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Yoongi’s been living with Namjoon for almost six months and has known him for ten years the morning everything changes.
He wanders into the kitchen on a Saturday morning — his clock says 11:57am, it’s still morning no matter how many that’s basically the afternoon! comments Hoseok makes — to find Namjoon putting bread in the toaster oven. There’s an open jar of Nutella on the counter and a spoon hanging out of his mouth.
“Ah, hyung!” he says, his voice morning-rough and sticky with chocolate, “I was wondering when you’d be up. Coffee’s still fresh enough if you want that, or I can start the kettle if you want to make your own.”
Namjoon's hair is a fluffy black mass, sticking up every which way. He’s smiling a sleepy smile that shows off his dimple. There’s chocolate smudged in the corner of his mouth, only it isn’t there for long. His tongue peeks out to catch most of it, and what his tongue doesn’t get his hand does.
“Hyung?” Namjoon prompts.
He’s still smiling. It’s distracting. Yoongi has to fight to remember the question. Something about… something about… “Coffee… good. Yes.”
Namjoon’s dimple deepens with his smile, his eyes curving into twin crescents. “One coffee, coming up.”
The words oh, I can get it die somewhere between Yoongi’s brain and tongue. He wishes he could blame it on lack of sleep. He can’t.
Have Namjoon’s shoulders always been that broad? They can’t have been. Yoongi would’ve noticed before this. Same with his arms — Yoongi can see the play of Namjoon’s muscles under his warm, sun-kissed skin as he gets Yoongi’s mug down from its spot on the shelf. Yoongi definitely would’ve noticed those arms.
Namjoon turns back to Yoongi, mug in hand, wearing yet another smile. Yoongi can’t help himself.
Yoongi looks at Namjoon’s chest.
Oh no, he thinks.
“There,” Namjoon says, sliding Yoongi’s coffee across the counter. “So you’ll be awake in what, half an hour?”
Oh no, Yoongi thinks again, staring at the person in front of him. This can’t be Namjoon, can it? Namjoon, who spent years doing his best to imitate a scrawny beanpole? Namjoon, who had gangly arms and gangly legs and seemed to be composed of nothing but elbows and knees? That Namjoon can’t have become this person, whose shoulders strain against his shirt and whose pecs are clearly defined and whose whole chest tapers smoothly down to a trim waist tucked into low-slung grey track pants.
But the face is Namjoon’s face, and the smile is Namjoon’s smile, and the hands that had prepared Yoongi’s coffee can only belong to one person.
It’s too much. Yoongi can’t deal with it, not before he’s had coffee.
“Coffee,” he says, and then, “Thank you,” because that was what he’d meant to say in the first place. He’s a bit distracted.
The person with Namjoon’s face and Namjoon’s hands and Namjoon’s kindness wrapped up in all that muscle also has Namjoon’s laugh. Everything is horrible.
“Thank you,” Yoongi repeats, taking his coffee and shuffling a hasty retreat back to his bedroom.
When Yoongi landed the job at a radio station in Seoul he’d started looking for his own place and just as quickly started complaining about the price of housing. His friends weren’t very empathetic or sympathetic. The ones in Daegu said why even bother moving at all, you love it here, you love your apartment here, you love your friends here, it sounds like such a hassle. The ones in Seoul said welcome to the club, we had to deal with it and now you do too.
Namjoon said I know right? Apartment hunting is so hard :( It’s not fair that Jungkook is abandoning me like this :( Just because he wants to live with his boyfriends :( Rude :( and then, five minutes later, wait, hyung, Jungkook is moving out. Do you just want his room?
Yoongi did. It would cut down the cost of his rent, and save him the hassle of having to go to viewings, or make decisions, or haul his larger furniture pieces half-way across the country. He’d be able to travel relatively light, all things considered — just a car loaded with his clothes, his books, his records and record player, his items of sentimental value, and most of the contents of his kitchen.
(Apparently neither Jungkook nor Namjoon had been much for cooking but that was fine by Yoongi. He’d been investing in good pots and pans and knives and kitchen gadgets pretty much since he’d got his job. He would’ve been sad if he had to leave them behind.)
A lot of people asked if he was worried about having a roommate again, after so long living by himself. He wasn’t. He was adaptable. He was an adult. He couldn’t think of any deal-breaking roommate habits Namjoon might have that they wouldn’t be able to come to a compromise on just by talking. Besides, Namjoon was one of his best friends. It’d been years since they’d lived in the same place. Yoongi was looking forward to it.
Plus, he’d be getting such a good break on rent. For that he could put up with a lot.
The bar on Saturday night is loud enough Yoongi can’t hear Seokjin at all, not even when he’s so close his warm lips brush the shell of Yoongi’s ear. Yoongi shivers.
“What?” he yells back, pitching his voice to try and make it heard over the raucous laughing from the table beside them, and the thrumming sound of the live band.
Seokjin shifts so now his hand is cupped around Yoongi’s ear and tries again. “Have the two of you had another fight?”
There’s no need to ask Seokjin who he’s talking about. There’s only one person he could mean.
Yoongi plays dumb anyways. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You and Jooooooonie,” Hoseok sing-songs, loudly, from Seokjin’s other side. Even in the dim light of the bar the bright pink of his cheeks is clearly visible. He gestures expansively to the dance floor, where Namjoon is bopping along to the music under the watchful eyes of Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook. Namjoon can be an enthusiastic dancer, and it’s important to make sure he doesn’t accidentally anger strangers with his elbows.
