Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1686257.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      방탄소년단_|_Bangtan_Boys_|_BTS
  Relationship:
      J-Hope_|_Jung_Hoseok/Suga_|_Min_Yoongi
  Character:
      j-hope_|_jung_hoseok, Suga_|_Min_Yoongi, Rap_Monster_|_Kim_Namjoon, jin_|
      kim_seokjin, Jungkook_|_Jeon_Jungkook
  Additional Tags:
      Implied/Referenced_Character_Death, Alternate_Universe_-_High_School,
      Coming_Out, Coming_of_Age, Abstract, Internal_Conflict, Fear_of_Discovery
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-05-25 Words: 21492
****** a procession of seasons ******
by shikae_(39smooth)
Summary
     Highschool!AU. January and February come cold and burring, but Yoongi
     only knows the de novo warmth of March.
Notes
     warnings for underage sex, implied minor character death, ooc
     characters, over-romanticised situations
     this is actually a very self-gratuitous fic i'd planned to write for
     my own birthday. but it ended up taking an entire week (five days
     tbh) of straight writing, and spiralled into this massive fucking
     thing. and i'm sorry for getting them so ooc, haha. but oh well.
     happy birthday to me. for karis for all the hand-holding and idea-
     volleying. and also tlist for putting up with my whining.
     crossposted to livejournal.
     edited for formatting.
 
