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There’s a man standing in Jimin’s hallway.
A naked one.
But not like, buns out in all his glory.
No.
This one has a towel wrapped around his hips. Low, like guys in movies do it, like it might fall any second if he lets go of it.
He’s dripping water on the rug.
Jimin briefly considers the situation he finds himself in.
There’s a naked man with broad shoulders and narrow hips standing in Jimin’s hallway and he’s dripping water on the rug.
Jimin screams.
Because that’s what you do when there’s a naked stranger in your house and your roommate didn’t mention he’d be bringing anyone home, not least of all because he’s in a committed relationship and the man in front of you is not your roommate’s boyfriend.
The man startles at the sudden noise, spinning on his heel to face Jimin and Jimin sucks in a sharp breath of air as his heart plummets to the ground.
They stare at each other for a moment that seems to stretch on forever before Jimin blurts out, “Holy shit, you’re blond.”
☀️
“A heads up would have been nice. Just like a casual, ‘hey, my hyung’s coming to stay with us for a while, he might be naked when you get home’ text, you know?”
Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I didn’t warn you because I knew you’d react like this.”
At this, Jimin’s lips jut out into a pout. “Like this? Like what? How am I reacting?”
Jungkook gives him a pointed look that causes Jimin’s cheeks to grow warm. He sags against a kitchen counter and folds his arms over his chest.
Jimin knows what Jungkook will say.
“Hyung, this is gonna be good for you,” Jungkook says gently, as if he’s talking to a child. He expectantly quirks a pierced brow.
“Is it?” Jimin shakes his head. “I don’t think it is, Jungkookie.”
The earlier embarrassment of discovering Min Yoongi in a towel after not having seen him in over three years continues to crawl through Jimin. The image is as good as seared into his brain by now.
“C’mon, Jimin hyung. This is your chance to—to you know.”
“My chance to what?”
Jungkook flaps a hand at him and then, with a grimace, he curls the same hand into a loose fist and pumps a finger into it. “You know, shoot your shot.”
Jimin groans, covering his face as the flush in his cheeks darkens. “What the fuck, Jungkook-ah!”
“You act coy, but you know I’m right.” Jungkook straightens and approaches Jimin, placing heavy hands on Jimin’s shoulders. Jimin uncovers his face to look up at his friend, only to find that Jungkook’s expression is more serious than he was expecting. “Hyung, you’ve been hung up on my brother since high school. This is your chance to finally show him how you feel.”
Jimin doesn’t even bother denying his feelings. Jungkook would never believe him. “But—”
Jungkook’s eyes grow more tender, gentle in a way that’s uniquely Jungkook, in a way that reminds Jimin why, despite his meddling, he’s so fond of the guy. “He’ll never know if you don’t tell him.” His lips turn up in a grin. “He’s kinda dumb like that.”
Maybe he’s right, Jimin thinks. But Yoongi has never paid him the kind of attention that would indicate he reciprocates Jimin’s feelings. He’s always kept an appropriate level of distance between them, always acted in his role as Jungkook’s brother and nothing more.
But, Jimin reasons with himself. But—it’s been over three years since the last time they were around each other.
And Jimin is no longer the naive high schooler Yoongi left behind when he enlisted in the military.
Jimin’s grown up a bit since then. So, maybe it’s time to show Yoongi that.
☀️
Despite resolving to take Jungkook’s advice, Jimin ultimately chickens out for the moment and escapes the apartment to have dinner with Taehyung and Hoseok.
It’s late by the time he gets back and it would be a lie to say Jimin didn’t purposefully stay out later just to ensure Yoongi would be asleep by the time he returned.
But luck’s never been too fond of Jimin.
“Pink suits you.”
Jimin starts at the sound of a familiar, deep voice from across the room. He finishes tugging off his jacket by the front door and turns slowly to face Yoongi, seated in the dark on Jimin and Jungkook’s threadbare couch. The only light in the room comes from the television, which casts a bluish glow over everything, including Yoongi.
“H-Hyung. You’re still up.”
Yoongi quirks a brow at him as they stare-off over the back of the sofa. He looks tired, eyes blinking slower than usual and hair disheveled like he’s already slept on it a couple of times. He’s so cute, Jimin has an almost irresistible urge to run over and pinch his cheeks.
“You missed dinner,” Yoongi says. He pulls a hand through his hair, tousling it even more. “Jungkookie ordered barbecue.”
Jimin hums as he slips his socked feet into house slippers and shuffles over to the couch. “Yeah, sorry, I—I met up with friends.”
Jimin pauses near the end of the sofa when he sees Yoongi’s got a bed made out for himself over the cushions. He’s in sleep shorts and a tank top and Jimin’s heart stutters at the sight of his shoulders and arms and legs on full display.
Why is he always showing so much skin?
Wrenching his eyes up and keeping them stubbornly focused on Yoongi’s face, he asks, “Are you sleeping out here?”
Yoongi pushes his blankets aside so that Jimin can take a seat beside him. With a shrug, he replies, “Didn’t feel like sharing a bed with Jungkookie and Jin hyung.”
Jimin giggles, flopping down on the couch. “Too much cuddling for you?”
He tries to be subtle, checking out his hyung sitting only a foot away with covert side glances. It’s unfair, really. Yoongi’s so… pink. Pink at his elbows and knees and knuckles. Pink in his sleep-puffed cheeks and lips. Even in the blue light of the tv, the sharp lines of his profile are softened by pink edges and stand out like a beacon.
“Cuddling… yeah.” A full-bodied shudder wracks through Yoongi at the thought of his little brother and his boyfriend in bed.
Silence presses itself between them after this as Jimin’s brain overheats thinking about the man sitting next to him.
The words are right there on the tip of his tongue—
You can share my bed with me.
—but his courage wanes before he can say them out loud.
“So, h-how are you, hyung?” Jimin asks instead. He mentally kicks himself.
Yoongi huffs out a sigh and settles against the couch’s armrest, facing Jimin as he curls his legs up between them.
“No complaints,” Yoongi says, shrugging again. He slings an arm over the back of the couch, a picture of easy confidence, and Jimin’s attention catches on a bloom of black ink curling around the underside of his bicep. Oh. That’s new. “Work starts soon, though, so that’s a bummer.”
Work. The reason why he’s here in the first place—to look for a place to live before he starts his new job interning at a music label. He still has a year of university left, but he’ll be working while he takes classes, according to Jungkook.
“Oh, c’mon,” Jimin replies, “we all know you’re gonna love it.”
Yoongi can’t keep a tiny smile from pulling up the corners of his lips. He’s bad at hiding it when something pleases him.
“Maybe,” he drawls. Then, dragging his heavy gaze over Jimin, “And how’ve you been, Jiminie?”
Jimin feels exposed under his sudden, intense scrutiny but instead of shrinking back from it, he gathers up the last dregs of his courage and meets Yoongi’s eyes head-on.
“I’ve been good, hyung. Really good,” he says. His fingers curl around the plush fabric of Yoongi’s blanket. “Missed you, though.”
Yoongi’s expression softens. “Yeah?”
Jimin bites his lower lip, feeling the beginnings of a blush start to warm his cheeks as he nods. He can only hope the dimness of the room makes it harder to pick out his shyness.
“I missed you, too,” Yoongi murmurs after a moment.
He probably means it in a different way than Jimin does but the words still curl around Jimin’s heart, honey sweet and warm.
He peeks up at Yoongi through his lashes. “Yeah?”
Yoongi answers him with a nod that mirrors Jimin’s.
They’re silent then, with only the sounds of the city outside to fill in the empty night air around them.
Jimin’s just about to call it a night when Yoongi speaks up again.
“Pink really does suit you,” he says.
Jimin settles back against the couch cushions. “Hmm?”
Yoongi points at Jimin’s head, smiling a little as Jimin reaches up to touch a lock of his own hair in confusion before he realizes what Yoongi means.
“Oh… thanks!” Jimin runs a more confident hand through his bangs and pushes his fringe off his forehead in that way Jungkook always makes fun of him for. He doesn’t miss how Yoongi’s eyes track the action. “Blond suits you, too. To be honest, though, I was surprised. After that time in second year, you said you’d never dye it again.”
Yoongi snorts. He scrunches up his nose cutely as he defends himself, “Bleaching fucking sucks.”
“You’re not wrong,” Jimin agrees with a giggle.
“But I felt like a change after my discharge,” Yoongi explains.
“Well, it looks good,” Jimin says. He leans his head against the back of the couch, biting back his nerves as he adds, “Not that anything could ever look bad on you.”
Yoongi scratches the back of his neck, uncharacteristically bashful and seemingly at a loss for words.
“Anyway,” Jimin says eventually, pushing himself off the sofa and rising to his feet, “It’s way past my bedtime. Night, hyung.”