“Who else would I be asking about?” Seokjin asks, laughing.
“You’re glow-glow-glowering at him like you did when you found out—”
“I had my records in the order I liked them,” Yoongi interrupts Hoseok, feeling a flush colour his own face. In retrospect it’d been a stupid fight, but he’d had a bad day at work and Namjoon hadn’t even asked first before “helping” organize them.
“No no no,” Hoseok says, waving him off, “It’s like when—”
“If he’d watched where he was going I wouldn’t have needed to learn how to patch the wall!”
“Hyung!” Hoseok says, reaching across Seokjin to tap Yoongi on the lips. Yoongi is so startled he doesn’t even think to try and bite the offending fingers. “It’s like the time you came back early from visiting your parents and that girl hadn’t left your apartment yet!”
“He could have warned me!” Yoongi was supposed to be at his parents for a full week including the weekends on either side, but after a week of well-meant but slightly-smothering affection from his parents and poor sleep in a bed that wasn’t his anymore (his was in Seoul now, with his Kumamon plush and the sound of Namjoon’s snoring close by) Yoongi’d had enough. He’d gone back a night early, excited by the idea of two nights of restful sleep and a day of hanging around the apartment with Namjoon before he went back to work. He feels like he’s justified in having been a bit surprised to find a half-naked stranger sitting on Namjoon’s lap in their living room instead.
“He thought you weren’t going to be home for another day!”
“You’re missing the point, Yoongichi,” Seokjin says, before Yoongi can get properly heated about it again. “You’re staring at him. A lot.”
“Glowering,” Hoseok corrects, and this time he puts his fingers between Yoongi’s eyebrows. Yoongi can feel the furrow there as Hoseok presses it. “Right here.”
Yoongi blames what he does next on the tall, half-empty blue drink sitting on the table in front of him. Taehyung had ordered it, after the pink one, and the green one, and maybe a yellow one, before that. It must be a lot stronger than it looks, because Yoongi finds himself saying, “I’m not glowering, I’m trying to figure out if he’s bigger. Than before.”
His pronouncement is met with what passes for a ringing silence when in a packed bar with people and a live band.
“Bigger?” Seokjin asks, his expression blandly neutral.
“Yeah,” the blue drink makes Yoongi say. He frowns, but can’t quite get himself to stop talking. “You know.” He gestures to his own sloped shoulders, and his decidedly un-beefy arms, to illustrate which region he’s talking about. “Bigger.”
“Well,” Seokjin says, clapping his hands together in a way that can only be called gleeful, while Hoseok starts to giggle. Yoongi starts to wish he’d fought harder to keep his mouth shut. He should not have trusted Seokjin’s blandly neutral face. “Well, well, well, well, well.”
“Well what?” Yoongi demands, glaring between them. His patience with this conversation is worn so thin it is practically see-through, and they aren’t helping him find the answer. Maybe he should ask directly. “Is he bigger?”
“I should hope so,” Hoseok says, still giggling, leaning across Seokjin’s lap so he doesn’t have to yell quite so loudly to be heard, “Otherwise what’s the point of all the work he’s been putting in?”
Yoongi blinks at Hoseok. Individually the words make sense but together… “What?”
“All the work—” Hoseok says, gesturing at Seokjin’s chest as if that will clear things up. Yoongi stares at him blankly. “Hyung. Hyung you live with him, you have to know he works out.”
“He does pilates,” Yoongi protests. “Pilates doesn’t make that—”
Seokjin and Hoseok share a pitying look. Yoongi isn’t the kind to resort to physical violence, but in this moment he almost wishes he was. They look so smug. It’s infuriating.
“He hasn’t been doing pilates for a while,” Seokjin says, with the tone of a lofty professor imparting well known information to a student who hasn’t bothered doing the reading. “Jungkook and I have been helping him lift weights, instead.”
Several images fight to come into focus in Yoongi’s mind’s eye. He ruthlessly squashes them all into the deepest, darkest corner of his thoughts he can find. He already feels like he’s floating a solid six inches off the bench of the booth they’re squeezed into. He does not want to make it worse.
Hoseok and Seokjin are looking at him expectantly. Yoongi still doesn’t know how to react.
“Well, I’m glad it’s not another fight,” Hoseok says at last, settling back into his spot. The song ends then, shouts and applause covering up what he says next, but Yoongi thinks it’s you had us worried there.
The whole situation is ridiculous. Yoongi can’t stand to look at either of them anymore, so he looks at the dance floor.
It’s a mistake.
Even among all the revelers it’s easy for Yoongi to find Namjoon. He is enveloped by a halo of light that seems to make him glow, although that might just be the bar lighting, and is just so… Namjoon. Yoongi would be able to spot him in any crowd, he’s sure of it. He always looks beautiful, but tonight especially so. His shoulders fill out the silky shirt Taehyung had found for him. He’s wearing a pair of tight leather pants Jimin had convinced him to buy last time they went thrifting. He looks—
“I’m going to the washroom,” Yoongi announces, awkwardly sliding himself out of his seat. “You two had better not be doing anything indecent when I get back.”
“Why?” Seokjin asks. “You gonna fight us, too?”
“Bring drinks!” Hoseok yells behind him. “Bring back drinks with you, hyung!”
“You don’t deserve drinks!” Yoongi yells back, already standing, keeping his eyes carefully averted away from where Namjoon has started dancing enthusiastically to the new song, still bracketed between Jimin and Jungook. There’s a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck, seeping into the collar of his silky shirt, and Yoongi has no thoughts about it at all. “You’re obnoxious.”