 
January and February come cold and burring, but Yoongi only knows the de novo
warmth of March.
He stumbles past the new juncture that greets him with open arms and trips into
age eighteen with three extra inches of height, and a new propensity for words.
It’s almost startling how the winter bridges over to spring, from long days of
dozing off in front of his laptop with an 8tracks playlist spinning, lying
around his bedroom as he tosses a ping pong ball at the wall, squinting at the
screen of his Gameboy, to packing his bags once again and praying he doesn’t
forget his math books, tying up his shoelaces in the same little squiggle, and
patting despondently at his hair in the mirror.
The spring brings long-disappeared acquaintances and the melted snow dripping
onto the pavements, not forgetting the strange desire for a taste of that
almost-there freedom that dangles before him. Taunting, mocking. One year to go
before the game changes entirely.
Yoongi will settle for anything at this point, he figures.
He slips into senior year unnoticed, but noticeable all the same. A lonely
little streak of rebellion left over from some time ago lingers in the striking
piercings, the quiet little skin-ink that lines one shoulder. The imitation of
prayer folds his hands momentarily as he prays his parents never find out about
that last one, despite good intentions. Despite the best of them.
“Well, well,” says Namjoon, the first day of the new term, bag slung
haphazardly over his shoulder, “look who’s finally dragged himself out of the
depths of his room.” He looks the same as always, terribly colour-coordinated
in streetwear that he swears on his life is the latest trend. Yoongi doesn’t
have the heart to tell him he looks like trash.
That was a lie. “You look like trash,” says Yoongi matter-of-factly, and he can
already hear Namjoon grumbling about how it’s only been seconds into the school
year and Yoongi is already being the asshole he’s known to be, and how his
Hongdae friends totally support his fashion choices. Yeah. Right. “Why, didn’t
you miss me, kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” says Namjoon indignantly.
He is. A whole year and a bit younger than Yoongi, and particularly inclined to
whining whenever Yoongi appears in the immediate vicinity. But the world works
in strange ways, and they are best friends.
Well. As best as friends can get, anyway, without wanting to throw them into
oncoming traffic every single time the issue of what hat to wear arises.
Yoongi slings an arm around his shoulder, silently cursing the unfairness of a
junior being taller than him. “Of course you’re not, what am I saying? Silly
old me. I must be getting decrepit in my old age.”
“Fuck off,” says Namjoon, and he shoves Yoongi away, snorting. “Did the winter
freeze your soul over, too?” But he tenses, after that last sentence. He always
does. “Sorry.”
Yoongi just ruffles his hair amicably, choosing to ignore it, and grins, teeth
curling over his lower lip. “Come on. Bell’s going to ring.”
“Hold up,” says Namjoon, and he’s craning his head above the mass of students,
milling about in the corridors. “There’s this new guy who’s just transferred. I
told him he could hang around with us for a bit.”
“Us, meaning?”
“You know.” Namjoon motions between the two of them. “I mean, since it’s just
the two of us, now that Seokjin’s graduated.”
“We see him every other week, though,” says Yoongi, recalling Seokjin’s
constant texts about how bored he is in college, and how they should all meet
up more often. And they do. It’s routine, now. Coffee, catch-up talk, and
pushover Seokjin who always ends up footing the bill. “And, are you calling me
boring?”
“No,” says Namjoon dryly, “of course not, how silly of me.”
Yoongi scruffs Namjoon in the side with his knuckles. Namjoon nearly jumps a
foot into the air, and narrows his eyes at Yoongi.
“My line,” says Yoongi, jerking a thumb at himself.
“Loser,” says Namjoon. “Hey, there we go. Hoseok!” He waves across the hallway,
and from where Yoongi is standing beside him, he can make out a figure moving
through the sea of people towards them. “Be nice.”
“Nice is my default state,” says Yoongi, earning a scoff. What? Not his fault
he’s just a little bit too blunt, sometimes.
The squeak of soles against the freshly-waxed over tiles catches their
attention. “Hello,” says the figure, smiling brightly. Too bright. Yoongi
thinks he’s going to contract a migraine just looking at the intensity of his
grin. Who the fuck smiles like that at seven in the morning? “I was hoping I
wouldn’t lose you on the first day here.”
“No worries, man.” Namjoon announces, “Yoongi, meet Hoseok. Hoseok, meet
Yoongi. I swear to god, he only seems like a major dickwad in the beginning.”
“Should I be worried?” asks Hoseok, but he’s still smiling, Christ, and Yoongi
can’t tear his eyes away from some strange reason. Oh, wait, he’s holding out
his arm, Yoongi realises after some seconds, and he hastily grasps Hoseok’s
proffered hand, shaking it. He’s got long fingers. “I’m sure you’re not as bad
as he says you are.”
“I am,” says Yoongi, brain-to-mouth filter apparently opting to cease operation
on this one, fine day. “I mean. Yeah. Just. Ignore all of that.”
There’s a laugh, and it’s bright too, so fucking sunny it causes Yoongi to
scrunch up his nose and wonder whether he’s alright in the head. Nobody’s this
happy on a Monday morning.
“I know,” says Hoseok, almost as if he’s reading Yoongi’s mind, and he shrugs
nonchalantly. “I’m just pretty optimistic. Why not, right? Life’s only this
short, anyway.”
“Suppose so,” says Yoongi, and Namjoon’s grinning to the side. Why is he
grinning? Doesn’t he have algebra first period? Doesn’t he remember? The poor
thing. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Hoseok.”
“Lunch later?”
Yoongi nods, waving them off. Namjoon thumps him on the back before heading off
with Hoseok, and Hoseok just shoots off another wide smile, waving.
Encounters of the strangest kind. Yoongi and social contact do not go along the
same vein often. Which is why it actually takes him a couple of seconds to
realise that Hoseok is still standing beside him, looking expectantly at him.
“Uhm,” starts Yoongi, not knowing what to say next.
“We have the same classes,” says Hoseok, by way of explanation, and he rubs the
back of his neck absentmindedly. “Mind leading the way?”
Oh. “Oh,” says Yoongi. “I thought—since you knew Namjoon—you’d be the same
age…”
“We are,” says Hoseok, “but I’m a February kid.”
Yoongi makes a surprised sound in acknowledgment. “Yeah, okay. That’s cool.”
They’re in the same year. He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d thought that it’d
just be another junior that Namjoon would take under his wing or something, and
occasionally foster off onto him for lunches and events and maybe homework
help.
Not this smiling, bouncing-on-his-heels, ball of sunshine, on this slippery
March morning. “So. Lead the way?”
“Onward,” says Yoongi, and as he turns he’s already cringing. Way to be smooth.
Hoseok falls into step easily beside him, a hand clutching at the strap of his
bag as he glances around, taking in the place as he makes sure not to lose
Yoongi through the twists and turns around the school’s multiple blocks and
stairs and buildings. “This place is big,” he says, an undercurrent of awe
present in his voice, along with something else. A hint of an accent.
“Where did you say you were from, again?” asks Yoongi casually.
“Gwangju,” comes the answer, and ah, no wonder. Yoongi should have been able to
pick that out earlier. He’s really been in the city for too long, now. “My old
school was a little smaller than this one. Rural kid, y’know.”
“Same,” Yoongi mentions, and his gaze slips to Hoseok’s face momentarily,
noticing his slightly curious look. “I’m from Daegu.”
“Hey,” says Hoseok enthusiastically, “nice. I didn’t expect that. Did you
transfer over too?”
“Some years ago.” Yoongi remembers his younger self, not wanting to be torn
away from his home. Now, he can’t imagine what it’d be like, not being here.
Not knowing Namjoon or Seokjin. But a tiny part of him still wishes that he’d
never had to leave. That they’d never had to leave. That everything could have
been the same. But life fucks you over when you least expect it. And Yoongi’s
learnt to deal with it, now. “Been a long time, now.”
“I see.” They both fall silent for a moment, and Yoongi takes the momentary
lapse in conversation to look at Hoseok again, just a subtle glance. Hoseok’s
just a little taller than him, and Yoongi sighs to himself. How unfair. All the
younger ones are taller than him, nowadays. Heck, even his little thirteen-
year-old neighbour Jeongguk will probably end up surpassing him in height,
someday.
Jeongguk would probably be happy about that, the little brat.
“So,” says Yoongi, “here we go.” He motions toward the class, where some people
are filing in amidst loud chattering, and the shrieking of post-holiday
meetups. “There’s an empty seat beside mine, if you want.”
“Sure,” says Hoseok, and he doesn’t sound taken aback in the slightest at the
sudden offer. He just smiles. Yoongi wonders if he ever gets sad at all. Or
even stops smiling. Yoongi has lost count at the amount of times Hoseok has
smiled over the past ten minutes.
They settle into their seats, off towards the side of the class, joined desks
as usual, and Yoongi, for some strange, peculiar reason, can’t help the way his
gaze keeps darting towards Hoseok. He figures it’s out of curiousity, out of
wanting to simply observe him; Yoongi has a people-watching habit, anyway.
And throughout the day, it’s all these tiny things that slide Yoongi’s
attention towards him. Accidentally dropping his pencil on the ground, nudging
him quietly to ask about the question on the blackboard, resting his chin on
the heel of his palm as he looks up at the teacher.
He’s interesting, Yoongi concludes sometime after their English lesson, a
period before the bell rings for lunch. There’s something more to him, in the
way he holds himself. And Yoongi somehow wants to know more.
“You’re staring,” says Hoseok, just a couple of minutes before the bell gives
out, “is there something on my face?”
“No,” says Yoongi immediately, “uh, no, there’s nothing. On your face.”
Hoseok’s eyebrows rise slightly. “I see,” he says, and he grins audaciously.
“So, can I take you staring at me the entire school day as a compliment, then?”
“Why would you do that,” says Yoongi, but then something settles somewhere in
the back of his mind. Ding, ding. Snap, flash. The lightbulb burns up, cracks,
and shatters into little pieces. Yoongi swallows them along with the rest of
his words. Oh. “Well, I mean. I wasn’t really. Actively. Thinking about
anything. I was just looking at you.”
“I see,” says Hoseok, but it’s in that same, amused tone, and Yoongi wonders
which god was cruel enough to slug him with this metaphorical baseball bat on
the first day back in school. “Hmm.”
The bell rings.
Perfect saviour.
 