“G’night,” Yoongi mumbles. He peers up at Jimin with an inscrutable expression on his face. “Sweet dreams, Jiminie.”
Jimin moves to head toward the hallway before pausing as a thought occurs to him. He turns to Yoongi, who raises an eyebrow in question.
He should ask. He should.
“Jimin?”
He can’t.
“Uh, nothing, never mind.” Jimin lets out a breath of frustration. “Night, Yoongi hyung.”
☀️
“I’m a chicken, Jungkook-ah,” Jimin groans. “A Grade A weenie.”
Jungkook pats him on the back as Seokjin takes a seat at the kitchen table beside them, blinking away the remnants of sleep still floating in his eyes.
It’s the next morning, long past the time when Jimin should have left for his first class, but instead, he finds himself moping in the kitchen as a sleepy Jungkook tries to calm him down.
“I think maybe you just set your sights too high, hyung. You need to level up a bit before you go asking him to sleep with you. Why don’t you start with something easier?”
It’s a fair point, Jimin will admit. Asking Yoongi to share his bed, even if just to sleep was probably a bit much for the first night. He’d practically set himself up for failure.
“Then, what do you suggest?” he asks Jungkook.
“You could try asking him to dinner,” Jungkook says.
Jimin wrinkles his nose. “This is Yoongi hyung we’re talking about.”
“I know my brother is practically a vampire, but he does eat,” Jungkook replies with a roll of his eyes.
“That’s not what I mean, doofus,” Jimin retorts. “Can you imagine me and hyung going to a swanky restaurant together, getting all dressed up and shit, sipping wine we can’t afford and pretending to fit in with all the bougie assholes there? We’d be awkward as fuck.”
Jungkook devolves into giggles at this. “Yeah, you would.”
“And that’s if he even realizes it’s a date,” Jimin adds, pouting.
“You could go somewhere casual, though. It doesn’t have to be a fancy place,” Jungkook points out.
“But then I run the risk of him treating it like we’re just two bros eating together.”
Jungkook huffs out a sigh, carding absentminded fingers through Seokjin’s hair when his boyfriend leans his head against his shoulder.
They ponder in silence for a few moments as the morning grows brighter around them. Eventually, Seokjin groans.
“You’re thinking so hard it’s giving me a headache,” he says, eyes still closed.
“What do you suggest, then, hyung?” Jimin asks.
Seokjin straightens up, squinting at Jimin as if he’s offended by his very existence. “You’re overcomplicating it. Yoongi’s a simple man. Just ask him to hang out. Watch a movie together. Make dinner for him. Or, you know, just talk to him.”
“That’s so...” Jimin trails off, frowning.
“Brilliant? Smart? Perfect?”
“Boring,” Jimin deadpans.
“Hey, don’t underestimate the power of a good Netflix and chill,” Seokjin replies. “You’d be surprised how well it works.”
Jimin looks to Jungkook for backup only for his roommate to shrug helplessly back at him.
It’s not a bad suggestion, all things considered. Definitely easier than asking Yoongi to join him in bed and easier to plan than a fancy night on the town. And maybe Seokjin’s right. Maybe a direct, simple approach will be the most effective.
“Fine,” Jimin concedes at last. “It’s worth a shot.”
☀️
There’s just one minor detail Jimin, Jungkook, and Seokjin fail to account for in concocting their Get Jimin that Agust D Plan™ (GJTAD for short).
“What are you guys doing here?”
Jungkook looks abashedly at Jimin from where he’s tucked into Seokjin’s side on their big sofa. They’re cuddled up under a pile of blankets, half-empty beers on the coffee table in front of them.
“Hyung asked us to join you guys,” Jungkook explains, only a little shrilly.
He glances from Jimin’s baleful expression to Yoongi standing just a few feet away entirely focused on setting up a movie on their flatscreen. For his part, he does look a bit guilty, but Jimin folds his arms over his chest and aims the full heat of his glare at the couple.
He opens his mouth to reply when Yoongi cuts him off. “Got any more beer, Kookie?”
Jungkook turns his wide-eyed stare on his brother who looks back at him expectantly. Jimin can almost see his brain glitch out. “Uh—”
“There’s a whole case in the fridge,” Seokjin answers on his boyfriend’s behalf in a droll tone of voice.
Yoongi winks and points a finger gun at Seokjin. Only after he disappears into the kitchen to search for his beer does Jimin properly round on his roommate.
“I thought I was supposed to Netflix and chill!” he hisses.
Jungkook sinks into his blanket nest with a grimace. He’s a big guy with big muscles so the sight of him cowering in the face of Jimin’s wrath is comical.
“Listen, he texted me all this stuff about how he’s missed me so much and hopes to spend time together while he’s here and asking if we would hang out with you guys because, according to him, it’s vital that we have regular roommate bonding nights. He sent the emoji with the puppy eyes. He never does that! What was I supposed to do, say no?”
Jimin folds his arms petulantly over his chest.
“Yes,” he grumbles as his lips turn up in a pout.
Seokjin gasps. “You heartless fiend.”
Beside him, Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Jimin hyun—”
“Jimin-ah, you want a beer?” Yoongi calls from the kitchen.
“Uh, sure! Thanks, hyung,” Jimin replies.
“Hyung, it’ll be fine,” Jungkook assures him in a hushed voice. “We’ll be the best wingmen you’ve ever had. Just leave it to us!”
Seokjin yawns and curls up against the couch cushions. “Leave it to him, I’m gonna take a nap.”
Yoongi walks back in, clutching two beers in one hand—which is hotter than Jimin would like to admit—and a bowl of chips in the other. He’s been there two days and already made himself right at home. Jimin doesn’t mind it, though. He doesn’t know how to be a good host and Yoongi is just saving him the trouble of trying.
“I raised you better than to buy this shit, Jungkookie,” he grumbles, waving the beers in Jungkook’s direction.
“I’m not made of money, hyung. My bank account can’t handle your snobby taste in alcohol,” Jungkook says.
Yoongi brings a hand to his (broad) chest in mock offense, before he hands over one of the bottles to Jimin and flops down on the loveseat, which is really more of a big armchair than anything.
“You gonna sit, Jiminie, or…?” he asks Jimin.
Jimin glances over at Jungkook and Seokjin on the other couch and Seokjin, eyes still closed like he’s napping, not-so-subtly stretches his legs out in front of himself so that the whole sofa is occupied.
Real smooth.
Jimin barely holds himself back from facepalming.
“Uh—”
He turns back to Yoongi, who’s staring at him with his usual flat expression and one brow quirked, then eyes the tiny space beside him on the loveseat. Jimin’s small but not that small. But before he can do something silly like offer to sit on the floor, Yoongi pats his own leg, sending Jimin’s brain into a tailspin. “C’mere, we’ll find a way to share. I don’t bite.”
Jimin ignores Jungkook’s grinning mug in the background as the highs of his cheeks grow unbearably warm.
This is what Jimin’s after, though, isn’t it? Yoongi’s just making his job easier.
“Maybe he wants you to,” Seokjin murmurs, cuddling closer to Jungkook.
Jimin squawks out a protest, but then after a moment spent collecting his nerves and wits which have spilled out all over the living room, he squares his shoulders and drops himself right into Yoongi’s lap.
There.
Yoongi lets out a surprised huff, clearly not expecting Jimin to take him up on the offer. After a beat of tense stillness, he finally winds an arm around Jimin’s waist and tugs him into a more comfortable position.
For a guy who isn’t that much bigger than Jimin, Yoongi sure is broad. He’s so broad, in fact, that Jimin finds himself nestled quite cozily right up against his chest. His arm is a pleasant weight around Jimin’s midsection, warm but not hot, heavy but not stifling.
“You good?” Yoongi asks, pulling Jimin from his wandering thoughts.
“Your legs are gonna go numb,” Jimin replies quietly. He places his own hand over Yoongi’s on his waist.
Yoongi hums in agreement but does nothing to move Jimin out of his lap. Instead, he reaches up to pull a blanket off the back of the loveseat and drapes it over their legs.
“Hyung, honestly, I’m gonna get heavy—”
“Shh, the movie’s starting,” Yoongi says, pressing PLAY on the remote control.
Jimin pouts but doesn’t argue any further. He snuggles back a little more and rests his head against Yoongi’s shoulder. “Fine.”
“You’re such a fuckin’ sap,” Jungkook groans from behind them when the title of the film comes up on the screen.
It’s some kind of romantic drama, Jimin thinks, but he’s too preoccupied to pay any real attention to it. All he can focus on is the steady rise and fall of Yoongi’s chest against his back and the warmth of their legs tangled up together under the blanket. His brain whirs like a decades-old computer as he processes his current situation.
If anyone had told Jimin, only ten minutes ago, that he’d be sitting in Min Yoongi’s lap right now, he might have called them delusional.