“We’re angels,” Hoseok and Seokjin say in unison, before collapsing on each other in laughter.
They’re so busy laughing at themselves that Yoongi doesn’t bother trying to think of a snarky comeback. They wouldn’t even notice.
Yoongi met Namjoon in university. Yoongi was taking a literature class for fun, and Namjoon was wrong often and loudly. What was Yoongi to do except correct him?
For the whole first half of term hardly a lecture went by without the two of them entering into debate of some kind, until the class where the professor went and made such a bigoted remark that they had to join forces to argue him under. The truce was temporary: the next class they were back to arguing, albeit now tinged with respect. It proved difficult to avoid forming some kind of bond when essentially outing yourselves to your classmates together while taking a stand for common decency.
It was almost a year later when Hoseok said, hey, I think I know someone you’d really like, and introduced Yoongi to Namjoon a second time. Things were a bit rocky at first, but once they figured out how to talk to each other without it turning into an argument Yoongi had to admit Hoseok was right. He did like Namjoon.
He liked Namjoon a lot.
Namjoon was good, from the top of his egg-shaped-head to the tips of his incredibly clumsy fingers and toes. He always offered to help, no matter how busy he was. He cared so much and so deeply about trying to do the best that he could. He made Yoongi want to be better.
That isn’t to say they never fought anymore. Namjoon was frequently wrong about music, and a needlessly picky eater, and so, so forgetful, all the time. Sometimes his help ended up making a task take longer than it might’ve otherwise, and sometimes his ability to overthink everything was frustrating, not charming. He didn’t always pick up on cues like leave me alone or I might bite your head off, and as a result had his head bitten off more than once.
Yoongi was not blameless in this. He could be slow to reply to texts sometimes, and no matter how much he wanted to help sometimes people might prefer a sympathetic ear over a solution, and, okay, fine, no matter how picky an eater someone was he shouldn’t tease them about it, especially when they were already self conscious.
But for all the fighting they did Yoongi knew, without a doubt, that he and Namjoon were solid. They had a lot of practice disagreeing with each other, but more than that they had practice making up. They wanted to be friends, and because they wanted it they were able to make it work.
It was nice, having that level of confidence in a relationship. Yoongi didn’t have to worry that Namjoon was holding anything back in an effort to spare Yoongi’s feelings, and Yoongi knew Namjoon felt the same. They could talk to each other, really talk and it was just… nice, to trust someone like that.
Really, really nice.
“Soooo, what’d’you think of Namjoonie-hyung’s new look?” Jimin asks. He flops on the couch where Yoongi is sitting so his legs are draped over Yoongi’s lap and his arm is draped behind Yoongi’s shoulders. Yoongi wonders if this is what a cat might feel like when cornered by an aggressively friendly toddler. He doesn’t like it one bit.
“I heard you were appreciative of his new assets,” Taehyung says with what he probably thinks is a sly smile, sliding onto the armrest on Yoongi’s other side. If Yoongi didn’t feel trapped before he certainly does now.
“Can’t you go bother someone else for a bit?” Yoongi asks, glaring at them. Jimin’s antics nearly made him spill his whisky, and the bottle he brought doesn’t have much left. He’d rather none of it went to waste. That’s the only reason he wants Jimin and Taehyung to leave, of course. Not for any other reason at all.
“We aren’t a bother though, are we hyung?” Jimin asks, his eyes widening into an expression that can only be seen as innocent by those who have never before met Park Jimin.
“You’re literally sitting on me,” Yoongi points out. “I think that counts as being bothered.”
Jimin taps him on the forehead. “And you’re avoiding the question.”
Yoongi is avoiding the question. In the week after the disastrous events of The-Blue-Drink-At-The-Bar and before the current Movie-Night-At-Jimin-And-Taehyung’s he’s been trying to avoid a lot of things (Jimin’s questions about Yoongi’s preferences in the physical appearance of his romantic partners and Taehyung’s insistence that it’s time to update his look among them), hoping that what has worked before (ignore it and it’ll go away) will work again.
He’s coming to the horrible conclusion it won’t.
“It’s really too bad that it’s too cold for another beach day, isn’t it?” Jimin says, changing tactics at lightning speed. “We could all admire Namjoonie-hyung’s new physique properly. With his shirt off. And wearing swim trunks.”
“Jimin,” Yoongi says, pained.
Thinking about Namjoon’s new physique is another of the things Yoongi’s been trying to avoid. It’s hard, given that they live together, and like hanging out, but Yoongi’s trying his best. There’s a lot on his plate at work, and his parents keep hinting he should see if so-and-so’s newly single son wants to go to a cafe, and his brother’s been bugging him to go out and visit his niece who just learned the word uncle. If Yoongi lets himself think about Namjoon’s new physique he’ll have to potentially think about other things too, tangentially related things, and he doesn’t really have time for that right now.
Maybe next week he’ll have time.
Maybe never.
“I heard it’s much improved from the last time we were at the beach,” Taehyung says, as if this is a normal conversation to be having about a friend. “Jungkook was just saying that he’s started doing full reps of chin-ups without any assistance at all, and just added another ten pounds to his bench press.”
