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Kim Seokjin has fallen in love with his apartment.
When he first moved in, it was with a close classmate from university. He and Min Yoongi shared the space and the rent for the first three-and-some years. Those were years spent sitting in their respective rooms or communally in the living room, laughing about the amount of food they had because of the romanticized-university-student-budget (although whenever Seokjin reached a payday, he would cook enough food food to last the two of them for a few days). Their minds were hazed with essays and lab reports, dog-eared novels and molecular diagrams. They learned to survive together and argue together and laugh together. Yoongi beamed when Seokjin received his undergraduate diploma on that elevated stage. Seokjin felt freedom when he threw his cap in the air and couldn’t wait to watch Yoongi experience the same thing the following year.
Two months into their fourth year together, Yoongi fell in love. The boy had a bright smile and soft eyes—per Yoongi’s description—and this boy introduced Yoongi to another lovely-smiled boy with dimples too deep to fathom. Before Seokjin knew it, Yoongi was moving out with cardboard boxes stuffed to the brim in order to start moving in with his two boyfriends.
“You won’t miss me all that much,” Yoongi had said. “I know you always complained that there wsn’t enough space in the bathroom cabinet.” He was right. There wasn’t enough space—not when it was the two of them.
Then there had been too much space. Seokjin tried to cover it up in the bathroom cabinet with products he didn’t need and filled the fridge with food that sometimes went bad too fast. It took him longer to do the laundry because the loads weren’t as big as they used to be with two wardrobe’s worth.
Weeks passed then three months passed then Seokjin got used to living alone. He learned about every crack and crevice the walls had to offer—it wasn’t a new building, but it wasn’t terribly old either—and memorized which floorboards creaked too much if he didn’t distribute his weight properly. Sometimes he would test how long he could go before making a sound. He learned about the kitchen light and how it takes four seconds to flicker once turned on before illuminating the room; when he turned it off, it left a ghostly emission in the middle of the ceiling for half as long as it was on for. The balcony door only seems to open under the pressure of two hands. A grandfather clock had come with the place; no one bothered to touch it—Seokjin included—but one day he did, and he somehow managed to change the incessant sounds it made from every fifteen minutes to every half-hour. It had taken him some time, but he and the apartment grew to learn about each other.
One day during early July, Yoongi invites Seokjin out to dinner. It was only after they caught up with each other’s lives and Seokjin heard updates on Hoseok and Namjoon that Yoongi gives him a look. Seokjin doesn’t see it happen; he feels it boring into his skull. “There’s something bothering you.”
Seokjin jerks in forking his spaghetti, but he finishes spiralling the pasta and brings it to his mouth. “What’s bothering me?”
“You tell me,” Yoongi says, but there’s no bite, only curiosity. “Something’s different, but I can’t tell what.”
He wants to tell his ex-roommate that maybe he can’t see what’s different about Seokjin because he had two people next to him sharing a space that works for all of them—even if it doesn’t work initially, they make it work over time. He and Yoongi did that when they first moved into their apartment.
Seokjin sits back in his chair and exhales. He’s about to voice it and admit that maybe he’s lonely and the feeling hasn’t gone away since Yoongi left when Yoongi speaks up. (He may vocalize that he doesn’t know what’s wrong, Seokjin thinks, but there’s something in him that does know. It’s just not in the form of words.) “If it’s okay, I have a request to ask of you. You can say no if you want.”
“What is it?”
“My cousin is in his first year of university,” Yoongi begins, slowly. “He’s only had one semester so far, but he somehow managed to transfer over to our university even though second semester begins in September.”
Seokjin doesn’t say anything. Yoongi takes a sip of wine.
“He doesn’t have a place to stay, especially since I live with Hobi and Joon.” Another pause. “Would you be all right if he moved in with you? It would only be for the semester. You don’t have to share with him longer than necessary—”
“He can stay as long as he’d like,” Seokjin says. He’s never met Yoongi’s cousin before, but he hears about him a lot, and while Yoongi is sometimes irritated with the way the younger boy texts him or speaks to him, Seokjin feels like the two of them will get along well. “What’s his name?”
Yoongi takes another long swig of wine. The glass returns to the table empty. “It’s Jeongguk,” he says with heavy eyes, “and you should expect a lot of video games.”
Seokjin agrees to this. Yoongi gives him Jeongguk’s number so they can get to know each other before he moves in. The texts are sporadic at first, both parties apologizing for not responding fast enough to the other, but then the replies become more frequent, more engaging, more like water. There is no stopping them.