 
 彡
 
 
“You’re coming over later, right?” Namjoon asks, through a mouthful of bread
and ham and assorted vegetables. Yoongi takes a bite of his own sandwich, and
shrugs, deliberately ignoring Hoseok’s eyes still. “Aw, come on, man.”
“I’m busy,” says Yoongi, “maybe tomorrow.”
“You’re never busy,” says Namjoon incredulously. “You’re the one who spent the
entire vacation holed up in your room, playing Pokemon and writing shit.”
“Homework,” says Yoongi slowly, as if he’s trying to drive in a point, “final
year. Homework. Exams. Studying. Homework. You’re lucky I even have time to
meet with you at all.”
“I feel so honoured,” says Namjoon, and he flicks a piece of tomato at Yoongi.
“And you, studying? Amazing.”
“I’m not a delinquent, I swear to god.” Yoongi scoffs. “Just because I have a
couple of piercings.”
“A couple,” says Namjoon, and he points lazily. “Three. In one ear. Didn’t you
say you were gonna get more? And don’t you have that tattoo too? What would
your mum say?”
Hoseok nearly chokes on his food. “You have a tattoo? Is that even legal?”
“It is,” says Yoongi, flushing, the sudden remembrance of the words that sprawl
across his skin burning, now, “I haven’t done anything against the law, I
promise.”
“For now.” Namjoon nudges Hoseok. “Hey, if you’re not busy or anything, wanna
hang out today? I could show you around the place.”
“Sure.” Hoseok beams. “Why not.”
“Have fun, you two.” Yoongi stuffs the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, and
pretends he doesn’t see Hoseok glance at him surreptitiously.
He pretends he doesn’t glance back, either.
 