“I bet all that muscle would look good in the sun,” Jimin adds, a glint in his eye. It is, Yoongi suspects, a statement carefully calculated to be as unhelpful as possible. He’s gone from trying not to picture Namjoon in that too-tight t-shirt doing chin ups to trying not to imagine Namjoon on a beach, miles of skin on display, the slight bulk of his muscles shifting as he scooped up crabs he could bring to Yoongi while wearing his blindingly pleased smile.
“He’d probably want someone to help apply the sunscreen—” Taehyung says, and that’s when Yoongi breaks.
“Off,” he says, trying to wriggle his way out from underneath Jimin. “Off, get off, I don’t need to—”
“Ah! Hyung!” Jimin stands of his own accord and waves as Namjoon approaches the couch, popcorn bowl in hand. “Here, we saved you a spot beside hyung.”
“Thank… you?” Namjoon says, clearly bemused by Jimin’s antics. Yoongi wishes he could afford to be bemused, but he can’t. Namjoon is wearing a sweatshirt that belonged to Yoongi, once upon a time. He’d stolen it just before Yoongi graduated and Yoongi hadn’t bothered to ask for it back. It’s so old that it’s barely more than the memory of a sweatshirt, thin, and soft, and clinging to Namjoon’s chest in— in ways. It makes Yoongi feel… feel… well, he feels something. It’s like a knot in the centre of his chest, one he doesn’t even want to look at let alone try to untangle.
The knot only gets tighter as Namjoon gets closer. Yoongi tries not to squirm uncomfortably.
“You’re welcome,” Jimin and Taehyung say brightly, heedless of Yoongi’s stormy expression.
“Shall we get popcorn too?” Taehyung asks, holding his arm out for Jimin. “Before we watch the show?”
Jimin links their arms together. “Let’s! Lead on, Taehyung-ssi!”
Namjoon takes the seat Jimin saved for him, his whole side pressed against Yoongi even though there is an expanse of empty couch on his other side. His arm is solid and warm against Yoongi’s, as is his thigh. He hooks one foot absently under Yoongi’s ankle. Yoongi is surprised he doesn’t combust on the spot.
“What’s with them tonight?” Namjoon asks, nodding after Jimin and Taehyung while offering Yoongi the bowl of popcorn. It smells like popcorn, but tastes like nothing in Yoongi’s suddenly dry mouth. Yoongi tries a sip of whisky next, just to see if it really is the world’s worst popcorn, but, no, the flavour has been stolen from the whisky too. All that’s left is the burn and, horrifyingly, the burn isn’t anywhere near as strong as the searing touch of Namjoon’s hand as it brushes accidentally against the inside of Yoongi’s wrist.
“Boyish high spirits?” Yoongi offers. He can’t lie outright, not to Namjoon, but he can’t quite bring himself to voice his suspicion about what exactly is with Jimin and Taehyung, not when doing so would mean having to think about things. “Maybe just happy about the movie choice?”
“Hmm,” Namjoon hums, still staring after them. When he shrugs Yoongi can feel it, on account of how they’re still pressed tight together. “I didn’t know they were such big Pacific Rim fans.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi says, his voice coming out a bit strangled. Namjoon is idly shifting his foot, which means he’s running it up and down Yoongi’s ankle. He can practically feel Jimin’s eyes boring into him. Tonight is going to be torture. “Yeah. Me neither. Pacific Rim.”
As near as Yoongi can tell, his crush on Namjoon started the afternoon they joined forces to speak to their professor more sternly than was technically polite but not nearly as sternly as he deserved. Namjoon was very hot when he got indignant, and this time he was fighting with Yoongi for once instead of against him. It felt good. It made Yoongi’s heart race, and a swarm of butterflies swirl through his stomach, and as they left class after Yoongi almost asked Namjoon for his number.
He didn’t, though, in the end. In addition to being hot when indignant Namjoon was intimidating, and Yoongi didn’t really have the energy for yet another high-stakes social interaction after their altercation. He thought about trying to ask for Namjoon’s number before the next class instead, even planned to, until in the moment of truth he found he’d lost his momentum. He chickened out.
After that he decided to ignore the crush instead. It was by far the less stressful of the two options, and he was confident with time he’d forget he even had a crush in the first place. He was right too: with enough deliberate neglect the fledgling crush withered until it was next to nothing. When their class ended for the year Yoongi even managed to say a casual see ya later to Namjoon, knowing full well later would never come, and that was that.
At least, that was that until Hoseok brought Namjoon crashing (literally crashing, Namjoon tripped over Hoseok's bag en-route to the café chair he was trying to sit in and fell on top of Yoongi instead) back into Yoongi’s life.
This time Yoongi did get Namjoon's number, although not to date. Namjoon had a girlfriend at the time, and even when he didn’t have a girlfriend (or boyfriend, or partner) he was very busy falling half in love with people at the drop of a hat.
If Yoongi was ever one of them Namjoon never said so, and really that was fine with Yoongi. He generally spent more time hanging out with Namjoon than any of Namjoon’s romantic partners did, and got to be Namjoon’s hyung, and besides, he didn’t have time for romance anyway. As he’d tell anyone who’d listen, he had plans.
He was going to graduate and leave the city. He was going to find the smallest, dingiest, most shoe-string-budget radio station he could. He was going to get heaps of real-world experience in every element of producing a radio show, and he’d take all that experience and turn it into a job in a bigger market, and then he’d do it again. He was going to make something of himself.
It seemed like a lot of work to try and change a relationship that he was so happy in, that was so hard won in the first place, when he knew he was going to leave soon enough and knew also that he wasn’t interested in long distance. He’d be the best hyung, the best friend he could be, and that would be that. It would be enough.
