Archive of Our Own

When Jeongguk first meets Min Yoongi, he’s been awake for 32 hours. 

It’s not like he’s necessarily trying to be awake. Just that he has too much energy, and it won’t subside no matter what he tries. He already finished all his assignments for school, went to the gym, ran laps around his apartment building, crashed Hoseok’s dance practice, and even got Jimin an iced tea from the convenience store. He’s resorted to doing laundry, which truly says something. 

Naturally the laundry room is deserted. Jeongguk diligently separates his black clothes from the rare colored pieces he owns as he listens to the sounds of the washing machines tumbling. 

The last thing Jimin had said to him was “if you’re not in bed sleeping by 3 am, I’m going to personally put you to sleep myself”, a statement vaguely threatening enough to make Jeongguk feel somewhat nervous about going back home, and anyway, it’s past 3 already. If he just stays out tonight, Jimin won’t actually be able to kill him. Loophole.

He takes a breather, stepping out onto the street, the late spring air greeting him. There's a certain melancholic atmosphere to Seoul with the summer approaching. The city churns out soft sounds, people coming home from a night out or a late night shift.

Jeongguk stands there, considering another lap around the building. Instead he practices his spins on the sidewalk. At the dance studio earlier he noticed his technique could definitely use some work.

Suddenly, a dark figure stumbles out of the entrance of the apartment building across the street. Jeongguk stops mid-spin. He squints to make out the details, but the person is dressed in all black, hood from his hoodie covering most of his face. Shadowed the way he is, he almost looks like some sort of demonic entity.

The figure nervously paces the side of the street, his shoulders tight and raised. Out of the blue, he kicks a trash can, hard, the trash can receiving an undeserved dent before it falls over. There’s cursing in a low voice that Jeongguk feels reverberate in his soul, even from where he’s standing across the street, and then the figure starts lighting a cigarette. Breathing in smoke, he seemingly calms down a little. 

Jeongguk should probably go back inside, leave before this guy spots him, but he just stands there staring, glued to the ground. 

Slowly but surely, he feels himself being noticed. The guy across the street cocks his head to the side curiously, and Jeongguk, in a panic, waves at him. To Jeongguk’s surprise, the guy laughs, which is a very pleasant sound, compared to the otherwise frustrated noises Jeongguk’s heard from him so far. 

“Sorry,” the guy says, his voice deep. “Sometimes I kick trashcans. I don’t have anger issues, not really.”

Jeongguk swallows. “I didn’t think so.”

Hooded guy takes a drag from his cigarette. “What are you doing out this time of night?”

“I was doing spins,” Jeongguk says, feeling immediately stupid. “I mean, I’m doing laundry,” Not better. Jeongguk sighs. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, actually. I’ve been awake for 32 hours.”

The figure across the street laughs again, just a little. God, his laugh is really nice. Raspy and low. Weird. 

“Can I come over there?” the guy asks, and Jeongguk feels his breath hitch. He has absolutely no reason to be this nervous, bites his lip in an attempt to will it away. 

“Sure,” he shrugs, going for casual. That’s how the hooded figure ends up in front of him. 

He’s not actually some druidic entity. He’s a short, skinny guy with bleached blond hair, grown-out roots, his bangs a little too long, falling in his face. He has dark, cat-like eyes, piercing and fiery, his lids low. The cigarette he’s smoking is hanging between his lips, and Jeongguk can’t help but follow his movements as he brings a hand up, takes the cigarette between long, bony fingers, blowing smoke through sharp teeth. 

“Sleeping problems, huh?” Mystery Person remarks. 

“Yep,” Jeongguk nods, his eyes wide. 

“You’re my neighbor,” the guy concludes, glancing at Jeongguk’s building. 

“Indeed.”

“What’s your name?” 

“Jeon Jeongguk,” Jeongguk says, without even hesitating. “Oh shit. Should I have told you my name so willingly?”

“It's done,” the guy shrugs, then gestures to himself. “Min Yoongi. There, now we’re even.” 

“Min Yoongi,” Jeongguk repeats, sort of breathless. 

Min Yoongi stomps out his cigarette and looks up, taking in Jeongguk’s form. Jeongguk instantly feels way too aware of his body and the clothes he’s wearing (a gray hoodie he hasn’t washed in weeks, a pair of ratty athletic shorts he wears for dance, Hello Kitty socks and Jimin’s toe slippers). 

"By any chance, do you sing?” Yoongi asks, and the world kind of stops a little. 

“Uhm,” Jeongguk moves his weight from one foot to another. “Why?”

“You have a nice voice. Your speaking voice, I mean. There’s a track I’ve been working on and the vocals right now just don’t make sense for it. I think your voice…” Yoongi trails off, seemingly internally debating something. He shakes his head. “Sorry, I just realized it's weird as fuck to ask you that. Nevermind.” 

“You’re working on a track?”

“I do music,” Yoongi says, and before Jeongguk can respond, he’s turning around and walking away. 

“Get some sleep,” Yoongi tells Jeongguk once he’s across the street again. “You don’t wanna go past the 35-hour threshold. Speaking from experience.”

Just like that, he disappears inside, leaving Jeongguk behind. Jeongguk imagines Yoongi’s tired body trudging up the stairs, shoulders slumped, maybe quietly cursing. Which apartment could possibly belong to him is a mystery. The outside of the building doesn’t give much away. All the windows are dark. Maybe Yoongi’s the type of person who likes to work with the lights out. 

Standing on the sidewalk, Jeongguk kind of feels like a total idiot. He wishes he’d told Min Yoongi that he does sing, in fact, it’s what he loves to do more than anything else in the world. 

He finds himself wondering if Yoongi saw something in him, a desire, threatening to break open his chest with the force of its existence. Yoongi seemed like a passionate person himself, and it wasn’t just the way he kicked the trash can, or his knuckles, that Jeongguk had noticed were darkened with past bruises. No, it was something else. Something inexplicable passing between them. 

Which is probably why Jeongguk’s running. Running up an unfamiliar staircase, through random hallways of the apartment building across from his own, looking for Min Yoongi. He knows it’s sort of insane. But he needs to find the guy, or he might never find him again. At least that’s what it feels like in his sleep-deprived state. 

After two floors and like five hallways, Jeongguk finally runs into Yoongi. 

“Christ, slow down kid,” Yoongi says, a hand falling upon Jeongguk’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. 

“Not a kid,” Jeongguk protests through slight panting. “I’m twenty-one.”

“You’re twenty-one,” Yoongi repeats, sort of amused. Jeongguk is confused, and too out of breath to figure out if he should be offended. 

“I wanna know whatever it is you wanted to ask me downstairs but decided halfway through was really weird," he heaves. “Please.”

Yoongi’s eyes shift. “Oh. That's why you came back.” 

Jeongguk nods eagerly. 

Yoongi runs a nearly translucent hand through his white hair, pushing the bleached strands back from his forehead. Jeongguk watches him, feeling entranced by his presence, like every movement Yoongi makes is important in some way; from the slight quiver of his hands to the way he tilts his face just a little off its axis. Finally, Yoongi nods, slowly. 

“Come with me,” he says, turning down the hall. 

Jeongguk doesn’t hesitate to follow. 

-

Min Yoongi’s apartment is way bigger than Jeongguk’s. He doesn’t even have a roommate. 

The walls are gray, no attempt at decoration to be found, though littered with yellow sticky notes full of scribbled-on messages, stuff like descending melody much better and bridge does NOT work.

Books line the walls, stacked on top of each other. Most of them are about music. Some about psychology. Jeongguk scans the titles on the spines and wonders if Yoongi has read them all. By the window close to the bed there's a desk, and a stack of journals. Against the wall is a keyboard with wires running to a computer. Jeongguk also spots a pair of expensive headphones, guitar picks (though no guitar), snapped pencils, and a pile of ripped-up paper sheets. 

It’s very dark inside. The only source of light is the glow of Yoongi’s monitor. It’s not really a problem though, Jeongguk likes the dark. 

As his eyes adjust he starts to notice some details he didn’t see before. Dents in the wall. Stains smearing the white that might just be dried blood. A crumpled pack of cigarettes on the bed as if thrown there. An ashtray in the windowsill, overflowing. 

Maybe the interior of Yoongi’s apartment should scare Jeongguk a little, but somehow it has a disarming quality about it. Something about the sheer vulnerability of leaving the holes in the wall as they are, of not filling them back up, of inviting someone in despite the holes being there. 

“Your apartment is way bigger than mine,” Jeongguk says, even though there are so many other things he could have said. 

Yoongi laughs that dark, raspy laugh again. It’s quite honestly a great laugh, Jeongguk decides. He watches Yoongi sit down at his desk, clicking away on his computer. 

“You read sheet music?” he asks. Jeongguk nods fervently. Yoongi looks back at him, and points to a stray chair, pushed away to the corner of the room, like it’s not needed. 

“Come sit,” says Yoongi. Jeongguk does as he’s told. Once seated, Yoongi hands him a sheet of paper with notes and lyrics written on it in near-illegible script. 

“I just muted this vocal track,” he points to the screen. “Would you sing it for me? You can have a listen first. If the song works for you. If you can do anything with it.”

Yoongi is holding out the headphones for Jeongguk, and it’s a lot, suddenly, the idea of singing in front of Yoongi, someone Jeongguk barely even knows but nonetheless finds himself revering, inexplicably. He blinks hard to snap out of it, and puts the headphones over his ears. Yoongi regards him for a second, then presses play on the screen and immediately looks away, like it’s also a little too much for him. 

A melody starts playing. As soon as it does, Jeongguk feels as if all the oxygen drains from his lungs. 

The song resounding through his headphones is so much softer than he ever expected, warm, gentle but also incredibly raw, like it came straight from the most delicate places of someone’s soul. Jeongguk would almost call it hopeful. He can barely believe the guy sitting across from him made this. 

Jeongguk diligently listens to the whole thing, watching Yoongi stare at the floor without faltering. When the song is over Jeongguk leans forward and presses replay, desperately wanting to hear it again. It’s still as gorgeous the second time around, and maybe it's the lyrics or the melody or maybe it's everything, but Jeongguk suddenly feels the urge to curl up in a ball and sob.

He doesn’t sob. He lowers his headphones. “Min Yoongi-ssi,” he says, not knowing what else to say. Yoongi’s eyes are sparkling.

“Do you hate it?” he asks, quiet. “Be honest with me, I can take it.”

Jeongguk still doesn’t know what to say, how to find the words. He can’t tell Yoongi that he probably just fell in love with him a little by listening to his music, that’s how unflinchingly beautiful it was. Yoongi clears his throat awkwardly.

“Usually I make music that’s a bit different. Angrier songs. It’s just – recently I’m trying to explore another side of myself. A gentler one, maybe.” 

The way Yoongi talks about the song, his tone of voice just short of a whisper and his demeanor abashed, makes it feel all the more special, as if the very existence of the song is meaningful, as if it took a lot of effort to get to exist at all. Jeongguk can’t possibly let himself touch something so special. 

“I can’t sing this,” he stammers, getting up hastily. Without looking back he stumbles over to the door, leaving Yoongi behind in his very dark apartment. 

-

The next morning over breakfast, Jeongguk tells Jimin about the incident. Jimin seems confused. 

“Sorry, who is this guy again?"

Jeongguk sighs. “He’s our neighbor, from across the street. His name is Min Yoongi.”

Jimin blinks at him. “So a total stranger at the fucking ass crack of dawn –”

“Min Yoongi, not a stranger.”

“– a complete stranger invited you to his apartment in the middle of the night and you actually went in with him, never once suspecting he might be a murderer who wants to kill you and chop your body parts up?”

“When you put it like that –”

“How have you even made it to the age of twenty-one?” Jimin asks, exasperated. 

Jeongguk huffs. “Look, Min Yoongi is a very small dude. He's almost as short as you are." Jimin rolls his eyes, which Jeongguk gets some minor enjoyment out of. "I could fuck him up if I wanted to,” he continues. “That said, I didn’t want to. He was just…”

Trailing off, Jeongguk reminisces on the song Yoongi showed him, how breathtaking it was. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he heard it, finding himself humming it in the shower. 

“Hyung, he showed me his music and it was magical. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Jimin quirks a brow. “Is that the song you keep humming in the shower?”

“Yes,” Jeongguk buries his head in his hands. “But, oh my god, I did the stupidest thing. I left. Min Yoongi showed me his beautiful music, and I left because it scared me. He must think I hated it. Holy shit, I’m so dumb.” 

Jimin nods solemnly. “Thank you for recognizing what I’ve known to be true for a very long time.”

-

Jeongguk doesn’t think he'll see Min Yoongi again, but then it’s Saturday night and he’s getting fucked up with Hoseok’s dance troop. 

It’s Jimin’s fault, really. He has a very convincing way about him when it comes to wanting to get Jeongguk drunk. 

“You’re still so young, Gguk,” is what he says. “Before you know it, you’ll be old, and your body won’t be able to handle alcohol, and you will be completely crestfallen as you realize that you never properly enjoyed your younger years by getting super wasted.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Jeongguk asks. 

“I’m still very young," Jimin says, unshaken.

Jeongguk sighs, and starts imagining himself as an old man, not having had any fun in his life ever because he was deadly terrified of social interaction. He pities the old man. 

So he decides to come with Jimin, begrudgingly, because he’s kind of annoyed that his method of persuasion actually worked, which is how he ends up standing against the wall in Hoseok’s living room. Hoseok is talking to seemingly five people at once. 

“Don’t leave me,” Jeongguk says deadpan, but within five minutes of arriving, Jimin is off mingling or doing whatever it is that socially equipped people do at gatherings. Jeongguk has no idea. He drinks beer after beer, hoping he’ll feel a bit more loose after. 

“Looks like you’re going pretty steady,” someone speaks from beside him, and Jeongguk all but jumps.

It’s Min Yoongi. 

Which is totally weird because for a while, Jeongguk was pretty sure he'd imagined Yoongi. But Yoongi is apparently very much real, standing with his hands in his pockets, wearing an all black outfit and slides with socks, looking like he just rolled out of bed, his hair fluffy and cute. 

“Min Yoongi-ssi,” Jeongguk says, exasperated.

“Sorry Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi apologizes with a quick pat on Jeongguk’s shoulder, though the touch is fleeting, gone almost as fast as it came, and Yoongi’s hand goes back in his pocket. 

Jeongguk blinks at him, not knowing what to say. He’s horrible at eye contact and small talk as is, and with Yoongi these things are even harder for some reason. It feels treacherous to look straight at him, so Jeongguk steers clear. 

“You left,” Yoongi breaks the ice after an awkward silence. “The other day. Did I freak you out? Did you hate my music? If so, I apologize.”

Jeongguk tries not to let it show how insane he thinks that train of thought is. He can imagine the impression he left on Yoongi wasn’t the best. Still, he’s sort of dumbfounded. 

“Your music is far too beautiful,” he says candidly. “That’s why I left.”

Yoongi blinks. “That makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Jeongguk insists. 

Yoongi squints a little. “Are you drunk?”

Jeongguk feels caught. He’s definitely tipsy at this point. "I don’t know, Yoongi-ssi. What is the standard for being drunk anyway?” he grins. 

Yoongi’s cat-eyes sharpen. “Call me hyung, Jeongguk-ah.”

“Oh,” Jeongguk breathes. “Even though I left?”

“Yes,” Yoongi nods, then frowns as if he’s reconsidering. “I guess I still don’t understand that part.”

Jeongguk gestures with his beer. “It’s simple. I didn’t wanna ruin your music by singing over it with my voice which, if I’m being honest, is not nearly great enough.”

Yoongi shakes his head, definitively. “Not true.”

“How can you know that if you haven’t heard me sing, Min Yoongi-ssi?”

“I know these things, and didn’t I say you could call me hyung, Jeongguk-ah?”

“Sorry,” Jeongguk murmurs softly. He looks around the living room and suddenly realizes it’s actually sort of strange he ran into Yoongi at all. “Hyung, why are you here? This is a party for dancers. You’re not a dancer, are you? Do you know Hoseok-hyung?”

Yoongi nods. “Yes, he asked me to bring him some more drinks. So I did.”

Only now does Jeongguk notice the plastic bag on the floor next to Yoongi. He peers inside – soju and whiskey. 

“Oh, awesome,” he says. He wants to ask Yoongi how he knows Hoseok, but Yoongi doesn't seem like the type of person who enjoys telling elaborate life stories. 

Yoongi blinks at him, before gesturing towards the couch. “You wanna sit down for a bit Jeongguk-ah?” he asks. 

Jeongguk nods, in a trance. He’d probably follow Yoongi wherever he wants to go. Something about that voice. 

The two of them sit down together, making them the only two people at the party seated. Everyone’s going crazy on the living room floor, dancing their asses off, and Jeongguk laughs a little, staring at Yoongi beside him. Truth be told, if he hadn’t run into Yoongi he might have actually gathered the confidence to dance with the rest, after enough beers in his system that is. 

But there’s a strange ache inside him, a need to stay close to Yoongi, just in case Jeongguk never gets to see him again after this night, which feels far too likely. A million questions are burning on his tongue and he doesn’t want to be an intrusive person, but now that they’re sitting next to each other it’s hard to keep his mouth shut.  

“How do you know Hobi-hyung?” Jeongguk asks. Once the first question is out, the rest comes tumbling. “How old are you? Do you go to school? Are you a professional music producer? Are you famous? Secretly famous? How are you so great at what you do?”

“Lots of questions Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi laughs a little, seeming almost surprised that anyone would want to know. He doesn’t dodge the questions though, answering straightforwardly, which is definitely unexpected. 

“Hoseok’s one of my closest friends. I was an audio technician at one of his showcases, that’s how we met,” he smiles a little at the memory, then continues. “I’m twenty-five. Getting my masters in Music Production and working on the side, making music. I’ve gotten some recognition on Soundcloud but nothing crazy, so no I'm not famous, and to answer your last question, I’m flattered, but I’m not great. Sometimes the stuff I make works, I agree. But in my experience, that’s the exception. I make a lot of shitty music too. I’m not great, not by far.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Jeongguk says bluntly. “You must know you are.”

“Nope.”

“Hyung, how can you even –” 

The rest of Jeongguk’s protest is cut off by an excited yelp.

“Look who decided to leave the house! Did you bring the drinks?" 

Hoseok appears in front of them, half falling over and landing on Yoongi’s lap. Yoongi just lets it happen. It’s frankly bizarre to witness. 

“Seok-ah,” he greets Hoseok dryly. “They’re in the bag.”

“Thanks hyung,” Hoseok flashes a bright smile. He pats Jeongguk’s knee. “I see you've become acquainted with Ggukie over here. “

“Yes,” says Yoongi. 

Hoseok laughs loudly.” Ah! This rascal keeps crashing my dance practice, even though he doesn’t pay. For months now! It's a crime. And the thing is, I can’t even get mad, because he’s so freaking cute. Look at him. Isn’t he cute, hyung? Those big eyes!”

Jeongguk feels like a kid. He blushes, staring at the floor. From the corner of his eye, he can see Yoongi briefly look him up and down. 

“Sure,” Yoongi says. “I’m leaving.”

Something sinks inside Jeongguk’s chest. He doesn't understand why, but he really wants Yoongi to stay. He can't say that though, doesn't have a good reason to. 

“Hyung, don’t be a bore,” Hoseok groans, "stay a little." 

Yoongi smiles back, though it’s sardonic at best. “Bye Seok,” he says, and then he’s wurming himself out from under Hoseok. “Bye Jeongguk-ah,” he murmurs, giving Jeongguk a small nod without making eye-contact, then turning to walk out with that self-possessed posture of his. 

He doesn’t look back once. Jeongguk is left behind on the couch next to Hoseok, feeling kind of stupefied with Yoongi gone, just like that. He could have said something to try and get him to stay, but he didn’t. 

“Nevermind him, Gguk-ah, he’s always like that,” Hoseok assures with a wave of his hand. "Disgruntled is hyung's permanent state of being." 

Jeongguk shoots up, letting his instinct lead him. Maybe it’s a bad idea. “I’m going outside for a moment,” he murmurs. Only one way to find out if his instinct is screwing him over. 

Outside, Min Yoongi is already pretty far away, his retreating form disappearing into the night, a cloud of smoke trailing behind him from his burning cigarette. Jeongguk runs after him. 

“Hyung, wait!”

He catches up to Yoongi pretty quickly, and stands breathing heavily across from him. 

“Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi says, eyes flickering, taken aback. "You running after me is becoming a theme." 

He says it like no one ever runs after him, like everyone should just be okay with the fact that he’s a phantom of a person. Jeongguk hates that. He takes a very, very deep breath. 

“Yes. I wanted to say I’m sorry. For leaving, the other day. Or night, I guess, since it was like 3 am. And uhm, I’m also sorry for all the questions before. Maybe that was annoying of me, to ask you that many questions. I have to admit I’m kind of, uhm, nervous. As a person. I’m a nervous person. Lots of things make me nervous. And uhm, I think you make me more nervous than I already am. In a good way, I mean. It’s a compliment. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Yoongi hums, with a barely-there smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I'm the one who's sorry. For making you nervous." He takes a long drag of his cigarette, smoke pouring from his nostrils. “Do you really crash Seok’s dance practice?” he asks, a glint of amusement passing over his gaze. 

“I’m broke and my roommate is the best dancer in his troop, so I’m allowed,” Jeongguk says, matter-of-factly. 

Yoongi lifts an eyebrow. “So it’s not just because you’re cute?”

Jeongguk shrugs. “I feel like that’s subjective and maybe not a valid form of currency.”

“Hmm,” Yoongi hums, as if he doesn’t quite agree. Jeongguk feels a blooming heat spread in his chest, pressing at his ribcage.

“So you’re a dancer as well as a singer?” Yoongi smiles again, small and subtle. “Impressive.”

Jeongguk blushes. “I’m not good,” he says quickly, before he realizes he sounds like a total self-loathing loser. “I’m okay…sorta,” he rephrases. “Hoseok-hyung’s a great teacher.” 

Yoongi’s gaze sharpens. “Stop downplaying yourself." 