 
 彡
 
 
He’s never really thought about it, much. Attraction. Finding yourself drawn to
someone else, like a moth to the flame of a lighter in two a.m. October
weather. The weird tinge that starts in the gut somewhere, that flutters up
through the bloodstream and spends a little bit of time shuddering through the
curve of one’s spine, only to spark something at the fingertips when two hands
brush against each other accidentally. Looking at someone and just finding out
that you like what you see, you like what you feel, you like, you like, you
just like them.
He’s never really thought about this either. Relationships. Liking another
person. The concept of love is so strange and so foreign, something for the
radio waves and not for the minds for the young. Something placed on a
celebratory pedestal a few times a year, where the wallet pockets out-turn and
the heart beats four times faster, faster, faster.
Yoongi slumps back against the headboard of his bed, twists his fingers
together, and thinks about it, for once.
He’d gotten home in record time, barreling himself into his room before anyone
could even say the first syllable of his name, and tossing his bag aside. Fuck
homework, he thinks, he’s not going to get anywhere, anyway. He’s not a whiz
kid like Namjoon is, top of his form, top of his class. Yoongi’s the bottom
feeder in the food chain they call the education system. After all, his hope
has shriveled, crumbled to a wisp, after the remainder of the past winters that
have come and gone, all too easily.
But he digresses.
He hadn’t realised until that one moment in class, that it had been attraction
that kept him looking at Hoseok. And he does have to admit—Hoseok is strangely
good-looking, in a way. The quirk of his lips when he smiles, the shape of his
eyes, his body in general—
Yoongi stops for a second, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
No.
Not good to be thinking about someone like that. No, not at all.
And this is absurd. They’ve only just met.
“Forget about it,” Yoongi tells his ceiling, “you’re going to go to class
tomorrow, be friendly, and that’s it. That’s the plan. Don’t you know how being
friends works, these days?”
Of course he does.
Yoongi inhales, exhales. Inhales, exhales. Inhales, exhales, and rolls off the
bed to grab his bag.
 
 
 彡
 
 
Things become comfortable very quickly.
Hoseok is likable, easy to be around, the kind of person you’d always want
nearby, the kind of person who can smile through whatever situation’s going on,
the kind of person who just is actual good weather.
Yoongi thinks he might be the best kind. But he won’t admit that—not even to
himself.
Hoseok laughs and cheers and charms his way into the hearts of everyone,
despite him being new, despite there being the initial gap between him and the
rest of the students. And Yoongi watches him, watches him get used to it all.
“Good morning,” greets Hoseok wearily one day in May, setting his bag on the
floor, and draping himself all over his desk as he sits down. He looks sleep-
logged. Yoongi pokes him in the eye with a pencil, and Hoseok swats at his
hand. “Hey.”
“Wild night?” says Yoongi, moving to poke his nostril next.
Hoseok grabs the pencil, and elbows Yoongi in the side. “Had practice till
eleven,” he groans, face still on the desktop. “Tired as hell.”
“What kind of practice?” presses Yoongi, drawing his hand back to himself.
“Dance.” Immediately, Hoseok sits up, and smiles, and while it’s still tired,
it’s flecked with a new energy. A visible passion. “I dance a lot.”
“And you only tell me this after three months?” Yoongi makes a light ‘tsk’
sound. “True friendship, indeed.”
“Sorry,” says Hoseok, looking contrite, and Yoongi suddenly feels a whomping
feeling of guilt, because he didn’t think Hoseok would look like a kicked puppy
after that. He’s about to open his mouth to say something, when Hoseok laughs,
and says, “But it’s not like you were totally forthcoming with the fact that
you made music, either.”
Oh. He doesn’t actually feel bad about it. Yoongi resists the strange relief
that bubbles up and simmers near his skin. Why is he letting this affect him so
much? Just a friendly, teasing joke, after all. “Ha,” he says, for lack of a
better word, “touche.”
“Anyway,” says Hoseok, brightening up, “I have a dance thing happening, and I
was wondering if you wanted to come and watch?”
Yoongi blinks at him. “Me?”
“No,” says Hoseok, tone desert-dry, “I meant the potted plant behind you. Yes,
you, dumbass.”
“Amazing,” says Yoongi, “you’re beginning to sound more and more like me every
day.”
Hoseok’s face contorts into an expression of horror.
Yoongi bursts out into laughter, and only stops when he realises Hoseok is
staring at him. “What,” he says slowly, and Hoseok shakes his head, a little
too quickly. “What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing, just.” Hoseok beams at him. “I haven’t heard you laugh like
that at all. It’s nice.”
“Nice?” says Yoongi incredulously, “I sound like a seal.”
“No, it’s cute.” Hoseok smiles at him, and suddenly it’s a softer smile that
appears on his features, a little less too-large-for-life, a little less
sunshine and a little more drizzle, the kind that patters quietly on the
windows on late grey-sky afternoons. Yoongi likes rainy days. “I like when you
laugh. You should do that more often.”
Something warm spreads inside Yoongi, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it
just yet.
“Okay,” he says, and the grin returns, the brilliant, beaming one, and it’s so
blinding that Yoongi thinks he’s going to have to bring sunglasses to school
from now on. “So, tell me about your dance thing.”
 