So he had his crush but he never let it dictate his actions. He didn’t flirt, he didn’t try to come up with excuses for physical contact, and he didn't grumble when Namjoon was waxing rhapsodic about some guy’s legs, or some girl’s eyes. Ignored and neglected, his crush once again shrivelled up until it was almost vestigial, as irrelevant and unnoticed as Yoongi’s appendix.
It barely twinged at all when Yoongi hugged Namjoon goodbye for the last time before he left the city, and that was as it should be. Namjoon was a close friend, a good friend, and they could keep being that for each other. Everything was going to work itself out.
The restaurant Jungkook picks when he says Hyung buy me supper on Tuesday is close to the gym where he, Seokjin, and Namjoon work out. In retrospect that should’ve been a warning in and of itself, but Yoongi is too trusting of his friends in general, and of Jungkook in particular.
You can pick me up there, and we’ll walk over together, it can be a bit hard to find, Jungkook had added, and with a hint like that Yoongi really has no one to blame for the situation he ended up in but himself.
“I really am sorry I got the time wrong,” Jungkook says from across the table with his innocently wide Bambi eyes. It’s almost believable. “I could’ve sworn I said seven thirty, but—”
“It’s fine,” Yoongi says, even though it really isn’t. Images of Namjoon in a workout tank-top and shorts, glistening with sweat, breathing slow and controlled as he lifted weights, or did chin-ups, or stretched out, will haunt him for the rest of his days. Yoongi tried not to look, really, he had, but the massage chairs Jungkook had installed him in faced the main gym and Namjoon was right there.
“Plus you got a nice massage!” Jungkook says brightly. “So it wasn’t all bad, right?”
It was all bad. Half an hour of watching Namjoon work out, sometimes looking over at Yoongi and waving. Yoongi’s heart speeds up just remembering it. He hadn’t gone near the equipment but it feels like he had a workout all the same.
“Hyung is really getting a lot more confident in the gym,” Jungkook continues, as if the thought of Namjoon and gym are not currently painful to Yoongi. “He used to be so shy he hardly wanted me and Seokjinie-hyung to watch him work, and we had to spot him! And just look at him now!”
“Yes,” Yoongi says, glumly taking a sip of his water. The air of the restaurant feels close and stifling, and Yoongi feels so, so warm. “Look at him now.”
“It’s pretty impressive actually, how far he’s come.”
“Very impressive,” Yoongi parrots. It seems like the safest option.
“His thighs alone—”
Yoongi can’t take it anymore. He has had a very long day, and this is not good for his health. “Jungkook, can we please talk about something else?”
A crease appears between Jungkook’s eyebrows. “But Taehyung-hyung and Jimin-hyung said to—” He catches himself, closing his mouth with an audible snap, but it’s too late. Yoongi has been given a peek behind the curtain. The damage is done.
“What,” he asks, fighting to keep his tone light and pleasant, “Did Taehyung and Jimin say?”
Like a popped balloon Jungkook deflates, a sigh escaping his mouth as his shoulders droop forward. “I told them I’d be no good at this,” he says mournfully, hanging his head so his hair, still damp from his shower at the gym, curtains his eyes.
“Jungkook…”
“Seokjin-hyung is so much better at this,” Jungkook says, ignoring Yoongi completely, “But they said no, it’s gotta be you Jungkook, he wouldn’t dare say no to you.”
Yoongi is sympathetic, he is, but he also really, really wants to know what Jimin and Taehyung said. “Jungkook, what did they—”
“They told me to invite you for supper only to make sure you went to the gym first so you would see Namjoon-hyung working out and then be so overcome by his body that you’d forget yourself and confess your feelings on the spot.” The words tumble out of Jungkook so fast they almost trip off his tongue, falling heavy in the air between them. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut the whole time, his eyebrows pinched together. Yoongi might feel bad for him but he’s too busy being stunned.
“They… what?”
Jungkook opens one eye, peering out at Yoongi from underneath his bangs. Yoongi would love to know what expression is on his face. He can’t quite feel it anymore, and to judge by Jungkook’s look it’s an interesting one. “After the beach day plan didn’t work—”
“Didn’t work?” Yoongi asks, incredulous. His fingers are tingling, right at the very tips. “Didn’t work? Are they… Are they trying to— me and Namjoon—?” He can’t quite bring himself to say the whole sentence out loud. Surely not. Surely not.
“Yeah,” says Jungkook, ruthless destroyer of Yoongi’s hopes, “But, hyung, you gotta understand! They were so excited when they heard you were moving in together! They were sure you’d figure everything out after just a few weeks, even though Seokjin-hyung and Hoseok-hyung told them it would take a bit more than proximity for you to get your collective heads out of your asses—”
“Seokjin and Hoseok too?” Yoongi squawks. His voice sounds shrill in his ears. They’ve all been talking about this for months? Since Yoongi decided to live with Namjoon? “Is there anyone who didn’t— who doesn’t—”
“Weeell,” Jungkook says, drawing the sound out, “Jimin-hyung did say Namjoonie-hyung seemed to be being especially dense and evasive about it? He never said anything interesting about you on their bike rides, no matter how many times Jimin-hyung brought you up, but you know how sometimes he can be a bit, you know.”
Jungkook makes a gesture that Yoongi interprets as oblivious, possibly willfully, to his own feelings, especially if he’s trying so hard not to think about something he manages to overthink it as a result. It’s a lot to fit in a gesture, but Jungkook manages it, and it does sound exactly like Namjoon.