Jeongguk has no idea what to say. “I’m sorry hyung,” he murmurs sheepishly. 

“No, don’t be,” Yoongi shakes his head, as if retroactively realizing the bluntness of his words. He clears his throat. “Goodnight Jeongguk-ah. Maybe you’ll sing for me eventually? I’d still really like to hear you.” 

“Maybe,” Jeongguk is unable to stop a flattered smile from spreading over his face. Yoongi wants to hear him. 

Yoongi nods courteously, gives a crooked smirk and something that resembles a wave. He chucks out his cigarette on the ground, puts his hands in his pockets and walks away, his shoulders tense and raised, his step determined and hasty. 

-

The thing is, Jeongguk really wants to sing for Min Yoongi, but he has to be great first.

On Monday, he reserves one of the studios on campus, and drags Taehyung with him to listen to him practice. He sings some English songs, a couple Korean ballads, does a whole lot of vocal runs, and eventually finds himself trailing off into a melody he’s been trying not to sing too much, because it feels like it doesn’t belong to him. 

He simply can’t help it, it just spills out of him, the notes seeping from his throat, his voice like honey, as if the song is made for him specifically, as if it just makes sense for him to sing it. 

“What song is this?” Taehyung asks from the other side of the booth.

“Uhm," Jeongguk bites his lip, doubting if he should tell Taehyung. "Someone showed it to me and asked me to sing it.”

"Is this the guy you were talking to at Hobi-hyung’s party?”

“You weren’t even there.”

“Jiminie told me,” Taehyung wiggles his eyebrows.

“You guys are horrible,” Jeongguk states. 

“Your life would be miserable without us,” goes Taehyung. He squints, questioning. “What’s his name?”

“Min Yoongi,” Jeongguk says carefully, like sharing Yoongi’s name is a precarious act, as if saying it makes him more and more important each time it’s said. 

“Min Yoongi,” Taehyung repeats, a little shimmer in his eyes as he grins deviously. Jeongguk looks away from him, inexplicably blushing at the thought of Min Yoongi somehow finding out that Jeongguk’s saying his name behind his back. 

“Sounds good,” Taehyung says, about the song. “Really good. Fits your voice.”

“I don’t want to just be good,” Jeongguk groans. “I want to be great. Did you feel like crying? Did me singing make you want to run away because being in the presence of something so beautiful is too much to bear? Did it?” 

Taehyung frowns. “Did you drag me to the studio just to praise you?” 

“No! I just –” Jeongguk sighs in frustration. He can’t find the words to communicate what he feels. “I want to touch something that’s never been touched before,” he settles on. 

Taehyung's expression softens. “Okay, Gguk-ah. To be honest, I don’t know what that means exactly, but I believe in you. Sounds like a noble pursuit.” He shoots Jeongguk two thumbs-up and smiles encouragingly. 

Of course Taehyung doesn’t get it. Jeongguk barely even gets it himself. He shakes his head fervently. “Stop being supportive and tell me what’s wrong with my voice.”

“Nothing,” Taehyung replies, honest. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

For some reason, it feels like that’s the worst answer Jeongguk could’ve possibly gotten. 

-

When he gets home that day, he looks up Min Yoongi on the internet. 

There are only a couple results, including his student page and a video of him playing the piano. Something classical. Jeongguk watches it, fascinated by Yoongi's concentrated expression and his hands, gliding over the keys as if it's second nature. His hair is still black in the video, his face a bit rounder and less hollowed out. The upload date says it's from five years ago. 

In the recommended tab, there's a video for a track with what looks to be Yoongi's face on the cover art. Agust D, it reads. Jeongguk clicks curiously, and before he knows it, he's listened to Yoongi's mixtape front to back, twice. Two hours have passed.

"Why are you cooped up in your room?" Jimin asks, all but spawning in the doorway. Jeongguk is in bed, rolled into his blanket, eyes big as he stares at his laptop screen, showing a lyric page from one of Yoongi’s songs. He doesn't say anything, doesn’t know what to say.

Jimin clears his throat. "Tae is over, do you want to cook us dinner? If not, we're just gonna order in."

"Uhhhhhhh," goes Jeongguk, not able to look away from his screen.

"What are you doing?" Jimin squints suspiciously. 

"Nothing," Jeongguk quickly says. "Give me five minutes. I'll make you guys Jjamppong."

Jimin seems to be satisfied with that and leaves, so Jeongguk can resume what he was doing for a little longer. He dilligently reads the lyrics on screen, entranced with the way Min Yoongi verbalizes the hardest things about being alive and transforms them into music. Feeling alone, feeling angry, feeling useless, feeling everything, feeling nothing. It's painful, but his words are real.

Jeongguk needs something real, aches for it.

Yoongi's music makes him feel like he's not just living, but he's alive. Like his constant striving for perfection isn't crazy, like it's a display of his heart instead. It gives him the same feeling he got when he decided to pursue his dream, back in Busan, when he had to defend himself to his parents, when he had to listen to his dad tell him he was not good enough, but he decided to move to Seoul and chase music anyway, because if he wouldn't, there simply wouldn't be anything else. This was the only option. It still is. This is all he has. 

It somehow feels like Yoongi understands that.

-

It shouldn't be a big deal, really.

Jeongguk has run into Min Yoongi a total of two times, and both times were pure coincidence. It really, really shouldn't be a big deal. 

Except Jeongguk kind of can't stop listening to Yoongi's music.

On the bus to campus, he plays his mixtape. On the way home, he plays it again. And again. And again. He plays it before dance practice. While doing laundry. Before he goes to bed. It's no big deal. 

Except he's kind of in love with it. He's not really sure if it's possible to be in love with someone's music, but he is. Yoongi's mixtape, posted on Soundcloud about four months ago, is perfection. It hurts Jeongguk, how perfect it is.

The thing is, Min Yoongi is an enigma. No one online knows who he is, really. He hides behind the Agust D moniker. There's only a few recorded performances of his songs, filmed in blurry quality, in darkened rooms with smoke and sweaty crowds, and that one piano recital Jeongguk found, posted by someone with the username ksjbrews (the rest of the account is just faceless videos of a guy brewing various traditional liquors, which is fascinating in and of itself).  

The thing is, and it shouldn't be a thing, but it kind of is – Jeongguk ran into Yoongi twice now, both completely coincidental. The thing is that Yoongi wears slides and socks and black clothes and his hair is bleach blond fluffy and it looks really soft. The thing is that Yoongi's super cool, but he's also kind, despite being cold sometimes. Jeongguk likes it so much, how himself Yoongi is. Like he’s not catering to anyone ever, so when he’s nice it actually means something. He brought drinks to Hoseok's party because he’s a good friend. He smokes cigarettes and his voice is heavy, but his words are light and assuring and he's soft inside, or so he seems, at least Jeongguk thinks he might be because of the way he’s treated Jeongguk during their interactions. Yoongi could be so much meaner, he really could be. His lyrics are mean sometimes. He simply isn't.

It's no big deal, Jeongguk repeats to himself. It's no big deal at all. 

-

On Friday, Jeongguk stays up until 4 am. It’s not like he wants to, but he does. 

There are a lot of things one can do at 4 am. Sleeping, for example. Or maybe something productive, like knitting. Jeongguk chooses to walk the block, over and over. There’s a cafe he keeps passing, the only one that’s open. He tells himself he deserves a coffee if he makes it twenty times around. 

The place is practically empty, except for a barista who looks bored, tired, and a little bit sad. Jeongguk understands her. He walks up to the register. He debates telling her about the twenty times he’s walked the block, and starts wondering if she noticed him passing by. In the end, he orders a coffee with milk and sugar without saying anything else.

“A bit late for a coffee, isn’t it?” 

From behind Jeongguk, a voice meets his ears. A voice that's been sounding through his headphones all week long. 

He whips around and sees the one and only Min Yoongi standing there, hands in his pockets, looking exactly the same as last time Jeongguk saw him, like this is his default mode. 

“Or maybe it’s early?” Yoongi muses. 

“Yoongi-hyung, you’re here?” Jeongguk stammers. 

Yoongi laughs a little. “Are we the only two people in Seoul or something?” 

“Kind of seems that way.”

“It’s crazy how I keep running into you.”

The barista hands Jeongguk his coffee, and he takes the paper cup keenly. Yoongi also orders a coffee for himself through very minimal verbal communication, basically only gesturing with his hands. The barista seems to understand though. Maybe Yoongi’s a regular here. Jeongguk takes a sip of his still-hot coffee, and nudges Yoongi with his shoe. 

“Well hyung, this coffee place is the only 24-hour place in our neighborhood,” he smiles. “So maybe it’s not that crazy?”

Yoongi lets out a noise, perhaps a laugh. “The crazy part is both of us being awake at 4 am," he clarifies. 

“That’s normal, hyung, what do you mean?” 

“I hope not,” Yoongi says, with a look in his eyes that Jeongguk can’t bear. Concern. 

“Don’t feel the need to worry about me, hyung. I have enough people who do that,” he mutters, meaning every word. He hates it when people dote on him, hates it even more coming from Yoongi for some reason. It’s embarrassing. That’s what it is. 

Yoongi nods softly. “Sorry,” he says. 

“No, I’m sorry,” Jeongguk shakes his head, feeling like he responded too harshly. “What I think we should do is sit and have a coffee together at 4 am, accepting the fact that it’s 4 am,” he decides. 

The barista hands Yoongi his coffee, all black. His boney fingers wrap around the cup. “Okay, Jeongguk-ah," he nods. "We can do that.”

They take a seat by the window, looking out over the dark, empty street. For a while, Jeongguk has no idea what to say to Yoongi, still kind of getting over the fact that they have once again managed to run into each other. Absentmindedly his eyes follow a bug, crawling over the windowpane. 

“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?” he asks, eventually. It’s a question that’s been on his mind a lot these days. “Not even in a sad way, just that I sometimes look at an old man crossing the street and think about what it’s like to live as him. And not like, in a 'switching lives for a day'-type of way. More like...to have been born as him. To have lived my whole life up until this point as him. Or, say, the lady who I always run into, who lives on the ground floor of my apartment building and always wants to set me up with her daughter, or the guy on the corner of the street with the food stand. The one who sells the Goguma that’s a bit too salty. Why does he make them that salty? Is it intentional? I want to know. Or uhm –” he dares to glance at Yoongi. “For example, the guy who lives across from me, who makes music in his very dark apartment. I wonder what it’s like to be him.”

Yoongi huffs, his shoulders shaking a little as he does. He takes a sip from his coffee. “It’s a bit tiring,” he says pensively, “to be that guy.”

“Oh,” Jeongguk breathes. 

The bug in the window keeps flying into the window, again and again. Jeongguk watches as Yoongi stares at it in silence. There’s something about him today that’s different from the other times Jeongguk has seen him, something that he can’t exactly place. 

“I’ve found myself wishing I was someone else many times,” Yoongi continues. “But I think if people got to choose who they could be, people like me would die out. I don’t really want that to happen, so I’m glad I can’t choose.”

“People like you?”

“People who, if given the choice, would always choose to be someone else.” 

For some reason, it's only now dawning on Jeongguk that Yoongi makes music about these things – loneliness, darkness, fear – because they're real to him. As real as they feel to Jeongguk. If the world of his music is the world Yoongi lives in, it’s not exactly an easy one. 

“Isn’t everyone like that?” Jeongguk asks. He feels silly. Maybe because he thought it was normal to want to be someone else, to have wanted that for your whole life. 

“No,” Yoongi shakes his head. “Not everyone.”

“So you’re glad you can’t actually choose?” 

“Exactly," Yoongi thinks for a moment. "Lots of music, I think, is made by people who feel like that. I guess that goes for all art forms. We wouldn’t have most art in this world, the good kind at least, if not for a lot of shitty feelings. So everything that we go through serves a purpose, in the end. I think maybe that makes it okay to be this way. As long as we can keep making stuff.”

Jeongguk’s lungs feel a bit constricted. “Does it have to be like that?” he’s afraid to ask, the question comes out shaky. “Does pain always have to serve a purpose, except for just being there?”

Yoongi’s eyes almost seem to glaze over. “I don’t know. Mine does.”

Jeongguk takes a very big sip of his coffee, hoping it’ll quiet down the storm roaring inside his heart. Hearing Yoongi talk this way is making him feel like crying a little bit. It's like every single interaction with Yoongi forces him to confront some horrifically real part of himself, something he manages to bury, usually.  

“Hyung, can you show me your music again?” he asks, wondering if he can get away with it. There's a longing in his chest for more of Yoongi, more than the rest of the world gets. It’s greedy, he knows it.  

Yoongi looks at him intently. “Will you sing for me soon?”

Jeongguk stares at the steam floating above his coffee. He thinks about art and pain, and imagines singing for Yoongi, to give something back. "I will, eventually," he murmurs, quickly, before he loses his nerve. 

Yoongi nods, slowly. “I have a mixtape. You can listen to that, if you want.”

“I already listened to it," Jeongguk lets slip. He wishes he had a filter. Now Yoongi knows that he stalked him on the internet. Cool. 

“You listened to it?” Yoongi asks, seeming in awe instead of creeped out by Jeongguk. 

“Hyung, it’s amazing," Jeongguk praises. "I’ve played every song at least a hundred times, uhm, it’s just –” he bites down on his bottom lip. “You said you make a lot of horrible music, the last time we saw each other. I wanna listen to some stuff you’re not proud of.”

“Ah,” Yoongi nods to himself. He drinks from his coffee, thinking it over. “Okay Jeongguk-ah, sure. As long as you want that.”

Jeongguk nods, insistent. “I do want that.”

They maintain eye contact for a moment, but it doesn't last long. Jeongguk goes back to staring at the bug in the window. Yoongi does the same. It’s easier to both stare at the same wretched thing than at each other. 

“Why are you so hesitant to sing for me?” Yoongi asks after a while. “Seok told me you’re studying music. I'm sure you sing all the time. And the degree you're doing – it's difficult to get in. I know you're good. You must be.”

Jeongguk's heart thumps at the thought of Yoongi talking about him with Hoseok. I occupy space in your mind, he thinks, what a privilege. 

“You’re right hyung. But uhm," he takes a deep breath. “It’s my voice. I’m always on pitch. It sounds good. There’s nothing wrong with it, and I think –  I think I need there to be something wrong with it. So it can be great.” 

Yoongi's eyes flicker, understanding. “Okay, Jeongguk-ah, I know what you mean," he says softly. Jeongguk doesn’t doubt for a second that he actually knows. Yoongi crumples up his paper cup and takes out a tangled pair of earbuds from his pocket. “Come outside with me."

Outside, Yoongi gently puts one of the earbuds in Jeongguk's ear, brushing past the metal of his piercings as he does. Jeongguk shivers. Yoongi takes the other earbud himself, plugging the wire into his phone. 

“What you said, about how something being wrong with your voice will make it great. Sometimes I take it too far,” he says, as he presses play on a file. 

What follows is a heavy, dark instrumental, and Yoongi's voice, gravely into the microphone, with breaks and gasps and pants in between, the words coming out like bleeding daggers. It's not like the other angry songs on his mixtape, it's far less polished, less put-together and more of a cry for help than anything. It's almost scary to listen to. 

“Yoongi-hyung…” Jeongguk whispers. “You sound like you’re in pain.”

“I guess I was, when I recorded it," Yoongi nods. He lets the song play for a little bit longer, then turns it off quickly, taking out his earbud. "I couldn't rerecord it. I tried. Every time I tried with this song, I kept sounding like a mess. There was no way to get it right, so I scrapped it."

Jeongguk frowns a little, taking out his earbud as well. "What if you released it like this?" Truthfully, Yoongi's worst is still incredible, even though it’s terrifying. At least it feels like something. 

"I really couldn't," Yoongi shakes his head adamantly. 

"You're not proud of this, in any way?"

The dark night surrounds them and Jeongguk watches Yoongi's gaze dart between the ground and his face. 

"No. It wasn’t intentional. It sounds like this because it has to. I guess it’s hard to be proud of something so obviously broken," he murmurs, almost like a confession.

Jeongguk shakes his head. "But the song isn't broken, just –"

He doesn't know how to finish that sentence, not exactly. The song isn’t broken, just you. Yoongi looks at him like he knows what Jeongguk was gonna say anyway. 

"Jeongguk-ah," he speaks softly. "Isn't there anything you'd rather hide from the world?"

How about everything? Jeongguk finds himself thinking. But he doesn't say it. He nods, feeling like he was out of line. It shouldn't be up to him to decide what Yoongi is proud of and what he's ashamed of. It's not fair. 

Their subsequent walk home is near silent. It must be almost 6 in the morning. They stand across from each other on the street in front of Jeongguk’s apartment building. Yoongi squeezes his boney hands together, a nervous habit, maybe. Jeongguk hopes he sees Yoongi again, so he can find out.

"Thanks for the music hyung," he says, before they part. "It means a lot that you’d show me something you’d rather hide."

Yoongi looks at his shoes, nodding to himself. "Thank you, Jeongguk,” he says sincerely. He shifts his weight from one foot to another before stepping forward, just a little, and touching Jeongguk's elbow with his fingertips, they’re so cold, for just a fragment of a moment, one, two seconds, before pulling back again. 

It's so earnest it's almost unbearable. Jeongguk tries to hide how much it affects him. He gives Yoongi one last glance before turning to enter his apartment building, feeling more restless than ever. 

-

It takes a while until Jeongguk sees Yoongi again. 

Yoongi sort of disappears. Jeongguk looks around for him on the street but never spots him. He refrains from asking Hoseok about Yoongi, feels like he’s not allowed to. 

Maybe it had something to do with the vulnerability of their last encounter. It certainly affected Jeongguk. In fact, he kind of feels like every time he sees Yoongi it permanently wrecks something inside his chest. So maybe it’s good, then, that they don’t see each other. 

Jeongguk tries to focus on finishing up his school assignments before summer break starts, picks up some shifts at the book store where Taehyung handles floor duties, puts his energy into dancing and keeps the apartment clean so Jimin doesn’t strangle him. Inevitably though, Jeongguk starts to miss Yoongi’s presence. It's small things. It's his voice, and the way he forms words with his mouth. It’s stupid. 

After mulling it over in his brain for days on end, Jeongguk decides to be brave, and go by Yoongi’s apartment, to see if maybe he’s around. They don’t even have each other’s phone numbers, he realizes. If one of them ever promptly moves to another country or something, the other might never even find out. 

When Jeongguk rounds the corner to enter Yoongi’s hallway, he’s surprised to find that Yoongi is standing in the middle of it, his gaze trained on the ceiling. 

He doesn’t seem to notice Jeongguk, seems entirely entranced by whatever he’s looking at. Jeongguk watches him for a moment. 

Yoongi’s still wearing the same clothes as the last times Jeongguk saw him, though he’s ditched the slides and is now barefoot instead. His hair is not fluffy anymore, it’s sort of stringy, the bleached blond strands falling over his forehead. His face looks sunken in, his posture tired and worn, his skin paler than ever, like he’s spent the last couple days cooped up in his house, entirely kept from the sun. His hands are tapping against his legs, rhythmically, like he’s counting something. 

“Yoongi-hyung, what are you doing?” Jeongguk speaks softly so as not to startle him.

After a moment, Yoongi’s eyes drift over to him, slow and mechanically. He seems completely out of it. 

“I’m thinking,” he says, his voice void of any intonation. 

Something is definitely wrong. Jeongguk frowns deeply. “Are you okay hyung?”

“Sure, just –” Yoongi does a little wave with his fingers, and then, one by one, cracks his knuckles. Jeongguk cringes at the crushing sound of it. “This isn’t the right time Jeongguk-ah. I can’t really talk right now,” Yoongi murmurs, eyes stuck staring at the ceiling once again. He looks like a ghost, like a shell of himself. 

Jeongguk feels like an intrusive idiot, standing there, not knowing what to do or say.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters hastily, after which he turns around on his heels to leave, his heart beating out of line, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

-

Yoongi is probably not entirely okay, Jeongguk comes to conclude.

Everything accumulated – the kicking of the trash can, the bruised knuckles, the counting in the hallway, not to mention his beautiful albeit entirely devastating music – it's at least worthy of discussion. 

“Is Yoongi-hyung okay?” Jeongguk asks Hoseok later that week, after dance practice. It kind of just comes out. 

“Ah,” Hoseok smiles wryly. “You’re getting closer to hyung, aren’t you?”

Jeongguk shrugs. “Not really? I don’t know.” He hesitates, says then – “I kind of want to though.”

For a while, Hoseok thinks on it, tying his shoes. “Yoongi is doing better, I think,” is the answer he settles on. 

Jeongguk frankly has no idea what that means. “Better?” he asks. 

Hoseok sighs. “He’s been through a lot. Sometimes he deals with things in unconventional ways. He’s not an easy person, not by any means. That’s something you have to understand and accept if you want to be his friend.”

“I do,” Jeongguk feels almost defensive answering. “I’m not an easy person either.”

Hoseok looks at him as though he doesn’t quite believe him. “Right,” he nods. 

“What?”

“Just don’t be naive about it Jeonggukie. Don’t use Yoongi as a challenge.”

Jeongguk tugs on his hoodie strings, feeling a little bit angry and upset, not quite understanding why Hoseok doesn't seem to trust him.   

“I wouldn’t do that,” he mutters. Hoseok pats his shoulder with a distant smile. Jeongguk can’t make himself smile back. 

-

He goes to see Min Yoongi again the very next day. 

It feels crucial. Jeongguk sort of wants to prove that he’s not freaked out by Yoongi's unconventional habits. So maybe he is using Yoongi as a challenge, but then again, Hoseok kind of challenged him by saying that. 

This time around, Yoongi’s not out in the hallway. He’s in his apartment, and reluctantly opens the door when Jeongguk knocks.

Without speaking, they move to sit across from each other, Jeongguk on the edge of the bed, and Yoongi by the windowsill, in his desk chair. He languidly lights a cigarette, taking a drag, after which he lets his eyes fall on Jeongguk. Jeongguk tries his best not to look away. Yoongi looks better, a little. As if he slept for a long time, maybe. 

“Hoseok said I freaked you out,” Yoongi states, breaking the silence. His voice is leveled, like he’s been practicing how to bring this up. 