Now, though, he feels like the delusional one, feels like the universe is teasing him for thinking he could one-up a guy like Yoongi, who oozes a languorous sort of confidence with every move he makes.
“Bet he’ll be the one bawling his eyes out at the end,” Yoongi mumbles to Jimin, lips right against the shell of Jimin’s ear.
Jimin giggles even as a shiver curls up his spine.
“I heard that!” Jungkook cries indignantly.
With a snort, Yoongi sinks back into the couch, tugging Jimin with him as he gets more comfortable. This only brings them closer, his breath ghosting over the column of Jimin’s throat, his hand curled securely around Jimin’s waist.
“It’s okay, baby. You’re just in tune with your emotions,” Seokjin placates Jungkook. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Damn right,” Jungkook grumbles.
After a little more bickering, they finally settle in to watch. It would be a lie to say Jimin absorbs any part of the movie at all. He can’t quiet his overactive brain long enough to take in a single piece of dialogue or even try to remember the names of the actors on screen. But who can blame him, really, when he has Yoongi’s free hand drawing circles on his thigh, and his quiet, deep voice in his ear, offering random bits of trivia about the film.
It’s such a Yoongi thing—he always has an arsenal of obscure factoids at the ready in any given situation—but there’s something about the way he speaks, low and close, like this is for Jimin’s ears only that causes a bloom of heat to unfurl in Jimin’s belly.
And yet… he’s confused. Because perhaps Yoongi doesn’t intend for this to be anything more than it is. Maybe he, unlike Jimin, has no ulterior motives.
His lips brush Jimin’s ear just as the characters on-screen share a kiss.
Or… maybe he does.
Jimin’s brain goes to war with itself, parsing through Yoongi’s words and actions as the movie drags on, finding arguments to fit both narratives.
As if pulling the petals off the stem of an imaginary flower, his mind swings back and forth.
He wants me.
He doesn’t.
He wants me.
He doesn’t.
It turns out to be the longest two hours of Jimin’s life.
As another imaginary petals falls into the “He Doesn’t” camp, Jimin starts to feel a little like Tantalus, having Yoongi wrapped all around him and yet somehow sitting just out of reach of the way Jimin wants him most.
It’s maddening.
By the time the credits roll and the sound of Jungkook’s sniffling reaches them, Jimin’s nerves are thoroughly frayed, pinching him under his skin like live wires. His head lolls back against Yoongi’s shoulder as he huffs out a sigh.
“Tired?” Yoongi asks.
Jimin hums.
“That was evil,” Jungkook complains wetly from behind them. “We’re watching Iron Man next.”
“As if you don’t cry during that one, too, Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi says, chuckling.
“Anyone who doesn’t cry for Yinsen is heartless,” Jungkook argues.
Jimin doesn’t think he can survive another two hours of his brain’s overanalyzing. But his heart is nothing if not weak and in the end, he can’t bring himself to leave the warmth of Yoongi’s arms.
Self-preservation be damned, he curls up against Yoongi’s chest, pressing his face into the crook of Yoongi’s neck, and closes his eyes.
“Wake me up when it’s over,” he instructs.
Yoongi cards gentle fingers through Jimin’s hair.
“Okay,” he says.
☀️
Jimin wakes up feeling like the clichéd main character of a romance novel, sprawled over Yoongi’s chest as the tepid light of early morning spills across his face.
Yoongi’s broken promise of waking him after the movie and the resulting crick in his neck notwithstanding, Jimin finds himself too comfortable in his current position to complain.
Instead, he lies there for a while with his cheek pressed to Yoongi’s shoulder, limbs warm and skin tingling, until the sound of nearby whispers forces him to face the day.
“They’re gonna wake up.”
“I just want a pic—”
“You’re too close!”
Jimin squints one eye open, only marginally surprised at the sight of his best friend and best friend-in-law standing over him. To his credit, Jungkook seems to be in the midst of tugging Seokjin back a step or two but stops when he notices Jimin blinking up at them.
“Morning, hyung,” he hazards.
Jimin only frowns.
“Begone, early morning demons,” he croaks.
Even as his boyfriend backtracks, Seokjin remains unmoving and snaps a couple of photos on his phone. Then, he tilts his head, gaze sliding over Jimin.
“How does a person even bend their body into that shape?” he wonders, apparently referring to the way Jimin is curled up on top of Yoongi. “Are you secretly a pretzel?”
“Yes,” Jimin deadpans, not missing a beat.
Seokjin turns to Jungkook. “Can you bend like that?”
Before Jungkook can answer, Jimin feels Yoongi rouse beneath him. He goes perfectly still, suddenly mortified at their current position.
“Fuck, my neck.”
Yoongi’s morning voice is rough and dark, like black coffee, and it turns Jimin’s insides into molten lava.
So, that’s what he sounds like first thing in the morning. Neat.
Someone clears their throat, kickstarting Jimin’s idling brain and reminding him he’s still sitting in Yoongi’s lap. He tries to squirm away, to sit up and put some space between himself and the solid hunk of Min Yoongi under him, only to be tugged back into place by the man himself.
“It’s cold, Jimin-ah, stop,” Yoongi grumbles.
Jungkook snorts somewhere off to the side as Seokjin snaps another photo. Jimin feels his cheeks burn but he settles down without argument, too embarrassed to even look Yoongi in the eye. He stares instead at Yoongi’s broad chest, ignoring the heat of his hand against the small of Jimin’s back.
“Right, so. Although your awkwardness has been riveting thus far,” Seokjin says eventually. He pockets his phone and salutes them. “We must take our leave. Have fun, kiddos. Remember, no funny business on the couch.”
Jimin glares at him, causing Seokjin to coo and reach out to pinch his cheek.
“Bye, hyungs!” Jungkook says, manhandling his boyfriend out of the room. “Oh, and Jimin hyung?”
Jimin hums absently, still resolutely refusing to look at Yoongi.
“Check your phone!”
Once the Jinkook tornado is gone, Jimin and Yoongi are left in a silence that falls somewhere between comfortable and awkward. Jimin wants nothing more than to run from the room too but he’s weak for Yoongi and takes a sad sort of pleasure in knowing Yoongi doesn’t want him to get up.
After a moment, Jimin shuffles around to find his phone per Jungkook’s instructions, opening it up to a screen full of text messages from group chats and friends and a couple from Jungkook himself.
He opens the earliest of all the messages first, sent late last night by Namjoon’s current fling, the model. It’s an invitation to a birthday party for Namjoon that she’s hosting at a hotel downtown. Namjoon has only been dating her for about two months, but she has money to throw around and an ego the size of Seoul itself so the over-the-top event is pretty on-brand.
With a roll of his eyes, Jimin moves on to Jungkook’s texts and feels his ears grow warm at the words on the screen.
“Hey,” Yoongi says after a moment, cutting into Jimin’s sudden internal crisis, “do you remember that time back in primary when we had a sleepover in the old treehouse?”
Jimin looks up at him for the first time this morning, finds sleepy eyes staring back from under unruly blond fringe. Yoongi’s cheeks are flushed and fluffy from sleep, his lips turned up into their natural pout. Jimin’s heart trips over itself.
When he doesn’t reply, Yoongi quirks a brow at him. “C’mon, you were like eight and my abeoji had just finished the treehouse. We were on summer break, so I invited some friends from school over for a slumber party.”
Jimin remembers that summer well—all the time he had spent at the Mins’ house, up in the treehouse with Jungkook. They’d wiled away hours in that place that quickly became an indispensable part of their childhood.
“I remember how mad you were when Jungkookie and I showed up with our sleeping bags,” Jimin says. His lips split into a grin as he thinks of a tiny, glaring Yoongi from 14 years ago. He’d been so upset at Jungkook and Jimin for crashing his party. “You tried to push me off the ladder.”
Yoongi cringes. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
But Jimin only waves him off. “We were so fucking annoying, I would have pushed me, too.”
“Nah, you were cute,” Yoongi goes on. “You held on like a champ and kicked me right in the shin yelling that it was Jungkookie’s treehouse too and that I needed to learn how to share.”
Jimin smiles at the memory of it, remembering how much Yoongi had cried over Jimin kicking him and how stubbornly he denied it afterward. Eleven-year-olds didn’t cry, he claimed, and Jimin was a liar for saying he had.
It took weeks, a couple of forced apologies on both sides, and a proper invite to a second treehouse sleepover for them to eventually make up.
It was probably the biggest fight they’d ever had.
Setting aside his phone, Jimin rests his chin on his hands atop Yoongi’s chest and asks, “What made you think of that?”
“Just realized that was the last time we had a sleepover, I guess,” Yoongi replies. He reaches out to thread his fingers through the hair at the nape of Jimin’s neck. “’Til now.”