“Very smart,” Jungkook adds loyally, “One of the best people ever. But. Um.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi says weakly. Namjoon is very smart, and is definitely one of the best people ever, but. Um.
“So when it looked like the muscle thing might be the aha moment they decided to roll with it.” Jungkook punctuates his sentence with a nod. “And now you’re all caught up. Any questions?”
Yoongi has so many, many questions but the main one, the biggest one, is, “Everyone thinks Namjoon and I…?” He doesn’t have enough air in his lungs to finish it. There isn’t enough air in the world for that.
The furrow is back between Jungkook’s eyebrows as he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, you do, don’t you? I mean, when we talked it over—”
They’re interrupted by the arrival of their food, and Yoongi briefly considers proposing marriage to the server out of sheer relief. Nothing can distract Jungkook as easily as food, and Yoongi needs Jungkook to be distracted. He won’t, can’t, answer Jungkook’s question.
Not before he sees Namjoon.
Living so far from his friends was a bigger adjustment than Yoongi anticipated. It wasn’t that he was friendless — he made friends with his coworkers, and with some of the shop owners near his postage-stamp sized apartment, and in the local recreational basketball league — but they were different. They were new, and what with all the changes he was making in his life Yoongi missed the familiar, the comfortable, the known. He missed Seokjin’s horrible jokes and Hoseok’s sunny smile and the kids’ ridiculous antics and he missed—
But it was silly to miss Namjoon. They texted constantly, about the books they were reading, and the music they’d found, and how many dogs or frogs they’d seen on their most recent walks. They even tried phone calls a couple times, mostly when Namjoon was trying to cook, or fix something he’d broken. In those situations it was easier for Yoongi to give his instructions verbally, and better that Namjoon have his hands free to work instead of fumbling with his phone. It wasn’t the same as being there in person, but Yoongi supposed it was better than nothing.
Besides, Namjoon never mentioned missing Yoongi and that made sense. Friends sometimes moved away, and adults could handle it, and Yoongi was an adult. At least, Yoongi was more of an adult than Namjoon, who would sometimes text to ask him the right way to slice a melon, or iron his shirt, or unclog the drain in his bathroom sink. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
A couple times a year Taehyung organized get-togethers for the university group, and Yoongi would take the weekend to make the trek into the city. It was nice to catch up with everyone in person, remind his body what it felt like to hug them, let their laughter light him up from the inside. He was there to see them all, and he resolutely ignored the worry that this might be the time that something would come up, Namjoon wouldn’t make it. Things happened. He would be sad, sure, but not crushed. There would probably be a next time.
Still, there was always a moment of relief when he’d first catch sight of Namjoon, a twinge almost like pain just under his breastbone. There was always an echo too, a few seconds later, when Namjoon would catch Yoongi’s eye (it only ever took him seconds to find Yoongi, no matter what they were doing) and his smile would take over his whole face.
Namjoon would wrap him up in a hug hello, then Yoongi would blink and it was time to go and Namjoon would be hugging him goodbye and Yoongi… was fine. Taehyung’s get-togethers couldn’t last forever, and Yoongi had work in a different city on Monday morning, and Namjoon had his own life to live. They’d text, and they’d call, and they’d say you should come for a visit without actually planning anything concrete. Things would go on as usual.
When Namjoon offered Yoongi the soon-to-be-empty room in his apartment Yoongi barely had to think about it before saying yes. His old crush was ancient history. He’d had other crushes since, some that he’d even gone on dates with. He hadn’t brought any back to his parents, but not everyone needed to be in a committed long term relationship to be happy, contrary to what his parents thought. He was well over it.
Living with Namjoon was going to be fine.
It was fine too, and better than fine. Their friends might not have thought so, given the number of what Yoongi liked to refer to as co-habitation-growing-pain-adjustment-discussions they had, but Yoongi was on his home turf with Namjoon and delighted to be there. When they weren’t discussing they were plain old talking, or else sharing a meal, or hanging out, existing quietly in the same place, enjoying each other’s company.
After years of what felt like trying to run on sand Yoongi’s feet had found solid ground and he was at peace. He let his guard down. He got comfortable. He got to know Namjoon better again, all the ways he’d changed over the years they lived apart, and found joy in it. He let Namjoon know him, too, and it wasn’t unheard of for them to accidentally talk until the stars started to dim and the horizon started to glow with the coming dawn.
Then Namjoon went and got buff, and Yoongi had noticed and, a few years older, a few years wiser, he’d been forced to face a few difficult truths:
1. Maybe his crush hadn’t been that small to begin with
2. Maybe he’d only told himself that because the alternative, the reality, was that it was big, so big that some days it felt like he could barely breathe, big enough that its gravity had the potential to pull his entire life off the course he’d set. Big enough it probably didn’t qualify as just a crush.
3. Maybe he’d been scared, terrified, of what that might mean so he’d chosen instead to do nothing, to ignore the occasional look he thought Namjoon threw his way, the way Namjoon liked to drape an arm over his shoulders and pull him in tight, the way Namjoon was always, always there when Yoongi let himself look
4. Maybe he’d been so scared by it all that he'd told himself it was nothing and ran away, has been running ever since. He'd been so young then. It couldn’t have been real, couldn’t be back… could it?
5. Maybe he was ready to find out
Finding the bandaids is easy. Yoongi keeps them in his and Namjoon’s shared bathroom, in the bottom drawer of the vanity. He keeps them well stocked, given who he lives with, but for once it isn't Namjoon’s fingers that need bandaging.