“That’s not true,” Jeongguk shakes his head immediately. “I was curious. Not freaked out.”

It’s true, he wasn't freaked out. Seeing Yoongi like that, out in the hallway, was confronting more than anything. 

Yoongi looks away from him, in the direction of nothing. “I was counting the ceiling tiles. I do it sometimes.” His eyes are pools of darkness. “The counting helps,” he muses. “It’s weird, but it’s something I do when I’m overwhelmed. If I didn’t count, I’d do other things that aren’t as harmless as counting. You’ve seen the walls, right? I have to count.” 

Jeongguk suddenly feels incredibly bad, like he forced Yoongi to share something he didn’t want to share. It’s not what he meant to do at all. “You don’t have to justify yourself hyung. If it makes sense to you, it makes sense.”

Yoongi nods. He takes another drag of his cigarette, though it’s nearly burned out. 

“Hoseok-hyung said you’re doing better,” Jeongguk murmurs carefully. He might be overstepping a boundary again. He hopes Yoongi would tell him, if he is. 

The words hang in the air. Yoongi laughs a little, but it feels slightly off. “Seok’s good at boosting morale. I mean, you’ve been to his classes.”

Jeongguk nervously folds his hands in his lap.“So you’re not? Better, I mean?” 

Yoongi doesn’t really respond. In his hand, he’s playing with the cigarette butt. All kinds of things go through Jeongguk’s mind, like how empty Yoongi’s apartment really is and who does he call when he’s feeling like that? Does he call anyone? Who are his friends, aside from Hoseok? How long was he standing in the hallway? Didn't anyone notice him, anyone but me?

“I cope better,” Yoongi eventually says. “I make music, I eat food, I try to sleep. I’m doing fine, I guess. Just…permanently waiting for the other shoe to drop.” 

Jeongguk isn’t sure if he wants to find out what the other shoe entails. Seeing Yoongi in the hallway the other day reminded him so much of himself, so much. He wonders often what he looks like to others when he’s practicing routines obsessively, or circling the block in the middle of the night. Now he knows. 

“Maybe it doesn’t drop this time,” he says softly. It sounds like a bitter lie in his mouth, but he wants to try at least, to come across as hopeful in some sort of way. If he can't be hopeful, then what's the point?

Yoongi absentmindedly bites his finger, ripping off some loose skin with his teeth. He laughs, short and dry. “It always drops, Jeongguk-ah.”

Jeongguk stares at him, feeling like Yoongi is slipping away from him again. He suddenly feels sick of overthinking, of worrying about things being a big deal, or Yoongi being too big of a coincidence. 

“Do you want to have dinner with me?” he asks, straight-up. 

Yoongi blinks. “Right now?”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk nods. “Just thought it would, uhm, be nice. If we had dinner together.” 

Yoongi glances over at his desk. The surface is barely visible, buried under thrown-open notebooks. “It would be nice,” he murmurs. “But I have a lot of work to do. The past few days I didn’t do much.” He laughs again, softly this time, like he's a bit amused with himself. The laugh dies down and he stares at his computer screen, then back at Jeongguk, his decision clear. 

“Fuck it,” he shrugs. “Work will still be there when I get back.”

Jeongguk's face splits with a smile. 

-

They go to a hole-in-the-wall a couple streets away. It's thick with steam and smells like grilled fish. Jeongguk loves it. 

In the back corner of the joint they take a booth, sitting across from each other. It's tight, but it's cozy. Jeongguk's shoes are touching Yoongi's under the table, just barely. Yoongi orders them both Kalguksu and Mandu, which Jeongguk eats eagerly. 

"Pace yourself kid," Yoongi murmurs. 

"Not a kid," Jeongguk says, through a mouthful of noodles. He slurps them up, relishing the taste. Yoongi smiles a little half-smile, watching him eat. He scoops some noodles from his own bowl into Jeongguk's. 

"You need it more," he says. "Still growing."

"I bet you wish you were still growing," Jeongguk says, kicking Yoongi under the table. “Short guy.” 

Yoongi seems genuinely caught off guard. He laughs. "Jeongguk-ah, how dare you?"

Jeongguk grins. "You keep calling me kid, so you kind of deserve it."

Yoongi looks down, shaking his head, and Jeongguk watches a smile grow onto his face, a genuine and pretty smile, all gummy and sweet, and he’s absolutely sure he hasn't seen Yoongi smile like this ever before. He would have remembered if he had. He wants to savor it, but it fades quickly, lingering only in Yoongi's eyes. 

“Your smile,” Jeongguk remarks, softly.

Yoongi frowns, staring at his food as he curls some noodles around his chopsticks. “What about it?” 

“Uhm. It’s really nice.” Jeongguk coughs awkwardly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

Yoongi chuckles. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks. “So you take it back?” 

Jeongguk shakes his head resolutely. “No, I don’t take it back.”

“Thank you,” Yoongi murmurs with sincerity, appearing humbled if anything. 

“I’ve never seen you smile before, I don’t think. At least not like that,” Jeongguk muses. 

“We don’t know each other very well yet,” Yoongi shrugs. 

“Yeah, but you’ve seen me smile like a million times, probably.”

“Probably,” Yoongi nods. “Good smiles don’t suffer from being worn out.”

“What a philosophical statement hyung,” Jeongguk rubs his shoe along the side of Yoongi's, feeling bold all of a sudden. 

“Brat,” Yoongi tells him playfully. They laugh a little over their noodles, both finishing up the last of what's still in their bowls. 

Jeongguk clears his throat. “Do you have any other friends besides Hobi-hyung?”

“Hmm,” Yoongi hums a little. “I do, usually, but my friends don’t really like me right now, I think. Hoseok forgives easily, has a soft spot for me I guess, so we're fine. But the others...” he trails off, shaking his head.

“Why don't your friends like you right now?”

“I skipped out on –” he waves his hand absentmindedly. “Nevermind, they’re still my friends, just sorta mad at me a little, it doesn’t matter. What about you, Jeongguk-ah? Your roommate’s Jimin, right? You seem like good friends.” 

It's not like Jeongguk doesn't notice how Yoongi's shifting his attention away from the topic, but he lets it happen. If Yoongi doesn't want to talk about something, Jeongguk doesn't want to force him to. He shrugs. 

“We are, I guess. He's really great even though he's a little scary sometimes. And uhm, Kim Taehyung – he studies Jazz Comp and minors in Illustration – they kind of come as a package deal, because he and Jimin are like soulmates bonded by the universe or some shit like that, so he became my friend too. Then there’s Hoseok-hyung, who I’m not sure if I can even consider a friend given he probably thinks I’m a leech, and uhm, that’s about it. I don’t have a lot of friends, as you can hear.” 

Yoongi takes a drink of water. “You’re a sophomore?”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk sighs. 

“Well, you’re doing better than I did when I was a second-year. I had zero friends.”

Jeongguk stares at his hands. “Making friends is pretty hard,” he admits.

“Very hard,” Yoongi agrees. “Keeping them, even harder. Hardest thing there is, maybe. Keeping people.”

Jeongguk feels warm inside. Warm, and understood. 

Yoongi kicks at his ankle lightly. “Do you want some more food? Hyung’s buying.”

“Isn’t that sort of unfair? I mean, I asked you to dinner. You don’t have to pay just because you’re older than me.”

“Why are you challenging the fact that I want to buy you food?”

“I’m not really challenging it so much as I’m questioning it.”

Yoongi shakes his head, resolute. “Jeongguk-ah, I’m buying.”

“Okay,” Jeongguk smiles, his face glowing. 

-

42…44 hours? Jeongguk can’t keep count. Surely, he’s setting some sort of record. That’s at least something. 

He hasn’t been sleeping again. It’s not that he wants to not sleep. He wants to sleep, honestly. 

“You don’t really want to sleep,” Jimin tells him, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Or you’d have slept already.”

He’s wearing a facemask and a satin bathrobe, ready for bed. Jeongguk, on the contrary, is bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

“I can’t sleep,” he says. “You’re wrong.”

“C’mon Ggukie,” Jimin sighs softly. “I know you. You love being like this, all sleep-deprived and productive and frantic. It makes you feel like you’re getting things done, like you’re making shit happen, like you matter.”

“Why are you psychoanalysing me?” Jeongguk huffs, ignoring the fact that Jimin is completely right. “Hey, do you think if I drop by the gym they’ll send me away? I already went for two hours today.”

“Go to the dance studio, if you must,” Jimin suggests. “Hobi-hyung should still be there. He usually stays late.”

“Ah,” Jeongguk smiles, jumping up. He puts on his hoodie and slips on his shoes. When he’s at the door ready to go, Jimin calls his name softly. 

“Gguk-ah, don't overwork yourself, okay?” 

Jeongguk suddenly feels guilty to the core. “I won’t,” he nods, hesitant, before he steps into the hallway and locks the door. 

-

The dance studio is small and cozy. Jeongguk feels weirdly safe there. When he arrives, the lights are dimmed, but still on. He hears faint hip-hop playing. 

Hoseok is sitting on the floor of the studio, stretching, his eyes closed, his legs spread out flexibly. Jeongguk feels a pang of jealousy, watching him in his element like that. 

He bites down, looks around the room and suddenly spots Min Yoongi, sitting on the floor against the wall, writing something in his notebook, legs raised to his chest. Jeongguk should know better than to be surprised that he's yet again coincidentally crossing paths with Yoongi, but his heart starts beating a little faster regardless. 

Neither Hoseok nor Yoongi seem to notice him, so Jeongguk moves silently, through the gap of the door, inside. He starts taking off his shoes, and quiet as he is, the noise of his sneaker dropping to the floor alerts Hoseok, who opens his eyes. 

“Ggukie! What are you doing here?” 

The sound of Hoseok’s voice rips Yoongi out of the trance he was in, and he looks up, his eyes falling on Jeongguk. Jeongguk just stands there, feeling a bit like he’s somewhere he shouldn’t be. He watches Yoongi watch him, and after a solid ten seconds, lift a single eyebrow. 

“Jimin said you might still be here,” Jeongguk stammers by way of explanation. “But, uhm, I can go, if you two are, uhm, busy?” He’s not sure what Yoongi is doing here, just knows that he and Hoseok have this special best friend bond, and Jeongguk doesn’t want to intrude. 

Hoseok drags himself upright. He comes up to Jeongguk and pulls him into a tight hug. “You are always welcome, of course. Yoongi’s here because he enjoys writing in my company, given I’m so very inspiring to him, sort of like his muse, really. Isn’t that right, hyung?”

“That’s definitely it,” Yoongi says dryly, his voice sending a tremor down Jeongguk’s spine. 

“Do you wanna do some freestyle Gguk-ah?” Hoseok asks. 

Jeongguk shakes his head. “Actually, can we do the routine that we did two days ago? I love that one. It’s so fast.”

“Sure, but I’m all danced out for the day,” Hoseok laughs, clearly spent. “You can do it, though. Do you need to warm up?”

“Nope,” Jeongguk says. “I’m warmed up.”

“Good kid,” Hoseok grins. 

Jeongguk stares at his reflection, the edges of his sight blurring a little. He wonders how obvious it is that he hasn’t slept in days. His gaze falls on Yoongi via the mirror. Jeongguk watches in near-horror as Yoongi puts down his notebook, draping his hands over his knees, switching his focus to Jeongguk. It dawns on Jeongguk that Yoongi is going to watch him. He tries his very best not to falter as their eyes meet. Yoongi’s undivided attention feels almost violent in its intensity.

The music starts. Jeongguk closes his eyes as he quickly runs through the steps in his mind. It was a little easier to remember when he did it two days ago, back when he wasn’t so sleep-deprived. But he’s determined to do it perfectly. There’s no excuse, especially not when he knows Yoongi’s watching him. 

His heart is beating in his throat, heavy. He feels like he could shoot into space. Nevermind that. The routine starts, and Jeongguk moves. The song plays on and he hits every single beat without fail. Sweat drips down his back, down his forehead, and he must be soaked but he doesn’t even care.

It’s over too soon. Jeongguk’s panting, barely able to get a full breath in, and suddenly he realises his eyes were closed the whole way through, so he couldn’t even check himself in the mirror. How did he not notice that earlier? He opens them. His reflection looks absolutely wrecked. Yoongi, behind him, is still watching him with an unreadable expression. Fuck. 

“Ggukie, you shouldn’t overdo it,” Hoseok says carefully, standing against the wall, looking unimpressed. Jeongguk feels a knot in his stomach. He wants to overdo it.

“Can I go again?” he heaves. 

“Jeongguk –”

“Please?”

He doesn’t say I need it, but it’s implied. 

Hoseok says nothing, but presses play on the stereo. Jeongguk takes a deep breath and gets back into it, dancing like it’s going to kill him if he doesn’t. He goes through the whole routine one more time, doing it perfectly once again, but it still doesn’t feel enough, and he’s starting to feel frustrated with himself. He’s not satisfied. Why is he not satisfied? Why can’t he just stop when he’s supposed to? 

The song ends again. Jeongguk falls to the floor, dropping his head between his knees as he makes a half-hearted attempt to regulate his breathing. His resolve is slowly starting to crumble. It’s embarrassing. He feels like crying a lot and for a long time, but he can’t, because he’s here with Hoseok and Min Yoongi of all people, and he needs to keep it together. He needs to prove that he can be worth something, that he’s just like Yoongi, that they’re the same, striving because it's the only thing that keeps them alive. He needs to prove it. 

Frantically Jeongguk dashes over to the stereo, bypassing Hoseok, who is saying something to him. It doesn’t matter, he can’t even hear it. He presses play on the song again, immediately getting into his starting position. This time, he makes the steps a little rougher. Every drop to the floor needs to become a bruise, every kick a strain, everything should hurt. Jeongguk can’t even tell when he starts crying, just that he does. The tears are pouring out him and he feels like a fucking idiot and he’s so so so tired but he has to do this. 

Suddenly, it’s quiet. Hoseok has turned off the stereo, and the music stops halfway through the song. Jeongguk hides his face, pressing the tears into his cheeks before falling to his knees, curling in on himself on the floor, trying to become as small as he can get. There’s a limit to how little space he can occupy. He wishes in this moment that there wasn't. He wishes he could just disappear. 

It’s all messed up now, whatever the thing he had going with Yoongi was, and his opportunity to dance at Hoseok’s studio, everything. They’re going to be too freaked out to talk to him ever again. The worst part is that Jeongguk understands. 

There’s a murmuring in the room, and the sound of footsteps quickly receding. Maybe they’re gonna just leave him here. Good.

“Jeongguk-ah,” a voice sounds then, breaking the silence, and for a second Jeongguk can’t tell if it’s Yoongi or Hoseok. When he feels a hand on his back though, he knows it’s Yoongi. The weight of it, the careful movement, so minimal it’s barely there. Jeongguk presses his palms into his eyes, harder, not wanting to show his face, possibly ever again. 

“Sorry,” he squeaks. “I don’t know why.”

“It’s alright,” Yoongi says calmly. “It’s gonna be alright.” 

Jeongguk wants to cry even more, hearing Yoongi say those words. They seem like a false promise coming from him, because Yoongi isn't alright, is he? But Jeongguk doesn’t say so, doesn't say anything. 

“Can you look at me?” Yoongi asks. 

Jeongguk shakes his head, keeping his hands in front of his face. 

“Okay,” Yoongi hums. “Have you been sleeping?”

Jeongguk shakes his head again. Yoongi is quiet for some time, and Jeongguk worries that he might be mad at him. Then he feels a pair of thin fingers slip into his hair, combing through. Slowly, softly, at a calming pace. A strangled noise slips between his teeth. 

“What are you trying to prove?” Yoongi asks quietly, the words nestling their way between Jeongguk’s brainfolds. The question hangs in the air. What are you trying to prove? He thinks of Yoongi, and his pursuit for gentler music when maybe he’s supposed to make angry, sad, broken music instead. Maybe he can’t do gentle, shouldn’t even try. 

“You can’t ask me that,” Jeongguk whimpers, embarrassed by the way his voice comes out so pathetic and small, so defensive. “You can’t ask me that if you don’t even know the answer yourself.” It’s almost like he wants to pick a fight. He shouldn’t want to pick a fight, not when he’s sobbing on the floor. It’s stupid. 

Yoongi’s fingers halt a little, and for a while he says nothing. When the silence is just starting to become unbearable, Yoongi slips his hand down, down to Jeongguk’s neck, and lightly presses against his skin, where his vertebrae ends. “

You’re right Jeongguk-ah,” he says, barely a whisper, yet definitive. He doesn’t fight back, just agrees. Jeongguk immediately regrets what he said. 

“I’m really tired,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry hyung.” 

The room is too quiet. Yoongi doesn’t move. Jeongguk inexplicably finds himself thinking of his hometown. His mom and dad, and their tiny house near the shore. The last time Jeongguk saw them, they were upset with him and his choices. He remembers his dad frowning, the lines painting his face in a shade of disappointment Jeongguk hadn’t ever seen before. He’d told Jeongguk then, that he would come to regret it. “Son, you’re fine at what you do,” he’d said, “but you’re too soft.” He’d seemed so sure that Jeongguk wasn’t strong enough to endure chasing his dream. After two years of overworking himself, Jeongguk is starting to think his dad had a point. 

“I’ll take you home Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi’s warm voice sounds, breaking up his thoughts. “Let’s go, okay?”

In a daze, Jeongguk moves. Suddenly he’s up on his feet, and Yoongi is guiding him with a steady hand on his shoulder, towards the door, before crouching down and slipping Jeongguk’s shoes on for him. It’s an intimate gesture that Jeongguk barely even notices. All he can think of is the unfinished dance routine, how he could have done it, would have broken down crying and been a goddamn mess doing it, but he could have fucking done it. 

Outside, it’s dark but still a decent temperature. Yoongi closes the door to the studio with a key that must be Hoseok’s. Jeongguk tries to let his sadness subside, staring at the streetlamps, but it just won’t go. 

Without registering it, they’ve ended up on their street, standing in front of Jeongguk’s building. It’s kind of concerning how time just falls away from him when he’s sad like this. The entire walk home didn’t even leave a single impression in his memory. Oh well. 

Jeongguk stares up at the window and sees that the lights are still on. He imagines stepping inside, imagines Jimin’s disappointed face once he notices Jeongguk’s tear tracks. He knows what Jimin is gonna say, eyes filled with pity, or maybe even secondhand embarrassment. Jeongguk can’t take it, can’t do it right now. 

“Yoongi hyung,” he says, grinding his teeth into his bottom lip. “I don’t want to go home.” 

Yoongi’s face scrunches up a little, his eyebrows drawn together. Jeongguk continues, desperately. 

“Jimin can’t see me like this, he’ll get too worried. He’ll think it’s worse than it actually is, and I just don’t wanna have to –”

“Okay, Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi interrupts softly, his hand coming up to loop around Jeongguk’s wrist, a careful touch, like he’s afraid Jeongguk might recoil. “Do you wanna sleep at mine? Hyung will sleep on the floor.”

Jeongguk breathes in, breathes in again. “Can I please?”

The walk up the stairs is silent, with Yoongi leading and Jeongguk following close behind. At the door, Yoongi looks at him pointedly as he slots his keys into the lock. His eyes are searching, trying to reach Jeongguk, and Jeongguk is too nervous to properly look back at him, knowing he still looks like a mess, knowing the crying isn’t over completely, and it could come back in waves any second. He wordlessly follows Yoongi over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it, chronically staring at the floor. Yoongi is standing across from him, still looking at Jeongguk. 

“Get some sleep Jeongguk-ah,” he’s saying softly. “In the morning you won’t feel it as much.” 

He doesn’t tell Jeongguk that it’s going to be okay again. Jeongguk is eternally grateful for that. He dares to look up and locks eyes with Yoongi, who’s frowning the slightest bit, a strand of hair in his face. Something about that strand of hair is devastating for some reason. Jeongguk just can’t get over him, can’t get over how Yoongi took him to his home, how Yoongi did his best to comfort him without ever making him feel bad about crying, how Yoongi offered him his bed to sleep in, and now he’ll have to sleep on the floor just to accommodate Jeongguk’s pathetic feelings. Jeongguk’s hands tighten over the bedsheets. 

“Hyung, if you want, we can –” he starts, but he can’t find the nerve to finish his sentence. He breathes in through his nose, hopes that Yoongi will understand. “Can we, maybe…?”

Yoongi’s gaze sharpens a little. “What is it you wanna ask Gguk-ah?”

Gguk-ah. Jeongguk’s never heard that from him. It sounds so sweet in Yoongi’s mouth. God. Jeongguk’s knuckles strain, fingers digging into the comforter. He can’t make himself say it. “Just…please…” he whispers.

Yoongi’s hands twitch a little, so he puts them in his pockets. He takes a small, careful step backward. Shakes his head. “I don’t think I can Gguk. You’re tired and sad. Let’s get some sleep, okay?”

Jeongguk frowns. He feels irrationally upset. “Hyung, I don’t want anything from you. I just want to sleep next to you.” The words come out way more aggravated than he intends them to sound. Petulant almost, like a kid. 

Yoongi shakes his head, staring at the floor, won’t look at him at all now. “I’m sorry,” is all he says. 

Jeongguk’s heart hurts. He feels like it might burst out of his chest, leaving shards of ribcage everywhere. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers, even though it’s really not. Everything feels catastrophic. He ignores it, closing his eyes and crawling under the covers, feeling the exhaustion pent up in his body take over, forcing his sadness and frustration and the burning in his chest down, letting it all fall away before tumbling into a dreamless sleep. 

-

He doesn’t see Yoongi for a while. 

Not on purpose. Maybe on purpose. Jeongguk isn’t entirely sure. 

The truth is that he doesn’t know how to act around Yoongi after what happened. How could Jeongguk have so shamelessly asked Yoongi to share a bed with him? It’s embarrassing. Yoongi is someone he barely even knows. It’s ridiculous that he felt entitled to Yoongi’s closeness, and he hates himself for insinuating that he was. 

There’s a ball of shame in his chest that grows larger by the day. He knows he shouldn’t be avoiding Yoongi. It’s so childish, he knows. He does it anyway. 

