RSVP:

There are 2 seats reserved in your honor.

___ Delightfully accept

___ Regretfully decline

Chapter Text

Jimin is six years old, and he doesn’t have any friends at school (yet, his mother says).

He’s shy, the kind of shy that makes him overcompensate by being loud, obnoxious, and over-friendly (but he’ll grow out of it, his father says).

He doesn’t get it; he just wants to be liked.

So when a small boy moves in down the road and asks Jimin if he wants to play One Piece in the front yard with him (“you can be Zoro if I can be Luffy”), he says yes right away.

He’s sweet, this boy, with huge glassy eyes and a seemingly-perpetual open-mouthed pout. He follows Jimin around like he’s the king of the universe, and Jimin loves it.

❀

One day, years later, after a blur of neighborhood shenanigans and playdates and games of KartRider, Jungkook tugs on Jimin’s coat during their afternoon walk around the trail near their street.

“Jiminie?”

“It’s hyung,” Jimin corrects, feigning sternness. “Jimin hyung.”

“Jiminie hyungie—”

Jimin rolls his eyes, grinning in spite of himself. “What, Jungkook?”

“Do you wanna marry me?”

Jimin stops in his tracks, boots crunching the dead leaves beneath his feet. He glances back over his shoulder at Jungkook, who’s peeking at him over the coil of a knitted red scarf. “What are you talking about?”

Jungkook blinks, eyes wide as always, little mouth hidden beneath the chunky yarn. “I said, do you wanna—”

“I mean, I heard what you said, but—”

“It’s just that,” Jungkook starts, scuffing his boot on the worn dirt trail. “Junghyun hyungie said you’d grow out of wanting to hang out with me once you turn ten, and — I don’t want you to grow out of liking me, so I thought maybe—”

Jimin grins and ruffles Jungkook’s soft dark hair. Jungkook’s only two years younger, but Jimin thinks it’s pretty obvious how different they are in terms of maturity. “I’m not going to get sick of you, Koo,” he says, humoring him. “I’ll tell you what. We can get married, but we have to wait, okay? We have to grow up first. You have to get a job and I have to become a super famous idol. If we get married too early, we won’t have enough money to buy a big house, you know?”

“Okay, sure,” Jungkook says, clearly cooling on the details of the proposition now that his leading worry is assuaged. “So you’ll keep hanging out with me? Even when you go to middle school?”

“I don’t know,” Jimin teases, leading the way back down the wooded trail towards their neighborhood again. “Are you gonna keep letting me win on KartRider, bunny boy?”

“Yes!” Jungkook blurts, jogging and hopping along to keep up with Jimin’s longer strides. “Yeah, and I’ll share my tteokbokki at lunch.”

“And?” Jimin says, bringing his knees up high in the spirit of their march back home. Jungkook follows suit, stomping through the leaves that gather on the pathway.

“And I won’t touch your swords anymore. And when it’s my turn to walk Gureum I’ll walk him right past your house and let you pet him.”

“Deal,” Jimin says, giggling. “That’s a deal, Jungkookie.”

-

Since what feels like the very beginning, Jimin has always dreamed of a fairytale romance, the kind that comes to fruition in the final scene of some sappy drama right before the credits roll. He’s always wanted someone to dote on him, to show him off, to praise him — but Jimin, age fifteen now, will just have to keep imagining it, because he hasn’t even had his first kiss yet.

Now that he’s finally in high school, though, this is going to be his year.

What’s more, he’s set his sights on someone: his neighbor friend, Jungkook. They’re close, so close, and they do everything together, from going on long walks through the roads behind their houses to taking naps in Jimin’s bed after a few hours of StarCraft. It’s so easy with Jungkook in a way that it’s never been easy with anyone in the world before, at least for Jimin, who has never quite made friends apart from the doe-eyed boy in the corner house.

So, when Jimin starts thinking about kissing, it only makes sense that he starts thinking about kissing Jungkook.

It’s innocent, of course, because they’re both young and Jimin doesn’t really know more than what movies have shown him anyway. But he wants to try it, sometimes, wants to lean in and press his lips against Jungkook’s just to see what the other boy would do. He imagines his eyes going wide, those big big brown eyes. He’s not sure what people are supposed to do once they’ve started kissing, so he imagines just pressing his lips to Jungkook’s for a few moments until one of them sits back, pink-cheeked and ready to confess their undying love.

But he doesn’t want to upset Jungkook, to lose his trust, his friendship.

It’s too important.

It’s all Jimin has.

So he saves it, packages it away and tucks it deep into his heart, to unwrap when he has more time, more space, more love to give. He dreams of that day, what it will be like, how it will feel to lean in and press his mouth to Jungkook’s after so much waiting, to back away and see Jungkook’s devilish grin, the exact one that charms his face when he knows he’s about to convince Jimin to do something naughty.

He wants to give Jungkook room, time to figure himself out, time to recognize that he wants to kiss Jimin, too. Jimin has been there for him forever, his doting hyung, his careful teacher, and Jungkook has always looked up to him so completely. Jimin wonders if it’s already beginning, if the seed is already planted, if it was planted long ago. It feels easy to imagine, that Jungkook could fall head over heels for Jimin someday.

But that vision crumbles into dust one evening in August when Jungkook raps his knuckles on Jimin’s bedroom window.

“What?”

“Hey, I wanted to tell you something. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, climb up, I’ve got you—”

Jimin grabs Jungkook by the forearms and helps hoist him through the first-floor window of his cramped little room. They settle on his unmade bed, under the purple lighting of his neon lamp.

“It’s late, bun,” Jimin says, tucking his chin a little.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “My dad just got home from work, that’s why.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He said — Jimin, I’ve really got to tell you—”

“Jimin hyung.”

“Jimin hyung, I’m moving away.”

Jimin blinks. 

His world stops right in front of his eyes.

“What?”

“I’m moving out of the neighborhood. I don’t know where to yet, but Abeoji got a new job and—”

Jimin can’t believe what he’s hearing. He feels like he’s watching himself tear up from ten feet above his own head, watching Jungkook curl inwards and worry the oversized sleeves of his hoodie in his small hands.

“You’re leaving me?” Jimin gasps, more than a little shocked and shamefully angry. He knows it’s not Jungkook’s fault, per se, but it still feels, in this moment, like the worst kind of personal attack.

This is not how he’d expected things to go at all.

Jungkook furrows his brow, eyes wide and worried. “I’m not trying to leave you,” he says, a characteristic pout forming with the growing jut of his bottom lip. “I’m sorry, hyungie.”

A week later, Jimin is standing out on the sidewalk, watching Jungkook’s parents load the last of their suitcases into the back of the family car. Jungkook stuffs his gym bag in the backseat and tears away from the vehicle to throw himself into Jimin’s arms; Jimin gasps and clutches him close, lets Jungkook’s older brother roll his eyes, lets his own tears fall as he holds his first and only friend.

“I don’t want you to be mad at me, Jimin hyung,” Jungkook whispers.

Jimin lets out a shuddery exhale, squeezes him in praise for not needing the hyung correction for once in his life. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, “you can’t help it. I’m just — I’m sad, Jungkookie.”

“I just thought — because you yelled when I told you — that maybe you’d be mad and then we wouldn’t be friends, even on instant messenger anymore, and then—”

“Shh, shh.” Jimin rocks him a little, squeezes again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t — mean it like that. I want to be friends with you forever, bunny.”

“We are friends forever, then.”

In spite of himself, Jimin smiles through the tears tracking down his cheeks. 

“Hey,” Jungkook says, watching as his parents and his brother make one last trek towards the house in preparation for a final sweep. Once they’re inside, he turns back to Jimin, eyes glinting. “You didn’t forget about our pact, right?”

Jimin tilts his head.

“That we’ll get married someday. Once you get famous and I get rich. Or whatever.”

Jimin laughs out loud at that, surprised and pleased, and he pulls Jungkook close again. “I didn’t forget. I thought you would, though.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “Could never forget,” he says. “I’ve liked you forever. So — I’ll show you someday, Jimin hyung.”

Jimin’s heart does a double-trip in his chest, squeezing Jungkook tight. “I like you, too,” he whispers.

Jungkook pulls back just enough for Jimin to see his foxlike grin, just enough to really feel it when Jungkook leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek.

The Jeons make their way back outside before Jimin can react, so he just hugs Jungkook tight, hugs him until he hears them calling Jungkook’s name.

When Jungkook finally has to go, they wave at each other until they’re both completely out of sight.

So, instead of falling in love with a boy, Jimin falls in love with dance.

He spends all four of his precious high school years in the studio room instead of at parties or smuggling soju bottles out of the 7/11 like his other classmates. He learns to sway in contemporary modes and isolate his body for hip-hop; he stretches his limbs and watches his sugar intake and bandages his blistered feet day after day. Sometimes, the only reason he continues is his sense of blind, stubborn determination — and his teacher’s endless belief in his ability.

He doesn’t make any other friends, not really. No one like Jungkook. No one in the world could be like Jungkook, Jimin thinks, the purest soul with the cutest manner, polite and reckless all at once.

When he’s lonely, his mind wanders to Jungkook’s last day in the neighborhood, when Jimin got his almost-first kiss. He wonders where they’d be if Jungkook had stayed, if they would have kissed for real by now, if they’d be in love.