Jeon Jeongguk moves in two months later, in the middle of August, with one large luggage, a duffel bag, and a backpack the size of his torso. Seokjin didn’t expect to be eye level with someone five years younger than him, but stands in front of him with his baggage, his Adidas sweats, his white t-shirt, and a disposable black mask. He pulls his mask down and smiles at Seokjin with an unexpected amount of warmth. “Hello, Seokjin-ssi. Please take care of me until the end of the year!”
Seokjin raises his eyebrows. “I’m your hyung, you know. No need to be so formal.”
“Ah—oh.” Jeongguk’s broad smile falls, replaced by something softer. His words come out gentle. “Please take care of me, hyung.”
Strange to his words, Jeongguk is the first one to take care of Seokjin. The restaurant Seokjin works at is known to take on a rowdier atmosphere at the end of August, the students in the area celebrating the end of their freedom before school begins again. On the last Friday of August, Seokjin went into work knowing he would leave tired, and he was right—in the elevator ride back to his apartment, he loosens his tie and unbuttons the top of his dress shirt. He lets out an exhale long enough to fill the elevator cart.
He unlocks the door to find Jeongguk as Yoongi had promised him—in black shorts and t-shirt and glasses, cross-legged on the couch, hunched over the video game controller in hand. There were cords connecting his laptop to Seokjin’s TV. “Jeongguk-ah.”
“Hi, hyung.” Jeongguk’s eyes don’t leave the screen. Instead of lightly scolding him, which Seokjin gained a habit of, he slipped off his shoes and sat beside Jeongguk. He watched as the character onscreen weaved through gunfire and hid inside bushes.
“It’s Fortnite,” Jeongguk offers in answer to Seokjin’s unspoken question. “I’m saving up for Overwatch, but until then this is the next best thing. It’s very destressing.”
“Destressing,” Seokjin repeats. “What do you have to be stressed about? School doesn’t start for another few days.”
“But the looming feeling of school beginning starts now,” Jeongguk says. When the character dies in a surprise attack, Jeongguk groans and sits back. There’s silence as the loading screen loads, but then Seokjin looks at Jeongguk to catch him already staring with a little smile on his lips. “Wanna try?”
Seokjin looks at Jeongguk’s hands. He can’t remember the last time he played a video game, but he knows he’s not the best at shooters. The buttons glow against the black of the controller. “Play one more game,” he says. “I’m going to get changed.”
He returns to the living room in gym shorts and a white t-shirt. When he sits down, Jeongguk talks without drawing his eyes away from the screen again. “How come you were dressed so handsomely, hyung?”
Seokjin furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
“The dress shirt and tie. It looked good on you. But why?”
Seokjin’s lip twitches into a smile. “I’m a waiter, Guk. If you work an evening shift, you have to look the part. I don’t get all of my tips just because I provide good service, you know.” This time, Jeongguk’s character dies within the first three minutes of Seokjin watching. “All right, all right. Hand me the controller.”
Jeongguk does. The loading screen blacks out and the game begins and Seokjin gets swallowed up by the purple storm because he didn’t know such a thing existed in a shooting game. The second time he played, he messed up what controls were what, but right before his health bar depleted Jeongguk placed his hands over Seokjin’s and pressed the buttons for him, earning Seokjin his first kill (and a little more health). They play the rest of the second game like that, with Seokjin familiarizing himself through Jeongguk’s actions on top of his fingers, and in the third game he somehow lasts until he’s one of six people left.
“You should keep playing,” Jeongguk tells him when he tries to hand the controller back. “You didn’t look like yourself when you came back.”
“What do you mean?”
Jeongguk purses his lips and uses them to point towards Seokjin’s head. “Forehead wrinkles. Very prominent.”
“Beauty only comes with age, Jeongguk.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Seokjin plays until the motions of his fingers seem almost automatic (which only takes about an hour). His last death happens because he’s caught off guard by the soft thud of Jeongguk’s head falling onto his shoulder.
Seokjin looks at him and a warmth blooms in his chest. Jeongguk’s lips are slightly parted, glasses askew from landing on Seokjin. His chest moves in a soft rhythm. Seokjin moves carefully—the controller doesn’t make a sound on the coffee table, Jeongguk’s head is cradled on its way down to the sofa cushion. He grabs one of the extra blankets from his closet and drapes it over Jeongguk’s figure.