It’s been a week. That Thursday Jeongguk accompanies Jimin to dance practice, despite his recent nervous breakdown in Hoseok's dance studio, which he still hasn't apologized for. Needless to say he's horribly anxious about the whole thing. But skipping out would lead to something way worse; a free night. Jeongguk and free time have never gone well together. So he goes, with the intention of leaving as soon as practice is done. 

However, when their session’s done, Hoseok comes up to Jeongguk, smiling a bright grin. Jeongguk can’t run from him, can’t go anywhere, realizes he needs to probably just confront it at once. 

“Ggukie,” Hoseok says with his usual chipper attitude, like nothing happened at all. “You did super great.”

“Thanks hyung,” Jeongguk smiles wryly. He clears his throat. “Uhm, hyung, about last week –”

“Ggukie, you don’t have to –” 

“No, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I mean, it was so stupid, and you've been so nice to me, and I actually can't believe I subjected you to…whatever that was.”

Hoseok touches his elbow, gentle and kind. “It’s alright Ggukie, you don’t have to apologize for having feelings. And if you ever wanna talk about it, you can always come to me.”

Jeongguk kind of wants Hoseok to scream at him. He doesn’t say that. “Thanks hyung, you’re a real one” he says instead, chewing on his lip.

Hoseok perks up. “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about something – we have this showcase coming up in a couple of weeks. It’s modest, but it’s always a lot of fun getting to dance for our friends and family. Would you be interested in something like that?” The excitement is practically dripping off of him. “I know you’re busy with school, so don’t feel like you have to. Just thought it would be great to have you participate.”

Jeongguk’s confused. “You want me in the showcase? I mean, I don’t even pay you.”

“Yeah, and you’re a brat for that, and one day when you’re making lots of money being a world famous popstar I will most definitely have you repay me by forcing you to take me to cool parties, but you’re also one of my best dancers.”

“Oh.” Jeongguk doesn’t really know what to say. Hoseok smiles. 

“Think about it Gguk-ah. You’d do great. Listen, I’m meeting with Yoongi for dinner, do you wanna join us? Would be fun, right?”

Jeongguk’s stomach drops at the mention of Yoongi’s name. The ball of shame in his chest, heavy as a rock, screams at him. He thinks of Yoongi’s eyes falling to the floor, Yoongi turning Jeongguk down, turning away. Saying you’re tired and sad, as if that’s not always the case. Yoongi, probably feeling like Jeongguk is way, way too much. Jeongguk being too much, always. Fucking hell. 

“Uhm, sorry Hoseok-hyung,” he murmurs. “I have to help Tae with something.”

Jimin, standing near them with his bag over his shoulder, looks at him with raised eyebrows. Jeongguk tries to pretend like he doesn’t see it. 

“Ah, no worries Ggukie,” Hoseok says softly, thankfully not seeming to notice Jimin’s face. “Just come next time. And let me know about the showcase.”

As they walk out the door Jimin doesn’t mention Jeongguk’s lie, though Jeongguk is sure he’ll hear all about it later. It’s fine for now because Jimin leaves him for some party he’s going to with a group of English Lit majors, and Jeongguk goes home, falling face-down on the couch and staying there, in that exact position, staring at nothing. Taehyung calls him after a while.

“I want to know why you're involving me in lies,” he says trenchantly. “You told Hoseok-hyung you’re helping me with something, but that's not true.”

“How do you even know about that?” Jeongguk asks.

“Jimin told me,” Taehyung answers, because of course. Jimin is a goddamn sleeper spy. “Listen, I can’t bear this responsibility. Now I have to think of something you had to help me with just in case Hoseok-hyung and I bump into each other and he asks about it. I don’t have time for that Jeongguk-ah, I have an array of fusion jazz compositions that need to get done!”

Jeongguk isn't in the mood for Taehyung’s theatrical personality. He already feels like shit, turning down Hoseok’s offer for dinner just because he’s scared of facing Min Yoongi, and this whole phonecall is kind of aiding in making him feel like the most horrible idiot in the world. He sighs deeply. “Tae, why would you run into Hobi-hyung?” 

Taehyung scoffs.“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because there’s a showcase Jimin is participating in next month? And I will be there to lovingly support him? And, oh, Hoseok will also be there given it’s his dance troop?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jeongguk mumbles, neglecting to mention that he was also asked for the showcase. He probably won’t do it anyway. “I will think of something.”

“No more lies! Why did you lie to him anyways?” 

Jeongguk thinks of Min Yoongi and his eternally honest music. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he snaps, the words coming out way sharper than he meant them to. 

On Taehyung’s end of the line there’s a moment of stunned silence. “Ggukie, are you alright?” he asks eventually, softer than before. 

As his eyes well up, Jeongguk thinks here we fucking go again. He’s been crying way too often these days. It makes him feel weak, like he can’t handle anything. My dad was right, he thinks once more. This whole thing is so stupid. 

Everything has been stupid – the concept of Hoseok wanting him for a showcase even though Jeongguk is such a burden to him, falling asleep in Yoongi’s bed, Jeongguk’s whole existence actually. Stupid. Jeongguk buries his head in his hands and grinds his teeth further into his bottom lip, until he can taste blood. 

“Jeonggukie, it’s okay,” Taehyung says carefully. “It’s okay if you’re not feeling all that great. You can talk to me, alright? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” Jeongguk says, pressing his incisors into his knuckles, until those draw blood too. He breathes in very deeply, trying to sound normal. “Tae, I gotta go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Taehyung sighs, defeated. “Okay Ggukie, see you soon. Love you, okay?”

“Okay,” Jeongguk whispers, before hanging up. He drags his feet to the bathroom, where he stares at his own wrecked face in the mirror for an undefined period of time. He thinks of wanting, always wanting too much. He thinks of Min Yoongi and his scrunched eyebrows, his quiet low voice in the middle of the night, letting Jeongguk down easy. 

The ball of shame in his chest is growing and growing and growing. 

-

Jeongguk says yes to the showcase. It took five and a half days before he finally realized he needed to get over himself, or he might as well just give it all up right now. 

He’s well aware Yoongi will also be there. That’s fine. Jeongguk can forget about it if he shifts all his attention to dancing. He wants to do well, not just in case Min Yoongi happens to be in the audience, but because he needs to prove to himself he can still do it. Lately, he’s been feeling like he doesn’t even deserve to sing or dance, because maybe he’s not doing it for the right reasons. If he can’t do this showcase, then it feels like maybe he can’t do anything ever again. He’s not sure what he’ll do if that turns out to be the case. That’s for later. 

So yeah, in a way he’s not doing it completely out of enjoyment or whatever, and yeah, he’s proving things to himself, that’s how he handles shit. There are probably people who sing and dance purely because they love it and not because it’s an elaborate coping mechanism for existence itself, people like Jimin, for instance, but Jeongguk can’t be like that. So, he has unhealthy habits, but at least he’s exhausting himself so much that he actually falls asleep immediately after coming home from the studio. 

There's two weeks left, which is enough to perfect his routine. Hoseok, bless his heart, gives him a spare key to the studio so he can practice until late. Jimin sometimes accompanies him. Jeongguk doesn't see Min Yoongi again. 

School is almost over. He's finishing up his assignments, helping Tae with some arrangements (this time for real) and exercising plenty. So maybe he's doing well. 

Or maybe he’s turning a blind eye to the cavernous hole in his chest, afraid that if he’d dig deeper all he’d find is emptiness. It looks straight at him sometimes, the emptiness, when he's late alone in the studio, and there's only the mirror across from him. He thinks of Yoongi's lyrics, plays his songs at a low volume on his phone, and feels like fighting someone, or maybe destroying himself entirely. He can't fix anything, can’t get rid of the feeling. 

He keeps going anyway, because what the hell else can he do?

-

Eight days until the showcase and Jeongguk stays at the studio until 2:13 am. So much for a fixed sleeping schedule. When he opens the door to leave, he's greeted with a familiar silhouette.

It’s Yoongi, standing there with his hands in his pocket, his blonde hair framing his pale face, his mouth parting to reveal a sliver of teeth through petal lips. He looks beautiful. It's annoying.

"This is kind of creepy hyung," Jeongguk murmurs, locking the door behind him, ignoring how his chest tightens. 

“Hoseok gave you a key,” Yoongi observes. Jeongguk doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods, speechless. 

Yoongi hums, lighting a cigarette. The lighter noise is sharp, Jeongguk feels it in his bones. He watches the flame from the cigarette cast a glow on Yoongi’s face and wonders if Yoongi would chase after him if Jeongguk were to run away right now. Most likely not. His lung capacity is probably shit. 

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Yoongi says, smoke spilling through his lips. 

“Yeah,” Jeongguk mumbles. “I’ve been busy.”

Yoongi shakes his head. Laughs a little, with an edge. “I think you were avoiding me.” 

Jeongguk doesn’t want to talk about it. At all. “Why would I avoid you, Min Yoongi-ssi?” he asks innocuously. 

“Don’t call me that,” Yoongi sharply responds, his eyes like daggers, like verbally being put at a distance from Jeongguk actually angers him. He chucks some ash with his thumb, sort of frustrated. Then he purses his lips in thought. “I think you were embarrassed,” he poses, softer. 

“Yeah, well.” Jeongguk watches the ground instead of him. Much better. “Maybe I have good reason to be.”

Yoongi scoffs, and Jeongguk can’t really tell if he’s mad at him or not. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Yoongi’s saying, insistent. “Nothing at all.”

“I happen to disagree with that,” Jeongguk argues, because it would be crazy to act like he didn’t completely embarrass himself in front of Yoongi. Simply crazy. 

“You are such a stubborn kid,” Yoongi laughs again, a short breathless laugh that’s more like a sigh than anything else. “I’m saying it’s not embarrassing. It wasn’t. What are you doing right now?”

Jeongguk feels caught off guard by the question. “I’m doing…something,” he lies. “I have plans.” 

“At 2 in the morning?” Yoongi’s eyes squint, seeing right through his bullshit. “Don’t lie Jeongguk-ah. You're not a liar.”

Jeongguk inhales sharply. “Are you gonna buy me food again?”

“Yes,” Yoongi answers, resolute. “What do you want?”

This whole interaction feels crazy. How could Yoongi not hate him? Jeongguk feels like he should be running away from him, because inexplicably all he can ever do right is embarrass himself. It’s not normal at all, that Yoongi would want to see him again. It's also far too late for dinner. 

“I want meat,” Jeongguk says, despite that. “I went to the gym for three hours today.”

“Jesus christ,” Yoongi goes, eyeing Jeongguk up and down, not really attempting to hide it. “Do you even have any muscles left that need training?”

“Nope.” Jeongguk doesn’t understand anything that’s happening, but he smiles, feeling weirdly light inside as he watches Yoongi half-smile back.

“Let’s go,” Yoongi gestures for him to come along. He walks ahead of Jeongguk, the line of his shoulders familiar, lights sparking as he puts another cigarette between his lips, and Jeongguk begins to feel like a cloud that ran out of rain. 

-

It’s almost four in the morning, and the two of them walk home in relative silence. Over dinner, they talked a lot. Cleared some things up. Jeongguk apologized, Yoongi said it wasn’t necessary. Then they bypassed the topic and talked about other stuff. Stuff like –

“What’s your favorite texture?” Jeongguk’s question.

“Satin”, Yoongi’s answer.

“Do you miss the sea sometimes?” asked in return.

“Only when I can’t fall asleep.”

Yoongi smiling, just a little. “The sounds, right? They calm you?”

It’s true. 

They get to their street, and Yoongi crushes a twig beneath his shoe, looking at the ground, an almost shy air to him. Jeongguk is just about to take off, bid him goodbye and leave, when Yoongi speaks. “Do you wanna come up?” mumbled as if it’s nothing special at all. “Listen to some music?”

Jeongguk is well aware that it’s getting too late, and they shouldn’t be hanging out at this hour. Really, they should both go home and sleep. On top of that, it’s proven dangerous to be in Yoongi’s near proximity around this time of night, way too dangerous. “Yes hyung,” Jeongguk says regardless, near breathless. God, he’s so weak, and so prone to irrational decisions when it comes to Yoongi. 

They walk the stairs again, this time around it feels less foreboding. Yoongi’s slender form is leading Jeongguk along and ever so often he looks over his shoulder like he doubts Jeongguk is still following him. He should know he has absolutely no reason to doubt at all.  

Inside Yoongi’s apartment, Jeongguk sits down on the bed, even though he should definitely sit anywhere else. It feels like this is his designated spot, like it belongs to him a little bit. Yoongi doesn’t protest, sits across from him in his desk chair.

“I heard this the other day,” Yoongi says softly. “Thought you might enjoy it too.”

He presses play on a song and the sounds stream from his speakers, gentle and clear. It’s a classical piece, floaty and heavy at once. 

The gentle melody seems to put Yoongi in a trancelike state. His eyes stay closed the whole time. Jeongguk is grateful for that, because this way he feels more okay about the fact that he’s watching him, can’t look away, not really. He observes how Yoongi’s eyes move behind his eyelids. When the song comes to an end Yoongi doesn’t play anything else. Jeongguk folds his knees to his chest. He doesn’t really know what to do with himself when Yoongi suddenly speaks, his eyes still closed.

“It’s not like I didn’t want to, by the way.” 

Jeongguk’s breath hitches. “What?”

Yoongi squirms a little in his desk chair, eyelids fluttering open, his gaze finally meeting Jeongguk’s. 

“Sleep next to you,” he says, quiet. "That night."

“Okay,” Jeongguk murmurs, confused. “But you didn’t want to.”

“No, I did,” Yoongi blinks, moving his hands to his lap as he fidgets with the edge of his t-shirt. “But you were crying, Jeongguk-ah. You were upset. I’m supposed to look out for you. I’m your hyung. I couldn’t just…I couldn’t.”

Jeongguk is sick of people looking out for him, and he especially doesn’t want it from Yoongi. He doesn’t really know what else it is he wants, can’t put it in words anyway, just knows it burns fiery in his stomach and feels like something sickly.

“I told you I don’t need that,” he speaks. 

He makes it a point not to look away from Yoongi, to show him how much he means it. Yoongi maintains eye-contact for once, his pupils dilated, his lids heavy from what Jeongguk guesses is a severe lack of sleep. Yoongi is so much like him in so many ways, though he’d be afraid to draw the comparison out loud. 

Jeongguk slowly circles the sheets next to him, drawing a pattern with his pointer finger. He keeps looking at Yoongi, and Yoongi keeps looking at him, like they’re waging a bet on who will break eye-contact first. Jeongguk expects to win, but to his own surprise, he soon feels something fracture inside. His resolve probably, or what’s left of his dignity. He doesn’t look away though, forces himself through it, says – 

“Come here, hyung.”

Yoongi doesn’t move immediately. Only after a solid half minute does he get up from his chair, stepping over to the bed. He sits down on the side of it, close to Jeongguk, his hands dropping in his lap, folded together. Jeongguk can’t afford to think too much, doesn’t, before laying a hand on top of Yoongi’s. His skin is cold. Jeongguk clasps his fingers inward.

“Let’s go to sleep,” he whispers, Yoongi’s hand in his. “Hyung must be tired.”

Yoongi’s nodding now, and Jeongguk can tell this isn’t exactly normal for him, significantly letting his guard down like he is. It makes Jeongguk feel like every move he makes should be carefully executed, as to not fuck up with the wall he’s currently lowering. 

He doesn’t want to unclasp his hand from Yoongi’s, and slowly moves to lay down. Yoongi doesn’t lay with him at first, staying seated, motionless, and for a second, Jeongguk thinks he might give into his doubts, but then he does move, tentative still, careful as he gets on top of the covers next to Jeongguk, turned to him, his gaze soft. Jeongguk wonders what they look like, lying like half-moons, hands intertwined between them, peering into each other’s eyes. 

The light from the computer screen suddenly dies and in an instant, it’s really, really dark. Almost instinctively, Jeongguk squeezes Yoongi’s hand. His skin is so damn cold, it’s freaking Jeongguk out a little. Like he needs to keep him warm, or Yoongi might freeze over. 

Something about the darkness offers a sense of safety, maybe. Jeongguk feels the boundaries between them crumble just a little when Yoongi moves his other hand to the side of Jeongguk’s shoulder, resting on the cusp of his neck near his collarbone, fingertips pressing into the softness, so very tender. Jeongguk breathes in, feeling like his blood is singing. 

“Is this okay?” Yoongi’s low voice sounds in the dark. It takes everything in Jeongguk not to beg him for more, to say please never stop. 

“Hyung,” he goes, pulling at Yoongi’s hand, bringing it towards his chest, over his heart. “It’s always okay,” he says, before losing his nerve. Now is not for overthinking, that comes later. 

Yoongi’s fingers on his neck twitch just a little. “Gguk-ah,” he breathes, his hand closing around Jeongguk's shoulder, slipping down his back.

This closeness between them is a revelation. Jeongguk feels dauntingly privileged. He doesn’t push it, doesn't move closer even though he desperately wants to just bury his head in Yoongi's chest, instead tries to savor what he’s already gotten from him. 

“Let’s sleep, okay?” Yoongi hums. 

Jeongguk carefully listens for Yoongi’s heartbeat in the dark of the room, tries to at least. He hears it maybe faintly, somewhere. Everything around him smells like firewood and orange peels. “Yeah, let’s sleep,” he whispers. 

-

The morning starts easy. Jeongguk didn't expect it to be easy. 

“Hey Gguk-ah," Yoongi mumbles quietly against the mattress, and for a second, Jeongguk imagines himself being ten, twenty years older and still hearing that voice. He wants to banish the thought from his brain, because that’s not what this is, probably. 

“Morning hyung,” he whispers, taking in Yoongi's form across from him, soft and sleepy, in the process of waking up. They’ve detached in their sleep, but Yoongi is still turned to him. His eyes are crescent-shaped, padded by smooth pink skin. His eyelashes brush his cheekbones. They’re long, like a girl’s. Jeongguk wants to say so, but he doesn’t. 

“Did you sleep well?” Yoongi asks, rolling onto his back. 

“Hmm,” Jeongguk hums, studying Yoongi's profile. “Yeah, very good.” 

Yoongi’s mouth quirks up, just the slightest bit. “Coffee?” he asks. 

Jeongguk shivers. “Black coffee?”

“Yep,” Yoongi clicks his tongue. He turns to look at Jeongguk, who is sporting an extremely disgusted expression. Yoongi laughs in disbelief. “Jeongguk-ah, don’t tell me you’re too much of a baby to drink black coffee.”

“I’m sorry for having taste buds that work,” Jeongguk shrugs. 

“Brat. I have sugar, maybe,” Yoongi sits up quickly. “Somewhere,” he murmurs, and he crosses the room, starts rummaging around in a cupboard. Just like that, the bed-sharing is over, and Jeongguk wishes he’d savored it more, wishes he could press replay on the night again and again. 

Yoongi makes them coffee. He’s kinda nice about the whole sugar and milk thing, pouring in two spoons of sugar for Jeongguk and stirring, as if he can’t do it himself. Though he finds pride in being independent, Jeongguk wants to indulge this for some reason, and lets Yoongi do it for him. 

“Can I ask you something?” he starts, after a sip of sweet, sweet coffee. 

Yoongi looks at him over the rim of his mug. “Hmm?”

“Are your friends still mad at you?”

“Ah, yeah.” Yoongi laughs, though probably not because it’s funny. “A little.”

Jeongguk fidgets with the hem of his shirt. “What happened?”

“You’re nosy,” Yoongi laughs again. He drinks his coffee too quickly. “Such a nosy kid,” he shakes his head, like he’s an old man, and not a mere four years older than Jeongguk. 

“Not a kid,” Jeongguk whispers, but Yoongi doesn’t acknowledge it. He sits up straight.

“Seok-ah told you that I’ve struggled in the past, right?” he begins. “Well, a year ago, it was really bad. Worse than it had ever been, or has been since. I ignored my friends for weeks. Didn’t talk to anyone. Completely locked myself in my apartment. Flunked everything that semester. Didn’t care anymore.” 

Jeongguk feels a dread building somewhere deep inside his body. He thinks of holes in the wall, scarred knuckles. Yoongi, counting. 

Yoongi snorts, without a particular expression on his face. “I eventually decided that I didn’t want to go on so I did something very stupid. Took a bunch of pills and –”

Jeongguk’s heart drops. “Hyung, you don’t have to say, if you don’t want to. I’m sorry for prying,” he quickly mutters, feeling like he totally overstepped by even asking in the first place. He doesn’t want Yoongi to regret telling him these things, just because Jeongguk is such a nosy dumb kid. 

“No, it’s okay Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi shakes his head, calm as ever. “Unless you don’t want to hear. I would understand that, if you don’t want to hear.”

In a split second, Jeongguk decides that he doesn’t want to not know anything about Yoongi. He wants to know everything, even the painful parts. “I do want to hear,” he says softly. Yoongi nods, and continues. 

“I almost died. When I woke up in the hospital, I felt both disappointment and relief. My friends…they were hurt. Hoseok was inconsolable. He kept crying, I’ve never seen anyone cry as much as he did, it was just, he was also the one who –” Yoongi cuts himself off. Whatever it is he wanted to say gets swallowed, his expression twisting a little. He breathes in, a shudder. “My other friend Namjoon was really angry, understandably so. God, I would have been so angry too. I mean, I was angry, at myself. I still am.”

He sighs. “After it happened, my friends made me promise to check in with them every month. Jin, my old roommate, handsome guy, he’s good at cooking, organizes these monthly dinners at his place. It’s sort of our moment to check in with each other. Or I guess, for them to check in with me. But last month I skipped out. Without saying anything. I don’t know why, exactly.”

Jeongguk feels overwhelmingly like breaking down in tears, but it’s not his story, and it would be selfish to cry over it, wouldn’t it? Yoongi seems so fine, actually, his eyes dry like this awful thing didn’t happen to him, but to someone else. He’s just drinking coffee, casually, as if it all happened very long ago, and not just last year. He must be even stronger than Jeongguk suspected. Or maybe he’s just numb. 