It’s easy to slip into it, this harmless thought pattern, because it feels safe and familiar and Jungkook will never have to know about it anyway. Jimin can’t help but imagine what Jungkook looks like now, if he’s tall, if he took up sports like he always said he would, if he still has those big glassy eyes and those cute bunny teeth.

He tries texting him a few times, but Jungkook is notoriously bad at responding, always has been, so Jimin eventually stops trying even though it hurts.

It’s been a while since he’s felt this alone.

Whenever he gets too far into his own head, he packs his bag and goes to the studio, and that’s why, his father says, he’s at the top of his class.

But whatever the reason, it’s hard.

But, at the end of it all, he has something to show for those years, unlike the others: a talent turned into a skill, a toned, healthy body — and, most notably, a sizable scholarship to the Korea National University of Arts.

-

Jimin moves to Seoul in the summertime.

He unloads his meager belongings at his new dormitory with little fanfare, and the whole day is curated to feel just as casual, just as manageable: his parents and his little brother drive him up and take him out to eat afterwards, no fussing or dramatics. Jimin doesn’t like to cry in front of them, doesn’t like to draw attention to his nervousness, so he stays quiet, trapped in his own head, worrying as he works his way through his entree.

The first night is the hardest; Jimin has always been something of an insomniac, but tonight allows him little to no sleep at all. He tosses and turns for hours, scrolls on his phone in a moment of weakness, loops himself into thought patterns of trying hard enough or proving myself or how good will everyone else be?

The worst one, though, is the one he’s had all his life.

What if no one likes me?

-

What happens next surprises Jimin more than his actual admission to K-Arts did.

He actually makes a friend.

Kim Taehyung, a lanky boy with a broad, squared-off grin and an odd manner of speaking, draws Jimin in with his endearing charm — he’s wildly popular despite his bizarreness, fervently social despite his idiosyncrasies.

So when he brings Jimin into his circle, drawn right up close to him, and doesn’t let him go — of course it’s surprising.

Jimin likes Taehyung, loves him for his kindness and boldness, for making space for him on the cafeteria bench and recommending webtoons to him in the middle of the night. They’re same-age friends, and that feels like fate.

They spend most days together, now, watching anime or making stupid skit videos with the help of Jimin’s battered iPhone, dressing up in fancy clothes and model-walking the short length of Taehyung’s dorm room as if they were at Paris Fashion Week. They laugh together often, Jimin falling bodily against the now-familiar warmth of Taehyung, Taehyung hauling him up before they both double over again. 

Before long, they’re inseparable.

Before long, it becomes something more.

It’s still platonic, Jimin thinks, still friendship, in one of its many-layered forms.

But they fall into each other’s beds most nights, and that’s new, sleeping curled up around each other like animals keeping warm, waking up with each other’s stale breath in their faces and smiling about it.

They cling to each other, shifting into each other’s laps when there are no seats left at a party, leaving group dinners to go outside and huddle together while Taehyung sucks on his vape pen, slinking off to back rooms and closets just to be together, alone.

It’s not long before it starts feeling like a fairytale, too.

It’s different than Jimin had imagined — it’s fast, fast and intense and a little bit hilarious — but he finds that he doesn’t mind that so much, lets the rigid rod of his expectations bend a little for Taehyung and his sweet softness.

He wonders where this part, this friendly little affair, fits into the storybook.

-

“Jiminie,” Taehyung whispers in the dark one night. 

Jimin lifts his head from his arm to hear properly. “Mm?”

“Have you had your first kiss yet?”

Something twists in Jimin’s gut. Nerves, maybe, or humiliation, because—

“No,” he whispers back, wondering if he should count the cheek kiss from Jungkook just to save face, but he doesn’t because he’s always honest with Taehyung, always present with him.

“Me either,” Taehyung says, “at least — not with a boy. I kissed a girl during orientation, when we were at the resort, but—I didn’t want it to count. I like girls, but I didn’t really like her.” He pauses, going back over his syntax, and jumps to issue a tone correction. “She was fine! She just — I just didn’t know her at all.”

“Mm,” Jimin says again.

“I want to have my real first kiss with someone I actually like,” Taehyung says, hushed. “I want to know what it feels like when there are — emotions involved.”

“Me, too,” Jimin says, and then he furrows his brow. “You haven’t ever told me who you like.”

“Honestly — this is going to sound bad,” Taehyung says, “but I don’t really like anyone, but I still want to kiss somebody before our first year is over. I mean, I like people, but I don’t like-like them. So — I was thinking — I could get pretty close. To that. With — a friend.”

Jimin feels himself holding his breath. He hums again, waiting, waiting. He feels Taehyung’s long fingers scritching up and down his back, pressing on the perpetual knots in Jimin’s shoulders that dance has so unkindly gifted him for life. Taehyung likes to touch him like this, to reach out and make contact with his body somehow, for some reason, without a purpose besides the endless pursuit of closeness. 

It happens more often when he’s nervous, and now Jimin is nervous, too.

“Do you want to share a first kiss?” Taehyung whispers.

Jimin’s heart stutters, and Taehyung’s hands on his shoulder blades must feel the way he freezes up a little, but—

It’s not like he’s getting it from anyone else anytime soon.

There’s no one to save it for; Jimin doesn’t even know where Jungkook is, much less when he’ll see him again.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and turns in Taehyung’s hold.

Taehyung doesn’t really give him any time to think before his mouth is on Jimin’s, open and hot, so much more in so many dimensions than Jimin had ever expected. He feels what must be Taehyung’s tongue prodding at the seam of his lips; he parts them reflexively, letting his hands track over Taehyung’s lean chest.

Again, Taehyung surprises him.

He thought first kisses were supposed to be chaste, calm, brief.

The way they look in fairytales.

The way he’d always imagined them to be with Jungkook, someday.

But this one — this one is sending his mind reeling. He can’t keep up, but it feels good, and like always, Taehyung waits for him. Waits for him to figure it out, to slot himself in where he belongs: right up against Taehyung himself.

So when Jimin finally starts to pull himself together, when he finally starts pressing back, Taehyung lets out a warm, happy sound, an excited little buzz, and kisses him even deeper, somehow.

If Jungkook was like a bunny, then Taehyung’s a puppy, Jimin thinks as their mouths slide together, slick with spit. He pets his hair, pulls him closer, snuggles up to his chest. Their chins knock together and their noses brush, but Taehyung seems determined to keep going, doggedly, and Jimin’s happy to let him.

They make out for what feels like hours that night, just wet, languid kisses and nothing more. They do it the next night, too, and many other nights after that, but it never goes farther, never becomes the romance that Jimin longs for from someone. That’s fine, because Taehyung is Taehyung and not exactly Jimin’s idea of a Prince Charming (tall, broad, and muscular), and because Jimin likes this casual way they seek each other out for touch, but it stays in the back of his mind as he moves through the rest of the semester.

He wants something, though, with someone, because even if he can’t have Jungkook right now, even if he has to wait, he still craves the touch he’d been devoid of for so long.

So he keeps kissing Taehyung, no strings attached, and sometimes, only sometimes, he imagines that it’s the grown-up, imaginary version of Jungkook instead.

In his second year, he meets Hoseok, and the cycle begins again.

-

Hoseok is magnetic. He’s unlike anyone that Jimin has ever met; he’s an entertainer without being opaque as a result, a guy that Jimin feels like he can get to know right away, in one evening, no holds barred.

He’s a transfer student, slightly older than Jimin but in a way that’s entirely irrelevant — they’re in the same classes, both pulled up to the front because of their leading talent, because of their near-perfect lines, and any hierarchy between them ends up being purely a formality.

They fall in together quite quickly, becoming each other’s coffee dates before class and lunch companions afterwards, both holding each other accountable to eat, eat, you need the energy.

They’re not real dates, Jimin suspects; Hoseok’s just seemingly the kind of person to make any plan at all and say “it’s a date!”, no matter who he’s talking to. But, because Jimin’s full of buzzing, experimental energy, he wonders if there’s something there, if they could make something out of this.

Like Taehyung, Hoseok isn’t exactly his usual type, but he likes the way Hoseok smiles at him, likes the way his body moves and the way he sounds when he gives advice, like a freshly-laundered fuzzy blanket wrapping itself around Jimin’s aching body, lulling him into some kind of ease.

So, when Jimin gets a little too drunk at one of Hoseok’s apparently-famous inter-college parties, he tries to kiss him.

He doesn’t actually end up doing it, though, because before he knows it, Hoseok’s squeezing his shoulder and pulling him into a hug instead.

“Oh, Jimin, Jimin,” he says, nearly laughing, “Jwiminie, you’ve had five drinks.”

“I’ve had four,” Jimin insists, plush mouth against Hoseok’s pec, an accidental kiss of much less romantic proportions than Jimin had hoped for. “The one I’m holding now — okay, yeah, this is five, but I haven’t finished it yet—”

Hoseok hums, rocks him back and forth a little, swaying them in the dark hallway where Jimin had gone looking for him moments earlier, knowing he’d escaped the din to break the seal. “However many it is,” he says, “it’s too many for this kind of thing.”

“But,” Jimin starts, and he knows he’s pouting, but he can’t help it.

“Shh,” Hoseok says, holding him close as they sway. “You’re my favorite person, Jiminie, but I don’t think this is really what either of us are looking for, is it?”

Jimin is definitely pouting now. “It’s — I just — well.”