It’s Yoongi’s.
He’d been doing so well too! For weeks he’d managed to keep his hands out of his mouth, his nails and cuticles unbitten, and then he’d had to go to dinner with Jungkook and—
He stares glumly at his hands. Less than twenty four hours ago his nails and nail beds were acceptable. Not perfect, like Taehyung’s, or manicured, like Hoseok’s, but at the very least they were fine. They were fit for public consumption. Now they’re nothing but a mass of close-bitten nails and angry red nailbeds and he knows, he knows, that if he doesn't do something it will just get worse.
Really what he should be doing is talking to Namjoon, but Namjoon hadn’t been home when Yoongi got home the night before (Yoongi had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him, and woken up under a blanket) and Yoongi had to leave before Namjoon woke up and this was not the kind of thing he would talk about for the first time over text. Without the outlet of actual conversation he’d gotten caught up in imaginary conversations (Namjoon isn’t the only one in their relation- friendship allowed to overthink things) and next thing he knew: blood. Everywhere.
“Hyung?”
Yoongi looks up from peeling the backing off the adhesive part of the bandaid. Namjoon is standing in the door to the bathroom. He’s clearly just got home from work: he’s wearing a crisp white button down shirt (shoulders, chest, shoulders) with the top button undone (neck) and his tie just a touch out of place. The sleeves are cuffed (arms, arms, arms) and his hands (guuh) are resting on the strap of his cross body bag. His hair is only just starting to fall out of the style he’d put it in that morning, and he’s wearing those thick frame glasses he pulls out when he’s giving a presentation and wants to look especially professional and also hot.
It’s working.
Namjoon looks from Yoongi’s face to Yoongi’s hands and has the nerve to tsk. “Ah, hyung, really?” He unslings his bag and sets it down by the door. He’s wearing the fondly amused expression Yoongi loves. “You told me you’d stopped!”
“I thought I had,” Yoongi grumbles, holding the bandaid and his hand out toward Namjoon. “And yet here we are.”
“Here we are indeed,” Namjoon agrees, taking the bandaid from Yoongi’s fingers. He finishes peeling the back off the adhesive strip, then gently wraps the bandaid around Yoongi’s thumb.
Sparks dance where his fingers brush Yoongi’s skin. Yoongi fights to keep his breath even. There’s nothing special about this. Namjoon had helped him put countless bandaids on his fingers during their time in university. All he’s doing now is helping as he had before, the actions familiar even if it’s been years since the last time he performed them.
There’s no reason for Yoongi’s breath to catch in his chest as he remembers the way the ritual ends, no reason for time to slow down as Yoongi watches Namjoon bring Yoongi’s hand to his mouth so he can kiss the freshly-bandaged thumb. It had started as a joke, Yoongi muttering what, you aren’t going to kiss it better too? after Namjoon insisted he give Yoongi a hand. Namjoon had laughed, and done it, and then done it again every time after. This time is no different.
Only it feels different. It feels like Yoongi’s body is on fire, radiating out from the point where Namjoon’s lips had caught the skin just below the bandaid, or maybe like he’s frozen. The air feels charged, like a thunderstorm before the first lightning strike, and Yoongi’s eyes are caught in Namjoon’s. Namjoon’s eyes are beautiful. Yoongi has always known this, but they lock eyes so rarely that each time they do it feels like a revelation. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to look away.
“There,” Namjoon says. His voice comes as if from a distance, soft, and so low it is almost gruff. “Looks like I haven’t lost my touch.”
“No,” Yoongi says, voice equally low. “You haven’t.”
It’s unclear if Namjoon bends down first, or if Yoongi rises up on his toes, but the next thing Yoongi knows they’re kissing. Namjoon’s lips are soft and warm, and then his mouth is hot and wet, and then Yoongi’s brain stops being able to process things in words. He feels the way he feels when orchestral music swells, or when a car goes too fast over the top of the hill, or when a dog comes over to sniff his hand.
Then it’s over. Yoongi is once more staring at Namjoon, who is staring at Yoongi. He’s still holding Yoongi’s hand. He blinks. “Um.”
It’s such a Namjoon response that Yoongi can’t help but laugh. “That’s what you’ve got, big guy? Um?”
“You… kissed me?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “So? You kissed me.”
Now that they aren’t kissing Yoongi can see there’s a faint blush spreading across Namjoon’s cheeks. Especially combined with his faintly stunned expression it’s… cute. Really really cute.
“I thought you wanted me too?” Namjoon says. He’s still holding Yoongi’s hand. “I mean, it seemed like you were thinking you might want me to, anyways? Because you’ve been sort of watching me a lot lately, like you were thinking about things—”
When Namjoon starts to nervous babble he often speaks so quickly that it’s hard to follow what he’s saying. Yoongi can get the gist of it anyways. Namjoon only nervous babbles like this when he cares about something, with every fibre of his being.
Yoongi is something he cares about.
Of course, Yoongi knew that already — after ten years of friendship he’d have to be willfully ignorant not to know it — but it’s nice to know anyway.
“Ah, Kim Namjoon—”
“—and normally I would wait for you to say something but you didn’t take your hand back and so I thought maybe you were doing your speaking with actions thing?”