Jimin lets out a noise of understanding as his eyes flutter shut. A shiver slips down his spine at the feeling of Yoongi’s light touch. “Lot’s changed since then.”
“I dunno,” Yoongi replies, “I might still cry if you kick me.”
Jimin snorts, opening his eyes again.
Yoongi’s lips are upturned into a soft, sleepy smile full of orange-tinged nostalgia, full of memories of running around the Mins’ backyard playing pretend with Jungkook, of eating popsicles with their feet dangling from the treehouse’s porch and having water balloon fights off the balcony.
“And you’re still just as cute as you were then, too,” Yoongi goes on.
Jimin sucks in a breath of air, cheeks blooming with warmth again under the force of Yoongi’s gaze. Then, the words sink in, and he tilts his head with a pout.
“Are you saying I haven’t gotten the least bit cuter in 14 years?” he asks, straightening up a little. He holds himself over Yoongi, with his knees bracketed around Yoongi’s narrow hips.
Jimin doesn’t let himself think too hard about the feel of Yoongi between his legs, or about how close to each other his new position has suddenly brought them. So close, in fact, that Jimin could count Yoongi’s pretty lashes if he wanted to.
He refrains, only just.
Yoongi’s hand slips out of Jimin’s hair when he sits up, so he brings it down to Jimin’s waist instead, palm big enough to curl comfortably around him and settling warm and heavy against his side. It’s like he can’t stop touching Jimin.
“Maybe a little,” Yoongi concedes. His Adam's apple bobs up and down. “Or maybe—”
Jimin pouts harder. “I’m not a kid anymore, hyung.”
The corners of Yoongi’s lips quirk up in amusement as he continues, “Or maybe cute just isn’t the right word for it now.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Yoongi shrugs, squeezing Jimin’s side. There’s a spark of something sharper in his eyes as he says, “It means that… I know you’re not a kid anymore, Jimin-ah.”
Jimin’s eyes widen, his heart skips a beat. He parses through Yoongi’s words, deciding that for once, he’ll take them at face value.
“Well.” He huffs out a surprised giggle. “Good, then.”
He sits up all the way, acutely aware that he’s properly straddling Yoongi now and not doing a damn thing to fix that.
“Yep,” Yoongi replies. He offers a lopsided grin and reaches up to pinch Jimin’s cheek with his free hand. “Don’t worry, though, you’ll always be cute.”
Jimin turns his head to nip at Yoongi’s fingers, making him yelp and snatch his hand away.
“You’re so annoying,” Jimin grumbles.
Yoongi doesn’t bother denying it.
“Well, this was fun,” he says instead. “We should do it again sometime.”
Before he can turn on his brain to mouth filter, Jimin blurts out, “What, sleep together?”
His eyes widen in mortified disbelief. Of all the things he could have said…
But Yoongi answers with a lazy smirk that sets Jimin’s brain on fire. “If you wanted to sleep with me, Jiminie, all you had to do was ask.”
Jimin gapes at him, unable to form a coherent response.
Eventually, Yoongi takes pity on him. “I’m kidding, relax.”
Jimin thinks that’s a tall order, given the circumstances.
“You’re a fucking menace,” he mumbles.
In the ensuing moment of silence, Jimin considers Jungkook’s earlier texts about the party. He feels much more confident now than he did only five minutes ago, feels like maybe taking his roommate’s advice won’t result in catastrophic failure after all.
So, he squares his shoulders and places a firm hand on Yoongi’s chest.
“Hyung,” he says determinedly.
“Hmm?”
“A friend of ours is having a birthday party in a couple of days,” Jimin explains. He curls his fingers around Yoongi’s t-shirt, watching it bunch up in his grasp. “And I was wondering… if you’d go with me?”
Yoongi’s eyebrows shoot up, disappearing under his messy fringe.
It feels good to be the one catching him off-guard for once.
“Go with you? As your date?” Yoongi asks. He sounds like he’s clarifying.
Jimin nods. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
A frown tugs at Jimin’s lips. What does he mean why?
Because I want to hold your hand and have babies with you, you doofus, Jimin thinks. Why else?
Out loud he says, “You know why.”
Using the hand he has wrapped around Jimin’s waist, Yoongi pulls him closer. “I do?”
Jimin nods again, too embarrassed to look him in the eye.
“Hmm… okay,” Yoongi agrees easily. He sounds fond and it makes Jimin’s heart pitter patter. “I’ll be your date, Jiminie.”
☀️
Jimin turns out to be busier than expected over the couple of days leading up to Namjoon’s party. This means that he and Yoongi barely get to see each other.
“I’ll be there after work.” Jimin’s on the phone with Taehyung after class, standing in the kitchen as he mixes together a bowl of bibimbap for dinner. “Sena noona asked Jungkookie to come down a bit early because she’s worried—”
Jimin’s voice catches in his throat when he feels the warmth of someone at his back, arms winding around his waist.
It’s Yoongi.
Jimin knows him by the paleness of his arms, the pinkness of his knuckles, the touch of sharp pine in his cologne.
He’d been out looking at apartments, but he must have just gotten home. Jimin curses himself for not hearing the door.
“Worried what?” Taehyung’s voice brings Jimin back to the conversation.
“W-Worried Joonie hyung will hate the decorations.”
“He probably will,” Taehyung snorts, “if her party taste is as kitschy as her fashion—”
“Hey, Tae, listen. I gotta go,” Jimin says quickly. He closes his eyes at the feeling of Yoongi pressing his nose to the side of his neck. “S-See you tomorrow.”
He hangs up before Taehyung even has a chance to say goodbye, and then Jimin sucks in a breath. “Yoongi hyung.”
“Mmm, hi,” Yoongi murmurs, breathing the words out against Jimin’s throat.
Jimin shivers. “Hi.”
Yoongi presses a hand against the counter beside Jimin’s waist, caging him in against the Formica. He’s solid against Jimin and close enough for Jimin to feel the lines of his muscles against his back. “’M hungry. Feed me, Jiminie.”
Jimin runs his hands over the length of Yoongi’s arms, feeling the hair on them rise up in goosebumps under his touch.
“Bibimbap?” he asks.
Yoongi hooks his chin over Jimin’s shoulder, humming in agreement. “Bibimbap.”
Jimin mixes his ingredients a little more before taking an overflowing spoonful and holding it up to Yoongi’s lips.
And if Jimin has to take an extra cold shower that night to get the memory of Yoongi pressed up against him out of his head, no one has to know.
☀️
In no time at all, the night of Namjoon’s party is upon them.
Jimin spends the couple of days leading up to it too busy to be nervous, so when he wakes up on the morning of, he realizes he hasn’t even decided what to wear.
“Why me, though?” Jungkook stands in Jimin’s doorway, arms folded over his chest, pouting. “You never like what I pick for you.”
“Tae’s busy,” Jimin explains. He holds up two shirts, both silky, slinky, and dark-colored. “Which one?”
Jungkook scrunches up his face. “Are you trying to get laid or going to a funeral?”
Rolling his eyes, Jimin drops the shirts on his bed and rounds on Jungkook with his hands on his hips. “This, coming from the guy whose entire closet is different shades of black.”
“Hey, I’ve been trying to diversify lately!” Jungkook protests. Jimin looks pointedly at his black hoodie and black basketball shorts and black socks. Jungkook huffs and points to the navy shirt with silver stripes. “That one. Shows off your collarbones. Hyung will like it.”
Jimin considers the choice. “Leather pants?”
“Definitely. And your Chelseas.”
“Hmm…”
The shirt’s neckline dips too low and the pants are too tight, but according to Jungkook the outfit accentuates all the best parts of Jimin’s physique.
“Neck, ass, legs. Trust me.”
Jimin’s not so sure, but it’s certainly worth the gamble to see the expression on Yoongi’s face when he walks into the living room that evening.
His eyes rake over Jimin’s form from his legs up to his face, stalling at his throat just as Jungkook had predicted. He’s easy to read, even if he doesn’t say anything out loud, the sharp bloom of pink in his cheeks a blaring beacon of his inner thoughts. Jimin can only imagine what he might be thinking to look this flustered.
“You ready, hyung?” Jimin asks as he winds his way around the couch to grab his wallet off the coffee table. He bites down a pleased smirk when he notices Yoongi’s gaze tracking his every move.
He looks good, too, with his longish blond hair brushed back off his forehead, wearing a leather jacket over a half-open black button-down and tight black jeans that have rips in the knees.
He knows his own best assets too, it seems.
Jimin tilts his head when Yoongi doesn’t answer. “Hyung?”
Yoongi swallows and clears his throat. “Hmm? Oh, yeah. I’m ready.”
☀️
They take a cab downtown which is expensive on a weekend night, but Jimin doesn’t want to worry about having to drive home later.