“No offense,” Hoseok says brightly. “Everybody has to experiment. But I’d rather not be an experiment. I’d rather just be your friend, you know?”

“I know,” Jimin mumbles. “Okay.”

“And you’ve been drinking,” Hoseok says with mocking chastisement, and Jimin doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before, that Hoseok has become the mother hen of their little group, Jimin and Taehyung’s fierce protector and advice-giver and shirt-ironer. “I don’t kiss people after drinking.”

“Oh,” Jimin says, swaying for a whole new reason now. He feels warm, off-balance, like his clothes are too tight, like he must be pale and clammy to the touch. “Okay,” he says, and then he stumbles out of Hoseok’s hold, barricades himself in the hallway bathroom, and throws up.

Hoseok follows him in after he’s had a while for privacy, kneeling and smoothing his sweaty hair back off his forehead. “Easy, Jiminie,” he says. “Taehyung is bringing you some water, and I have extra toothbrushes under the sink. How are you feeling?”

“Miserable,” Jimin says, pressing his cheek to the pristine chill of porcelain. If there’s one thing that Jimin can bet on, it’s that Hoseok’s house is spotless. “Sorry I tried to kiss you and then threw up all over your clean bathroom.”

“Oh, hush,” Hoseok says, rubbing Jimin’s back in slow, grounding circles. “My baby. Don’t apologize. Let’s just get you feeling better and wrapped up in bed.”

Under normal circumstances, Jimin would at least pretend to protest the kid-gloves handling, but tonight, he concedes that it’s just what he needs.

-

The first year at K-Arts sails smoothly once Jimin has established a grammar with Taehyung and Hoseok. By the end of the year, Jimin is back in his comfort zone — the top of the class — and, this time, he has people to celebrate it with.

They go out for drinks, Taehyung and Hoseok trading tabs each round, and Jimin has the best time he’s had in years, maybe forever, sandwiched in the booth by the two people that he loves most in this wretched city.

He lets Hoseok dance with him in the middle of the crowd, swaying their hips in time, grinding a little and giggling about it after, and he lets Taehyung kiss him some in the bathroom, just for fun.

It’s perfect, Jimin thinks.

It’s perfect.

-

“You know,” Taehyung says that night as they’re lying curled together under the covers, still a little tipsy, “if you want, we could — do more.”

Jimin blinks widely at him in the dark. “Like — more than kissing, you mean.”

Taehyung nods, the rustling of his hair against the pillow echoing in Jimin’s ear pressed to the same fabric. “We gave each other our first kisses,” he says, “sort of. So it only makes sense.”

Jimin yawns, nestles in, touches Taehyung’s hand under the covers. “I’ll think about it,” he tells him after a while, and Taehyung nods, tucks his head against Jimin’s shoulder, and snores until dawn.

Over the next week or so, Jimin finds that, when he does think about it, he gets shivery and hot, like he can imagine the phantom touches of Taehyung flitting over his feverish skin. He trusts Taehyung, and beyond that, he loves him, in the way that only soulmates can love one another.

So he says yes.

He says yes because, like last time, he’s not waiting on anything or anyone.

He never promised Jungkook that he’d wait for him, and Jimin can’t imagine holding out on a chance like this just for some childhood promise, even if the certainty of having it comforts him.

So he and Taehyung sleep together, that night and many nights afterward, always just as friends but always so, so good. Taehyung’s a little weird in bed, a little gross, but he’s positively worshipful, and Jimin loves the way he draws things out, makes it feel romantic even when it’s not, when they’ve said plainly that it’s not. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that Taehyung—

Well, Jimin supposes that he already has enough fantasies about boys he can’t have, so he cuts the train of thought off there whenever it worms its way to the forefront of his mind.

Instead, he focuses on enjoying the newly-regular sex he’s having, how nice it feels to have it as a bookend for a hard day when his body’s already aching and tired. Taehyung massages him before and after, always, and even if he didn’t, Jimin would endure the physical exhaustion of it all just for the sake of getting to feel Taehyung’s (honestly massive, relative to his scrawny frame) dick drag inside him as it lulls him to sleep.

It occurs to Jimin often in these moments, as he feels Taehyung sliding in and out of him as he himself slides deeper into sleep, that Taehyung may need time to grow into his dick, in just the same way that he will need to grow into his big ears and long fingers.

A puppy boy, Jimin thinks. Cute.

-

Having this arrangement does something else for Jimin, too, he realizes: it allows him to dig into his studies without defaulting back to being boy-crazy. He’d gone so long without friendship that, for a while, he’d felt the need to overcompensate, to put things to the test, to make Taehyung and Hoseok prove over and over again that they liked him, that they wanted to be around him. 

Jimin’s as secure in that now as he thinks he can be, so he just enjoys his lunch dates with Hoseok and his whatever-this-is with Taehyung and puts the rest of his mental energy into preparing for his end-of-the-year showcase.

In the end, it goes off without a hitch, and his two best friends are right there in the front row, cheering loud and proud, just for him.

In this moment, staring down at them through the blinding glare of the stage lights, Jimin thinks he’ll be happy like this for life, fairy-tale ending or not.

-

“Oh, you’ll love this,” Jimin’s mother says on the phone a mere three days after Jimin arrives at K-Arts for the new year. “You know that little neighborhood boy who used to play that pirate game with you?”

Jimin sits up straight at his desk. “Jungkook?”

“Yes, yes, he had the biggest eyes, remember?”

“Yeah, Eomeoni, I remember—”

“Well,” his mother says, drawing it out for maximum dramatic effect, “his mother called me and said that he’s on his way up to Seoul right now for school.”

Jimin’s heart is in his throat.

It’s happening.

After all this time, his childish prophecy, his silly little true love fantasy, is actually coming true.

Jimin can’t get his words out fast enough.

“Do you know what university he’s—”

“Wouldn’t you believe it,” his mother says, “she called because she heard you were going to the same school. He’ll be at K-Arts for theater and dance or something like that. His mother just wants to know that someone familiar will be around to keep an eye on him, you know? So I told her that you’d pick him up from the train station and show him around campus. You will, won’t you?”

“Yeah — yes, of course—”

“Well, good. His train will get in around two today, so maybe you could find some late lunch and catch up. I’ll put some money in your account so you can pay for him, too. But don’t go anywhere expensive.”

“Okay, Eomeoni, thank you—”

“Tell me how he’s grown up, okay? I’m so curious. He was such a sweet, shy little boy—”

“I’ll call you tonight,” Jimin says, eyes darting around his cramped matchbox of a dorm room to find contenders for the perfect meet-cute train pickup outfit. “Uh, does he know to look for me on the platform, or—?”

“I’ll have his mother send him a text. And be nice to him, Jimin, if he’s anything as shy as he used to be, he’ll be scared to death.”

“I’m always nice, Eomeoni.”

“Yes, well. Wear something nice, too, I hate the idea of you wandering around the city in a pair of sweatpants from dance practice.”

“I will, Eomeoni.”

“Two o’clock train from Busan. You got it?”

“I got it, thank you—”

And with that, his mother hangs up and Jimin is left to dig something nice out of his haphazardly-packed drawers and contemplate the absolute fairy tale that is, for once, his very own life.

❀

When Jungkook steps off the train, Jimin doesn’t even recognize him.

Jungkook must remember Jimin’s face, though, because before Jimin has visually picked over the rest of the university-age passengers milling about, a boy with floppy hair and bright doe eyes leaps off the train (with a bag full of, Jimin later finds, neatly-folded black clothes and nearly nothing else). The boy makes his way over to Jimin, beaming—Jimin’s eyes widen in shock as he takes in the piercings, the leather, the tattoos—and pulls him into a crushing hug. He tucks his chin over Jimin’s shoulder, squeezing his rib cage tight.

“Jungkookie,” Jimin breathes, hugging back. He’s shocked; all along, Jimin had thought that he himself would be the one who had the biggest transformation, the biggest wow factor, but here Jungkook is looking like this. He’d almost be jealous if he weren’t so entranced. “You’re so tall!” he exclaims, falling against him and cosying up to his very muscular and very possibly tattooed chest.

“Am I?” Jungkook laughs against Jimin’s hair.

“Yes,” Jimin says on an inhale. “I can’t believe how—how different you look, oh my God, your tattoos—”

“Yeah, I know, but let me see you, too,” Jungkook says, drawing back to hold Jimin at arms’ length.

“Oh—well—” His fit, compact dancer’s body is one of Jimin’s most key assets, and Jimin knows it. Downplaying how hot he knows he is, being coy—that’s another. He searches Jungkook’s face for any sign of attraction, anything that might give him an excuse to preen. “I’ve grown up well too, you know, I—”

“Wow, you look exactly the same,” Jungkook tells him, all in a rush. 

Jimin frowns.

That wasn’t what he was going for at all.  

“You’re basically the same height and everything—but I guess your cheeks aren’t as chubby,” Jungkook continues. He grins, nose scrunching, like he knows it’s something that would prickle at Jimin’s delicate ego. “It’s so good to see you, Jimin hyung.”

“It’s good to see you, too, bun,” Jimin says, smiling in spite of how thrown off he is by this whole turn of events, by how Jungkook looks. “Here, I’ll show you how to get to the dorms. Do you have a T-Money card already?”