“Do you feel like that again?” Jeongguk asks carefully. “Like…you don’t want to go on?”

Yoongi shrugs, drinks more coffee. “I don’t know. It never really goes away completely. You think it’s gone but it always finds a way to poke at you from under the surface,” he says. Jeongguk thinks about all the nights he’s sat on his hands, to prevent them from hurting himself. Yoongi huffs. “I don’t think so though. I can’t do that to my friends." He pauses, a moment. "And to you.”

Jeongguk adamantly shakes his head. “You can’t do that to yourself, hyung.” 

In his head there’s some sort of natural disaster happening, a storm maybe. Yoongi cares about you, it’s roaring, Jeongguk hears it like the sound of violent winds. It’s not a gentle thing, not even anything to take pride in, to be one of the few reasons someone doesn’t want to die. If Jeongguk thinks about it too much, it feels almost visceral. 

“You’re right,” Yoongi quietly nods, a simple smile on his face. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Jeongguk whispers. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, but tears are prickling his eyes. He rubs at his face, hoping it’ll help. It doesn’t help. 

“Are you okay, Gguk-ah?” Yoongi puts down his coffee cup, concerned. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Jeongguk mumbles, but he crumbles right after, breaking into tears as his hands cover his face. He cries into them quietly. Yoongi gets up from his chair and moves closer, standing in front of him. His fingers start carding through Jeongguk’s hair, softly, and Jeongguk looks up at him with watery eyes. Yoongi’s expression goes unbearably, incomprehensibly soft. 

“It’s alright Ggukie,” he murmurs. “You’re sensitive, I think. Like me.”

“Like you,” Jeongguk repeats weakly, nodding. “Ah hyung.”

“What is it Gguk?”

“You must have been really scared,” he whispers. “Right? In that moment?”

Yoongi shakes his head, a twisted expression on his face. “It’s weird, I wasn’t,” he says, abashed, like he wishes the answer was different. “I felt peaceful.”

Jeongguk’s head hurts. 

-

When he gets home, he listens to Yoongi’s mixtape again and cries the whole way through. Taehyung and Jimin find him like that, curled up in a ball under his blankets. 

“Ggukie, what’s wrong?” Taehyung coos.

“Nothing,” Jeongguk sniffles. “Just –”

It doesn’t take long for the two of them to climb onto his bed and surround him. Jeongguk thinks about two years ago, and running from home, thinks about his dad’s emotionless face, saying “don’t come back if you fail”, and his mom, just standing there. He thinks of Yoongi, a sophomore with no friends, alone in his room, staring out the window and wondering if anyone, anyone in this world would ever take the time to understand him. 

If there’s anything Jeongguk’s wanted more than to be the person who understands Yoongi, then he can’t think of it right now.

He cries for a long time, not even bothering to hide it from Taehyung and Jimin anymore. Maybe it just needs a place to go, so he can actually think again.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

His apologies get shushed, and Jimin hugs his shoulders. “Nothing to apologize for,” he hums.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Taehyung asks, but Jeongguk has no idea what he’d say. Yoongi tried to kill himself a year ago and thinking about it for too long makes me want to kill myself as well. It’s not really a normal thing to say. Sometimes I feel like I’m cosmically bound to him. That’s not an option either.

“No,” he says. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Jimin and Taehyung share a look between them that both of them think Jeongguk can’t see. Jeongguk buries his face in the pillow, and breathes in as deep as he can.

-

After the bed-sharing and the morning following, Yoongi lets him hang out in his apartment all the time. Every day. After dance practice and before class. Jeongguk wants to ask why, but he doesn’t. 

It’s sort of unspoken. They don’t talk about it when Jeongguk drifts off in Yoongi’s bed again and again, when they wake up with the sun shining through a crack in the window and they’re still next to each other, when Yoongi makes them both coffee, and Jeongguk dumps a concerning amount of sugar in his mug. It’s just better not to discuss the fact that they've been constantly drifting towards each other for no apparent reason, except that it seems like it’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’d be too hard to make any sense of it at all. 

“You know you don’t owe me anything,” Jimin says over dinner one night, “but if you don’t tell me who you’re hooking up with soon, I’m gonna die of curiosity."

“I’m not hooking up with anyone,” Jeongguk murmurs with burning cheeks. “I’m hanging out with Yoongi-hyung.” 

“Why is that mutually exclusive?” Jimin asks in response. 

And okay, here’s the thing. 

Jeongguk can’t let himself think it, can’t allow that to happen. It’s too much, and he knows it, the ache he feels under his skin when Yoongi is near him, when he touches him, never for as long or as close as Jeongguk would want, when Yoongi talks to him low and drowsy right before they fall asleep, his voice dipping to places that make Jeongguk fantasize about all the ways he wants to hear it. It’s too much. If he starts being okay with the idea that he wants more, then he won’t be able to let it go.

So he doesn’t think about it. Tries not to. Suppresses it when he does, anyway. 

“We’re friends,” is what he says. “It’s not like that.”

“You’re good at a lot of things Jeonggukie,” Jimin says, “but you’re horrible at lying.”

Jeongguk ignores Jimin – he has no idea what he’s talking about. 

That night, Yoongi calls him. They’ve only recently gotten each other’s phone numbers, since they’re both horrible texters, and don’t really enjoy phone calls. Still, Yoongi occasionally will call him, and Jeongguk’s found some joy in sending Yoongi horribly unfunny memes, though otherwise their text exchange isn’t very interesting. 

“Could you lend me your ears?” Yoongi says, his voice pouring through the phone. “I need your input.” As if Jeongguk actually knows stuff. It’s ridiculous. His opinion means next to nothing. Anyway, no big deal.

“Sure hyung.” Jeongguk can barely suppress his smile, tries his very best. “I’ll come over to yours.”

At Yoongi’s place, he listens to the new song. It’s on the longer side, almost five minutes, but every single second seems purposeful. Jeongguk can tell how it’s supposed to be hopeful, soft. A gentler side. Yoongi looks at him with curious eyes. 

“This is…” Jeongguk has so much to say already. “Ah, hyung. Can I hear it again?” he asks instead. He could probably listen to it a hundred times over. Yoongi’s stuff is so fucking beautiful. Like he is. 

On second listen, Jeongguk finds that the song also sounds like an admission of guilt, because if Yoongi’s music isn’t angry, it feels apologetic for having ever been angry at all. He says as much. 

“Jesus,” Yoongi breathes. “How do you just say these things? Are you a genius?” 

Jeongguk wants to kiss him all over. His mouth, his jaw, the line of his neck. He doesn’t do it, because he knows how to exercise self-control. Honestly, he does. That doesn’t mean it’s not really, really, really hard. It’s unfair, how hard it is. 

“Shut up,” he says. “You can’t say that. You’re an actual genius. It’s like, almost patronizing, for you to say that.”

“It’s not,” Yoongi shakes his head, smiling a little lopsidedly, a shimmer of his teeth peeking out between his lips. 

Unfair, truly. 

-

The showcase is kind of a whole thing. People bring their families and friends and stuff. Jeongguk invites no one. The only people he would invite are going to be there anyway, so it doesn’t matter. As for his family, well, let’s just say he doesn’t ask them, and he doesn’t think about it any longer than he has to.

Yoongi is also coming. He’s mostly there for Hoseok, of course. But Jeongguk secretly likes to think that maybe he’s also there for him. Even if it’s just a tiny part of his reason for coming, it already means so much. Yoongi probably would be a bit worried, if he knew how much it means to Jeongguk that he’s there. 

Jeongguk is well-prepared. He knows that. He knows he gave his all during practice, and he knows he’s a pretty good dancer, so technically he should know that this is probably going to go over well. Still, his brain is creating all sorts of doom scenarios. 

Like, what if the stage lights fall down and crash onto him mid-performance, but not hard enough to actually kill him, just hard enough to sever his leg, or some shit like that, and what if he sprays blood all over the audience? What if Yoongi is in the front row and hates him forever for spraying blood in his face? God, Jesus fuck. 

Jimin literally yells at him to calm down. It doesn’t help. Jeongguk paces backstage and decided that if a stage light severs his leg, then so be it. He thinks of the last time Yoongi saw him dance, how he’d broken down crying then. He makes it his goal to do better this time. It’s sort of pathetic how badly he wants to impress Yoongi, but at least it motivates him to do well. Maybe it even soothes his anxiety a little, knowing Yoongi already saw the worst of him. Only way is up.

The crowd is murmuring softly and Jeongguk takes a deep breath. He sticks his hands in his pockets and feels around for his phone, so he can check the time. His screen is lit up with some notifications. Mostly they’re messages from Taehyung.

good luck little ggukie 

u will absolutely kill it my boy

ill be there with flowers

love u muchos mwah

Jeongguk rolls his eyes fondly and then clicks on the other notification. A simple message, from Min Yoongi.

You’ll do great, Jeongguk-ah. I’m front row left, in case you’re looking for me. 

When Jeongguk closes his phone he can’t help his beaming expression, and he smiles at the ceiling, like an idiot. His heart is thrumming with anticipation but he swallows it down and takes a deep breath in. He can do this. 

-

The room dissolves into roaring applause. 

It’s weird. Jeongguk most often feels like happiness isn’t attainable, at least not for him. It’s not like he wants to think that though, so he’s constantly trying to prove himself wrong, by singing and dancing and making an art out of everything that hurts.

Tonight he thinks he might be able to feel it, the happiness people speak of all the time, that feeling he’s never really believed to be real.

The showcase went exceedingly well. Jeongguk hit every single move with precision and nailed the shit out of his solo performance. But if it were just that, it wouldn’t be enough to make him feel like he does now.

It was Min Yoongi. 

From where he was seated in the crowd, Jeongguk could feel a near constant eye on his every move, Yoongi diligently watching as he took slow, careful sips of his drink. It felt magnetic, exhilarating, to have Yoongi’s gaze glued to him like that, to have him watch with such a pure concentration and admiration bleeding from his stare. 

The aftermath of the showcase has all the dancers standing around the venue, drinks in hand, surrounded by their loved ones. Jeongguk is three drinks in, holding a bouquet of flowers, given to him by Taehyung, who has his arms slung around Jimin’s back. Jeongguk watches them and feels the urge to find Yoongi. Right after the showcase Jeongguk saw him talking to Hoseok, but he hasn’t seen him since.

“Ggukie,” Hoseok greets him, suddenly across from him with a big smile. “You did so amazing. I knew you would.”

“Thank you for the trust Hoseok-hyung,” Jeongguk speaks sincerely. “I really needed this.”

“Of course,” Hoseok smiles softly. “Oh Gguk, Yoongi-hyung wanted to find you, he said. He’s somewhere around here still.”

“Ah,” Jeongguk nods, clenching the flowers closer to his chest. He sips a little more from his drink, feeling warm inside. “Thanks for letting me know, hyung.” 

Jeongguk steps away and heads outside, feeling instinctively that that’s where Yoongi probably is. 

Outside it’s quiet, much quieter than inside. Jeongguk breathes in the fresh air. He’s still reeling, his forehead coated in a thin layer of sweat. He rounds the corner, where he finds who he’s looking for. 

Yoongi, leaning against the wall with a cigarette between his lips. Once he spots Jeongguk, the side of his mouth curls up just a little, his face cocked to the right, eyebrows raised. He looks good today, so effortless and cool, with his hands in his pockets, hair moving with the slight night breeze, and his eyes squinting, like he’s consciously deciding to focus on Jeongguk. Jeongguk finds himself wishing he were the sole thing Yoongi would ever focus on. 

“Hyung, there you are,” he steps closer, leaning his back against the wall next to Yoongi. 

“Hi you,” Yoongi hums, blowing smoke through a crooked smile. He points at the bouquet Jeongguk’s holding. “Pretty,” he murmurs.

“Tae gave me them,” Jeongguk says, putting the bouquet on the floor. He peers into the cup Yoongi’s holding. “What are you drinking? I bet something gross.”

“Nope, it’s whiskey. Want a taste, Gguk-ah?”

“Please don’t make me.”

Yoongi laughs softly. “I’ll let you off the hook this time. Only because it’s your night.”

Jeongguk blushes. “It’s not just my night.”

Yoongi shrugs, his head falling back a little. For some reason, it makes Jeongguk want to push him up against the wall, to press his hands into Yoongi’s chest and run his fingers through his hair. No doubt it's the alcohol, making him feel so unbearably hot inside, his stomach twisting with neediness – needing to touch, needing to be all over Yoongi, to never stop touching him. 

“You kept looking at me,” Jeongguk says bluntly, “during the showcase.”

Yoongi’s eyebrows twitch. “That’s kind of what you’re supposed to do as an audience member at a showcase.”

Jeongguk shakes his head. “No, I mean. You kept looking at me. Even during group routines.”

Yoongi’s gaze turns to the floor. He swirls the liquor in his glass, creating a tornado. 

“Well, you were really good,” he says, almost shyly. “God, Jeongguk-ah.” 

Jeongguk nudges him with his shoulder, feels a spark of electricity when they touch. “Yeah?”

“Very good,” Yoongi nods, letting his eyes fall on Jeongguk again. “Hard to look away from.”

Jeongguk doesn’t know what it is – the warm summer air, the three drinks he’s had, the adrenaline from the showcase or maybe it’s Yoongi, standing beside him, looking at him like he’s the only person who matters – but he's feeling brave tonight, like he could say everything he’s usually so scared to say. 

“I liked that you were watching me,” he close-to-whispers. “Motivated me to dance better.”

Yoongi takes a hasty sip of his drink. “Is that right?”

Jeongguk turns to him, leaning a little closer. Yoongi turns with him, so they’re facing each other, and, god, Jeongguk loves the fact that Yoongi is shorter than him but nonetheless so imposing in his posture, the way he carries himself. It makes Jeongguk feel small in the best way. 

“I want to impress you,” he says, shamelessly. “I often do.” 

Something flashes over Yoongi’s face, a hint of darkness in his eyes, and he slowly blinks. Before Jeongguk can even tell he’s moving, Yoongi’s brushing a strand of hair out of Jeongguk’s face, his hand coming to rest at the nape of Jeongguk’s neck, his thumb softly making circles.  

“You did impress me, Gguk-ah,” he speaks slowly. 

Jeongguk wants to hear Yoongi say those words over and over again, wants him to whisper them into his ear as he comes undone. 

“Say again?” he pleads, wishing he had any self-control at all. 

Yoongi’s breath stutters. “You impress me,” he murmurs, tangling his fingers in Jeongguk’s hair. “Always.”

“Hyung,” Jeongguk whispers. “That feels so nice.”

Yoongi seems hypnotized, his eyes never wavering, his movements slow and gentle as he runs his fingers through Jeongguk’s hair, again and again. Jeongguk can feel himself leaning forward, getting closer, and he wonders how wrong it would be if he actually kissed Yoongi right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be wrong at all. 

“Uhm,” another voice sounds, and Jeongguk is ripped out of his Yoongi-induced trance immediately. Yoongi himself seems just as disturbed, pulling his hand back quickly. 

It’s Jimin, bouncing on the balls of his feet, barely suppressing a shit-eating grin. “We were worried you guys had fucked off without saying anything,” he says. “But I guess you’re just outside doing…whatever this is.” 

“Yep,” Jeongguk says, clipped. “Do you need anything else except for confirmation that we’re still here?”

“Just that the party’s moving to Hoseok-hyung’s,” Jimin says. “Don’t get stranded.”

Yoongi clears his throat. “Okay, cool.” 

“Cool,” Jimin echoes. 

“Cool,” Jeongguk murmurs.

When Jimin’s gone, there’s a palpable distance between the two of them. Jeongguk suddenly feels way too aware of himself, scared to reach out and touch Yoongi again.

“We should probably…” Yoongi starts, his eyes glued to the ground. He laughs nervously. “Ah, I’m sorry Gguk-ah.” It’s not really clear what he’s apologizing for but Jeongguk kind of gets it. 

“Don’t be,” he immediately says. “Yoongi-hyung, let’s go with them.” 

He doesn't want Yoongi to drift away from him. There was a moment there, where it felt like they were breaking through something, and one of them might have leaned forward, closer, if the moment had lasted just a little longer. Jeongguk isn’t sure if he could have mustered up the courage to be the one to do it. He’s not sure if Yoongi could have either. 

Yoongi’s hesitating, Jeongguk can tell. There’s a glimmer in his eyes mourning the broken moment. Jeongguk catches his gaze and smiles, just a little.

“I’ll drink whiskey with you, hyung,” he says. 

“Ah,” Yoongi suppresses a smile. “How can I resist?” 

But when they get to the next place, Jeongguk kind of loses him to Hoseok, who is begging Yoongi to dance with him, which Yoongi indulges because he’s a good friend. 

It’s fine. Jeongguk tries to escape to the bathroom. Before he can get there he runs into Jimin, who approaches him with a knowing smile.

“Stop,” Jeongguk mutters. 

“Gguk,” Jimin raises his eyebrows. “I thought you said you and Min Yoongi were just friends.”

“We are,” Jeongguk groans, pained. “Fuck.”

He turns on the balls of his feet and walks off, crossing the living room and opening the door to the balcony. Not necessarily to Jeongguk’s surprise, Taehyung is there, rolling a joint with steady hands.

“Yo,” he greets Jeongguk. “Want some?”

“Hmm,” Jeongguk shrugs, sitting down. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Hey,” Taehyung licks the paper and looks up. “You did great today. Why does your face look like you’re sad?”

“I’m not sad,” Jeongguk bites down on his bottom lip. “Just…”

Taehyung lights the joint and inhales, his chest puffing up. He sighs, contentedly. “That’s the good stuff,” he grins widely, then he immediately turns serious again. “Ggukie, you can tell me anything.”

“I feel like I’m –” Jeongguk takes a deep breath, “– falling in love a little.” It feels scary to say, mostly because it’s true and, once acknowledged, hard to take back. 

Taehyung’s eyes glimmer. He doesn’t bring up Min Yoongi, which is nice of him. “That’s amazing Jeongguk-ah,” he says instead, earnest. 

“It’s…it’s not really.” Jeongguk sighs, frustrated. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I mean, when we’re together I feel like I can’t control myself.”

“Why don’t you just accept that?” Taehyung shrugs. “Let your feelings guide you. Do everything you want to do without feeling like you’re wrong for it.”

“How am I supposed to know if that’s what the other person wants too?”

“You can tell,” Taehyung nods, insistent.

Jeongguk wishes he could be like what Taehyung’s describing, but he knows deep down he’s not brave enough. The moments he dares to imagine actually kissing Yoongi always make him feel sick with nerves. 

“Look, Ggukie,” Taehyung says. “Either you tell this person how you feel, or you try to get over it. There’s not much else you can do.” 

He holds out the joint for Jeongguk. Jeongguk takes it, inhaling deeply and coughing for a solid minute. “Jesus Christ," he says. “I need to go home.” 

“Be brave Gguk,” Taehyung says wisely, “and follow your heart's desires.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeongguk murmurs, stepping back inside. The noise of the party hits him at once and he starts to feel dizzy. He looks around to see if he can spot Yoongi, but he’s nowhere to be found. Jeongguk breathes in, trying to be normal, to ignore the music that’s too loud, and the people, who are also too loud. Everything is too loud.

In a rush he crosses the living room and steps out the front door, throwing it shut and speeding down the stairs.

-

When he’s at home, in a cocoon in his bed, he has some texts. There’s three from Jimin.

You can’t do the disappearing thing

It’s not cool

Just tell me when you leave 

Jeongguk replies with a thumbs-up emoji. 

There’s one from Hoseok as well. 

jeongguuu bb i hope u had fun tonite u did amazinggg u are so talented ok <3 !!

Jeongguk sends back a heart. Lastly, there’s one text from Yoongi.

Big night tonight. Must have been a lot. Hyung is proud of you. Get some rest, Gguk-ah. We’ll drink whiskey another time. 

His phone gets thrown to the other side of the room and Jeongguk forces himself to go to sleep. 

-

Something has to change. Jeongguk thinks maybe he should hook up with someone. Someone who doesn’t look like Min Yoongi, or remind Jeongguk of him.

It’s Saturday, and he’s ended up with Taehyung at some random club uptown, with flickering lights and heavy beats pumping through his veins.

This is definitely not his scene. Jeongguk feels alight with nerves. Regardless, he tries to get into the music. He can feel the bass thrill through his body, and he moves with it. It’s not the worst thing ever when he forgets about the fact that he doesn’t know anyone here, aside from Tae, who’s snorting coke in the bathroom, probably.

He tries not to lose sight of his goal. Finding a hook-up is the priority. 

It shouldn’t be this difficult, really. Hooking up should not be a difficult thing. He’s done it before, and he's pretty sure he's sort of an attractive-looking guy, there must be some people who are into him. Jeongguk tries to scan the crowd, but it’s way too dark. He stumbles over to the bar, gesturing to the bartender for a drink. He’s had…four? Five, by this point? He’s losing track a little.

He turns to his right and finds some guy staring at him, eyes darkened and pointed. When Jeongguk meets his gaze, the guy smirks and waves. Jeongguk averts his gaze immediately, staring at his fingers tapping on the bar.

The bartender hands him his drink, so Jeongguk goes back to the dance floor, trying to forget about that guy and his watchful eyes. He thinks about Min Yoongi instead, how he’d hate this place as much as Jeongguk hates it, how he’d have enough self-respect not to even go. 

God, Jeongguk needs to seriously stop thinking about Yoongi. 

After some time and more than enough drinks, he starts to feel dizzy. He puts a hand on his chest and breathes in deeply before deciding to go to the bathroom.

It's far too crowded in the bathroom, so Jeongguk locks himself in the stall, putting his fists over his ears and trying to breathe. His heart is slamming in his chest. This might not be the best place for him to be, he realizes quite suddenly. He thought he could do it, but he feels like he’s not real, and like everything is super far away. He actually might need to find Taehyung and get the hell out of here.

Jeongguk unlocks the door and presses through the hoard of bodies before someone grabs his arm and pulls him to the side. For a second he thinks it might be Taehyung but it's not, it's that guy, the one from over at the bar.

"Hey," he speaks, close to Jeongguk's ear, "you look a little frazzled. You okay?"