Seokjin turns off the TV, closes the laptop, turns off the kitchen light and watches it’s ghost-glow come into being. In the dark, he follows the cracks of the walls back to his room. His sleep is sounder than it would have been had he not stayed up with Jeongguk.
In September, things appear to return to normal, because Seokjin receives a drunken phone call from Jeongguk at two in the morning.
“Seokjin-hyuuuuuung,,” he whines too close to the receiver. Seokjin grimaces, holding the phone away from his ear. “Hyung, please pick me up from the lobby. The security guard won’t let me go up by myself.”
“You’ll need to explain yourself,” Seokjin mutters, but he pushes himself out of bed.
“I was out with Jimin-hyung and Taehyung-hyung and they—”
“Not now,” Seokjin says, louder than before. “Let me come down to grab you.”
He stays on the phone with Jeongguk the entire time—the spotty, staticky connection in the elevator somehow stayed intact. In the lobby, the elevator door slides open to reveal a pink-nosed, pouty university student with puffy eyes.
“Jeongguk-ah,” Seokjin drawls out, “why were you crying?”
“Because I would have had to sleep on the floor down here if you didn’t come get me.” Jeongguk tucks his legs under himself. He’s leaning against the back of the security desk, hidden from view. “The security guard is so mean to me.”
The night guard is the same one that had watched the building when Seokjin and Yoongi first moved in, so Seokjin knows that what he did wasn’t without reason. He raises his eyebrows, but the guard raises his as well.
“He stumbled right into the keypad,” he explains, pointing to the pad in the small foyer, “and missed the numbers. He just pressed pound seven times instead. I let him in because I’ve seen him before, but if I didn’t make him call you he probably would have pressed the emergency stop in the elevator thinking it was your floor.”
Seokjin sighs. He mouths a thank-you to the guard, who winks in return, and moves to give Jeongguk a hand. “Come on, Gukkie. Let’s get you to bed. You don’t have to sleep on any floor tonight.”
Seokjin listens to Jeongguk thanking him for ‘not leaving him to sleep on the streets’ the entire elevator ride. Once inside their apartment, Jeongguk slips off his shoes and promptly places all of his weight on Seokjin. “Carry me, hyung,” he says, his voice sickeningly sweet.
“Ask me to carry you one more time and I’ll leave you to sleep on the floor,” Seokjin threatens, but there’s no bite to his words. (He’s just tired.) He starts adjusting himself to carry Jeongguk—bridal style—back to his room before the words register in the boy’s mind. Seokjin feels the the arms tighten around his neck and a small wet patch forming around his shoulder from Jeongguk’s wet eyes. “Don’t cry, Guk. I can’t believe you’d think I would actually leave you on the floor.”
Jeongguk doesn’t respond; he makes a disgruntled noise somewhere int he back of his throat. When Seokjin leans forward to place him on the bed, he doesn’t lighten his grip on Seokjin’s neck. “Guk, come on. You need to sleep.”
“I will, promise.” Jeongguk’s breath is warm against his shoulder.
He doesn’t let go, though. Seokjin jostles him lightly. “Guk.”
“I’m sorry, hyung.” Jeongguk says, quieter than before. He loosens his grip on Seokjin’s neck. “I need your help.”
“With?”
“It stunk in there,” Jeongguk says instead. He is, for the most part, laying on his bed, but Seokjin can’t stand up straight. “It’s still September so Jimin-hyung and Taehyung-hyung—they wan–wanted to treat me for my birthday, and it was good but—the place was warm—”
Seokjin can’t help the smile on his lips. He recalls the exact room in a basement business just three blocks away from their building. “You went to karaoke?”
“Went to karaoke,” Jeongguk repeats right away. “I can’t—taking clothes off is hard.”
“Maybe if you let go of me, I’d be able to help you.” Jeongguk releases Seokjin’s neck. He straightens his own back, listening for the crack in his lower back, a consequence of carrying someone the same height and weight as him too far a distance. He does his best not to think about anything while he’s unbuttoning Jeongguk’s too-tight skinny jeans; wiggling his legs out of them was one of the most laborious tasks he’s ever had to experience. He gets the pants halfway down his thighs when Jeongguk starts talking.
“Hyung, I want to get a job. Soon.”
“Ah,” Seokjin muses. “What brought this on? You’re still in school. You don’t have to pay me for this semester. Focus on your studies.”