❀

“Eomeoni,” Jimin exclaims into the phone as soon as his mother picks up that evening. “Jungkookie’s grown up so well. You wouldn’t even believe what he looks like now—”

“Oh?” Like Jimin, his mother is always interested in keeping up, as it were. “Did you take any pictures with him at lunch? Did you dress well? I don’t want Mrs. Jeon calling me and asking why my son is walking around Seoul in track pants—”

“Aish, Eomeoni, I put something together. I’ll text you the picture we took — do you see it? I just sent it. He’s so much taller than me now and—”

Jimin can tell the exact second that his mother opens his text message, because she shrieks. “Oh, what has he done to his arms—”

“I know!” Jimin exclaims, trying not to make it obvious how attractive he thinks it is. “Doesn’t he look like an idol or something?”

“He looks like a criminal, Jimin.”

“Well, he’s not. I barely recognized him, though, he looks so different—”

“Yes, well, it’s very dramatic,” Jimin’s mother says, sighing. “I thought he was a nice kid. I can’t believe he did that to the body his parents gave him—”

“Jungkookie’s a free spirit,” Jimin says, resting his chin in his hand, grinning at the wall. “He’s not trying to be disrespectful or anything.”

“Well, whether he’s trying to or not, he is — and don’t you get any ideas like that, Park Jimin.”

“I won’t!”

“You’d better not.”

“I won’t, Eomeoni.”

She sighs. “Well, I’m glad he got to you safe and sound, anyway.”

“Yeah, we’re actually going to dinner in the city soon—”

“—and you want some money from Appa’s wallet, don’t you?”

Jimin grins. “Maybe. Just for the first week before I start teaching at the studio—”

“Fine, fine, just for this week. But, who knows, maybe that Jeon boy can use some of his mafia money to buy you some meat.”

Jimin just rolls his eyes.

❀

As it turns out, Jungkook’s not exactly the pure fairytale prince that Jimin had once imagined that he would be.

If the tattoos weren’t enough of a hint, then his antics at the party he drags Jimin to after a week (just a week!) at K-Arts most certainly are.

“I’m in my slut era,” Jungkook yells into Jimin’s ear, sloshing his beer as he’s jostled by a group of guys lining up at the drinks table behind him. “I’m gonna kiss somebody by the end of the night. No, two people — no, three—”

“Jungkook,” Jimin starts, sighing and stepping out of the trajectory of Jungkook’s arc of spilt beer. “This is the first party of the semester. You’ve got plenty of time to find the right person.”

Jungkook grins. “I’m not trying to find the right person,” he says, eyes glinting. “I’m trying to get good at making out before I meet the right person.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Jimin says, and he almost wishes that it comes out meaner. Instead, he just sounds like a jealous mood-killer, and maybe that’s what he is anyway.

Jungkook brushes the barb off, though, and drains the plastic cup of beer in his hand. “This is just part of the college experience, Jiminie,” he says, grinning wide.

“Hyung,” Jimin corrects, but Jungkook is already distracted, already turning away from him to follow the shadow of another body into the crowd.

❀

Initially, Jimin expects that it will only take a few wild ragers for the shine to wear off, but it’s now week five and Jungkook is gone more than he’s not, following his theater TA, Seokjin, around like a puppy from party to party. It’s annoying, but Jimin grits his teeth and tries not to let it show just how bristly it makes him feel when Jungkook abandons him to go get laid, like Jimin’s the only one who’s actually here to study, like Seokjin’s the center of the universe and Jimin’s some old forgotten toy, someone who’s valuable only in the context of nostalgia, someone who’s only allowed to take up space in Jungkook’s circle because he’s grandfathered in or something.

It makes Jimin feel like a spoilsport, which he’s not, and, even worse, it makes him feel like a prude, which he’s not. But in comparison to Jungkook, Jimin feels both childish and eighty years old, the little brother tagging along after his hyung and the ahjussi scolding the neighborhood kids for wandering onto his front lawn.

In those moments, he rolls over in bed and vents to Taehyung, his best friend on the opposite bunk.

“You know that kid from my old neighborhood that’s going here now?”

Taehyung, bored and sleepy, is doing something with his nails. “Jungkook? Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, get this,” Jimin says, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the loft bed. “He’s going to parties.”

It falls flat, Jimin realizes, but he’s nothing if not stubborn, so he doesn’t elaborate.

Taehyung doesn’t look up from his nails for a while. When he does, it’s clear that he’s still waiting for the bomb to drop. “Okay, and?”

Jimin frowns. “Well—”

“We went to parties when we first started here,” Taehyung says. “We still go to parties. What’s the problem?”

Hugging himself, Jimin swings his feet and sighs. “He’s just not the person I thought he was,” he says meekly. “I think I just — remember him so differently from how he is now, and it’s — I don’t like it.”

“I mean,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “he’s not going to be the same as he was when he was eight or whatever, right?”

“He was older than that—”

“I said or whatever—”

“I’m just frustrated, Tae, okay?” Jimin throws himself back on the mattress with a soft thump. “I just miss our old friendship. I miss how he used to be.”

Taehyung abandons his nails and flops back onto his pillows. “What was he like back then?”

“He just,” Jimin begins, rolling over to hug his softest pillow. “He was just so kind. And always lost in thought, or daydreams, or whatever. I thought he had the sweetest, purest way of looking at the world. And he looked up to me so much.”

Taehyung grins, that familiar hint of mischief teasing at the corners of his mouth. “You just miss him hero-worshipping you and being too innocent to know how much of a mess you are.”

Jimin moves fast, and before Taehyung has time to react, he’s been assaulted by a flying pillow to the face. “Don’t be a bitch, I’m in a bad mood.”

“Jiminie,” Taehyung sighs, “you’ve been in a bad mood for days. Lighten up. Do you wanna get bingsu or something?”

So Jimin gives up on any possibility of doing homework before his eight-AM class and, instead, finds himself swapping bites of shaved ice with Taehyung, the night sweeter than condensed milk and molasses now that Jimin doesn’t have to think about Jungkook anymore.

But it doesn’t last.

❀

“Hoseok,” Jimin whines into the phone the next day.

“Is this about Jungkook?”

Jimin blinks. 

“Is it that obvious?”

“No, no,” Hoseok says, laughing into the receiver. “Taehyung texted me that you guys might not make it to the party because of — something about how Jungkook’s making you mad?”

“I’m not mad at him,” Jimin sighs, collapsing onto a bench outside the dance building. “I’m just annoyed, I guess. He’s supposed to be my friend and he just ditches me every time we go out, you know? Like he cares more about — I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“He’s just having fun,” Hoseok says softly. “But I know how you feel.” He pauses, and Jimin can tell he’s about to do that thing he does where he speaks directly to Jimin’s sensitivities, because Hoseok, unlike Jungkook, apparently, is a good friend. “He’s younger than you, remember?” Hoseok says, his soothing voice coming down the line and easing the tension in Jimin’s shoulders already. “He’s young, and he’s just moved out of his parents’ house for the first time, and he’s just a little excited. He needs time to settle into a place like where you are now, you know, a more mature routine. He’ll get there, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin sighs. “I feel like it didn’t take me that long,” he says. “I’ve always cared about school. I was class president in every school that held elections. I’ve always worked hard at dance, and — I practically sleep in the practice room, you know that. So, I mean — of course I care about aspects of life besides dick. Or whatever.”

“And — has that been getting you where you want to be?”

Jimin blinks. “Um,” he says. “I’m not really — I don’t really think I’m supposed to be raking in the rewards yet, hyung. This is the nose-to-the-grindstone part. And — what if — what if Jungkookie wastes all his grindstone years on hook-ups, then what? How’s he gonna take care of his parents someday? He’s already going to an arts school, we’re already going to have to work three times as hard as the business students will to get our careers off the ground—”

Hoseok’s soft, tittering laugh makes Jimin sigh again. “Jiminie, you just need to worry about yourself,” he says, scolding him gently. “Keep your head down and do what you always do — if that’s what you want. But it might be worth thinking about, you know, if you might be a little jealous that Jungkook’s making so much time to have fun, you know, with other people. You used to complain all the time about wanting a boyfriend—”

“I’m not jealous,” Jimin groans. “I’m not. I’m just irritated, that’s all.”

“Irritation is a secondary emotion,” Hoseok says sagely, softly. “What’s buried underneath that? What primary emotion is causing you to feel irr—”

“I don’t need that tarot card shit right now,” Jimin snaps. “I just want to — you know what? Maybe I will come to this fucking party tonight. Maybe I’ll just really show up.”

Jimin can tell that Hoseok’s smiling just from the sweet, sugary tone of his voice. “Come over at eight, then, Jimin-ah,” he says. “I’ll see you there.”

❀

Jimin almost regrets going, but Hoseok swings the door open with a flourish before Jimin can turn on his heel and book it back to the retreating taxi.

“Hobi hyung,” Jimin says, a nervous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Hi.”

“Wow, Jiminie,” Hoseok says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at Jimin’s daring outfit. “You really did show up, didn’t you?”

Jimin scoffs, cheeks burning hot under Hoseok’s teasing scrutiny. “Don’t make fun of me,” he whines, tugging at the short hem of his white t-shirt. “I tried really hard. I don’t have that many sexy clothes.”

“You have enough, apparently,” Hoseok says appraisingly. “Come in, get something to drink.”