 
 彡
 
 
The place is small, but crowded, and Yoongi wonders just how many are here for
the same purpose as him.
“And you didn’t ask anyone else?” asks Yoongi over the sound of music thrumming
from the subwoofers, leaning in closer so he doesn’t have to shout.
Hoseok shrugs, hands in his pockets. He’s dressed simply, t-shirt and jeans,
and it doesn’t really seem like he’s about to go up on stage and set the crowd
on fire. But Yoongi will wait to see what comes. “I didn’t think they would be
interested. Besides,” he says, “you wanted to see.”
“I did,” says Yoongi, and he’s about to ask what Hoseok’s going to be dancing,
when Hoseok suddenly makes a sound in the back of his throat. “What?”
“Did you get another earring?” Hoseok peers at his ear, scrutinizing, and
Yoongi suddenly feels a little self-conscious. “Jesus. Is that four already?”
“Only four,” says Yoongi, a little defensively, “you going to report me or
something, Jung Hoseok?”
Hoseok chokes out a laugh. “Please,” he says, “report for you for what, Min
Yoongi?”
“Rebelling against the system, perhaps.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Hoseok mock-gasps. “A good, innocent student like
you? No way!” He receives a punch to the arm, and Hoseok goes ‘oomph,’
narrowing his eyes at Yoongi. “That’s the thanks I get?”
“Tarnishing my reputation will only get you nowhere,” says Yoongi easily, and
he grins back when Hoseok snorts.
“Yeah, well, to be honest.” Hoseok’s gaze is sharp. “I think they look good on
you.”
Yoongi can’t help the hand that comes up subconsciously to tug on one lobe,
feeling the three heavy shards of metal that gleam slightly in the dim light.
And Yoongi can’t help but notice the way Hoseok’s eyes slide to follow the
motion, lids falling a little, or maybe that’s just a trick of the light.
“Anyway,” says Yoongi, “you better do good tonight, or I’m disowning our
friendship.”
At that, Hoseok stands up a little straighter, and his smile turns wicked-
acute. “You’ll see,” he says, and he slinks away into the crowd, leaving Yoongi
with his hands in his pockets, and his pulse thrumming in his neck a little too
quickly.
It’s not long before the show really starts.
Hoseok comes on after a couple of performances, and he’s not alone; he’s got a
group with him. His crew, Yoongi surmises, and he watches the way they settle
themselves into position, familiar, and easy. He wonders how Hoseok had managed
to fall into that dynamic, being new to the area, having been with them for
less than a couple of months only.
But then, the speakers spit out a beginning beat, and Yoongi sees it for
himself.
Hoseok is a flame onstage, jumping to life and flickering through the beat,
twisting and turning.
Gone is the bubbly demeanour, the beaming optimism. Gone is the bounce in his
step, but here comes a new sort. Here comes Hoseok, in his own skin, in his own
shoes and the rhythm working its way through his limbs, through his body,
through his veins. He looks in control, heady with the knowledge that yes, he
can do this, and Christ, is he good at it. He’s so fucking good.
Yoongi can’t tear his eyes away.
Hoseok skids and slides across the stage, pops and locks and moves in a way
Yoongi’s never seen before. The strange elegance that comes with a steady beat
that holds tight from bar to bar, the curious flow that is the tips of his
fingers strung tight like live-wires to the tips of his toes, electrifying.
Mesmerising.
And somewhere in the middle of it, Hoseok glances out towards the crowd, and
his eyes snap towards Yoongi, and it’s exactly then, in that singular moment:
Hoseok rolls his entire body, from shoulders to hips to knees, eyes still
locked with Yoongi’s, and there it is, there it goes, there the undeniable
flows. That searing fire rips up Yoongi’s spine almost immediately, the same
that has been forced dormant for all this time.
Fucking hell.
Yoongi has to curl his fingers into his palms so tight to ignore it, to ignore
the look on Hoseok’s face as he’d done the move, but the moment passes as soon
as it had come, and Yoongi still can’t make his lungs work the way they are
supposed to work, can’t make his breath stop coming in sharp inhales and exit
in even sharper exhales, can’t make his pulse stop, stop, stop thundering in
his chest, in the hollow of his wrists, in the base of his neck.
He doesn’t know if Hoseok had seen it. He hopes to god he didn’t.
God.
Yoongi collects himself as the performance has ended, but he almost can’t bring
himself to go look for Hoseok. It takes him a couple of moments to search him
out in the crowd, but there he is, looking utterly self-satisfied, grinning
madly through the sweat that’s rolling down his face and the back of his neck
and sticking his shirt to his skin and Yoongi has to swallow hard, and avoid
staring.
“You were really good,” says Yoongi, and fuck, his voice is trembling, and why
is he acting like this all of a sudden? He was perfectly fine. Perfectly fine.
“Christ, Hoseok, you were amazing.”
“Thanks,” says Hoseok, and the space between them is so small, no thanks to the
brimming crowd of people around them, pushing them into a corner, “thanks,
Yoongi, that means a whole lot, I’m serious.”
“I just.” Yoongi can’t seem to pull himself back. “You were great.”
Hoseok is smiling, and he’s smiling so wide, and Yoongi can’t help but smile
back, equally as wide, and what the fuck is actually going on? Yoongi has never
felt this way before, not ever, not once. Maybe. Maybe once or twice—but this
is so new to him. This sudden, simmering burst of feelings, that’s erupted in
his chest and has been making its way through, swirling messily in his gut. He
doesn’t want this. He does. He doesn’t. Fuck. What is he going to do?
But the way Hoseok is looking at him now is starting to set off warning sirens
somewhere in the back of his mind.
“I’m,” starts Hoseok, biting his lip, “I’m gonna go back to my crew for a bit.
Are you gonna go back, already?”
“I guess so,” says Yoongi, and he claps Hoseok on the shoulder, sending him a
quick nod. “See you on Monday, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Hoseok does his familiar little wave. “See you.”
And Yoongi takes that step out into the cold night’s air, hands stuffed into
his jacket pockets, heart still crashing against his rib-cage like it’s trying
to escape somewhere, like it’s trying to escape him, and this thing that keeps
on soaking into his skin.
He’s never really thought about it, much. Attraction. But now he has, and now
it’s clear, and Yoongi’s hopelessly attracted to Hoseok, and it’s only been a
few fucking months. How did this even happen?
It started with a smile, then a laugh.
 