“No, no. I want to help you with rent when the lease renews. I want to stay longer than just this year.”
Seokjin freezes. If anything were to catch his attention at some 2:30 in the morning, it was the promise of another person helping out—the implication of not coming and going but staying.
A quiet promise elicits a quiet question. “Do you mean that?”
“Ask me again tomorrow.” Jeongguk’s words slur together to such an extent that Seokjin has to force himself to separate the letters. “Promise me you will. Because I’ll say yes when you ask and I’ll mean it.”
“I promise,” Seokjin says. He pulls the ankles of Jeongguk’s jeans past his feet; they slip off easily afterwards.
“Come here, hyung. Not down there.” Jeongguk makes a grab for Seokjin in empty air. He comes back around the bed, ready to ask if there’s anything else wrong, when Jeongguk pulls Seokjin down by his neck and kisses him wetly on his cheek. He stays there for a few seconds before pulling away, unaware of Seokjin’s wide eyes in the darkness of the bedroom. “Thank you, hyung. Thank you, thank you.”
Seokjin doesn’t even have time to utter a you’re welcome before Jeongguk is passed out cold. He leaves the room as quickly as possible and heads to his own room, his fingers grazing over the spot Jeongguk had kissed.
The next morning, Seokjin nudges Jeongguk awake at 10am. It takes a few minutes for Jeongguk to sit up properly in bed. His hair stands up every which way. “Ah, Jin-hyung.”
“Good morning.” Seokjin holds up a glass of water and a plate with two aspirin and two slices of toast, both covered in almond butter and banana slices. “For your hangover,” he explains. “Your head is probably pounding.”
“It is,” Jeongguk says, reaching for the aspirin and water first. After swallowing he takes the plate of toast out of Seokjin’s hands. He watches Jeongguk eat in silence for a bit, glad that he’s eating for once. After one piece of toast, he says, “Please don’t think of me as someone who doesn’t take school seriously.”
Seokjin blinks. “Why would I think that?”
“I don’t know. I had this feeling about it, so I wanted to say it out loud.”
“If I told you I got through an entire semester without getting drunk like you did last night, I’d be lying.” Seokjin laughs at his own words, remembering moments from his time in university. “Ah, but I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“You said last night that you wanted to look for a job to help with rent…” Seokjin punctuates his words carefully. Jeongguk had moved onto his second piece of toast. He was worried Jeongguk would think he was trying to force him to pay rent.
He swallows the last bit of toast. “I remember that. I told you to ask me again because you thought maybe I wasn’t serious about it. But I am, and I want to stay here for a new year—if you’ll let me.”
Seokjin’s shoulders relax significantly. He smiles at the young boy in front of him. “Of course you can stay, Jeonggukkie.”
In the middle of October, Seokjin receives his paycheque.
He does what he always did when he and Yoongi lived together—he took his paycheque, withdrew a little over a hundred dollars, and spent it at the nearby grocery store where rice and pasta were sold in bulk. Their food typically lasted them until three or four days before their next paycheques, and then it was Yoongi’s turn to pay for groceries. Seokjin never asked, but Yoongi always offered.
This time when he returns to the apartment with four grocery bags full of food, the home screen for a game Seokjin doesn’t recognize is displayed on the television. “Aiyah,” he says, “don’t you have midterms to study for?”
“I do,” he hears from the couch, “and I am. The music helps me focus.”
Seokjin walks past Jeongguk and into the kitchen to drop off the grocery bags. He isn’t wrong, and Seokjin learns this when he turns to look at the grand layout Jeongguk’s created on the coffee table: three textbooks lay open, side by side; writing utensils are lined up next to a notebook covered in small and large sticky notes; a large glass of water, a cup of coffee, and a pack of instant ramen all sit off to the side. None of the food or drink had been touched.
“Jeongguk,” Seokjin says slowly, “have you eaten yet today?”
Jeongguk looks up from Textbook Number 2. “I had ramen.”
“Is it empty?”
“Ah…” Jeongguk looks at the container beside him. “Half of it is left.”
Seokjin raises an eyebrow. “It’s past 5. When did you make the ramen?”
They stare each other down for a moment before Jeongguk gives in, muttering 12 or 1 under his breath. Seokjin sighs. He takes the ramen and coffee—both ice cold—and disposes of them before he starts cooking enough food for both of them to last the next few days.