Jimin nods and slips inside, skating around the edge of the thrumming crowd of near-strangers. He pulls his racing jacket a little tighter around him, feeling more than a little stupid and out-of-place now that he’s here amongst all these people who really belong, who have experience dressing up to be looked at. Jimin’s always liked being looked at — loved it, if he’s honest — but he hasn’t had much experience initiating it. 

“Hyung!” Jungkook bounces over to Jimin, drink in hand. He’s dressed like a futuristic goth kid, skin-tight black jeans contrasting comically with some gigantic black leather version of moon boots. Jimin plucks at Jungkook’s oversized flannel, scanning him up and down.

“Yah, how are you gonna get laid if no one can even see your body? I thought that was your whole goal, Jungkookie.”

“Easy, hyung,” Jungkook says, grinning like a shark. “I take my clothes off.”

Jimin slaps him on the chest, giggling in spite of himself. “Let me have a sip of your drink,” he says, and Jungkook passes it over. It tastes awful, some sort of college-party concoction cobbled together by broke students, but it’s still alcohol, so it’ll do.

“I didn’t think you’d show up,” Jungkook says, tilting his head to the side. “You’ve been kind of sulky lately.”

“I haven’t been sulking,” Jimin pouts. “I’ve just been — I’ve just had a lot of work to do. But now — I wanna have a good time with you, Jungkookie.”

Jungkook’s face lights up right away. “You do?”

“Yeah. Show me your ways. I’m dressed, I’m here — what’s next? What’s the first thing hyung should do to have fun?”

“I don’t think hyung needs me to figure that out,” Jungkook says, grinning, sly and cheeky. “Hoseok hyung told me that you used to kiss Taehyungie hyung and—”

“That’s enough,” Jimin squeals. “Don’t gossip about me! I’m supposed to be your best friend. You owe me a drink just for that, bun—”

Jungkook does get him a drink, and they spend most of the night dancing together, bodies pressed tight against each other, each showing off for the crowd and for the one right in front of them.

“You know, Jungkookie,” Jimin says conspiratorially, four plastic cups of beers in. “I have such a crush on you.”

Jungkook flushes bright red, brighter than his drink made him. “Hyung, stop, that’s so embarrassing—”

Jimin giggles, pitching forward and letting Jungkook catch him deftly in his strong arms. “I used to think,” he says, right up against Jungkook’s shoulder, or maybe his neck, “that we’d be together forever, someday. That you’re like my fairytale prince, and all we had to do was meet again—”

Jungkook laughs, digging his tattooed fingers into Jimin’s ribs to tickle him mercilessly. “You really took our marriage pact seriously, huh?”

Something in Jimin’s heart swells with something like pride or recognition. “You remember that?”

“Of course I remember it.”

Jimin grins. “Well,” he says. “What do you think?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Jungkook says, and Jimin laughs, too loud. “Let’s get you another drink, hyung.”

Once Jungkook has snaked his way back through the crowd towards the drinks table, Jimin hugs himself, warm and pleased and prideful. The party pulses around him, loud and chaotic, but Jimin only has eyes for the dark head bobbing in the far corner of the room.

He’s so, so glad he came.

❀

That party is just the beginning.

Over the next few months, Jimin grits his teeth, abandons his misplaced sense of propriety, and throws all caution to the wind.

He’s not sure exactly what the trigger was, but something about being shut up in his dorm room most nights with his laptop and an energy drink just isn’t doing it for him anymore.

Is he really going to waste his life like this, being bitter at people who do things differently?

Maybe, if he wants Jungkook so badly, he should meet him where he is instead of expecting Jungkook to stay the same. Jungkook seems to like who he is, how he’s changed since Jimin last saw him.

Maybe, just maybe, a little change would do Jimin some good, too.

So, once the fall comes back around, Jimin orchestrates a lifestyle shift.

He goes out on dates. Most of them are bad dates, but they’re dates all the same.

He gets kissed, too, kissed and touched and fucked pretty well, when he’s lucky.

He drinks more, works out more, studies less (but enough to still get straight A’s).

He bleaches his hair and dyes it orange.

He buys a denim jacket — but only because he can’t quite bring himself to buy a leather one.

On his twenty-first birthday, he gets his own tattoo, a neat little 13 on his wrist to symbolize his birthday — and that’s when Taehyung finally stages an intervention.

“Jimin-ah,” he pleads, turning his phone around so that Jimin can see Hoseok’s worried-mama-bird face phoned in on the tiny screen. “Just slow down. We don’t want you to get hurt or have regrets about—”

“I’m not gonna have any regrets,” Jimin says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just some hair dye and the tiniest tattoo I could’ve possibly gotten. It literally doesn’t matter.”

“It’s just not like you, Jimin,” Taehyung pouts, and Jimin groans.

“You just don’t like that I’m getting more comfortable with myself. Taking risks. Living life.”

Taehyung looks affronted. “I don’t like that you’re not acting like my best friend anymore! The Jimin I know would never ditch his night class to go get a tattoo—”

“You’re so weirdly traditional, Tae—”

“I grew up with my grandmother, Jimin! On a farm—”

Hoseok’s tinny phone-speaker voice cuts in. “You ought to back off a little, Taehyungie,” he says kindly, “but you, Jimin—”

Jimin flops back against his mattress. “Ugh, not you too—”

He can feel the burn of Hoseok’s patented scolding look through the glass of Taehyung’s screen. “I’m glad you’re putting yourself out there and expressing yourself, but you really ought to consider the impacts of things like this on your performance potential. Casting agents might not approve of orange hair or tattoos or—”

“Jesus Christ, both of you, just leave me alone!” Jimin hollers, gripping his hair with both hands. “I’m miserable, okay? I was miserable before, but I didn’t know it, and now that I’m trying to fix it, you guys are making me even more miserable than I used to be!”

“Jimin,” Hoseok begins, but Taehyung just clicks his tongue.

“Cool off, Jimin,” he spits. “Don’t be a bitch just because you’re insecure about—”

Jimin’s blood is boiling. “Oh, don’t you dare — I am not insecure, I’m in the best place I’ve ever—”

“Yeah, because you’re avoiding everything—”

“What exactly am I avoiding, Kim Taehyung?”

“How am I supposed to know, since you never tell me what you’re thinking anymore—”

“That’s it,” Jimin spits, sliding down off the bed and grabbing his coat off the back of his desk chair. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t text me.”

❀

Jimin had thought, right after they’d blown up at each other, that his and Taehyung’s fight would fizzle out like all their other ones had.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, Jimin begs his way into sleeping over at Hoseok’s for a few nights — until Hoseok starts nagging him about making up with Taehyung, and Jimin, hurt and cornered, lashes out again.

Hoseok doesn’t force him out, doesn’t even ask him to leave, but Jimin’s out the door before Hoseok can really stop him, because Jimin has it set in his mind that it’s better this way, that it has to be like this.

He finds one of the base-model single-room apartments that sustain Seoul’s student populace and settles in.

For a few weeks, he’s absolutely miserable.

It feels, for all intents and purposes, like he’s five years old again, desperate and friendless, with no insight into why his social world falls apart around him time after time.

Perhaps he hasn’t really changed at all; perhaps he’s still just as unlikeable as his classmates made him feel back then.

Perhaps Jungkook was a one-off, just as lonely, a little kid who didn’t know any better than to befriend the anime-obsessed loser on the block.

Perhaps Taehyung, the luminous, gorgeous social butterfly that he is, took pity on him and brought him under his wing like one of the cliquey mean girls from Jimin’s high school nightmares.

Perhaps Hoseok is just too kind to let Jimin down, even gently.

He tries to throw himself back into dance, but he’s spinning out, unable to focus, and soon he literally spins out of a turn and his ankle swells up and turns purple and it hurts. Jimin has to take a week off before they’ll even tell him when he can go back, and it breaks him.

While he’s laid up in bed, he subtly unblocks his friends on social media just to check up on them, to get a spying lens into Hoseok’s parties and Taehyung’s art and how they might be feeling. No matter what, he wants them to be all right, with or without him.

They look happy, like everyone does on Instagram.

They look busy, sleepy, normal.

It hurts more than the ankle for sure.

-

Dance can never be enough so long as it can be taken from him, Jimin realizes as the week drags on, as it turns into two more weeks and PT, probably, we’ll see.  

The work can never be enough, not now that he’s had more than just that, only that.

Jimin needs people.

So he starts seeing more of one of his dance friends, Taemin, who is two years older but half as extroverted, and he finds that he likes the contrast of a quiet night at home every once in a while. After a while, he finds that he likes Taemin, likes his kind face and his excitable manner and the way his gaze lingers on Jimin’s mouth when they’re alone.

But Taemin won’t make a move — or can’t bring himself to make a move, whichever — so, one brave and blusteringly chilly afternoon, Jimin moves for the both of them.

After a dull day’s work of getting ahead on a choreography analysis paper, he sends Taemin a quick text: i’ll make jjigae if you bring dessert around 8?

In the ensuing three hours, Jimin spot-cleans his one-room apartment, runs to the convenience store down the road for a fresh pack of tofu, and sets the pork searing in a sizzling pan alongside some leftover kimchi. He lays out the batchim in little dishes, preparing a serving bowl for the soup, and waits.

When Taemin texts him for the door code, Jimin starts to feel almost nervous, his belly clenching as he taps out the number sequence on his phone.