 
 彡
 
 
The months begin to shift and cycle, and soon, it’s the second half of the
year, and Yoongi wonders where all that time has gone.
Classes have begun to bore down harder on him, and Yoongi makes honest time to
study more, to kick himself into revising, and it also works as a distraction.
A good distraction. To distract him from thinking about Hoseok.
Because that’s all he’s been doing, lately.
The ante is upped when Hoseok asks if they can study together sometime, for the
incoming examinations that are but a few months away. And who would Yoongi be
to say no, anyway?
“So, this?” Hoseok thumbs across the page. They’re sitting in the library,
heads bowed together at the table right by the end, a couple of stacks of books
surrounding them. They’re not alone, though, and so they are reduced to quiet
whispers, hidden by the pages. “I really don’t get this at all.”
“Integration,” says Yoongi, and he cringes. “This is going to take a while.”
They end up shifting about, for the next couple of study sessions, since the
library is way too quiet to contain Hoseok, and the cafeteria is way too loud
for Yoongi.
In the end, they decide on Yoongi’s house, and they trek there after class ends
on Wednesday, shoulders bumping as they talk about the day and what had
happened with the peanut butter incident in the cafeteria, and Yoongi barely
realises when they’re there, and walking through the door and shucking off
their wet shoes.
“Nobody’s home today,” says Yoongi, dropping his bag by the dining table. “But
I’ve already told them you’re coming over, so don’t worry.”
“Okay,” says Hoseok, glancing around. “Cosy place you’ve got.”
“It’s a mess,” says Yoongi, “but it’s home, I guess. Sit, go on. I’ll get a
drink or something.”
They settle comfortably, books and pencils strewn across the surface of the
dining table, and Yoongi can’t help the way his gaze skitters over to Hoseok
every time Hoseok begins to explain something, can’t help the way his eyes seem
to be glued to every single motion Hoseok does, whether it be just the light
flick of the wrist he does after writing too long a sentence, or the way he
brushes his bangs out of his sight absentmindedly, or the way his knee jiggles
impatiently when he can’t get the answer to a question.
It’s endearing, almost, all these little habits he has. Yoongi wants to know
them all.
But he swallows back his wants, and his cravings, and focuses on being what he
is, right now.
Just a friend. Nothing more.
It’s not like Hoseok would want anything more, either.
 