Maybe Jeongguk is immune to deliciously scented food, but he doesn’t look up from his textbooks or react in any way when Seokjin places the bowl of food next to his notebook. There’s steamed rice, seasoned leafy greens, and thinly sliced pork belly all within reach.
Seokjin places a bowl of steamed rice, seasoned leafy vegetables, and thin slices of pork belly next to Jeongguk’s notebook when it’s finished. He doesn’t look up from his textbooks.
“Jeongguk-ah,” Seokjin says, not for the first time, in a tired voice. “You need to eat. Your brain won’t work if you don’t.”
“I need to study.” He understands Jeongguk’s resolve, but it’s also something he had seen in Yoongi in the past. Now he can see where Jeongguk gets it from. “I know it’ll be cold by the time I can let myself eat, but I can’t do it yet.”
Instead of accepting Jeongguk’s words, Seokjin takes the bowl away and sits on the couch, next to Jeongguk’s seat on the floor. Seokjin watches the clock; It takes a full minute for him to realize his food’s disappeared. Jeongguk turns around to look at Seokjin with furrowed eyebrows. “Why—mmph—”
Instead of responding, Seokjin shoves some greens wrapped inside a pork belly slice into Jeongguk’s mouth. His lips close around the food immediately but he looks on at Seokjin with confusion. “You and Yoongi are unbelievably similar. I can’t believe this.” Seokjin slides the chopsticks out of Jeongguk’s mouth and gathers a clump of sticky rice. “Open your mouth, Guk-ah. If you won’t look up from your work, I’m just going to feed you.”
Even as Seokjin says the words he knows they don’t carry the same meaning. Although he treats and has treated Jeongguk and Yoongi the same way in regards to his cooking and eating in general, there’s something about the way Jeongguk stares at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, a full mouth and mild blush to his cheeks.
He does what he always didwith Yoongi, but this time it’s different.
Seokjin picks up some more rice. Instead of trying to avoid it, Jeongguk turns back to his work and pats the hardwood floor beside him. “At least come down here to feed me if you’re going to do this so I can still look at my textbooks.”
In November, Seokjin wakes up one morning to a clattering in the kitchen. He’s in no rush to check what happened, but when he goes into the space all seems well. Jeongguk is in the midst of frying potatoes. “Ah, what’s this?”
Jeongguk doesn’t flinch at Seokjin’s voice—he’s too focused. “You don’t make a sound when you walk,” he comments instead.
Seokjin laughs. “I’ve learned how to walk in this apartment.”
“Ah.” A pause. Seokjin moves from behind Jeongguk to beside him. The potatoes are swimming in a thick sauce. “What are you making?”
“My famous potatoes. It’s one of the only things I know how to make.”
“This is so sudden, though.”
Jeongguk doesn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s a thank-you for taking care of me all the time—always making food and feeding me… And that one time you gave me breakfast when I was drunk.”
Seokjin’s ears feel warm, but Jeongguk is too focused on his pan to look up and see anything. (He’s relieved.) “You know that isn’t something you owe me, yeah?”
“But I wanted to do this.” The plastic spatula scrapes against the pan. “And I want you to teach me how to make more food. I don’t know how to cook meat…”
As per Jeongguk’s request, when he doesn’t have too much to read or study, Seokjin taught him how to make new dishes for the rest of November and December. He goes to sleep one night during Jeongguk’s final exam period telling him that he’ll have to make a grand meal for the both of them once his exams are over, and Jeongguk agrees, but Seokjin wakes up in the middle of the night with cold toes.
He flips over in bed to check the time—almost 4am—and stretches to turn on his lamp, but nothing happens. It click-clicks in the dark of the bedroom. Under his breath, Seokjin curses. “Not again.”
He forces his feet to meet the icy floor in order to grab socks from his closet. Shuffling out of the room, he decides he’s going to make tea to warm himself up, but there’s a small light in the living room. He pokes his head around the wall to see Jeongguk, sitting in his usual position on the couch and covered from head to toe black sweats. Again, wearing his glasses; again, staring at his laptop screen. It’s on the coffee table so he clicks through lecture slides with his big toe—his hands are holding a steaming mug.
“I know you’re adamant about studying,” Seokjin says, causing Jeongguk to jump a bit, “but even during a blackout? Really?”
Jeongguk just smiles. “Study hard, hyung. Why are you awake?”
“I was going to make tea. My body is cold.”