But once some time has passed, once the warmth of Taemin’s smile has seeped into Jimin’s bones like a crackling fire, he settles.

This isn’t so hard after all, he thinks.

Once they’re seated, Jimin reaches for the bottle of red wine and lets his pour run long, sliding a generous glass across the table once the ruby pool inside catches the light. He pours some into his own glass, too, twisting the bottle as the drizzle thins, and when he presses his lips to the neck to stem the flow of one dark drip, he can feel Taemin’s heavy gaze on him.

“How do you do it?” Taemin asks him, breathless. “How is everything always perfect with you?”

Jimin smiles a little, coy on the outside but warmed through inside. “I’m hardly perfect,” he says, tipping his head back just enough to bare the line of his throat as he takes another sip of wine.

“Don’t be difficult,” Taemin says, grinning. “Listen, the soup was really good.”

Jimin settles into his chair a little more, preening from the flattery. “Makes you miss home, doesn’t it? Hot spicy soup and—”

“And good company,” Taemin says, the lamplight dancing in his eyes as he finishes off his wine. “Hey, listen.”

“Mm?”

He sits forward in his chair, hands on the curved wooden arms. “Let’s get some air,” he says.

Jimin nods and rises, crossing the room to slide the door to his balcony open. He settles onto his patio bench with Taemin beside him, closer than he has been before but not quite brushing his side. Jimin glances over, once, but Taemin’s face is unreadable as he fiddles with his vape pen. In a brief, painful flash of sensory memory, Jimin is reminded of Taehyung, of how he smells, of the slight crackling sound that the device made whenever Taehyung brought it up to his lips and pulled the smoke long and heavy into his lungs—

“We should kiss,” Jimin says abruptly, forcing the vision of his on-hiatus-best-friend from his mind as best he can.

Taemin’s eyes widen. “What?”

Settling back with a sigh, Jimin glances up at the stars glittering above their heads. “You heard me.”

“You want to kiss me?” Taemin asks, a little taken aback.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jimin says, turning in and curling against Taemin’s side like he’s seen rich women in movies do with their husbands. “You’re not going to say no to me, are you?”

“Who could say no to you?” Taemin breathes, heady and vulnerable, and then Jimin kisses him, and that’s that.

❀

They see each other for as long as it makes sense, until Taemin graduates a few months later and things fall apart naturally. They stay in touch, but Jimin only waits a week or two before he tangles up with someone new.

Cha Eunwoo, an acting student at K-Arts, is Jungkook’s age and boasts a similar youthful energy that Jimin finds too charming for words. Eunwoo had been dating a vocal performance student, Kim Yugyeom, when Jimin had first been introduced to them at some K-Arts showcase event, but Jimin had gotten between them — literally — and emerged with Eunwoo as his prize (and his very first threesome under his belt). As messy as it was, Jimin would be lying if he said that the drama hadn’t been just a little bit exhilarating.

Eunwoo follows Jimin around like a puppy, and, at first, it was exactly what Jimin wanted.

“You’re so cute,” Jimin gushes when Eunwoo catches up to him with coffees in each hand.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Eunwoo says, beaming. “You like hazelnut lattes, don’t you?”

“I love them,” Jimin says, warm, “thank you, baby.”

Eunwoo grins and flushes up to his ears when Jimin leans in to peck him on the lips.

“I wanna take you out,” Eunwoo says as they cross the street. “Tonight.”

“Mm, dinner?”

“Dancing. But — dinner, too, if you want it.”

Jimin shimmies his shoulders, grinning. “Ooh,” he says, “dancing, huh?”

“I just think,” Eunwoo says, holding the door open for Jimin when they make it to the studio, “that you’re the kind of guy that people should take dancing. You should be shown off, you know? You should have fun and people would be lucky to watch you have fun, so—”

Jimin’s waving his hand, pink-cheeked and cringing with both embarrassment and flattery. “Save it, Eunwoo,” he says. “You’re cute, but save it for when we’re alone, okay?”

Eunwoo’s eager, Jimin thinks, sometimes too eager. But he dotes on Jimin and it’s really, really nice — until it’s not.

They have some stupid little fight, some nonsensical spat over dinner, and that’s when Jimin realizes that he’s been holding long-term auditions for a new Taehyung-and-Hoseok combo, and he hates himself for it.

“We’re done,” he tells Eunwoo, “it’s nothing personal, but we’re done.”

The next day, he texts the group chat.

i’m sorry, he says.

i’ve been an asshole.

i can’t take it back but i can take you out, if you want, and apologize for real.

please?

Taehyung texts back immediately: i’ve been waiting for this. missed you so much.

Hoseok is next: i knew you’d come back, jjwiminie.

-

Jimin’s back on top of the world.

It helps that he’s been given clearance to dance again, too, his ankle mended completely.

With everything going so well, he decides to tempt fate and ask Jungkook out for coffee.

“So,” Jimin says, setting his alarm to leave for dance. That’s the season of life he’s in right now: always between coffees, always en route to or from the studio. “I’ve been so busy with the dance showcase stuff that I’ve been, like, the worst friend in the world.” He smiles, and it reaches his eyes, cute little crescents above bread-roll cheeks. “Sorry, bunny. I really am sorry. I want to know what’s been up with you.”

“Oh,” Jungkook says a little shyly, toying with the coaster, nudging his thumb at the corner to begin tearing the printed layer off. “Things are good. School is — well, you know.”

“That’s always how it is with you, right?”

“Yeah, well.” Jungkook grins, latte foam clinging to his upper lip. It’s adorable. Jimin wants to lean in and wipe it away with his finger, but—

“I’m actually — seeing this guy,” Jungkook says. “I’ve been seeing this guy and it’s — wow, it’s the best thing in my life right now. For sure.”

Jimin feels himself still, feels his shoulders lock up. “Oh!” he says, surprised. He doesn’t move to wipe the latte foam off Jungkook’s lip after all. “Oh, Jungkookie, that’s great.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, breathless. “He’s a few years older than me, but nothing crazy. He’s — so smart, hyung. He’s so smart. I feel like I could write everything he says down in a book, or post it on Instagram and get a billion likes.”

“What’s his name?” Jimin asks, fully intending to drag this man out of the depths of his social media anonymity on the walk to the studio.

“Kim Namjoon.”

“And he’s — is he hot?”

Jungkook’s eyes go wide. “Yes. You wouldn’t believe — he’s so tall. You know that TikTok audio like — six feet tall and super strong? That’s him.” Dreamily, he lets himself trail off into song, his delicate voice lifting high over their heads: “We always get along, all right, all right—”

Jimin leans over his latte just a little, still shaken but tantalized by the details. “How long have you been seeing him, bun?”

“Um,” Jungkook hums as he counts on his fingers, “three months? Four months? He’s incredible. He’s a big teddy bear, Jimin hyung, and he takes me to art galleries and I drive him around in my car and he thinks it’s so cool — he even makes me mix CDs. Oh, he makes music, that’s the best part! Well, the best part is the sex and the kisses, but—”

“Okay, okay, hyung doesn’t need to hear all of that, bunny,” Jimin interrupts, waving his hands. In truth, he’s just a little put off still, and it’s not like he’ll miss out on the gossip anyway — Taehyung will tell him everything as soon as he asks to hear it. That’s always how the pipeline goes. “Are you gonna let us meet him?”

“Um,” Jungkook says, biting his soft lip with his front teeth. “I want to. I want you guys to meet. But — I’m just — nervous.”

“You’ve never been nervous before!” Jimin says, indignant. 

“None of those people actually — I wasn’t serious with any of them,” Jungkook says. “But this is like — if you guys meet him and don’t like him, then — you know? But I honestly think you’ll like him. Namjoon hyung has a ton of plants and he keeps bonsais—”

Jungkook goes on and on, but Jimin, admittedly, loses focus. He watches Jungkook’s face, nods in all the right places, asks all the right follow-up questions — but he can’t steer his mind away from the hurt creeping up in his chest.

His neighbor Jungkook, his first friend Jungkook — is with someone, and it sounds serious, and that someone is not Jimin.

This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go.

-

When Jimin finally ends up meeting Namjoon, it’s a disaster.

It’s a disaster because Namjoon is absolutely perfect — a knockout with a great body and a dopey smile, a great conversationalist, a doting partner — and Jimin doesn’t know how to hate him.

He can’t hate him.

So, instead, he stews in his broiling frustration, lets it hang over his head with nowhere to go.

You love him, Jimin tells himself as he’s sitting squeezed on the couch between Hoseok and Taehyung, mind working overtime, burning fierce and reckless. And he doesn’t love you. You know what that means. 

You know what you have to do.

When they take the afterparty to some flashy bar in Itaewon, Jimin can only take so much of watching Jungkook dance with his clumsy himbo boyfriend before something has to be done.

If you love him, fight for it.

So when there’s an opening, Jimin cuts in.

He knows he shines his brightest on the dance floor, that his body’s sinful, that his eyes go dark and his hips grind in perfect figure eights. People trip over each other to bring him drinks, to get a chance to slip in and move their bodies in time with his.

He can only assume that Jungkook’s just like any other man.

That’s why it’s so surprising when, just as their thighs press together, as Jimin’s ass comes into contact with Jungkook’s hips, he feels Jungkook’s warm hands on his shoulders, gently pressing him away.