 
 彡
 
 
“Hey,” says Namjoon, tossing a ping pong ball into the air, and it hits the
ceiling, bouncing off and smacking Yoongi in the shoulder. “You’ve been pretty
distracted, recently. What’s up?”
“No apology either?” Yoongi rubs his shoulder, mock-hurt, and Namjoon doesn’t
even blink. “Nothing. I’ve just been. Thinking about things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing.” What a fucking lie. Yoongi’s mind has been preoccupied with thoughts
of the same person for hours, days, weeks now. And he doesn’t know how to make
them go away. That is, even if he wants to. “Just things.”
“You can tell me anything, you know.” Namjoon chucks his book behind him, and
it falls onto the desk in a crumpled mess. For a straight-A student, Namjoon’s
easily one of the messiest people Yoongi has ever met. And on the days he
doesn’t go for extra tuition at the hagwon near his house, he comes over to
make Hoseok’s room even messier than it had been before he got there. “I’m here
for you, man.”
“Is this going to turn into some kind of sleepover talk?” asks Yoongi dryly,
but behind his ribs, his heart is screaming. Namjoon doesn’t— he’s never told
Namjoon. He’s never told anybody, for that matter. That he’s not straight. It
might terrify him just a little bit.
It might terrify him a whole lot.
“Shut it.” Namjoon snorts. “I’m just trying to be a good friend. Y’know, in
case you have any problems or whatever.”
“I’m fine, really.” Yoongi lets himself send Namjoon a slight smile. “Thanks,
anyway.”
The music playing from Yoongi’s laptop floats across in the silence. Strains of
Slakah the Beatchild and Snarky Puppy make up for the lack of words in those
moments, as the familiarity of two friends who don’t need to make conversation
every single second settles in comfortably.
“So,” says Namjoon suddenly, “you and Hoseok seem pretty close, now.”
Yoongi tenses, but doesn’t let it show past the line of his shoulders freezing.
“Yeah,” he says, “I guess.”
“See.” Namjoon looks smug. “Told you he’s nice. Aren’t you glad I brought him
along?”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, “I’m glad.” He really is.
 