He hasn’t seen much of Yoongi the last couple of days, so the feeling of his big palm splayed out over Jimin’s thigh the whole ride to the hotel feels like rain after a drought.
When they arrive, a big glass elevator takes them up to the executive suite and it’s all so swanky that Jimin feels nervous without meaning to.
He leans against the glass of the elevator car, staring down into the hotel’s atrium. There’s a big indoor garden at the center of it, with man-made ponds and flowerbeds and winding paths in between. At the far end, Jimin can just make out a little cafe (or maybe it’s a bar?) encircled by faerie lights.
“Pretty,” he murmurs.
Yoongi comes up behind him, placing one hand on the elevator’s railing right next to Jimin’s own and the other on Jimin’s hip. He’s warm, his cologne smells like sharp pine and bergamot, and Jimin maybe wants to skip the whole party and just head back home instead.
He bites his lip.
“Fuckin’ rich people,” Yoongi snorts. “Namjoon-ssi’s girlfriend must be loaded.”
Jimin nods as he thinks of Namjoon’s partner. “Yeah and extra as hell. Don’t let her eccentricities scare you, though, she’s mostly harmless.”
Yoongi turns to Jimin, brow raised. “Mostly?”
The elevator dings before Jimin can reply and its doors open onto the hotel’s top floor. The executive suite is the only room on this level, separated from the elevator by a short hallway.
Inside, it’s garishly decorated, loud and dark and bright all at once, with music thumping against the walls and full to bursting with people. Jimin feels the press of strangers from every side, so he shuffles closer to Yoongi, who’s still holding him by the hip.
“Mimi!”
Before Jimin even sees her approach, he’s swept into a sudden hug by Im Sena. She’s a full head taller than Jimin and has to bend at the waist to wrap her arms around his torso, patting his back and pressing air kisses to his cheeks, the way fancy people do on TV.
“Park Mimi, my sexy little bread pudding! Hello, hello darling, I’m so glad you could make it,” she says over the music.
Over her shoulder, Yoongi lifts a brow and mouths, “Mimi? Bread pudding?”
Jimin rolls his eyes. “Hi, noona.”
As suddenly as she’d hugged him, Sena pulls back just as suddenly when her gaze catches on Yoongi. A slow smirk dawns across her brightly-painted lips.
“And who is this hunky lemon dumpling?” she asks.
Jimin reaches out for Yoongi, pulling him closer by the hand. “Uh, noona, this is Min Yoongi, Jungkookie’s hyung.”
Sena’s eyes flash with sudden recognition and she turns a mischievous grin on Jimin. He shrinks back, knowing what’s coming before the words even leave her mouth.
“Oh? The Min Yoongi? The buff army man with the voice and the hands? How delightful!”
She’s only known Jimin a short couple of months, but being in love with Yoongi is apparently a personality trait because even Sena’s heard about it.
Mortified, Jimin hides his face against Yoongi, feeling his laughter vibrate through him.
“The voice and the hands?” Yoongi wonders.
Jimin wishes the floor would swallow him up.
“Oh, yes! Our Mimi has a deep love for—”
In the end, it’s not a sudden black hole in the carpet that ends up saving him but a drunken tornado by the name of Kim Namjoon.
“Noona! Shots! Shotttts!” Namjoon whines as he folds himself over Sena like an overgrown puppy. “Taehyungie’s pouring like a hundred of them, c’mon!”
Sena bears his weight like a champ, fondly pinching his cheeks and directing his attention toward Jimin and Yoongi. “Joonie, my handsome mint julep, look who’s here.”
Namjoon smiles around her fingers. “Jwiminie!”
“Happy birthday, hyung!” Jimin greets him with a wave.
“Jwiminie, wann’ take shwots?”
☀️
And thus, a teetering Namjoon, bless his heart, drags them through the suite to a bar top table near the balcony. There, the rest of Jimin’s friends, including Jungkook and Seokjin, are setting up a line of vodka shots. It seems they’re all mostly as drunk as Namjoon, spilling more of the expensive alcohol on the table than into the glasses.
Hoseok barrels into him for a hug the moment they approach. “Jiminie! My favorite!”
Jimin giggles out a reply and manages only a quick introduction of Yoongi—which garners eyebrow waggles from Taehyung and Hoseok—before a shot glass is shoved into his free hand.
Jungkook leans across the table, knocking over three of the filled shots, to hand one to Yoongi.
It’s chaos all around, but the best kind of chaos, the kind that Jimin loves.
“I love you guys!” Namjoon warbles. He leans against Sena and grins dopily as she presses a wet kiss against his cheek. He holds up his shot of vodka. “Happy birthday to me!”
Jimin glances at Yoongi, realizing that aside from the beers they had the other night, this is the first time they’ll be properly drinking together, only to find Yoongi’s gaze trained on him already. He’s always intense but there’s softness around the edges of his expression when he looks at Jimin. His lips turn up into the slightest of smiles, eyes crinkled with fondness.
Jimin offers him a lopsided smirk.
“Alright there?” he asks.
Somewhere to his left, Taehyung shouts, “I think Joonie hyung needs a double!”
Yoongi nods at Jimin and releases his hand in favor of winding an arm around Jimin’s waist. He tugs him closer. “I’ve had a shot or two in my day. I think I can handle it.”
Jimin rolls his eyes, ignoring the heat that spreads through him under Yoongi’s touch. “Annoying.”
“Can you handle your liquor, Jimin-ah?”
“Happy birthday to my loveliest Joonberry!” Sena declares over the music.
Jimin clinks his shot glass against Yoongi’s.
“Let’s find out,” he says, and throws back the shot just as Yoongi and their friends do the same.
It burns going down but it’s the good kind of liquor that feels velvet smooth even through its bite and bitterness. Warmth curls through Jimin, lights up the parts of his brain that keep him in check and loosens his bones just the slightest.
“Well?” Yoongi leans in closer to ask, til his chest touches Jimin’s shoulder and Jimin can feel his breath against his cheek.
Jimin grins. “Well, I’m still standing.”
“Color me impressed,” Yoongi says.
Jimin uses his free hand to pinch his side, which only serves to remind him how solid Yoongi is under the fancy clothes he has on. “You’re so annoying.”
In more ways than one.
Behind them, after a bit of scuffling, Taehyung drags Hoseok off to dance, leaving Seokjin, Jungkook and Sena to tend to an ever-wobbly Namjoon. They fill more shot glasses, which is probably a terrible idea, but Jimin is too distracted to pay attention.
He absently scans the bar top table, sucking in a breath when he feels a slight nuzzle of Yoongi’s nose against his cheekbone and then the flutter of Yoongi’s lips near his ear. “Hey, Jiminie.”
Emboldened by the alcohol, Jimin turns to look at him, bringing their faces within kissing distance. “Hmm?”
“You look great tonight.”
“Yeah?” Jimin says with an arch of his brow.
Yoongi’s eyes sparkle with a knowing glint. “I don’t think you needed me to tell you that to know it’s true.”
Jimin tilts his head, lopsided grin back on his face.
“No,” he agrees, “but I’ll take the compliment all the same.”
Yoongi sighs and looks toward the ceiling, but there’s enough pink in his cheeks to betray bashfulness. “And I’m the annoying one.”
“Hyungs!” Jungkook cuts in right then. He’s holding out two more shot glasses.
Jimin bites his lip, turning to Yoongi.
Yoongi shrugs and accepts the glass from Jungkook. After another drunken toast to Namjoon, they down their shots and then Jimin watches Yoongi place his empty glass on the bar top. He follows suit.
“All done?” he asks.
Yoongi lifts a shoulder, too nonchalantly for the words that come out of his mouth next. He leans in again, lips pressed to Jimin’s ear, and tells him, “Don’t wanna risk forgetting anything about tonight.”
Well, fuck.
Jimin grabs at the hem of Yoongi’s jacket, blinking in wonder as Yoongi pulls back to look him in the eye.
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Jimin blurts out quietly.
But apparently he’s not quiet enough because Yoongi’s lips part into a mischievous grin. “An eye for an eye, baby.”
☀️
Eventually, Sena coaxes them all into the crowd, where Taehyung and Hoseok are tangled together in some form of twenty-first century mating dance that involves copious amounts of hip thrusting and bedroom eyes. It takes Seokjin literally wedging himself between them to make them realize their friends have arrived.
“Only Namjoon and Jiminie get free passes on the PDA today,” he announces. “You two can be horny on your own time.”
Jimin’s cheeks grow hot but he’s distracted from his embarrassment when he feels a tug on his hand and turns to find Yoongi looking at him.
“Dance with me?”
Yoongi isn’t much of a dancer. Or, at least, he wasn’t. Maybe he is now.
He nods, allowing Yoongi to pull him close.