He doesn’t make a scene of it, just angles them slightly differently, lets Taehyung sidle over and make a triangle out of their little group on the dance floor. Jimin’s eyes flick between them; he glances over at Namjoon, who’s at the bar with Hoseok, chatting while they wait to be served the second round.

Jimin almost can’t believe—

Looking back, Jimin realizes that, for all the first times he’s initiated over the last few years, this is one he never asked for, never wanted.

No one’s rejected his advances before.

Until now.

Until Jungkook.

It shakes him, to say the least. Maybe he has some trauma around rejection, maybe he’s just a bitch, but whatever it is sends his mind reeling.

“Don’t push me off,” Jimin mutters, shouldering his way closer to Jungkook again. “I wanted to dance with you, bun.”

Jungkook grins, pulling Jimin and Taehyung closer by the shoulders. “We can dance like this, right? I just don’t want Namjoon to think we’re all — you know, all up on each other or something.”

“But you’re my friend,” Jimin says bluntly. “We should be able to dance with each other if we want to, no matter—”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want to dance with people like that,” Jungkook says, like it takes him no effort at all to set that boundary, to brick up a wall between them.

Jimin knows in his heart of hearts that he doesn’t have any right to be upset, but he can’t help lashing out. The rejection, the doubling-down on it, burns like hell. “What, because of Namjoon?”

“Well, yeah.”

Taehyung tugs his mask down to sip his drink, still dancing under Jungkook’s right arm, not caring how much he’s sloshing all over himself in the process. “They’re dating, Jimin, of course he doesn’t want some other guy grinding on him—”

“They’re seeing each other, Tae.”

“I’m in love with him,” Jungkook says bluntly.

He says it so plainly, so matter-of-factly, that Jimin is rendered momentarily speechless.

“‘In love,’” Jimin repeats when he’s regained his sense of being. “You’re in love with a guy you’ve been seeing for three months.”

“I think it’s four months,” Jungkook says, shifting in his seat. “But — yeah. He’s amazing. And — when you know, you know. I’ve always wanted to hear wedding bells when I met my person, and—”

He looks over at Namjoon then, and Namjoon isn’t looking back because he’s busy tipping the bartender or closing his tab or something, but it doesn’t matter, because Jungkook’s expression isn’t for him, not really. It’s because of him, certainly, those bright eyes and trusting smile, and that’s when Jimin knows.

It’s real.

It’s over.

-

Jimin’s not proud of the scene he throws, the way he sobs into Taehyung’s shoulder in the bathroom, the way he spills his drink all down his front and has to be ushered into a cab by two separate men, one of them Namjoon of all people, who’s so tall and smells like some fresh, herbal aftershave.

He’s not proud of the things he’d said, accusing Jungkook of breaking the pact that was never really a pact in the first place, and he doesn’t even want to blame it on how much he’d been drinking because it’s wrong no matter what, and—

He burrows further under the covers of his bed, groaning as each memory resurfaces.

Maybe he’s a bad friend.

Maybe the problem really was him all along.

-

Jimin’s not ready for what he sees when he answers the door the next day.

It’s Jungkook, alone, with a box of sweets from the bakery down the street.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook says, and Jimin balks.

“You’re not the one who should be sorry,” Jimin says, standing aside to let him in. “I’m so fucking embarrassed. I don’t — I’m so sorry, Jungkookie.”

Jungkook tilts his head and laughs a little, his awkward tic from years ago still present here. “I should have treated you better,” he says. “I’ve been leaving you behind. Choosing guys over you. It makes sense that you’d be mad, or — that you’d have, like, that you’d be frustrated with me, or something.”

“Bun,” Jimin mutters as Jungkook opens the box to reveal stacks of bunny-shaped cookies.

Jimin could cry.

“These are from me,” Jungkook says, “because I want you to know that I’m — that I want to be better. That I want to be your friend and never leave you, just like I promised. We said forever, Jimin, and I meant it.”

Embarrassed, Jimin whines into his hands.

“We might not be getting married like we promised, but — don’t you think there are other forevers, too?”

Jimin peeks at him through his fingers.

“Don’t you think,” Jungkook says, breaking the ears off of one of the bunny cookies and tasting the frosting on them, scraping it off with his cute front teeth, “don’t you think ours can still be special?”

Jimin nods and leans in, hugs him tight around his neck. “My first friend,” he says. “My little bunny.”

He clings, admittedly, but it’s okay, because Jungkook clings back.

“I love you, Jungkookie,” he says.

He can feel Jungkook smile against his shoulder.

“Love you, Jimin hyung.”

-

The whirlwind of their time at university comes to an end, and Jimin starts working himself to the bone between the dance studio and the coffee shop. It’s not long until he gets snatched up by an entertainment company, and he has a brief stint as an idol trainee, just like he’d always wanted, before he realizes that the pressure just isn’t healthy.

He needs time for his friends, time that the trainee program didn’t allow for.

So he demotes himself, becomes a choreographer for the same company, and cooks dinners for his friends every Friday night. It’s stuff with flavor, too, not the bland chicken breast and white rice that had sustained him while he was training.

But what really sustains him, now, is seeing all those heads bent over at his table, one, two, three, four, five.

Taehyung, of course, and Hoseok. Seokjin and Namjoon, who had become fast friends, or else had already been friends — Jimin’s not sure.

And, best of all, now and forever, there’s Jungkook.

-

When Jungkook and Namjoon stay together past college, it’s not surprising to anyone in the friend group. They’re smitten with each other, and Jungkook gushes non-stop about him, even years on from their first date.

It’s an exercise in learning different kinds of forevers, Jimin realizes, when he gets a card in the mail and it makes him smile.

Together with their families

KIM NAMJOON

&

JEON JUNGKOOK

invite you to join them

in celebrating their marriage

on Saturday, June 13, 2020

on the lawn at Aston House, Grand Walkerhill Seoul

with dinner to follow.

To RSVP:

There are 2 seats reserved in your honor.

___ Delightfully accept

___ Regretfully decline

Chapter Text

As it turns out, Yoongi’s boss rolls into the office on Monday morning short and angry anyway. Yoongi sidesteps him at the coffee maker, but he doesn’t manage to avoid him at lunch; Yoongi sits hunched over his desk with his plastic container of rice and pork galbi and listens to Mr. Choi rant for the entire hour about customer satisfaction ratings.

I could be in Spain with that hot guy from the wedding right now, Yoongi thinks as he watches Mr. Choi’s hands flail around his balding head. If I’d known that he was gonna be mad anyway, no matter what I did—

He nips that line of thought in the bud, though, because he’s not with Jimin in Spain, he’s in Seoul with a goddamn job and a reputation, and he has to play nice.

“I can look into it, sajangnim,” Yoongi mumbles, and Mr. Choi nods curtly at the addition of another item to Yoongi’s seemingly-endless to-do list.

“At least one of my fucking employees knows how to problem-solve,” he growls. “Now get back to those calls,” he adds as Yoongi’s phone timer goes off, signaling the end of his lunch break.

Once he clocks back in, Yoongi wonders what Jimin’s doing at this same moment. He wonders if he found someone else to go to Spain with, or if he’s reporting to his dead-end job, too, dark at the eyes and grim at the mouth.

If Yoongi’s honest with himself, Jimin’s probably doing just fine. He’s cheerful enough, stable enough, that he probably slept off the heartbreak along with the hangover and jumped right back into the fullness of a well-curated life.

Yoongi, on the other hand, is just thankful that he has Namjoon’s stupid little tree to wake up for, day after day after dreary day.

❀

“One Iced Americano, let me put that in for you,” Jimin sing-songs in his best customer-service voice. He’s a little worse for wear today, not quite as bright around the edges as he normally is. He’s choosing to blame it on the four-in-the-morning opening shift rather than the severe post-wedding crash. “Wait, it was iced, right?”

“Hot.”

“Hot, I’m so sorry. Hot it is.” He punches that into the cash register and bites his pillowy bottom lip. “Sorry, the size—you said—what size did you want again?”

“Just a medium.”

“We have eight-ounce, twelve-ounce, sixteen-ounce, and—”

“Jesus, I just want a fucking medium.”

“You got it,” Jimin says, beaming through his bitter annoyance. “I’ll put you down for a twelve-ounce hot Americano. Name?”

“Min Daehyun.”

“All right. Give us a few minutes and we’ll have it out to you.”

Jimin spins around to pull the drink together, marking 민대현 on the cup with clear strokes of his Sharpie. Min, he thinks. Wait, that’s—

Wasn’t that the last name of the guy from the wedding? Min Yoongi, he’d said. Jimin is pretty sure.

When Min Daehyun comes up to get his order, Jimin hands it off and asks cheerily, “I know it’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s kind of an uncommon name — you don’t happen to know a Min Yoongi, do you?”

“Nope,” the man says shortly. “Ugh, this is the twelve-ounce? You didn’t even leave me enough room for cream and simple syrup.”

Jimin’s professional smile broadens. “I’m so sorry, sir. Would you like me to—”

Min Daehyun shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and pours a few millilitres of his coffee straight into the trash can — the trash can that, later, Jimin will have to very carefully empty and drag out to the dumpster without the liquid-filled bag leaking all over his clothes.

Great.

Don’t cry until your lunch break, Jimin.