Jeongguk feels frozen, not knowing what to say. 

"Calm down, okay? You're fine,” the guy mutters, so close to him. He overwhelmingly smells like cologne. But not the good kind, the kind that gets stuck in your throat. 

"Sorry," Jeongguk murmurs. “Uhm, I’m sorry.” 

"It's all good," the guy says, his fingers sliding down Jeongguk’s bicep and closing in around his wrist. He smiles at Jeongguk, catching his eyes, and something shines in his gaze. He’s flirting definitely, and sure, he's pretty good-looking, and isn't this exactly what Jeongguk asked for, shouldn't he be grateful? 

But it feels so wrong, standing there. Jeongguk can't stop thinking about Yoongi. How careful Yoongi is with touching him, and how this random guy is all but digging his nails into his skin.

"Uhm," Jeongguk stutters, "I have to find my friend. He must be here somewhere."

"Just stay here," the guy says, and he's definitely too close now, his lips against the side of Jeongguk's neck. "You're so fucking hot," he breathes roughly and Jeongguk tries to step back but the guy is still holding him. His other hand is slipping down his waist now, down, just like that. Jeongguk wants to run, wants to scream. 

"I really – I have to go – I'm sorry, I just –" Jeongguk pushes the guy back a little, finally managing to shake off his grip. The guy looks at him with an expression on his face that's more annoyed than anything else. Maybe a little disgusted, too. Jeongguk doesn't say anything else, just quickly turns, beelining out of the club with his shaking hands pressed over his ears.

Outside, he gasps for fresh air. All the smokers are standing near the door. The smell of cigarettes makes Jeongguk want to cry.

He walks and walks until he ends up in some alleyway, his back slamming against the wall with his breath stuck in his throat. Why did he freak out so badly? He feels like a pathetic loser. He wanted to hook up, didn’t he? So why did he react like such a weirdo? 

going home, he texts Taehyung, tired.

Taehyung's reply comes a minute later.

please get home safe

sorry for leaving you alone

will you be home safe?

i worry about you sometimes ggukie

text me ok

i love u

-

Jeongguk doesn't want to go home.

The night was a bust, and it’s his own fault. He feels like destroying something or like curling up in a ball on the floor and then proceeding to never ever get up. 

He’s standing in front of his apartment building, considering the time. It's close to 2 in the morning. Yoongi's window is dark, but that doesn't mean anything. 

Jeongguk hasn’t seen Yoongi since the night of the showcase. He knows he should tread carefully. Taehyung’s words spook around in his head. Tell him how you feel, or get over it.

He wants to get over it, he does. But before he knows it, Jeongguk is walking up the stairs and knocking on Yoongi's door. Softly, maybe to give him a chance to ignore it. 

After 37 seconds, Yoongi opens up. 

He looks like he usually does, all sharp lines and tired eyes, a mildly confused expression on his face, and his pale skin and white hair should maybe make him come across as cold but his presence feels so warm, so insanely comforting at this moment, that Jeongguk can't help stepping forward, his arms slotting around Yoongi's neck. 

"Hyung,” he murmurs, sort of breathless. He quickly lets Yoongi go, stepping back, a little ashamed. “I’m sorry for turning up to your place so late but uhm – I missed you, I guess.” His chest hurts and his words just come spilling out. Yoongi looks at him with calm, sweet eyes. 

“Ah, I missed you too Gguk-ah,” he says hoarsely. He gestures to his computer. “I was just gonna close down this project and smoke a cigarette. Come in.”

Jeongguk steps inside, his head still spinning. He thinks of the club, thinks of anyone else but Yoongi getting close to him, and how it feels so profoundly wrong. On the side of Yoongi’s bed Jeongguk sits down and watches as Yoongi takes his pack of cigarettes, twirling one of the smokes between his fingers. 

Jeongguk wishes Yoongi would sit next to him on the bed and stroke his hair until he falls asleep. He wants it so much right now, but he has no idea how to get closer to Yoongi.

“Can you maybe play me something on your keyboard, hyung?” he murmurs, because that’s easy, because that’s what they know. Yoongi plays music and Jeongguk listens.

Yoongi thinks for a second, looking at Jeongguk with a studious gaze, before disregarding his cigarette, stuffing it back in the pack, and sitting down in front of his keyboard. “What do you want Gguk-ah?” he asks softly.

“Anything,” Jeongguk breathes. 

Before Yoongi starts, he takes a deep breath and cracks his knuckles. 

He plays something light, something pretty and calming. Jeongguk doesn’t recognize it. The melody floats through the room. It sounds like the sea breeze. Jeongguk watches Yoongi’s hands dance across the keys. When it’s over, he breathes in shakily. 

“Did you just think of that?” he asks.

Yoongi turns to him and shrugs, smiling. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Jeongguk insists. He feels like sobbing, never stopping. “You’re amazing.” 

Yoongi tilts his head curiously and folds his hands over his knees. “Are you okay Gguk-ah?”

Jeongguk feels like what he wants has never been further away. He imagines kissing Yoongi and pressing his hands against his chest. He imagines being someone who is honest. 

“I’m feeling…” he stammers, his words evading him. He curls in on himself further. “I don’t know.”

The guy in the club is in his head again. It’s stupid, everything is stupid. It was his own fault anyway, wasn’t it? He asked for it. 

“Did anything happen?” Yoongi asks, as he gets up, walks over, and sits down on the edge of the bed. Jeongguk looks at him. Yoongi’s gaze is pointed, concern shimmering in his irises, his brows drawn together, and fuck, Jeongguk can feel his eyes spill over, feels his chest so tight and heavy, his breath stuck dry in his throat. 

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, burying his face in his hands. He’s such a dumb kid, that’s all he is. “Sorry hyung,” he cries, wondering if Yoongi’s had enough of him already. He must have. 

“Hey Gguk-ah,” Yoongi’s warm voice sounds. “It’s okay.” His hands fall on Jeongguk’s shoulders, gentle. “C’mere.”

Steadily he moves Jeongguk toward him. Jeongguk all but falls against his chest, breathing slowly. Yoongi’s fingers splay against his scalp, pressing in. 

“It’ll be alright. I know it’s hard Gguk-ah.”

Jeongguk tries to stop crying, still can’t do it. “I'm sorry I'm such a baby,” he huffs, stifling himself. 

“You’re not at all. You’re strong,” Yoongi says. “Stronger than most people.”

His voice sounds so fucking sincere. It’s not right. “I’m not,” Jeongguk insists, his fingers stuck on the hem of Yoongi’s shirt. 

He wishes he could stop falling apart like he does. It’s starting to become clear that displays like this one are not the exception, but the rule. Yoongi must be freaked out. Jeongguk doesn’t want him to be freaked out. 

“It’s okay,” Yoongi holds him tighter, whispering against Jeongguk’s forehead. “It's okay to feel like this.” 

“Yoongi-hyung,” Jeongguk breathes, “I don’t know.”

“But I know,” Yoongi’s saying, nodding, and he presses a small kiss against Jeongguk’s forehead. Jeongguk feels something grow in his chest, something that only ever gets bigger and never smaller, something he wishes wouldn’t exist, something he can’t deny any longer. He pulls back, rubs the tears clean off his cheeks. 

Yoongi’s looking at him, his gaze unwavering, the low light bouncing off his skin and his expression is warm, so warm, and oh my god, he’s so beautiful, and so relentlessly kind. Jeongguk is absolutely screwed.  

“Wanna sleep here?” Yoongi asks, just above his breath. 

Jeongguk can’t find it in himself to refuse, doesn’t want to anymore. He nods, softly. 

“Okay Gguk-ah,” Yoongi nods as well. “You’re alright with me.” 

Jeongguk’s heart blooms. “I know,” he whispers. 

-

So maybe Jeongguk can’t exactly get over Min Yoongi, and maybe that only leaves him with one option. 

It’s a realization he tries to delay from hitting him. He compulsively cleans his apartment, listening to Yoongi’s mixtape over and over, maybe to create some distance between them. If only Yoongi would turn back into the enigma he used to be, a mystery Jeongguk wanted so desperately to solve, maybe it would be better.

But the songs only mean this much more now, and Jeongguk’s body feels like it’s on fire. He organizes his sock drawer. Then Jimin’s sock drawer. Then he stares out the window, at Min Yoongi’s window, which is dark and three floors up from Jeongguk’s apartment. 

Only one option. One. 

-

There’s a strange artsy warehouse party that Taehyung drags Jimin to, and Jimin by extent drags Jeongguk to. Min Yoongi is also there, because –

“Seok told me he’d buy me this set of scented candles I’ve been eyeing if I showed up. Fuck knows why he even wants me here. Not like he’s gonna talk to me, fuckin’ social butterfly.”

“Wait, a set of candles?” Jeongguk backtracks, amazed.

Yoongi nods. “Yes, Gguk-ah, I like candles, why is that so wrong?”

Jeongguk grins widely. “Nothing, just that you’re an old man who enjoys old man things.”

“Wait until you smell them,” Yoongi says, very seriously. Jeongguk feels his heart thrill.

That was earlier. Now it’s…later, and Jeongguk is maybe a little desperate to find Yoongi, feeling loose and happy, wanting to share in that feeling. Alas, Yoongi is nowhere to be found given he’s the type of person to escape a party, to locate the one place no one’s at and just hang out there all night, probably smoking. Jeongguk’s already checked outside, the bathroom and the balcony, all prime hideaway spots for an introvert like Yoongi. But no luck. He makes it to the dancefloor, where he finds Jimin grinding up against a guy with dimples and glasses and the reddest face Jeongguk has ever seen. Okay, cool. Still no Yoongi.

Dejectedly, Jeongguk stumbles to the kitchen area, which is just as packed as the rest of the place, which is where he finally, finally spots Yoongi. He’s sitting hopped up on the kitchen counter, first off, what the hell, cute, with Taehyung of all people, who is drawing on Yoongi’s arm with a marker. And Yoongi is just…letting it happen? Jeongguk watches the scene for a while, sort of entranced. He’s never really seen Yoongi and Taehyung interact at all, in fact, Jeongguk can barely remember introducing them, isn’t sure if he ever did. 

He tries to stop staring, to let the two of them be, but can’t move for some reason. It’s only a matter of time until Yoongi’s gaze finds him, and his eyes all but light up, sparkling with familiarity. Yoongi seems to notice Jeongguk’s confused expression and laughs a little, abashed. Come here, he mouths to him. Jeongguk suddenly doesn’t feel stuck anymore, feels more like he can’t get there fast enough. 

“Am I interrupting something?” he asks, approaching the two. "Is Taehyung doing okay?” 

Yoongi blinks in confusion. “This is Taehyung?”

Jeongguk laughs. “Oh my god, Yoongi-hyung, yes. What is happening here?”

“I think he’s high," Yoongi chuckles. 

"That explains.”

Jeongguk studies Yoongi’s arm, which has been covered with intricate patterns, a drawing style Jeongguk has come to recognize from Taehyung. Taehyung is in a trance, having not even acknowledged Jeongguk. Jeongguk lays a hand on his shoulder, gently. 

“Tae,” he hums. “You good? What did you take?”

“Something awesome,” Taehyung murmurs, without looking up. “I’m a little wrapped up right now, do you mind?”

Yoongi laughs softly. Jeongguk looks back at him, and finds himself smiling. 

“Guess I won’t bother him,” he says. Yoongi nods diligently. 

“Probably best, he said he’s creating his magnum opus.”

Jeongguk acts mock-impressed. “Woah, and on your arm. You’re so lucky.”

“I know, right?” Yoongi smirks. “Never washing it again.” 

“Sell it on eBay.”

“Definitely.”

Jeongguk finds himself grinning so brightly, he can’t contain it. 

“So I guess this is the average warehouse party experience?”

Yoongi laughs. “Do you think I’d know Jeongguk-ah?” 

“Nah, 'cause you’re too cool for warehouse parties.”

“I’m not too cool for anything.”

“Oh please hyung,” Jeongguk rolls his eyes. “You’re immensely cool.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Stop playing brat.”

“I’m not playing,” Jeongguk bumps against Yoongi with his shoulder. “You don’t even really know it yourself, which makes it cooler. It’s effortless.”

“Effortless, huh?" Yoongi smiles, flattered, his gums showing. "You’re always giving out compliments when you’re drinking.” 

“I’m a nice person,” Jeongguk says, blushing. 

“Hmm,” Yoongi laughs. He gestures to Tae, who’s still drawing, just as focused as before. “Does he do this often?”

“Not really. You guys seem to have a special bond,” Jeongguk shrugs. 

“I’m not sure. We only just met,” Yoongi says dryly. 

Jeongguk stares at the floor. “I don’t know hyung, I think this could be the start of a beautiful love story," he murmurs, feeling weirdly possessive all of a sudden. 

Yoongi smiles thoughtfully. He nudges Jeongguk's knee with his ankle. “Ah Ggukie," he hums, "don’t be jealous.”

Jeongguk's whole face flushes. “I’m not jealous,” he says quickly. It’s a lie, and they both know it.

“I’m finished,” Taehyung suddenly says, smiling an extremely wide smile. Yoongi’s arm is now fully covered in drawings, all the way up to his sleeve. It’s actually impressive.

“Thank you,” Yoongi tells Taehyung, sincerely. 

"Sick," Jeongguk comments.

“Wait,” Taehyung stops in his tracks, blinking between them. “Why is Jeongguk here?” he turns to Yoongi. “Hey, cool-looking guy that I drew on. How do you know Ggukie?” 

“Tae,” Jeongguk laughs. “First of all I’ve been standing here for like five minutes. And, uhm, that’s Yoongi-hyung.”

“This is Yoongi? I drew on the famous Min Yoongi?”

“I’m famous?” Yoongi goes. 

“Are you kidding?” says Taehyung, “Jeongguk is literally always talking about you. Yoongi-hyung this, Yoongi-hyung that, he’s so smart, so good at making music, and oh, Taehyung, I have to impress him at the showcase! What if he doesn’t like me? What will I do then?”

“Wow, how very interesting,” Yoongi says, amused. Jeongguk wants the ground to swallow him whole. 

“Don’t listen to Tae, he’s on shrooms,” he mutters, cheeks burning. 

Taehyung shakes his head. "Ecstasy, actually.”

“Go dance with Jimin,” Jeongguk says to him. 

“Okay Ggukie,” Taehyung turns to Yoongi. “Thanks for letting me draw on you Min Yoongi-ssi.”

“No problem,” Yoongi says, in earnest. 

Taehyung leaves then, already focused on his next endeavor, which is apparently dancing the tango with Jimin. Jeongguk stands there across from Yoongi, trying to stare at the floor instead of him, but sort of failing. 

“You’re so nice to me Gguk-ah,” Yoongi says, with a self-satisfied smile. 

“Shut up,” Jeongguk glows warm. He bites on the inside of his cheek, daring to look at Yoongi, who is beaming, trying to hide a smile. 

“I’m gonna make us another drink,” Yoongi’s saying, a spark in his eyes. “Wait for me to come back.”

Jeongguk nods, feeling his restraint slowly disintegrating. 

-

It’s late. The lights are purple. Taehyung and Jimin are dancing in the corner of Jeongguk’s eye, and Hoseok is somewhere too, or at least his voice chimes in the distance, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest, doesn’t matter at all actually. 

Yoongi is across from Jeongguk, smoking a cigarette, blond hair carrying a pink hue, his lids so low his eyes almost seem closed. The music is heavy, slow. Jeongguk wants to do anything but just stand there and watch, but he feels like maybe that’s all he can do, all he’s ever been able to do. 

Yoongi’s watching him too, watching as he works the cigarette, twirls it between his long, beautiful fingers, smiling a little like he knows a secret, smiling a little like Jeongguk knows it too. Inhaling one last time and dropping his hand, stepping closer, like he’s committing to a thought, putting a purposeful hand on the side of Jeongguk’s neck, sending shivers down his spine. 

“Let me know when you wanna leave,” he says, quietly, but clear enough so Jeongguk can hear it over the music. Let me know when you wanna leave. 

“Okay hyung,” Jeongguk immediately says, staying in Yoongi’s space, one of his hands thoughtlessly attaching to his waist. “Let’s leave.”

-

Jeongguk’s been at Yoongi’s apartment so many times, but this time feels entirely different. They’re both drunk for starters, stumbling over their feet a little as they enter and –

Yoongi lets the door fall behind him, lets it close, and shuts out the world with it, because the moment it closes, it feels like everything else has fallen away. Jeongguk turns to him and Yoongi leans back against the door, a wide smile forming on his face. He’s been more smiley than usual, especially tonight. It’s honestly incredible. Jeongguk wants to see him smile all the time, always, forever.

"Do you remember…," Jeongguk starts, as he steps closer, “uhm, do you remember what Taehyung was saying? It was..." he chuckles at the floor, a bit ashamed to address it. "Ah, hyung, don't take it too seriously."

"You don't have to be embarrassed Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi speaks lowly. "People usually like hearing nice things about themselves.”

“Hmm," Jeongugk hums. His eyes fall on Yoongi’s arm again, covered in doodles, and his fingers twitch. "Tae really made art out of you.”

Yoongi’s eyes carefully meet Jeongguk’s gaze. “Yeah, he did,” he nods. 

Jeongguk can’t stop looking at his arm, covered in drawings. Yoongi knows it, watches Jeongguk watch him, and says – 

“Do you wanna touch?”

He should say no, because once he’ll start to touch Yoongi he won’t want to stop, Jeongguk knows it. But all he can do is nod, slowly, stepping forward and holding out his fingers before letting the tips of them skim against Yoongi’s skin. At the contact, a shiver passes through both of them.

“Looks good on you, hyung,” Jeongguk whispers. "You should get tattoos."

“Thank you,” Yoongi nods. Jeongguk traces his fingers up, then pushes under the sleeve of Yoongi’s shirt, touching his upper arm. Yoongi laughs a little, avoiding eye contact. Jeongguk presses into his skin. 

“Are you embarrassed now?” he murmurs, suddenly feeling quite forward. 

“No,” Yoongi shakes his head. “Just shy.”

Jeongguk lets his hand drift up, delicately over Yoongi’s shoulder, finding a place to rest there. 

“Cute hyung,” Jeongguk whispers. “Don’t be shy.” He slides his hand up, over Yoongi’s neck, and starts playing with his hair, twisting it in his fingers. Yoongi sighs, warm and easy. 

“Gguk-ah…” he smiles again, and fuck. It’s addicting to make him smile. Jeongguk wants to do it over and over and over. 

“Hyung, you’re so cute,” he murmurs, both his hands tracing the sides of Yoongi’s face now. It feels easy. “You have such a pretty smile. I wish you were always smiling.”

Yoongi actually laughs, leaning into Jeongguk’s touch. “Gguk,” he says quietly, “you’re so drunk.”

“So are you,” Jeongguk whispers, pulling Yoongi closer. Yoongi stumbles a little, but sorta lets himself fall. Jeongguk wraps his arms around his shoulders and speaks, close to his ear – 

“Feels like you’re always so far away from me.”

Yoongi breathes in deeply, his hands coming to rest on Jeongguk’s waist, curling in the material of his shirt. “Jeongguk-ah,” he hums, “what do you mean?”

“You don’t let me get close to you like this,” Jeongguk whispers, his mouth brushing the shell of Yoongi’s ear. Yoongi is shaking a little. Jeonggguk turns again, his mouth skimming Yoongi’s jaw. “It feels good, doesn’t it?” he breathes. “I can tell it makes you feel good, hyung. So why not?”

Jeongguk pulls back a little, to look at Yoongi, to see his face. Yoongi is looking at him directly, his smile faded but the warmth in his gaze still there, and before he can stop himself, Jeongguk presses a barely-there kiss to Yoongi’s forehead. It must be an okay thing to do, because Yoongi has done it to him before. 

When he pulls back, Yoongi’s eyes have gone even softer, and he doesn’t protest so Jeongguk feels confident enough to do it again. He kisses Yoongi’s cheek this time and laughs, out of elation or embarrassment, he’s not sure. Yoongi laughs with him, quiet and abashed. 

“Sorry,” Jeongguk whispers. 

Yoongi shakes his head the tiniest bit. “No need to be”.

He’s hypnotizing. Jeongguk can’t find the strength to stop, can’t even fault himself. He kisses Yoongi’s jaw, tries it out. Yoongi must be smiling again, because Jeongguk can feel it growing on his face, and he doesn’t want to pull back and lose the proximity between them, but he’ll do anything to have a chance at seeing Yoongi's eyes crinkle, so he pulls back just a tiny bit, and looks at Yoongi, beaming like the sun. Jeongguk wants to tell him just how beautiful he is. 

He kisses Yoongi’s temple, then his cheekbone. “Hyung, I love it when you smile,” he whispers, not even thinking as he kisses the side of Yoongi’s mouth. There's a blossoming warmth between them. Jeongguk does it again, another kiss, then another. “So beautiful. My beautiful hyung. How are you so beautiful?”

Yoongi breathes in heavily. “You’re just drunk, Ggukie,” he says, his eyes growing a little weary. 

“That’s not it,” Jeongguk says, serious. “I think that all the time.” 

Yoongi puts a hand on his chest, lightly holding him back. “I can’t believe that,” he murmurs, still with that lingering smile but it’s turned a bit wry. 

Jeongguk frowns. “You should,” he says solemnly. The air stills. 

“Ggukie,” Yoongi whispers. “I can't believe that. Do you understand?”

“You're being stubborn hyung,” Jeongguk insists, leaning in a little, but Yoongi doesn’t let him, pushes him back instead. 

“I'm not,” he says. The moment is gone, just like that, and Yoongi’s stepping away, this time for real. The space between them feels ice cold. 

“We should…” Yoongi trails off, waving in the general direction of his bed. Jeongguk feels sick, can’t stand the idea of sleeping next to Yoongi with any sort of distance between them, not after how close they just were. He feels a spiral begin, feels his head spin, wonders did I do something wrong, did I ruin this, is it me? Am I stupid to think he could ever want me in the first place? Is it me? Is it me? Is it me? 

But he forces himself to nod. “Okay,” he says flatly. 