“Namjoon—”
“And I mean we definitely kissed, but if you didn’t want to and I read this wrong—”
“Namjoon-ah.” Yoongi uses his free hand to cover Namjoon’s mouth. Namjoon eyes go round, but at least he stops speaking. “It’s okay,” Yoongi says, lowering his hand. He takes a deep breath. “I did want you to kiss me.”
“Oh.” It sounds as if the air was punched out of him, but he’s smiling. Yoongi takes that as a good sign.
“Yeah,” Yoongi says, with a smile of his own. “I meant to tell you yesterday, but I fell asleep before you got home—”
“My boss wanted to go out,” Namjoon explains, “And then you looked so tired, and…” He screws up his face, as if about to say something difficult. “I wanted to kiss you, too.”
The reality of hearing Namjoon say it is staggering. Yoongi sags against him, burying his face in Namjoon’s (very well muscled) shoulder. It traps their hands between them. Yoongi doesn’t think Namjoon minds.
“Hey,” Namjoon says, his breath warm on the shell of Yoongi’s ear. Yoongi shivers. “Can I kiss you again?”
Their second kiss is different — slower, maybe, and a bit softer, but lurking beneath the surface Yoongi can feel a heat that, given only the slightest provocation, could overwhelm them both. There’s something he wants to say before that happens.
He pulls back, ignoring Namjoon’s muffled groan, to say, “I like you.”
Namjoon grins and pecks him right on the lips. “I should hope so.”
Yoongi wants to be very clear about this. “I like you like I-want-to-date-you, like you.”
Namjoon smiles so wide it almost hurts to look at. “Good. I want to date you too.”
Since when? he thinks, only he must’ve thought it too loud because he can hear it echo off the tile surrounding them. It just seems too easy. It can’t be this easy… can it?
The blush on Namjoon’s face deepens. “So, back in university—” Yoongi’s stomach plummets through his shoes, but before he can say anything Namjoon is hugging him tight, hurrying to add, “No, hyung, no, just listen to the whole thing before you go bemoaning me being hung up on you or anything, okay?”
Yoongi sighs. It’s nice to be wrapped in Namjoon’s arms. “Okay.”
“In university I thought you were so cool? And sometimes I thought I saw you were interested, but you were also really clear about wanting to leave, which I appreciated, because I wanted someone who would stay, except I didn’t want to be the reason they were staying, you know? And anyway you were, you are a great friend, and I like having friends, and so I figured that was that.”
Even listening as carefully as he can Yoongi can hear no hint of bitterness or resentment. He stops holding his breath. He’d had his own crush then, after all. It would be hypocritical of him to get upset about something so far in the past.
“I was interested,” Yoongi tells him, the words coming more easily than he’d expected. “But like you said I had my plan, and I didn’t want to change it, and…” He shrugs, letting the shrug say what his words could not.
“Yeah,” Namjoon says, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “Yeah, I know hyung. And I don’t. I don’t regret it. None of it.”
Yoongi doesn’t either. They were such different people then too, so much younger, and with so much more growth to go through. There was no guarantee that their dating back then would have lead them to where they are now, and Yoongi likes where he is now. He is established in his career, confident in himself, and on the cusp of something brilliant with the man who is not just his crush but also one of his dearest friends.
The years between their university days and now are what made this moment possible.
“Anyway, a couple weekends ago you came into the kitchen? And you were only half awake, and you looked so… and you were wearing that t-shirt of mine, the one from university? Except the neck’s all stretched out now, so I could see— and the fabric’s so thin now it’s sort of…” Namjoon clears his throat. Yoongi feels the rumble of it through his chest. “Clingy.”
Yoongi knows which shirt Namjoon means. He’d stolen it before he left by the simple expedient of borrowing it and forgetting to return it. For years he’d worn it when he missed his friend, and he’d just kept wearing it after he moved back. He hadn’t considered the fact that Namjoon might recognize it.
“And it was my shirt,” Namjoon is saying, “And you looked so good in it and it turned out maybe I wasn’t as over you as I thought. Hyung? You’re… frowning?”
The pieces are clicking together in Yoongi’s head. “Is that why Taehyung’s been telling me I should borrow your shirts to try and reinvent my style game?”
Namjoon groans, tipping his head foreward until it rests on Yoongi’s. “I should never have let that slip. Jimin is a demon and no one can tell me otherwise.”
Yoongi uses his free hand to pat Namjoon comfortingly on the back. “They told Jungkook to figure things out so I’d show up to the gym half an hour early,” he admits. “I noticed you were looking… bigger. In the shoulder area. And I made the mistake of asking Seokjin and Hoseok if they thought so too. Hey! Hey, don’t laugh!”
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon lies. “I’m sorry it’s just— we’re disasters, aren’t we.”
They are, but Namjoon doesn’t need to say it. “At least we’re a we now,” Yoongi grumbles, “And we got here without their interference. Maybe.. Maybe we shouldn’t tell them for a bit? Just to see what they’ll try next. Have ourselves a bit of fun, save ourselves from a bit of teasing?”
“Oooh, I like it. My hyung has such a devious mind.” My hyung. Yoongi feels ready to burst with happiness. “But, wait, should we be dating each other while we’re already living together? Should I move out? I mean, they always say don’t move in to fast, or maybe it’s don’t date people you’re living with, but we—”
“We’ve already fought about how the shoes should be organized, and the correct etiquette around using the dish rack, and whether or not wet jackets can be draped on the couch to dry.” Yoongi smiles up at Namjoon, who is smiling down at him, and then, because he can, Yoongi goes up on his toes to kiss him. “I think we’ll be okay.”