❀

It’s one of those days when Yoongi’s fingers itch for a cigarette, but it’s one of those months where he’s trying to convince himself that quitting is worth it to better himself in the face of otherwise stagnant personal growth, so he clocks out at the office and steps into the coffee shop at the end of the block.

He spends his time in line staring up at the menu in some passively antisocial exercise; he always orders an iced Americano, no exceptions, but squinting at the huge chalkboard above the register is a built-in protection against having to look anyone else in the eye.

When he makes it up to the counter, though, his heart nearly stops.

The guy from the wedding, as it turns out, is most certainly not in Spain with someone else.

He's here, poised to take Yoongi's order, wide-eyed and near frozen behind the till.

"Oh," Yoongi says. "It—Jimin, right?"

"Yeah," Jimin says, tapping his name tag unnecessarily. "Hi, Yoongi. That's—wow, it's such a big city, I—what are the chances?"

"Good enough, I guess," Yoongi says. "Uh—I sort of thought you'd be on a plane somewhere else by now."

Jimin smiles tersely. "No, well," he says. "It's not as much fun traveling alone. It's not as much fun doing anything alone, really."

Yoongi disagrees, but he doesn't bother voicing it. "I've heard that Spain has pretty good coffee," he says, mouth lifting in a kind smile. "You'd have liked that part, at least."

"Oh," Jimin says, as if remembering where he is and what he should be doing all at once. "Sorry, sorry, let me get your order in. What can I get you?"

"Just an iced Americano," Yoongi says. "No cream or sugar. Just black."

Something passes over Jimin's face then, some bitterness that Yoongi can't quite rationalize. "Got it. Min Yoongi, right? You can scan the Kakao Pay code whenever you're ready."

Yoongi nods and fumbles in his jacket pocket for his phone. "Thanks. I—when is your break? If you want—add something on for yourself and sit down. Maybe we could—I could make it up to you. That you're standing here taking people's orders instead of laying on some beach in Europe right now."

Jimin smiles then, just a little. "You don't have to do that," he says, voice low.

"I want to."

"Well," Jimin starts, but then he punches in a small cafe latte and shows Yoongi the new total. "Is this really okay?"

"It's more than okay." He scans the QR code and gives Jimin a quick tight-lipped smile. "Come find me when you have a minute."

❀

"So," Yoongi says, once Jimin has settled into the seat across from him. "You got something against iced Americanos?"

Jimin looks a little taken aback. "What?"

"You just looked pissed off when I ordered it," Yoongi says, sipping his drink and wiping the condensation from the cup off his hand in a nervous slide along his work trousers. "Thought maybe you hated them or something."

"Oh, that," Jimin says, falling back in his chair dramatically. It's so forcibly familiar that Yoongi can't help but grin. "I've just had the worst day, I had this guy come in earlier and he was just rude, just a complete asshole, and—he ordered one and then yelled at me about not leaving enough room for cream and sugar and just about everything else that could have possibly been my fault—"

Yoongi smirks as he sips. "Don't worry about it," he says. "People that ruin a perfectly good Americano with cream and sugar don't deserve your respect."

Smiling, Jimin leans forward, hands clasped on the table, cradling his steamy mug between his forearms. "So what was your day like? It sucks getting back to the grind after a weekend trip, right?"

"It fucking sucked, but I hate my job on a good day." Yoongi uses his straw to attack the ice cubes in the cup, stabbing them down towards the bottom.

"What do you do?"

"I work for an entertainment company. Normally I do production stuff, but lately they've been pulling me into a bunch of data analysis side projects when I have downtime, and—I mean, part of the reason that I pursued music is so that I wouldn't have to work some shitty data analysis job, you know?"

"Oh, that's right," Jimin says, blowing gently on his latte. When he sips it, the foam clings to his upper lip. "You said you worked for—you told me this at the wedding. Sorry, I was already drinking by then, so—"

"Me too," Yoongi says, shrugging. "It—sorry, you have foam on your—"

Jimin's hand reaches his own mouth before Yoongi's thumb does. It's awkward, even as Yoongi settles back down in his chair, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs.

"We were both drinking a lot," Jimin says quietly, after a moment.

"Yeah," Yoongi says, voice husky. He sniffs. "We were."

Jimin drags a finger around the lip of his mug, wiping it clear of drying foam. "Do you—I mean—do you regret what happened?"

Yoongi shrugs, shakes his head, stares glumly into the hypnotic vortex of slowly-rotating ice in his Americano. "No," he says. "I don't—no."

He really doesn't, even though it's been on his mind in that heavy, melancholy way that regrets often are. He doesn't regret warming up to someone else for the first time in a long time, getting to know someone over drinks and the traditional definition of a good time. He doesn't regret shunting his anxieties to the side for a night, taking it all out on a guy who seemed to need it more than Yoongi had, even. It hadn't exactly shaken the lonely feeling that crept up Yoongi's spine on late nights, because what he had done with Jimin was textbook one-night stand material and there was little to no chance of a repeat.

It's a bit of a revelation, then, when Jimin presses his Chelsea boot to the inside of Yoongi's calf, just a subtle soft pressure, exactly like he had done at the wedding reception. "Maybe we could see each other again sometime," he says, cheeks dusted a pretty peach. "Gonna give me your number this time?"

Yoongi looks up. "You want—my number?"

"Yeah," Jimin says, leaning forward again and trailing his fingers up Yoongi's jacket sleeve. "You shouldn't sound so surprised."

"I mean—it was a one-night stand, wasn't it? What's there to—"

"It doesn't have to be," Jimin says, all outward confidence. Yoongi almost envies it.

Jimin's gaze is intense, dual drops of dark hazelnut coffee. "I really liked what we did," he says. "I liked that you didn’t hold back, that it felt like you could be raw with me, that you weren’t shy to show emotion and vulnerability and — listen, not a lot of guys that I’ve been with are willing to do that."

“Oh,” Yoongi says, taken aback. "I guess — I didn't realize I was doing anything that would — impress you. I was just sort of — going through it."

"I’m serious," Jimin says. "I can’t stop thinking about how — maybe this is pathetic because of what it was, or whatever, but — it’s the realest interaction I’ve ever had with someone. Ever. And I feel so stupid because you’re practically a stranger and we only hooked up once but I’ve been thinking about you so much and—"

"I’ve thought about it too," Yoongi admits. He's not sure why he says it, but he feels like whatever vulnerability he tapped into at the Aston House isn't totally gone from him yet, at least not while he's sitting across from Jimin.

"Really?"

Yoongi shrugs. He doesn't quite know how to not downplay whatever this is, whatever he's feeling. Jimin, for his part, can't keep his eyes off of Yoongi. "You’re — kind," Yoongi says, blunt and honest and a little sheepish. "You're kind, but — you're straightforward. You’re not just some hot guy, you’re also the only person that’s made me feel listened to in a long time, because you’re the only person who could listen and understand and not be in the middle of it.”

Jimin shifts in his chair, index finger trailing around the lip of the mug again. He glances back at the barista counter, unlocks his phone to check his break timer.  "I’d love to maybe sit down with you when I have more time and just — catch up, see how you’ve been."

Yoongi hums.

He rubs his hands up and down his thighs again.

He breathes, in and out, slow and steady.

The last time he had a chance at something like this, when Namjoon packed his little gesture in a jewel case and handed it over to him, he had gotten the better of himself.

He hasn’t learned as much from it as he’d thought he might, either, judging by how his heart hammers in his chest, urging him to flee in the face of vulnerability.

But Jimin’s patience, his willingness to make space for this, for Yoongi, is a novel sort of kindness that Yoongi finds that he actually needs. He glances up into Jimin’s face, and instead of the shrouded tension he’s used to from Namjoon, he sees openness and surety. 

Yoongi still thinks about rainflower sometimes, thinks about digging it out of his desk drawer (because it’s hidden away for his own sanity; because he obviously knows exactly where it is, knows that it’s safe). For years, it seemed to beat a pulse whenever he got too close, so he’d shunned it, buried his tell-tale heart amongst the inky papers. But now, imagining it as he breathes here, somewhere else, with someone else, it feels for the first time like an old friend.

“Do you think it’s okay?” Yoongi asks, vaguely, muttering.

Jimin bites at his cherry-chapstick pout. “Okay to do this?” he asks, understanding, because of course he understands. “Okay to move on? Yeah, I think so. I mean — I want to, don’t you?” 

Yoongi meets his eyes. He’s a little surprised, if he’s honest with himself, that he’s found this kind of person twice. For a decade, he’d thought that only Namjoon might be able to sit across from him and unravel his worry for him, to pull his darkest thoughts into the light and render them in actual size.

“You wouldn’t be betraying him or anything, you know.” Jimin sits back in his chair. “That’s not — real. I know it feels like it’s real, but it’s not.”

Maybe he has learned from all of this. Maybe this chance meeting, two in a row, was the gesture this time. And when a gesture is made, Yoongi knows now that he must make one, too.

“Here,” Yoongi says, reaching out. “I’ll — let me put my number in your phone.”

❀

Yoongi watches out the window as a greyish dusk fades out the pinks and purples that hung above him on his walk home, pretty and pastel and promising.

When he lies down, sleep comes to him easily for what feels like the first time in years.

In the morning, he waters the bonsais.

In the evening, he clicks a blank jewel case open and fits a freshly-burned CD inside. On it, he writes flower . No rain this time, he thinks.

Just a long-awaited spring day.