His hands fit against Jimin’s hips like they were made to hold him just like that—gentle but firm, as if Jimin is something precious, something to be treated with care. Jimin curls his arms over Yoongi’s shoulders and in a cliched way, it feels like they’re two puzzle pieces settling into place around each other.
“I thought you didn’t like dancing,” Jimin muses.
“I don’t.” Yoongi doesn’t offer more of an explanation than that but something about the way his grip tightens around Jimin makes Jimin even more curious.
“I’m just special then?”
At this, Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Stop fishing for compliments.”
“Ah, so it’s true.” Jimin shuffles a bit closer, til their hips are lined up with each other. Two shots of vodka isn’t much, but it’s enough to make him a little braver than usual. “It’s okay, hyung. I think you’re pretty special, too.”
Yoongi scoffs, again betrayed by furls of rose petals in his cheeks. He tugs at Jimin’s waist, turning him around and pressing his chest to Jimin’s back.
“You’re a menace,” he says.
Jimin can’t help but giggle. “I thought you were into that.”
“What gave you that idea?”
Jimin doesn’t deign to answer, knowing Yoongi’s just trying to bait him. Instead, he pulls Yoongi’s arms tighter around his waist and leans back until their bodies are flush and Yoongi can feel every inch of Jimin against him. Every roll and grind of his hips. Every beat of his heart as it thrums in his ribcage.
“Jimin-ah.” Yoongi presses the word against his ear and Jimin shudders.
“Hmm?”
“Behave.”
Jimin turns to pout at him. “Do I have to?”
At the sight of his wide eyes and puffed cheeks, the intensity dissolves from Yoongi’s expression and his lips split into a surprised, gummy grin. He leans in to press a kiss at the corner of Jimin’s mouth. Any tension that might have been building softens into something sweeter.
“Fuck.” Yoongi sighs. He drops another kiss against Jimin’s jaw. “I lose to you every time.”
This only makes Jimin pout harder. Before he can respond with something that might make Yoongi kiss him in sexier places, Taehyung’s voice rings out from behind him.
“Jimin-ah! Hoseok hyung doesn’t believe that you can lick your elbow.”
Jimin whirls around just in time for Taehyung to grab him by the arm and drag him away from Yoongi.
“The location of our next date is riding on you proving him wrong,” Taehyung explains, “so no pressure, but like, I really need you to pull through for me here.”
“Tae, why are you even arguing over my tongue, anyway?” Jimin asks.
He glances over his shoulder and finds, unsurprisingly, that Yoongi has already disappeared.
☀️
It takes twenty minutes and multiple displays of tongue technology for Jimin to finally escape his friends. Sena warns him they’ll be bringing out a cake for Namjoon soon before he skirts off.
Yoongi isn’t hard to find because he’s in exactly the place Jimin would expect him to be: out on the balcony.
Fortunately, he’s alone.
Jimin sidles up behind him and wraps his arms around Yoongi’s narrow waist. “Hello, my hunky lemon dumpling.”
Yoongi peers at him over his shoulder and pulls Jimin’s arms tighter around himself as he hums. “Yours, huh?”
Jimin has the courage of earlier swirling around in his head, which makes it easy to shrug casually.
“If you want,” he says.
Yoongi leans against the balcony rail and looks out at the dark skyscrapers rising up around them. Out here, the music of the part is nothing but a dull roar. Eventually, he heaves a sigh and pulls Jimin around to stand beside him with a hand on his waist.
“You know I do,” Yoongi murmurs.
But Jimin doesn’t know. Not really. Not in so many words because it hasn’t been said out loud yet. And Jimin wants him to say it, needs him to.
So, instead of responding directly, Jimin curls a hand around Yoongi’s nape, threads delicate fingers through his hair, and smiles. “We should talk, maybe.”
Yoongi nods.
“Do you want to take a walk?” Jimin asks.
☀️
They end up down in the atrium because Jimin wants to walk through its gardens and see the little ponds. The paths winding through the space are lined with lights to guide their steps, though the glow of the moon shining down on them from the hotel’s massive glass roof is plenty bright enough.
Yoongi’s hand is warm in Jimin’s grasp and feels familiar despite the unfamiliarity of their present situation.
The longer they walk, the harder it is to remember they’re inside of a hotel in the middle of Seoul. Surrounded by trees and flowers, with the sounds of streams and miniature waterfalls as background noise, it feels as if they’ve been transported to a different place entirely.
They’re quiet, lost in their own thoughts and surprisingly, the nervousness that has plagued Jimin all week has finally, finally calmed. Maybe it’s because of the little bit of alcohol in his system, or maybe it’s knowing that tonight may not end in heartbreak after all.
Whatever the reason, Jimin feels oddly at peace.
As they wander, he peers around the garden, captivated.
The fairy lights strung up in the trees along the pathway are reminiscent of fireflies and the sight of them causes a faraway memory to float to the surface of his mind.
“Do you remember that time our moms took us to Muju for the firefly festival?” Jimin asks Yoongi. He runs his fingers over the delicate petals of a cosmos flower.
“Shit, that was so long ago,” Yoongi answers, throwing him a surprised side glance and chuckling. “Didn’t we go on a school night?”
Jimin nods. “Jungkookie wanted to see it for his birthday but he was sick that whole week so we could only be there for the last day. It was like a Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Oh, yeah… and we drove back because we had school the next morning,” Yoongi adds. “Pretty sure I slept through half my classes that day.”
Jimin’s hand flutters idly over Mugunghwa flowers as they pass. History is the one thing he and Yoongi have in abundance—a lifetime’s worth of memories, some of them colored in the sepia tones of nostalgia, and others, like those from tonight, in vivid pinks and blues. All precious in different ways.
“I’ve never been back,” he says. Jimin stops walking and turns to face Yoongi. “Hyung.”
Yoongi looks so pretty under the bluish glow of the moon. He’s always pretty but tonight—tonight he makes Jimin’s breath catch.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” Yoongi breathes. His voice is low and soft and the words are nearly carried away into the night.
As Jimin’s cheeks light up under the praise, he giggles. “No fair, you took my line.”
Yoongi scratches his nose in an effort to hide his own bashfulness.
“Listen, Jimin-ah…” He pulls on their twined fingers, dragging Jimin a step closer. “What I said before…”
Jimin tilts his head. “You mean about being my hunky lemon dumpling?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes but nods. Exasperated fondness sparkles in his gaze.
“What about it?”
“Can I?” Yoongi asks. He scans Jimin’s face and under the moonlight the paleness of his skin looks paler, the pink of it looks pinker. And then, clarifying, he adds, “Be yours, I mean.”
Wisps of warmth wind their way through Jimin and he reaches out with his free hand to cup Yoongi’s cheek. As surreal as it all feels, it feels right, too.
“Do you really want that?” Jimin asks.
At this, both of Yoongi’s brows lift up in disbelief. He scoffs. “Do I really—? I haven’t been able to keep my hands off of you all week, Jimin-ah. If you knew half of what I—” He stops himself and his blush darkens.
“Oh? Wait, now I’m curious.” Jimin curls his fingers into the fluffiest part of Yoongi’s cheek to pinch it. “Half of what you what, hyung?”
Jimin has plenty of experience riling Yoongi up. When they were kids, he did it just to be annoying. In high school, it was to get Yoongi’s attention.
Now he does it for a different reason entirely.
“Half of what you what, hyung?” he asks again, shuffling close enough to wind his arms around Yoongi’s shoulders. “C’mon, tell me.”
The more Jimin goads him, the darker Yoongi’s gaze grows. He settles his palms over Jimin’s hips, tugs him forward until there’s not a sliver of space left between them.
“If you only knew half of what I want to do to you,” Yoongi growls in his ear.
For all his bravado and flirting, at his core, Jimin is still a man with a crush, Jimin is still Jimin, and the rasp of Yoongi’s voice against his ear is enough to make him weak in the knees. Goosebumps rise along the lengths of his arms as Yoongi pulls back to meet his eye.
“I want you, Jimin-ah,” he says firmly. “In case that wasn’t clear by now.”
Jimin nods, struck entirely dumb by Yoongi’s straightforwardness. “R-Right.” He takes a long moment to parse through Yoongi’s words, to regain his composure, before a faint, cheeky grin curves over his lips. “So, does that mean it’s time for kisses now?”
Yoongi pinches his side. “When did you get so shameless? What happened to shy and flustered ‘hyung, your legs are gonna go numb’ Jimin who could barely sit in my lap the other day?”
“Shy and flustered?” Jimin squawks. “I was trying to seduce you!”
Yoongi scoffs again. “Oh is that what you were doing? I didn’t realize.”
Jimin winds his fingers through the hair at the nape of Yoongi’s neck and tugs on it. He knows he’s being baited but he can’t help himself. Primly, he says, “Not ten seconds ago you professed your undying love to me—”
Yoongi lifts a brow.
“—so clearly I did something right.”