Getting into bed feels like the hardest thing ever. The alcohol doesn’t feel good anymore. It’s making Jeongguk’s head dizzy. He feels like trashing the room and kicking a hole in the wall and breaking Yoongi’s computer, maybe. 

When they’re in bed next to each other, not touching, Yoongi speaks carefully. “You don’t understand, Gguk,” is all he says. 

Jeongguk doesn’t ask what it is exactly that he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t really want to hear Yoongi say it. 

He goes to sleep instead, doesn’t think about anything. Not about Yoongi’s back turned to him or the purple lights at the party or how the doodles will probably stain Yoongi’s gray sheets and most of all, he doesn’t think about kissing Yoongi, doesn’t think about it even once, doesn’t dream about it either. 

-

The morning arrives harshly. Jeongguk’s eyes feel like they won’t open. When he eventually does manage, he sees that Yoongi’s side of the bed is empty. Awake before Jeonguk, he’s sitting at his desk, his monitor turned on, headphones over his ears. 

Jeongguk watches his back for a while. Yoongi’s head is moving to a rhythm Jeongguk can’t hear. Maybe a new song, he has no idea.

“Hyung,” he speaks, but it barely comes out, his voice is hoarse. Yoongi doesn’t hear him, of course. “Yoongi-hyung,” Jeongguk says, louder this time. Yoongi turns around and shoves the headphones off his ears, just a little. 

“Hey Jeongguk-ah,” he says quietly. 

His eyes are somewhere else. Jeongguk wants to ask him what he’s working on, but suddenly feels like he can’t, like maybe it’s private, and Yoongi doesn’t want him to know, like maybe he’s an idiot for wanting to know everything about Yoongi in the first place. 

“Uhm,” Jeongguk stutters. He’s wrapped up in Yoongi’s sheets, wearing the clothes he wore out last night. Flashes of memory come back to him, memories of getting close to Yoongi, so close to actually kissing him. Closer than he’s ever been. 

But it didn’t happen. Yoongi didn’t let it happen. Jeongguk had thought that he knew what Yoongi was thinking by now, that Yoongi wanted him in a way he couldn’t say, but still felt. Maybe he doesn’t feel it after all. 

“Hyung,” Jeongguk murmurs. “I feel like maybe we need to talk.”

“You’re right Gguk,” Yoongi nods absentmindedly, as he pulls at the skin around his fingernails. “But I don’t know if I can talk right now.”

Jeongguk grinds his teeth into his lip. He wants to give Yoongi space, but he’s aching inside and feels his hands shake with frustration. “You said I don’t understand,” he presses. “Last night, you said that. Can you explain it to me?”

"Not right now,” Yoongi says, without ever looking at Jeongguk. “I’m sorry Gguk. You should go home."

"Okay," Jeongguk nods, not wanting to argue. Yoongi is right, he should go home, definitely. Cry into his pillow for hours, probably. Make a detour and jump off a bridge, maybe. 

Yoongi’s gaze flickers. "How about tonight? If you're free?" he asks tentatively. Jeongguk doesn’t understand him, wants to say no, no, you’re too confusing, let’s never see each other instead and pretend there’s nothing burning between us. 

He nods instead. "Sure, I'm free."

Yoongi smiles, slightly. "Okay, see you then."

Then he shoves his headphones on again, diving back into his project, the song Jeongguk is too scared to ask about. Jeongguk gets up quickly, gathers his stuff, and makes sure not to disturb Yoongi any further. When he closes the door, he kind of wants to break down into tears. But he swallows it down. 

Eager to get home, he rushes through the hallway, until he accidentally bumps into a very good looking man who sort of looks like an immortal vampire prince. It’s scary, a bit. 

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk apologizes. He wants to keep walking, but the man stops him in his tracks, holding an arm out against his chest. 

"Are you Jeon Jeongguk?" he asks, eyes squinting. 

"Uhm, yes," Jeongguk answers. Now he’s really scared. "How do you know that?"

The man doesn’t answer Jeongguk’s question. He takes his arm back. "Is Yoongi home?" he asks, gesturing in the general direction of Yoongi’s hallway. 

"He is," Jeongguk answers. "Wait, why?"

"I'm gonna beat him up," the stranger says sincerely. 

Jeongguk stares at him. The man claps his thigh and laughs loudly. 

"Of course I’m not,” he says, but then his face turns serious again. “I'm going to give him a stern talking to, actually."

“Uhm,” Jeongguk has no idea how to communicate with this guy. "What for?"

"Let me ask you something," the man goes. "Jeon Jeongguk, what do you want from Yoongi?"

"Well," Jeongguk starts, but quickly finds himself faltering. "What, uhm, what do you – what does that mean? What do you mean 'want'? I mean, we're friends so obviously, I want to spend time with him and, uhm, talk to him. I want to be around him in a platonic way. I want him to, uhm, be happy. Uhm, yeah. Yep."

"Got it,” the handsome man is nodding, like Jeongguk’s response had a shred of eloquence at all. He squints his eyes, staring Jeongguk down. "Why do you look sad?" he asks. 

Jeongguk didn’t realize he looked evidently sad at all, but it makes sense, given Min Yoongi decidedly does not want him, and Jeongguk’s a loser who just keeps on losing and probably will be a loser for life. 

"It's nothing,” he murmurs. "I feel like we don't mean the same to each other. Me and, uhm, me and Min Yoongi. He’s confusing. I don’t know."

"Jeongguk – can I call you Jeongguk? I'm gonna call you Jeongguk.” 

"I mean, that's my name, so sure," Jeongguk shrugs.

"Jeongguk, why do you think I know who you are?” the man laughs fondly. “Yoongi is a sensitive person. My goodness, he is so sensitive. You and I both know this, don’t we?” 

Jeongguk nods tentatively. The man nods too. 

“Yes, well, he knows it too. He protects himself because of it. He doesn't often make new friends. He has like three friends that he’s had for years. It’s hard for him to trust people. He gets scared of how much he trusts people, once he does trust them. He gets scared he might need them more than they need him. Look, the fact that I know who you are says a lot. He trusts you. You should know that means a lot.”

"Uhm, okay," Jeongguk mumbles. His emotions are all over the place. He remembers Yoongi’s story, about his friends who are mad at him because they love him to death. Something clicks into place. "Are you Jin?"

"Wouldn’t you like to know," the man who is probably Jin quips with a smile. "Now excuse me, I have someone to get mad at."

"Okay," Jeongguk nods. He wonders briefly if he should stop Jin, then realises he probably shouldn’t interfere with something he knows nothing about. “Good luck,” he simply says. 

"Allow me to give you some advice," Jin says, three steps up the stairs. "You should never worry about how much someone means to you. Be glad that you are capable of loving. It’s better this way, than feeling nothing at all."

Jeongguk blinks at him. "Okay."

Jin blows a kiss and then quickly walks up the stairs, disappearing from sight. Jeongguk wonders if he just conjured him up, or if that actually happened. Regardless, he nods to himself. "Okay," he repeats quietly. 

-

That night, Jeongguk goes back to Yoongi's place, after dodging Jimin’s interrogation all afternoon. He can’t keep count anymore of how many times he’s had to clarify that really, he and Min Yoongi are just friends, nothing happened. It gets more painful every time he has to repeat it. 

In the hallway, Jeongguk thinks of Jin’s words, thinks of Min Yoongi pulling away, and wonders if Yoongi might feel as scared as Jeongguk feels. Jeongguk had always thought that couldn’t be possible, but maybe it is. 

It’s strange, the whole thing. Jeongguk is scared all the time, and hates himself for it. But as it turns out, Yoongi is just as scared as he is, maybe more scared even, and Jeongguk finds that he loves him unbearably despite it. Because of it. He can’t keep it quiet anymore, doesn’t want to. The love inside him is spilling through the cracks. It’s starting to hurt too much, being scared. It’s starting to hurt more than being honest. 

Yoongi has left the door ajar. He’s at his computer when Jeongguk walks in, and turns around. A careful smile grows on his face. He looks visibly less tense than this morning. Jeongguk sits down on his bed. 

“Hey hyung,” he smiles too, can’t help it. 

“Hi you,” Yoongi hums. "I heard you saw Jin.”

Jeongguk laughs lightly. "Yeah, I did."

"What did he say?"

"Some cryptic things, um. Not much, actually.” Jeongguk quirks an eyebrow. "He’s interesting."

"That's one way to describe him," Yoongi chuckles. 

Jeongguk laughs and nods. "Uhm. Did you guys make up?" He’s nervous to ask, does it anyway. 

Yoongi’s face brightens. "We did Gguk-ah. We made up. Talked about some other stuff too."

"You look happy," Jeongguk notes, smiling softly. Yoongi looks unbelievably beautiful when he’s happy. 

"I guess I am," Yoongi nods. His eyes twinkle, reaching Jeongguk from across the room. "Are you?" he asks, almost as if he's scared to find out. 

"Yeah," Jeongguk murmurs, which is half a lie and half the truth. Of course he's happy that Yoongi’s happy. But something needs to happen, before Jeongguk can truly be happy too. 

Yoongi grabs his pack of cigarettes from the side of his desk before moving to the windowsill, which is cracked. Closer to the bed. Closer to Jeongguk. He lights a smoke and locks eyes with him.

“I’m sorry for this morning,” Yoongi says. “I’m sorry for yesterday.” 

“What part?” Jeongguk whispers. He wonders if they’re going to start being honest with each other, if it’s finally time. Yoongi bites down on his lip. 

“The end,” he murmurs. “Not the rest of it.”

“Good,” Jeongguk says, trying to not let it show how fast his heart is beating in his chest. 

“We should talk, after I’m done working,” Yoongi softly speaks. 

Jeongguk grins anxiously. “But you’re not working hyung, you’re smoking.”

“Can’t I catch a break?” Yoongi laughs a little. “Brat.”

Jeongguk sits up, scooting closer to him. He feels as if he’s on the edge of a cliff, and stares at the cigarette intently. Stares at Yoongi as he smokes it. Stares at his mouth next. 

“I wonder sometimes,” he muses aloud, “what it tastes like.” 

“Don’t smoke, Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi quietly says, never breaking his gaze. “If a smoker tells you that, you should listen.”

Jeongguk shakes his head. He moves even closer to Yoongi, dares to drop his head against his knee. Yoongi’s free hand goes for his hair, instinctively combing through. 

“I don’t wanna smoke,” Jeongguk mumbles. “I just wanna taste.” 

Yoongi’s movements still. “How would that work Gguk?”

Jeongguk grabs Yoongi’s hand, plays with the ring around his pointer finger. “You know how, hyung.” He brings Yoongi’s hand up to his mouth and lets his lips skim across the knuckles, then kisses them, gently. 

Suddenly he’s not afraid anymore, instead he’s completely and entirely drained of fear. Suddenly he just wants to do what he’s wanted to do for so long, wants it to work out for once, more than anything in the world. 

“Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi whispers. Jeongguk doesn’t pull back. 

“Hyung,” he whispers against Yoongi’s hand. “My hyungie,” he says, sitting up straight. He holds eye contact as he intertwines his fingers with Yoongi’s. 

Yoongi wordlessly trashes his cigarette out the window, and doesn’t pull away. In fact, he moves closer, moves down to the bed, and lets his hand fall on Jeongguk’s knee. Jeongguk smiles, keeps looking at Yoongi, keeps holding his hand, doesn’t move away from him. 

Yoongi rubs a thumb over his knee and breathes in deeply. “Hyung doesn’t want you to do something you’ll regret, Gguk-ah.”

At once Jeongguk realizes that they’re both completely sober, which means there’s nothing stopping them. Before, Yoongi could point out the factors that might be clouding Jeongguk’s judgment, so his desire couldn’t possibly transform into regret later. Now there’s no barrier anymore, and when Jeongguk looks into Yoongi’s eyes, he looks close-to terrified. 

So Jeongguk makes a decision at once, to be brave. He moves closer, his mouth near Yoongi’s ear. “I wouldn’t regret anything,” he whispers. He’s scared too, but hidden like this, he feels like he can manage. “I want this so badly,” he breathes. 

“Jeonggukie,” Yoongi’s touching him tentatively now, his hands slotting around his waist, then to the small of Jeongguk’s back, making him feel like he belongs somewhere. 

“I love it when you say my name,” Jeongguk whispers, light as air, Yoongi so unbearably close to him. “I love how you talk to me.”

“Fuck, Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi slides both his hands up to the sides of Jeongguk’s face, forcing him to look at him. His pupils are blown wide and he looks insane with anticipation. Jeongguk feels the same. 

“Can we please –? Please?” Jeongguk’s pleading now, but he doesn’t even care, he’ll die if this doesn’t happen. 

“Yeah, yeah, fuck,” Yoongi mutters, his hands tugging in desperation. “Come here Ggukie. Come sit on hyung’s lap.”

Jeongguk moves with him, eager, his head flooded, his systems firing. Just like that, he’s on Yoongi’s lap, legs on each side of him, and Yoongi’s running his fingers over them appraisingly, looking up at Jeongguk with an expression Jeongguk’s never seen from him, as if he’s intoxicated, his eyes never leaving Jeongguk’s, only closing when Jeongguk leans in, leans in and –

– finally, finally kisses Yoongi. Finally. Just does it. God, it feels like heaven, like he’s taking a big bite out of the most delicious fruit on the planet. Yoongi tastes of cigarettes and cinnamon and a dark forest or something incomprehensible and impossible to even define, like the night sky. Jeongguk feels like he might pass out, but he focuses on kissing Yoongi instead. Yoongi who –

– is so good at kissing, holy shit. He slots his lips against Jeongguk’s with ease, his tongue darting into his mouth, smooth like honey, melting. The way Yoongi kisses him makes Jeongguk feel like he matters. He can’t explain it, the feeling overtakes him. 

“Gguk-ah,” Yoongi says lowly, “I’ve been thinking about this so much", as he moves from his mouth to his jaw, leaving kisses along the trail. “You’re so beautiful.” 

Jeongguk whimpers. “Hyung,” he breathes. “Really?”

Yoongi’s hand gently slips in his hair and he pulls back, his eyes shining, and he kisses Jeongguk deeply on his mouth, before looking at him again. His gaze is insanely tender and it feels so real all of a sudden. 

“Yoongi,” Jeongguk whispers, wondering if he’ll finally be able to say what he’s been wanting to say for so long. I love you more than I can say. “I need to tell you –” he starts. 

But suddenly, something shifts in Yoongi’s gaze. “Gguk, wait,” he whispers, petrified.

“Hyung –”

Everything happens so fast, and Yoongi’s hands are pulling back, moving away from Jeongguk. “Maybe this is not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Jeongguk murmurs, feeling his heart shake inside his ribcage.

Yoongi’s avoiding his eyes again. “I don’t think I can do this.” 

“That’s not a good enough explanation,” Jeongguk huffs, his voice turned cold. 

Yoongi gets up from the bed and grabs a cigarette, lighting it frantically. Jeongguk watches him take several drags, never looking at him once. 

“These things always turn out badly. I’ll do something stupid and hurt you,” Yoongi says, his voice hoarse. “I can’t let that happen, not with you.”

Jeongguk feels his eyes burn. “That’s bullshit hyung.”

Yoongi takes another drag, starts to pace. “You might think you want this but you don’t know what you’re signing up for.” 

“Don’t treat me like I’m a kid who doesn’t know anything,” Jeongguk grits. 

“I’m not, it’s just –” Yoongi shakes his head. “I’m no good. I’ve tried to be. I just can’t. You have to trust me. You don’t want this, Jeongguk-ah.” 

Jeongguk has never seen Yoongi this tripped up before, stumbling over his words, his breathing uneven and superficial. It makes everything feel entirely too consequential. Jeongguk doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how Yoongi just slipped away from him when he thought he had him, thought they were finally getting somewhere together. 

Yoongi’s voice breaks in a way that is new, vulnerable like he’s going to burst into tears any second. It’s sort of heartwrenching to discover what he sounds like right before he cries. 

“I’m sorry Gguk-ah, I didn’t –”

“I’m going home,” Jeongguk speaks quietly, impressed with his own ability to keep from breaking down. It’s all he wants to do right now. 

“Yeah, okay,” Yoongi nods, his gaze still glued to the floor. “Get home safe Jeongguk,” he mumbles. 

“Thanks,” Jeongguk gets up, grabbing his hoodie from the floor and tugging it over his head, not looking at Yoongi again. “It’s not far”. 

-

Once he’s outside, Jeongguk feels like his chest is caving in. He wants to curl up on the ground and let the passerbies walk all over his back. Maybe he’d feel better then. 

The sadness is eating him up, and it’s not alone. There’s anger too, and for once in his life Jeongguk allows himself to feel it. His fingertips are shaking with it, it’s tugging at him.

He doesn’t really decide so much as that he lets his instinct lead him. Before he knows it he’s running back up the stairs and loudly knocking on Yoongi’s door with shaking hands. 

Miraculously Yoongi opens up. His eyes are red-rimmed and for a second, he looks straight at Jeongguk. 

“I came back,” Jeongguk says, trying to keep steady. “You’re right hyung, you’re no good, but not for the reasons you think." He takes a deep, shuddery breath. "You’re no good, because you assume you know what I want. You’re so consumed by guilt and shame and sadness that you think no one wants to get close to you. Well, there’s a lot of people who do, and I’m not afraid of the way you are. You think that when you allow someone to get close to you, you’re trapping them. I’m here to tell you that’s not true, and you’re an asshole for acting like it is. So if you want to keep your distance from me because you’re protecting me, or some shit like that, then that’s your decision. But it’s a really stupid fucking decision.” 

He turns around before giving Yoongi a chance to respond, taking the stairs down multiple steps at once.

-

Jeongguk has decided to never get out of bed again. It’s a pursuit worthy of chasing. Fuck dancing and singing and trying to be a good person, for that matter. Probably better to abandon it all.

Jimin decidedly doesn’t agree with Jeongguk’s new goal. He keeps trying to get Jeongguk out of bed.

“Ggukie,” he murmurs, “you coming to dance class?”

The answer is no. Jeongguk makes a vague sound resembling it.

He thinks about Min Yoongi, then hates himself for thinking about him. It’s all he can think about, really. The whole thing has been playing in his head over and over. Of course Yoongi is also the reason Jeongguk has been facedown in bed for four days. He doesn’t want to tell Jimin that. Saying it out loud will make it real. 

“I’m worried about you,” Jimin speaks.

“Don’t be,” Jeongguk murmurs. 

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Jeongguk presses his eyes shut. He can’t say it, can’t bring himself to do it.

“Is this about who I think it’s about?” Jimin asks, voice sharp. “Do I need to kill him?”

“No,” Jeongguk whispers. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

It’s true.

Jimin sits down on the side of the bed, a hand slipping down Jeongguk’s back, soft and careful, like Jeongguk might jump out of his skin at the touch.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened.”

Jeongguk turns around, so he’s lying on his back. He knows he looks horrible, face crumpled up from the sheets, unshowered and sleep-deprived, despite having been in bed the whole time.

“There’s nothing to say,” he mumbles.

Jimin huffs. “Jeongguk, I’m like two seconds away from going over to his place, knocking on his door, and yelling at him, so maybe you should tell me what actually happened.”

“You don’t even know where he lives.” 

“I’ll knock on every door of the goddamn building, don’t try me.”

Jeongguk covers his face with his hands. “I kissed him. It felt like we were creating something beautiful, or some shit like that. I don’t know. I’ve never felt like that before. But he broke it off and said that he can’t do this with me.”

“Ah,” Jimin says. “I’m sorry Jeonggukie.”

“It’s –” Jeongguk feels like something heavy is pressing on his chest, like it’s stealing the breath right out of him. “It’s my fault,” he murmurs, feeling the tears start to flow against his will. Jesus christ. 

“Hey,” Jimin whispers. “It’s not. You’re not wrong for feeling the way you do.”

“I’m stupid,” Jeongguk murmurs, pressing his face into the pillow again. 

Jimin shakes his head. “I think you’ll feel a lot better if you come to dance practice with me.”

Jeongguk thinks of Hoseok and how seeing his face will just remind him of Yoongi. 

“No,” he says clearly this time. 

Jimin inhales deeply through his nose. “Okay,” he says. “Would you like me to stay home with you?”

Jeongguk doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head. He listens as Jimin sighs and gets up to leave. 

“Please at least eat something,” he says before exiting. “I’ll call Tae and ask him to check up on you in a couple hours.”

-

Jeongguk realizes that there is something even more daunting than getting out of bed; his friends incessantly worrying about him. He hates it down to his bones. Maybe Jimin and Taehyung are using reverse psychology on him, and this is their sly way of making him act like a person again, if so it’s working. 

It’s early in the evening. The streets are somewhat dead. Jeongguk hasn’t showered. He’s wearing the same hoodie he’s been wearing for God knows how long. His body hurts from not moving. He feels like a fucking wreck. 

He’s been walking around his neighborhood aimlessly. Thankfully for Jeongguk, Min Yoongi is kind of a recluse, so the chances of running into him are slim. Still, coincidence has been putting the two of them in the same place at the same time for the past few months, so Jeongguk feels a bit wary. 

All this time he’s been spending in bed, something has been dawning on him – what happened is not Yoongi’s fault, it never was. It feels easy to blame the whole thing on Yoongi, and when Jeongguk said all those things to him it felt like he was releasing something that’s been building for a long time, but ultimately it’s unfair. From the start he had known that Yoongi wasn’t easy. Hoseok had warned him, Yoongi himself too. It’s not Yoongi’s fault that Jeongguk thought he was special, that he thought maybe he could break through Yoongi’s protective layer. He only has himself to blame for that. 

Jeongguk passes by a bar, a tucked-away place where the patrons are smoking outside. There are two guys with cigarettes dangling from their mouths and Jeongguk hates that he can’t turn his brain off. 

“Yo,” he approaches the guys, without thinking. “Can I have one?”

The guys eye him with an amusing glint in their eyes. It makes sense, Jeongguk looks wired. “Sure kid,” one of them says, a guy with long hair and a barely-there mustache. He hands Jeongguk a cigarette and subsequently lights it for him. 