“The pot is still there.” Jeongguk juts his chin towards the kitchen. While the power is known to go out often in the winter—and with it, the heat—the gas stove is the one thing keeping Seokjin from having to stay at a friend’s place until it’s fixed. “I made some tea for myself when the lights went off.”
Even with the power off, the kitchen light emits its afterglow. Seokjin pours himself some tea, drinking it all before he returns to the living room.
Jeongguk hasn’t moved a muscle. “Jeongguk-ah.”
“Yeah?”
“Stop studying and go to sleep. You won’t perform well on your exam if you stay up like this.”
“I have one more day to study and the exam is at 7pm. I can sleep for a few hours before I take it.”
Seokjin steps forward and closes Jeongguk’s laptop in one swift movement.The boy yelps and pulls his foot back. “You almost cut off my toe!”
“Are you not sleeping because you’re cold?”
The room’s only illumination comes from the uncovered moon. There’s barely anything to go off from, but he knows there’s another stare down and he isn’t going to be the first one to flinch.
Jeongguk looks away. “It’s easier to stay awake and study than it is to sleep,” he finally admits.
“Come sleep with me.” The words leave Seokjin’s lips before he has a chance to stop himself. The heat has stopped working before, whether it was from a power outage or not, but Jeongguk didn’t leave his room during those times. Seokjin always made himself tea because the cold would wake him up. “It’ll be warmer with two bodies. I also don’t have more than one extra blanket… but I’ll fix that for the future.”
Jeongguk doesn’t respond right away; he opens his laptop. “Let me save the part I’m at,” he says gently. It’s only when the blue light shines on his face that Seokjin realizes he’s blushing. “I’ll… meet you in your room.”
Seokjin stands up. “I’ll drag you by your ear if I have to.” Another empty threat. He goes back to his room and pulls out the extra blanket, laying it carefully on his bed before sliding himself under.
A few minutes later Jeongguk enters the room. “Even when it’s cold I… only sleep in my boxers. If you want me to keep my shirt on I can.”
Seokjin pops a hand out from the top of the blanket, waving him off. “I’m in a t-shirt and boxers right now. Just wear what you’re comfortable in. I don’t care.”
In the dark of the room, Seokjin tries to calm his racing heart. There’s been something developing inside of him for Jeongguk since he first taught him how to play video games after a stressful day at work. It’s not a something that he likes to acknowledge—as Yoongi’s cousin, Seokjin knows he would be scrutinized for even thinking anything can happen—but he can’t help the little bit of happiness that blooms when Jeongguk slips under the covers with him.
“Your bed is small.”
“It’s not like we can lay side by side, I know, but it’s still something.”
“So…how do we do this?”
“Have you ever heard of spooning?”
Jeongguk makes a noise that’s somewhere between a light laugh and a choked grunt. “Yeah. I have.”
“So pick: big spoon or little spoon?”
“I’ve always been the big spoon.”
“But do you want to be?”
“…Not really.”
“Okay. Face out.” Seokjin waits for Jeongguk to shift himself so that he’s laying on his left side, on the outer edge of the bed. Seokjin’s between Jeongguk and the wall, so he adjusts himself accordingly and circles Jeongguk’s waist with his right arm. He feels the hard ridges of his stomach against his fingers. “I didn’t know you worked out.”
“We’ve been living together for almost five months and you didn’t know I dance?”
Seokjin blinks in the darkness. “You dance?”
“Did you think my black duffel was full of torture devices?”
“Yeah, that seems to fit you better than dancing.” Seokjin laughs. “It’s okay, Jeonggukkie. This just means you’re handsomer than I thought you were.”
“Don’t tease me like that, hyung.”
“I’m not teasing.” Seokjin nudges Jeongguk closer to his body. He moves without question. Suddenly he feels smaller than he looks. Seokjin will probably blame everything on the drowsiness of being woken up in the middle of the night, but he nuzzles his nose into Jeongguk’s hair. Soft. “You’re good, Jeongguk. I’m glad to have you around.”
“Th–thanks, hyung.” His words come out as a squeak. “Good night.”
“Good night. Sleep well.”
There’s something about the way Jeongguk fits into Seokjin so well that has him thrown off guard, but it makes the cold December night that much warmer. Maybe Seokjin will grow some further confidence on New Year’s Eve just because he’s always been known as the cheesy roommate (between him and Yoongi, of course. Then again, maybe Jeongguk will surprise him.)