“You did plenty of things right,” Yoongi assures him easily, “but I promise you, this,” he waves a hand between them, “wasn’t the result of your so-called ‘seduction techniques.’”
Jimin pouts.
“Stop pouting,” Yoongi tells him flatly.
Jimin pouts harder, jutting his lips out even more. “Not until you admit I seduced you.”
“Jimin-ah.”
Jimin holds his ground. “Hyung.”
Yoongi heaves a long-suffering sigh and wraps his arms all the way around Jimin’s waist.
“Fine.” Without preamble, he leans in to press his lips to Jimin’s cheek. “You, Park Jimin,” he begins, kissing Jimin’s temple, “have utterly,” his lips flutter over Jimin’s jaw, “completely,” he traces the curve of Jimin’s jawline, “seduced me.” Yoongi pulls back just enough to meet Jimin’s eye. “Will that do?”
Jimin is hot under his skin, taken aback by Yoongi’s words and attention.
“You never play fair,” he mutters.
“Well, I have to get a little creative when it comes to you.” They’re still so close that Jimin can feel the words against his lips. “Jiminie, I—”
Jimin kisses him. It’s only a peck, and Jimin pulls back before it turns into anything more, but it’s enough to shut Yoongi up.
When they separate, Yoongi is gaping at him.
“I don’t play fair?” he sputters.
Jimin huffs out a laugh. “What was it you said before? An eye for an eye?” In spite of the warmth lighting up the highs of his cheeks, he reaches out to cup Yoongi’s face. "I’m going to kiss you again. Is that okay?”
Yoongi nods.
Closing his eyes, Jimin leans in—
Only to startle at the sound of his phone going off.
“Ah, fuck,” he groans. Dropping his hands from Yoongi’s face, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it to find a flurry of notifications tumbling across the screen.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Yoongi says, reading over his shoulder. “But wouldn’t you rather just stay right here and make out instead?”
Despite himself, Jimin’s blush darkens at Yoongi’s suggestion. He looks up at him and finds Yoongi staring back at him with an expectant tilt to his expression.
“But—cake,” Jimin argues weakly. “We have to—"
“Is cake really more important than kisses?” Yoongi asks. He arches a dubious brow, as if that’s the shadiest thing he’s ever heard.
“Well, no, but—" Jimin bites his lip. “We can’t leave them like that.”
After a moment of further contemplation, Yoongi heaves a resigned sigh. “Can’t believe you’d pick cake over making out. I might have to rethink this whole being in love with you thing, after all.”
Jimin’s eyes widen. “You’re—Being in—What?”
“C’mon, my sexy little bread pudding, let’s go find out what havoc your friends have wreaked.”
☀️
Back at the party, which has mostly emptied out by now, they find Namjoon’s monstrosity of a birthday cake pretty much all over the hardwood floors of the executive suite. Namjoon, pouting and covered in bright green and pink frosting, is seated on one of the couches hugging a fondant-covered rice crispie mold of Ryan, the Kakao character, while Sena rubs his back comfortingly. Nearby are Jungkook, still covered in cake himself, and Seokjin, who is fortunately not licking the frosting off his boyfriend. Taehyung and Hoseok have disappeared entirely, but Jimin shudders to imagine where they might have gone.
Jungkook spots them first. His eyes widen at the sight of Yoongi and he leaps past Seokjin to throw his frosting-covered arms around his brother’s neck.
“Hyung!”
Grimacing, Yoongi pats his dongsaeng on the back as Jungkook smears neon green all over him. They wobble a little—Jungkook is still pretty drunk, it seems—but Jimin manages to catch them before anything too catastrophic happens. Even though Jungkook’s bigger and taller than Yoongi and nearly swallows him up in his arms, it’s clear he’s the younger of the two as he nuzzles into his hyung’s shoulder like a puppy.
Then, after a moment, he suddenly pulls back with a pout.
“Hyung, there was an accident,” he admits somberly.
Yoongi’s lips curl up into a fond smile. He tugs at a frosting-covered strand of Jungkook’s hair. “I see that.”
“Namu hyung tripped and fell headfirst into Ryan,” Jungkook goes on. “Decapitated him.”
Namjoon whimpers from a few feet away, audible over the low music still playing in the background. Sena coos at him, “Shh, shh, my delectable macaroon, it wasn’t your fault.”
“That chair jumped out in front of me,” Namjoon argues. “What was I supposed to do?”
Jungkook teeters in Yoongi’s arms as he cranes his neck around to look at Namjoon.
“Whoa there, bun,” Yoongi says, steadying him. He glances over Jungkook’s shoulder at Seokjin, who looks like he might be considering diving face first into what’s left of the cake, and then meets Jimin’s eye. They seem to be thinking along the same lines. “Hey, Jungkookie, I think it’s time we—”
They spend considerable time convincing Jungkook and Seokjin that they should probably head home, both of them stubbornly refusing to leave without giving Ryan a proper funeral. It’s only after Sena promises they’ll give him an appropriately extravagant sendoff that they’re able to leave.
It’s tricky, hiding Jungkook’s cakey mess from their cab driver, and even harder to keep Seokjin from trying to eat his boyfriend, but an endless 15 minute drive later, the four of them finally arrive back at Jimin and Jungkook’s apartment.
Jungkook is somehow more drunk by the time they get home than he was at the hotel, though Seokjin has thankfully sobered up, so Jimin and Yoongi stuff the pair into the bathroom with instructions to shower.
“Have fun!” Seokjin trills, “but not too much fun. We share a wall, remember.”
Once the door to the bathroom has closed on them and Jimin and Yoongi hear the sound of the tap, they heave a collective sigh.
“Fuck, they’re a handful,” Yoongi mumbles. He looks down at himself, sticky and covered in frosting, and begins to unbutton his shirt. His leather jacket has already disappeared, abandoned somewhere between the front door and the hallway.
“Welcome to my life,” Jimin replies wryly, averting his eyes as Yoongi’s pink shoulders make an appearance. He’s too fucking big for his own good now, with broad shoulders that taper into a narrow waist and slim hips. The black tank top he’s wearing does little to hide the planes of his chest underneath.
Jimin swallows around the dryness in his throat.
Oblivious to Jimin’s struggle, Yoongi peels off his ruined dress shirt with a pout before blowing out another sigh.
“Well—” he starts, and it sounds so much like he’s putting an end to the night, a night that’s been full of chaos and almosts and false starts, and Jimin isn’t ready for that yet.
“No.”
“Hmm?”
Jimin squares his shoulders and looks up at Yoongi, meeting his gaze with determination. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Yoongi’s confusion melts away, quickly replaced by sweet fondness that colors his cheeks and lights up his expression. “Oh?”
With a huff and a roll of his eyes, Jimin takes Yoongi by the wrist and pulls him straight through the hallway into his own bedroom.
Bashfulness be damned, he’s not letting all the progress they’ve made tonight just slip through his fingers.
He turns to Yoongi as the door of his room closes behind them, walking backward to perch on the edge of his bed. Rather than following, Yoongi chooses to linger by the door.
Here, now, reality sets in and electricity crackles in the space left, like a chasm, between them. It’s silent for a moment that stretches unendingly.
Then, Jimin tilts his head, assessing Yoongi with a calculated quirk of his brow. “What’re you so far away for?”
Yoongi’s lips curl up into a familiar, cocky smirk. He takes a step forward, then two, then three, stops just shy of touching Jimin’s knees so Jimin spreads his legs wide, dragging him directly between them with a delicate tug on his wrist. For all the broadness of his shoulders and the sudden overall bigness of him, he’s still slender and fits much too comfortably between Jimin’s legs.
He turns his hand in Jimin’s grasp, twining their fingers together.
“Say it again,” Jimin implores, peering up at Yoongi through his lashes. “What you said in the garden.”
It’s endearing, the way Yoongi blushes now. He scratches the back of his ear with his free hand and clears his throat.
“I—” His cheeks are dusted primrose, accentuating the pinkness of his nose and lips. Jimin bites down a smile. “I want you, Jimin-ah.”
Jimin’s heart flutters at the words but he’s nothing if not facetious. With a slight grin, he asks, “In what way, hyung?”
Yoongi finally meets Jimin’s eye. He’s so pretty, Jimin thinks, with his long lashes and delicate features.
“In every way.”
Jimin sucks in a sharp breath. Hearing it out loud causes his heart to pound in his chest, his cheeks to grow warm. It’s as if his entire soul is suddenly on fire.
Yoongi studies his reaction, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, before he quickly amends, “In every way that you’ll have me.”
Jimin’s heart melts. He reaches out to curl his free hand around Yoongi’s other wrist, then runs his fingers over the milky expanse of his forearm as he says, “You’re sweet.”
“Are you surprised?” Yoongi asks.