“Thanks,” Jeongguk says, inhaling. Surprisingly, he doesn’t cough. He’s never smoked before. Maybe he’s been around Yoongi too much. 

He doesn’t walk away like he should, just keeps standing there, staring at a twig on the floor, the smoke filling up his lungs. 

“Can we help you with something else?” the other guy asks, a large man wearing a tracksuit. Jeongguk briefly wonders if he should pick a fight with the guys. It might take his mind off of things. He’d probably lose but who cares. 

“Nope,” he murmurs eventually, neglecting the thought. “Thanks for the cigarette.” 

He walks away, putting out the smoke along the way, back in the direction of his apartment building. Staring at the tiles he wonders if this is over for good, if he lost Yoongi for real. Thinking about it for even a second makes Jeongguk feel like he can’t breathe. 

Once he rounds the corner to his street he’s confronted with the sight of two figures across the street, standing in front of Yoongi’s apartment building. It’s the tall guy with glasses Jeongguk remembers spotting at the warehouse party, and Yoongi, standing with his back to Jeongguk, though Jeongguk recognizes him immediately. The shape of him, the way his blonde hair curls up against his neck. 

Yoongi and the guy are talking quietly, both having a smoke. Jeongguk tries to move as inconspicuously as he can, pressing his back along the building and sliding back around the corner, to hide. He stands there frozen and watches, his eyes glued to Yoongi’s movements. 

After about five or so minutes, the tall guy with glasses hugs Yoongi for a long time before walking off in the other direction. Yoongi is left standing there by himself, his shoulders tight and his fists clenched. Jeongguk just watches him stand there, then continues to watch as Yoongi makes a sudden move, kicking the trashcan, hard. There’s a pang in Jeongguk’s chest as he is reminded of the night he met Yoongi, how fated it felt, like the universe presented them to each other, even though he’s never really believed in anything like that. 

Yoongi’s hands disappear into his hair, fingers pulling, as he curls in on himself and shivers through a panic. Jeongguk has no idea what to do but all he know is that he can’t just stand there, can’t possibly let Yoongi break down all by himself, simply cannot get it done. His heart beats heavy and he’s nervous to be close to Yoongi again after everything that happened, but before he knows it, he’s walking. Crossing the street. 

“Hyung,” he speaks, breathless. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Jeongguk-ah?” Yoongi whispers. “You’re here?"

"Yeah," Jeongguk says quietly. "You okay hyung?”

Yoongi makes a pained sound, covering his face. “I’m fine,” he murmurs, but he doesn't sound fine at all.

Jeongguk is reminded of that night at the dance studio, how Yoongi helped him without ever expecting anything, and realizes that maybe this is precisely what he’s been getting wrong. He’s always been expecting something from Yoongi. Even if he’d suppressed it, the desire was still there, the desire for more, as if he was entitled to anything. He doesn’t want to do that anymore. Maybe it doesn’t matter if Yoongi doesn’t love him back. Maybe all that matters is that Jeongguk can love him without ever wanting anything in return, and that can be beautiful too. 

Yoongi’s shoulders are shaking. He doesn’t speak, his breathing heavy. Jeongguk gets down to his level, his hands carefully reaching out to touch, gently resting on his shoulders. 

“Yoongi-hyung,” he whispers. “Let’s get you inside.”

“You don’t have to,” Yoongi says between heavy breaths. “I can handle it by myself.” 

“I know,” Jeongguk simply says. 

He guides Yoongi up, and when Yoongi lowers his hands, his eyes meet Jeongguk’s. Looking at him, Jeongguk can’t imagine ever leaving him. Of course Yoongi hurt him by rejecting him, but Jeongguk thinks he can let his desires take slumber if it means he won’t have to lose Yoongi. 

“You’re alright with me hyung,” he whispers. “I’ll take you upstairs.”

Yoongi nods, his eyes dark, gaze unwavering. 

-

It feels strange to be in Yoongi’s apartment again. Jeongguk stands by the door and watches Yoongi sit down on his bed, his legs pulled up to his chest. He’s calmed down a bit but his fingers are clenched over his knees and he looks wrecked, just as wrecked as Jeongguk feels. 

“Hyung,” Jeongguk softly asks. “Are you okay?” 

Yoongi shakes his head absentmindedly. “I don’t know Jeongguk-ah,” he speaks, just above a whisper. Jeongguk wonders how he can show Yoongi that it’s alright, that they will be alright, that Yoongi hasn’t lost him even though everything hurts a lot right now. He doesn’t want to outright say it, that doesn’t feel like enough. 

“Let me sing for you hyung,” Jeongguk says eventually. He sits down in Yoongi’s desk chair. “Please,” he adds. He might never do it if he doesn’t do it now.

“You still want to?” Yoongi asks, as if in disbelief. Jeongguk nods, sticking to his decision. Yoongi breathes in a shuddery breath and walks over to the computer, coming close to Jeongguk. His scent invades Jeongguk’s space and he smells so good and familiar and Jeongguk realizes that he’s missed him terribly, kind of always misses him when they’re not together. Yoongi stands bent over the computer and pulls up a file, the song he showed Jeongguk all that time ago. The file name changed, Jeongguk notices. It plainly reads: 

song for jeongguk

Yoongi sits back down on the bed, putting some distance between them. There’s something in his expression, a clenching of the jaw, giving away just how hard Yoongi is trying to keep his composure. Jeongguk feels it too, but he doesn’t want to hesitate anymore. 

He presses play on the song and softly begins singing, the melody he’s been keeping in his head all this time. He starts weakly, his voice trembling a bit, but as time goes on, his voice starts getting steadier and more powerful. He stares at the floor and closes his eyes when even the carpet feels like it's staring at him. It's nice for a moment, to look away, to pretend as if he's alone, as if he never fell irrevocably in love with Yoongi, and nothing ever happened between them. 

When it's over, Jeongguk slowly flutters open his eyelids again. He is almost too scared to look at Yoongi, but he does. Yoongi's eyes are red and shiny, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth, biting down. Jeongguk searches his eyes, tries to hold his gaze. Yoongi looks away from him promptly. 

"Hyung," Jeongguk breathes. 

To his surprise Yoongi starts to cry, his fingers trembling, coming up in front of his face to cover his eyes. He's quiet as he cries, his breath stuck in his throat, coming out shakingly in intervals. 

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, his chest heaving. “I’m sorry for everything.” 

Jeongguk feels like he's a little out of his depth seeing him like this, breaking down. He hasn’t ever seen it before; Yoongi hasn’t let him. It’s not like Jeongguk is scared, but he desperately doesn’t want to do the wrong thing.   

“Hyung, it’s okay," he whispers, his fingers eager to assure, to touch Yoongi and make him feel okay again, though he sits there with his hands in his lap because he’s not sure if he can do it, if he can make Yoongi feel better with a simple touch, or a song. 

“It’s my fault," Yoongi says through a sob, his fingers shaking, his voice fragile when he speaks. It's so unlike him. 

“Yoongi –”

“How can you still be here with me after everything?” 

“Hyung," Jeongguk breathes in, trying to make sense of his thoughts, of how he can put into words what he’s feeling. “I wanted to sing for you," is all he comes up with. 

“Thank you Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi nods, his face tear-stricken pale. "It was so beautiful."

"I'm glad," Jeongguk whispers. 

There’s a silence between them that drags on for a little while, until Jeongguk decides to break it. 

“It’s not your fault,” he carefully says. “It’s really not hyung.”

Yoongi shakes his head violently. “It is.” His eyes shimmer. “Do you remember what you said to me? About how I’m consumed by guilt, and sadness, and how I don’t let people get close to me?”

“Hyung…I didn’t mean to –”

“No, you were completely right Gguk-ah.”

Jeongguk places his hands on the sides of the desk chair, feeling like he needs something to hold onto. 

“No, it was too much, what I said. I was angry, and hurt, and just –”

“Gguk, no. You were right." Yoongi breathes in, shakes as he does it. "What I did was so fucking stupid and cowardly. It’s just that – you make me feel like everything is changing, like I’m changing. I think I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared of me hyung,” Jeongguk frowns, his voice coming out softer than he intended. “You don’t have to be scared of me.”

“Not of you Gguk,” Yoongi shakes his head. “I’m scared I’ll be too much if I let myself have this.”

“You can’t be too much,” Jeongguk stands up and lets his heart guide him to where he wants to go. He sits down on the bed beside Yoongi and without hesitating, takes his hand. “How could you ever be too much? Like, seriously how could that be possible? I want more of you, all the time. I want to listen to you talk. I want to sit on your bed while you make music and sing your songs forever. If you could look inside my head and see how I see you, I think you’d never feel scared again.”

“Holy shit –” Yoongi mumbles, his fingers tightening in their grip, his thumb rubbing over the spine of Jeongguk’s hand. “Fuck, I have to say this at once Gguk-ah, or I'll lose my nerve." 

“Okay,” Jeongguk whispers. Yoongi takes a deep breath, his eyes trained on the bedsheets as he starts talking. 

“I do this thing where I chain myself with my thoughts and kind of build a prison for myself and to consider anything outside of the reality I’ve conjured up is extremely difficult. For a long time I thought the only thing I could still do with my life was to come up with a way to deal with it. I wasn’t living, not really. I thought I knew things, Gguk, I thought I knew it all. But I actually don’t know shit. I don’t know anything. Ever since I met you I feel like I’m discovering everything at once, constantly finding the world anew again.” Yoongi takes a deep breath in, his eyes finally reaching Jeongguk’s and not looking away. 

“I thought there was nothing left for me, but that’s not true, because the world had you in store. And I know I can’t say this, not really, but it feels like you’re for me. Do you feel that too?” 

Jeongguk nods, his fingers trembling. “Yes,” he murmurs. He’s thought it so many times: Yoongi is for me, and I’m for him, but he’s been too scared to acknowledge it. 

Yoongi laughs, suddenly, a breathy laugh of something akin to relief. “God, I’m so unbearably in love with you Gguk. It encompasses everything. I’m sorry if that’s a horrible thing to say, but keeping it in feels too fucking heavy,” he says. The words reflect in his gaze, which is genuine and true. 

When Jeongguk blinks, he finds his eyes are watery. He feels overcome, like the sun is coming up right in front of him, like he can touch it and it doesn’t hurt even a little bit. “How could it be horrible?” he whispers. “Being loved by you is the warmest, most beautiful thing, hyung.”

“Fuck,” Yoongi whispers, coming closer, grabbing the sides of Jeongguk’s face, looking straight at him. “I love you. I love you so much.”

Jeongguk’s fingers tangle in Yoongi’s hair and he breathes out, letting go of everything that ever held him back. “I love you too hyung, can I please kiss you?”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything to that, he’s already kissing Jeongguk. Their lips slot together and it feels so right, so real. Jeongguk wonders if in his lifelong pursuit of creating something worthwhile, loving Yoongi might be the best thing he’s ever accomplished. Then, as he continues kissing Yoongi, he doesn’t wonder anymore, simply knows it to be true. 

-

Later, after they’ve kissed so much it makes their heads spin, Yoongi makes the both of them coffee, Jeongguk’s with lots of sugar. It’s already late, but it doesn’t matter. Yoongi hands the drink to Jeongguk and comes to sit next to him on the bed. 

“Did I tell you yet how beautiful your singing is?” he says. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Hyung,” Jeongguk whines. “Stop.”

“You have the voice of an angel,” Yoongi continues to praise. “How did it take you so long to sing for me? I need to hear you sing all the time. I want you on all my songs.”

“That’s too big of an honor,” Jeongguk shakes his head, his face flushing. 

“C’mon,” Yoongi takes a sip of his coffee. “You’d be doing me a favor.” 

“Did you know I listened to your mixtape nearly every day since I first discovered it?” Jeongguk shares, somewhat shyly. He’s still a bit scared he’ll freak Yoongi out somehow. 

“Really?” Yoongi murmurs, his eyes shining. He lightly touches Jeongguk’s knee. “I’m glad.”

“It means a lot to me,” Jeongguk whispers. “Your music does. You do.” 

“You mean a lot to me too,” Yoongi whispers back, putting his coffee mug down on the nightstand. He touches the side of Jeongguk’s neck and then tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear. Jeongguk stares at him with wide eyes, his hands tightening around his mug. Even though he’s been kissing Yoongi for like an hour, it still feels unreal to have him this close, and it still doesn’t feel like enough either. Now that the dam’s broken, Jeongguk feels limitless in what he wants. He doesn’t just want to be kissed. He wants Yoongi to undress him, wants Yoongi’s mouth on his body, wants to feel completely taken by him. He wants to belong to no one else but Yoongi ever again. 

“I want to show you,” Jeongguk whispers, “how much you mean to me. Can I show you hyung?”

“Okay,” Yoongi breathes. He takes Jeongguk’s coffee mug and puts it away. With his hands free, Jeongguk loops his arms around Yoongi’s shoulders, and he moves, putting his legs on either side of Yoongi, straddling him. He leans in and catches Yoongi’s lips with his, pressing small kisses against them before he lets his tongue dip in, slowly exploring Yoongi’s mouth. 

“You are so –” Yoongi huffs between kisses, his voice rough and heavy. 

“Tell me, hyung,” Jeongguk breathes. “Please.”

Yoongi’s fingertips press into his sides, a perfect amount of pressure. “You drive me crazy. I mean, you drive me insane.” He shivers. “Do you know just how much I think about you Jeongguk-ah?”

“What do you think about hyung?” Jeongguk asks, voice high in his throat. 

“Having you like this,” Yoongi mumbles against his lips. “Touching you all over, making you feel good.”

Jeongguk feels paralyzed. Yoongi’s hands are on him and it’s everything he’s wanted and more, he can’t freeze up now. He moves a little, in Yoongi’s lap, tries to. It’s almost too much, he can feel himself getting so hard already. 

“Fuck,” he curses. 

Yoongi breathes in a shuddery breath. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

“Hyung,” Jeongguk whines, combing through Yoongi’s hair, tucking a lock of blonde behind his ear. He can feel how Yoongi’s hard too, and tries to move again. The friction between them feels addictive. Yoongi holds him tighter and grinds up a little, experimentally, his hands slipping down to the curve of Jeongguk’s back. 

“Yoongi-hyung,” Jeongguk whines. “You can do whatever you want with me.” 

“That’s too much,” Yoongi groans under his breath, overcome. “I want everything.”

“You can have it,” says Jeongguk. He means it more than he’s ever meant anything. 

Yoongi’s doubts seem to have gone away too, and his fingers tug at the bottom of Jeongguk’s shirt which he peels off with urgency. The piece of fabric ends up somewhere on the floor, and suddenly Jeongguk is on his back on the bed, kicking off his jeans, so he’s down to his underwear. Yoongi’s mouth is moving from the side of Jeongguk’s jaw down to his neck, over his collarbones, to his chest, planting kisses all over. 

“Been dreaming about this,” Yoongi breathes against his skin, his hands parting Jeongguk’s legs. 

“Me too,” Jeongguk says, as he feels Yoongi’s fingers run up his thighs. It’s sensitive there, and Jeongguk squirms.

“I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as you,” Yoongi whispers, and Jeongguk knows he’s telling the truth, he can see it in his eyes, shining in earnest. It makes him want to cry for hours. He blinks a little, so he won’t. 

“Hyung,” he quietly says. “Will you touch me there?”

Yoongi looks down on him with a dark gaze and nods. He begins to stroke Jeongguk’s hard cock over the fabric of his boxers, holding it in his pretty hands, mapping the shape of it. Jeongguk moans loudly, too turned on to feel any shame at all. Yoongi’s pupils are incredibly wide, Jeongguk can’t even see his irises anymore. He pushes his hips up, into Yoongi’s hand, grinding up into his palm. 

“Can I take this off?” Yoongi whispers, fingers slipping under the band of Jeongguk’s boxers. 

“Please,” Jeongguk whimpers. 

Yoongi pulls his underwear down swiftly and Jeongguk arches his back off the mattress, now completely naked, eager to be touched, to feel some relief. Yoongi’s expression is intense and Jeongguk feels perfectly free for once in his stupid life. 

He knows he’s not going to last long. “Pretty boy,” Yoongi murmurs, before kissing along Jeongguk’s hipbones, closer to his cock, and then finally mouthing along the length of it, letting his tongue skim over the head, sucking softly. 

“Oh hyung, I won’t be able to last.” 

“It’s okay baby,” Yoongi whispers before taking Jeongguk all the way in his mouth. Jeongguk wonders unwillingly how many people Yoongi has been with and tries to banish the thought because it makes him feel utterly sick. He wants to close his eyes through it, but more than that he wants to keep watching. Yoongi works him so smoothly, a hand placed on Jeongguk’s thigh to keep him grounded. Jeongguk lets his fingers slip into Yoongi’s bleach blond hair.

After an embarrassingly short amount of time, Jeongguk’s brain is short-circuiting and he can feel he’s going to come. “Hyung, pull off,” he mutters, but Yoongi looks at him through his eyelashes and just lightly shakes his head, after which Jeongguk can’t control himself anymore. 

“Fuck,” he curses, trying to suppress the whimpers escaping through his teeth and failing miserably, squirming against the mattress as the orgasm takes over his brain, flooding him with pleasure. Yoongi swallows his come, and then pulls off, looking at him with heavy lids.

“Baby,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss Jeongguk, gentle. “My baby” he whispers, and Jeongguk feels so warm inside. 

“Yoongi-hyung,” he whispers. “What about you?”

“Hyung can take care of it,” Yoongi breathes heavily, kissing his face. “Don’t worry.”

“No,” Jeongguk says, insistent. “Let me do it please.”

“Okay,” Yoongi breathes, not arguing any further. He kicks off his jeans and pulls his underwear down at once. 

Jeongguk sits up, feeling mesmerized by the sight of Yoongi. “Shirt too?” he whispers, and Yoongi does so immediately. He’s gorgeous, all sharp lines and porcelain pale skin with a pink flush. Jeongguk’s head is spinning. 

He lightly pushes Yoongi down on the bed, letting his hands roam all over his chest. His skin is insanely soft. Yoongi’s jaw is a bit slack, his hair messy, lips shining and raw.

“Hyung, you’re so pretty,” Jeongguk whispers. He lets his hand drift over to Yoongi’s cock, which is hard and shining wet at the head. Jeongguk feels insane knowing he caused Yoongi to be in such a dire state. He twists his wrist, to see how Yoongi will react. 

It doesn’t disappoint. Yoongi’s head rolls back and he groans low in his throat, a delicious sound. Jeongguk feels encouraged. Ever the try-hard, he wants to make Yoongi feel as good as he possibly can. He figures going slow will do the trick. That way he can relish in the moment longer. He desperately doesn’t want this to end, doesn’t want to lose this feeling yet, though he feels dizzy knowing he can have Yoongi like this more often in the future. There will be so many things they will explore together. The idea makes Jeongguk feel like he’s blooming inside. 

Slowly, he works Yoongi, coaxing the orgasm out of him. He watches, feeling like he can’t get closer, or he’ll miss all the beautiful facial expressions Yoongi’s giving him. But Yoongi pulls him in by the back of his neck, his touch burning.

“Will you kiss me Gguk-ah?” he whispers, voice broken. Jeongguk does so immediately, speeding up his rhythm as he does. 

When Yoongi comes it’s just glorious. He’s shivering and shaking through it and his voice is low in his throat and he’s so fucking beautiful and Jeongguk feels like he achieved an incredible feat. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Yoongi murmurs afterwards, his chest moving up and down with his breathing. “I think I’m gonna combust.”

“Same,” Jeongguk sighs blissfully. “Hyung, I really –”

They lie together on their back, still naked, and Jeongguk suddenly worries he hasn’t expressed clearly enough how he feels. 

“I know we’ve told each other stuff and that we love each other but I just want to tell you that uhm, I really – I really want to be with you. I mean, through everything,” he murmurs, looking at the ceiling. “I want us to be something.”

Yoongi turns to him and lets his fingers skim against the skin of Jeongguk’s chest. “I want that too. And we are something,” he whispers. “We’ve been for a long time, I think.” 

Jeongguk watches a gummy smile form on Yoongi’s face and he smiles too, then leans in to kiss Yoongi again, his finger on his jaw framing his face, feeling like he’s holding the world in his hands. 

-

Jeongguk doesn’t really want to go home, but his phone has been blowing up with messages from Jimin and Taehyung, which – fair enough. When he enters his apartment that morning, the both of them are sitting at the kitchen table with their hands folded together. It’s scary as hell. 

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk murmurs. 

“Come and sit,” Jimin says stoically. Jeongguk does as he’s told, feeling distinctly like his parents are going to get mad at him. 

“You can’t just –” Taehyung starts. 

“You can’t disappear on us,” Jimin chimes in.

"I'm sorry guys," Jeongguk says softly. 

Jimin shakes his head. “It’s not cool.”

“Very uncool,” Taehyung adds. “We know you’ve been struggling Ggukie, but –", he squints his eyes together, "wait, whose hoodie is that?”

“Uhm,” Jeongguk squirms in his seat. He nearly forgot he’s wearing Yoongi’s hoodie. “Mine. No one’s. I don’t know.”

“Did you see Min Yoongi?” Jimin asks, his eyebrows raised.

“Maybe,” Jeongguk murmurs. He can’t stop a huge smile from creeping onto his face and he knows that Jimin and Taehyung will see right through him but he doesn’t even care. 

“Did you manage to talk it out?” Jimin asks. 

“Did you make love with one another?” Taehyung asks simultaneously. 

“Yes,” Jeongguk says, nodding. “Uhm, yes to both.”

“Oh my god,” Taehyung is over the moon, his face splitting into a smile. 

“Okay, we’re really supposed to be mad at you,” Jimin says exasperated. “But fuck, I’m so happy for you Ggukie.” 

The two of them come up to hug Jeongguk, their arms slotting around his shoulders. Jeongguk lets it happen, sighs into the hug, feeling the warmth of his friends surrounding him. 

“How are you feeling?” Taehyung asks him. 

Jeongguk closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. “Like I make sense,” he says. That’s what he tells Yoongi later that night as well, in a whisper against the sheets. You make me feel like I make sense.