Jimin shakes his head. “You’ve always been sweet.”
He tilts forward to rest his forehead against Yoongi’s stomach, feels Yoongi’s hands leave his to wrap around his shoulders instead. Jimin lifts his own to hug Yoongi’s lithe waist.
“So?” Yoongi murmurs, carding a hand through Jimin’s cherry blossom hair.
“Want you, too,” Jimin admits quietly. “’Course I do. Always have.”
He looks up to find Yoongi smiling down at him, something like relief shining in his eyes.
“But that’s not what I meant,” Jimin clarifies gently. “Say it again.”
Realization lights up across Yoongi’s expression, his features growing softer and fonder than Jimin thought possible.
With a huff of quiet laughter and like it’s the most natural, most obvious of truths in the world, he whispers, “I’m in love with you, Jimin-ah.”
And Jimin feels relieved then, too. He feels relieved when Yoongi cups his face in his hands, feels relieved when he leans down and presses his lips against Jimin’s.
As though the ties holding his heart together have come undone, Yoongi’s quiet confession unravels Jimin from the very depths of his soul and causes a supernova of color to erupt behind his eyes.
It’s a kiss that feels both like it’s taken too long to finally happen and like Jimin might wait another hundred years if Yoongi asked him to.
He clutches at the fabric of Yoongi’s tank top as Yoongi’s petal soft lips open against his. It’s slow at first, like they’re testing the waters, but impatience wins out before long. A change in angle, a gentle push to his shoulder, and then Jimin finds himself falling back against his bedsheets.
If Yoongi fit well between his legs standing up, Jimin thinks he fits even better with Jimin’s knees locked around his hips as Yoongi leans over him in bed. His hands are hot against Jimin’s waist where they’ve slipped under his shirt, fluttering over his skin in time with his lips as he kisses Jimin a little deeper, a little harder.
Jimin doesn’t know how much time passes. He’s lost in a haze of YoongiYoongiYoongi, can’t think past the feel of his tongue in his mouth, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband of his pants.
Yoongi stops before going too far, though, and pulls back from Jimin to look down at him with a gaze full of warmth and love and adoration so deep that Jimin feels completely unworthy of it.
“What?” Jimin whispers. He can’t control the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he tries to catch his breath.
Yoongi shakes his head. “Nothing, just—can’t believe this is real.”
It’s easy to see the way his flush spreads from his cheeks to his neck and chest when so much of his arms and shoulders are exposed by his tank top. Jimin takes a bit of pride in knowing he’s the reason for all the pretty pinkness.
With an overly put-upon sigh and a flutter of his fingers through the short hair at Yoongi’s nape, he says, “I can’t believe you beat me to it.”
Yoongi scoffs, leaning down to nip at Jimin’s throat as one of his hands works on unbuttoning Jimin’s shirt. “Are we competing over I love yous now, Jiminie? For the record, you still haven’t said it.”
Jimin bites down on a whine when Yoongi’s mouth follows the trail of exposed skin uncovered by his quick fingers.
“I-It’s payback,” he stutters.
Yoongi mouths at his Adonis belt. “Payback? For what?”
“For making me suffer all week.”
Yoongi lifts his head to look up at Jimin, brows furrowed in confusion. “I made you suffer?”
Jimin’s brain glitches at the sight of Yoongi kneeling between his legs, pink lips slick and kiss swollen. For a moment, he forgets their bickering, forgets anything but the carnal desire for Yoongi to put those lips to good use on something that doesn’t require so much talking.
He huffs out a sigh, feeling warmth pool in his cheeks, and turns his gaze resolutely toward the ceiling.
“Interesting,” Yoongi says, and Jimin can just about hear the smirk in his voice. After a moment, he crawls back over Jimin, bringing them within proper kissing distance once more. It should be illegal to look so gorgeous, Jimin thinks. “Don’t hold my ‘I love you’ hostage now, c’mon, Jiminie.”
Jimin pouts. “I will if I want to.”
Yoongi doesn’t hesitate to kiss the pout right off his lips. He pecks Jimin’s jaw next, nips at the underside of it as his hand runs up and down the side of Jimin’s exposed torso.
“Jimin-ah,” he murmurs. His voice is deep, gravelly, sounds the way black coffee tastes.
In spite of himself, Jimin lets out a noncommittal hum.
“I love you.” Yoongi delicately kisses each word into his skin, causing Jimin’s breath to hitch.
“T-That’s cheating,” Jimin breathes. He threads his fingers through Yoongi’s hair, moaning as he drags his lips up to Jimin’s ear.
“I love you,” Yoongi whispers.
“H-Hyung.”
Over the last week, Jimin’s gotten accustomed to losing to Yoongi. For every ploy he concocted, Yoongi managed, at every turn, to find a way to throw Jimin off-balance twice as hard before Jimin could even put his plans in action. But maybe it’s not so bad losing when, after all the agonizing, they’ve ended up here, where Jimin wanted to be all along.
So this time, when Jimin feels his resolve crumble, he lets it. He gives in to the urge to cup his hands around Yoongi’s face, to pull him back up until Jimin can look right into his eyes.
“Pabo hyung,” he says. He leans up, close enough that his lips are ghosting across Yoongi’s when he finally murmurs, “I love you, too.”
And it’s worth a little blow to his pride to see the smile that unfurls across Yoongi’s lips. It’s brilliant, like the warmth of a hundred stars quilted across the night sky, like the nostalgia of summer sleepovers in a homemade treehouse, like a thousand fireflies lighting up the evening air.
Jimin sucks in a breath at the sight of him.
So pretty.
He wastes no more time before leaning in the rest of the way and sealing their lips together.
☀️
“Let’s go to Muju,” Jimin says later. His voice is scratchy, slurred with sleepiness. “The festival’s on.”
It’s nearly morning by now, a new morning sun’s rays filtering weakly through the curtains. They’re still wrapped up together under Jimin’s bedsheets, bare skin slick with cooling sweat, limbs feeling like jelly and muscles aching.
Yoongi’s fingers trace gentle patterns over Jimin’s back. “I know. I was planning to ask you to go if last night went well.”
Jimin snuffles out a tired laugh.
“So?” he asks. “Did last night go well?”
Yoongi hums thoughtfully.
“Wasn’t bad for half a decade in the making,” he jokes.
Jimin freezes. He leans up on his elbow to look at Yoongi, eyes blown wide. “Half a what?”
Yoongi’s expression grows sheepish. “I guess I was better at hiding my feelings than I thought.”
Jimin thinks his brain might be on the verge of collapse. The next question all but topples out of his mouth. “What feelings?”
Yoongi gives him a strange look. “I had the worst crush on you back in high school,” he admits.
Jimin groans, ignoring the swoop of his stomach at these words and dropping face first against Yoongi’s chest.
“Oh my god, we’re such idiots,” he mumbles.
“What?”
“We could have been married with six kids and a puppy by now,” Jimin goes on as his mind works through this new revelation. “We might have even had time for a cat or two.”
“Huh?”
Yoongi coaxes him out of his hiding place, cupping Jimin’s face in his hands. His cheeks are still endearingly ruddy from their previous activities—or maybe it’s embarrassment from admitting he liked Jimin in high school.
“I can’t believe this.”
Yoongi’s lips dip into a frown. “What are you talking about, Jimin-ah?”
“I had the worst crush on you in high school,” Jimin says.
Yoongi’s expression colors with understanding and he grimaces.
“We’re such idiots,” he belatedly agrees.
Jimin hums, tracing over the lines of Yoongi’s arm tattoo for a moment before peering up at Yoongi again.
“Better late than never, I guess?” he ventures.
“I mean yeah, but six kids, a puppy, and two cats is a tall order,” Yoongi says. “We have a lot to catch up on.”
Jimin snorts. “For a guy who thinks our first date ‘wasn’t half-bad,’ you sure are confident you’ll be getting a second one.”
For a moment Yoongi simply pouts, looking for all the world like Jimin stole the imaginary puppy they don’t yet have. Then, a smirk—sharp and dripping with obnoxiousness—curls over his pink lips.
“Not two hours ago you professed your undying love to me,” he snarks, using Jimin’s words against him, “so I think I’m allowed to be a little confident.”
Jimin gapes at him momentarily, before his expression scrunches up into a cringe. He thwacks Yoongi on the chest, ignoring how solid his pecks are under Jimin’s palm. “You waited all fucking night to throw that back in my face, didn’t you?”
Yoongi’s broad grin is answer enough.
Jimin huffs. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
A pause, and then Jimin blows out a sigh, leaning his chin on Yoongi’s chest. “No, I don’t.”
“So, Muju?” Yoongi asks a moment later.
Jimin cranes his neck up to press the words to Yoongi’s lips, hopes the ‘I love you,’ laced through them is apparent. “Yeah, Muju.”
the end