 
 彡
 
 
Summer continues to flood in, all sun and pouring heat, and along with it comes
the energy of the students getting into activities and sports, students getting
way more intense with studying and getting way more amped up in classes.
Yoongi could care less.
He knows, his chances of getting into a good college is slim. Forget SKY,
forget anything near that. He’s lucky if he even manages to scrape past with a
good grade this year. It might be possible. Might.
Sometimes he wonders if he should just forget it, forget it and go on and do
something easier, forget the night time revision lasting into the early hours
of the morning, the head-scratching and utter confusion that comes with not
understanding a single thing that’s gone on in class, the disappointment when
he sees the big fat bad grade that he’s gotten on a test or a quiz.
Yoongi knows things can change. Anything can change, given the chance, despite
whatever circumstances or situation. For the better or for the worst. Much like
what’s happened in the past. Much like what’s happened this year.
Much like what’s happened with Hoseok.
And this time, it seems like it might be for the better.
Jung Hoseok has barged into his life like the summer sun, all bright and
cheerful and optimism rivaled by none. Jung Hoseok, with his loud, carefree
nature and his unending grins. Jung Hoseok.
Even right now, in this moment, as they’re all eating lunch together, Yoongi is
surreptitiously following the movement of Hoseok’s lips as he chatters on
happily about a dance thing as Namjoon attempts to follow, something about
Namjoon coming to watch the next time because he has an extra ticket, something
about Yoongi not being the only one to come anymore.
“You mean Yoongi has been going to watch you all this time?” exclaims Namjoon,
and Yoongi’s jerked out of his thoughts, and his attention focuses back on the
conversation. “Unfair.”
“Hey,” says Hoseok, lower lip curling into what could be a pout, “be glad I’m
even inviting you at all. Besides, Yoongi likes going. Right?”
Yoongi blinks. “Yeah,” he answers, and Hoseok beams, and something erupts anew
in his chest, fluttery feelings and something that feels a little like his
lunch, “he’s great. He really is. You should go, Namjoon.”
“See,” says Hoseok, and Yoongi wants to delude himself into thinking that the
tinge of pink in Hoseok’s cheeks is from that compliment, but he knows better.
He knows Hoseok wouldn’t—he knows, Hoseok probably—he just wouldn’t. “Yoongi
knows how good I am.”
“Too good,” says Yoongi, brain-to-mouth filter choosing today of all days to
stop working properly, oh no, no, no, “it’s hard to take your eyes off him, to
be honest.”
“Oh, really,” says Namjoon.
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, and he can’t stop himself, he’s gonna go too far, “I could
watch him dance forever.”
A pause stills, hangs over them.
Hoseok is looking at Yoongi with a curious look, and Yoongi wants to
disintegrate, wants to get up and run because he’s probably just said the
stupidest thing he could ever say, but Hoseok is still looking at him in that
weird way and Yoongi prays he doesn’t let himself run his mouth again, prays he
doesn’t say anything else.
He doesn’t. He’s too busy excusing himself and getting up to leave the table,
as Namjoon blinks in confusion, and Hoseok continues to just look at him, and
Yoongi is so stupid, so, so stupid.
But then, as he’s walking away, the voice he doesn’t want to hear in that
moment calls out, “Yoongi, wait.”
Haha, fuck no. Yoongi doesn’t want to have this conversation right now. But
Hoseok has caught up to him, and Yoongi’s still walking, and it’s not long
before they’ve reached somewhere a little further away from the cafeteria, less
people milling around.
“Hey, wait,” says Hoseok, and he grabs Yoongi’s arm, “what’s up? You were
acting pretty strange back there. Just up and leaving like that. Is everything
alright?”
“Everything’s fine,” says Yoongi, but he’s stuck on the way Hoseok’s hand is
around his wrist, just holding him there, and he can’t think of anything else.
“I’m good. Really. I swear. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry,” says Hoseok, but then he pauses, and really stares at
Yoongi, and Yoongi knows his face is going red, he’s flushing and it’s all
because Hoseok hasn’t let go of his fucking arm. “Yoongi—”
“Let go,” chokes out Yoongi, and Hoseok releases his wrist immediately, as if
scalded by hot water, and Yoongi trips backwards a little, “I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean it that way.”
“I—” says Hoseok, eyebrows furrowing, “do you suddenly have a problem with me
or something?”
He looks upset. Don’t be upset, thinks Yoongi, heart sinking, please, don’t be
upset. “I don’t,” he says, but his voice betrays him, his voice cracks in that
godforsaken moment, and he turns away, before breathing, “I just. There are
people around, can we just—”
“Empty classroom.”
It’s dusty, the old classroom is, unused ever since one of the pipes burst
overhead and leaked several holes through the drywall of the ceiling, but it
makes for a quiet place to talk. The usual truants aren’t there either, and
Yoongi’s glad for that.
The second the door shuts behind them is when Yoongi lets out a hard breath,
and leans back against the wall. “I have to say something,” he admits quietly,
and Hoseok comes over to stand beside him, their shoulders automatically
bumping. “And I know I’ll probably fuck things up between us, and I’m really
fucking sorry, okay. I’m really sorry.”
“What’s going on?” asks Hoseok, softly, and he’s not smiling, for once.
Yoongi steadies himself, prepares for the worst. Prepares for Hoseok moving
away immediately, running out the door and never talking to him ever again.
Prepares for the disgust and the discomfort and the confusion and everything
else that comes with it. But he’s not really prepared at all. Who can be,
really. “I’m not—” he starts, and he exhales. Inhale, exhale. “I don’t like
girls.”
“Oh,” says Hoseok, and apparently it’s clicked, pretty quickly, because he then
says, “oh,” but softer.
“And,” says Yoongi, not wanting to stop now that he’s gotten it out, “and, and
I like you, Hoseok.”
The wind billowing quietly through the windows is the only thing that resounds
in the dust-thick air, for a few moments.
“You like me,” repeats Hoseok, and Yoongi feels like there’s a lump in his
throat, a whirlwind in his stomach, a hammer behind his chest, “as in, you like
me?”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, but the word comes out as such a hoarse little sound, that
he immediately clamps up again, staring at his shoes. “Please,” he finds his
voice saying, “don’t think too badly of me, please.”
“Why would I?”
Yoongi glances up. Hoseok is looking at him, but there’s no hatred in his eyes,
there’s no discomfort, but disbelief tinges his voice, and he still hasn’t
moved from where he’s standing beside Yoongi.
“Because it’s not natural?” Yoongi’s fists clench and unclench slowly,
anxiously. “Because, you’re my friend, and I don’t want to fuck things up.
Well, anymore than I already have, I guess.”
“But you wouldn’t be fucking things up,” says Hoseok, and that’s strange, that
shouldn’t be, because it sounds like his voice is trembling too, and that
shouldn’t be, “because. Because I haven’t really been honest, either. With you.
Myself.”
No. Yoongi can feel a tendril of hope, reaching out, curling around his spine,
as he says, “You—”
“Yes,” says Hoseok, not meeting Yoongi’s eyes, “yes, I. Yeah, Yoongi.”
It’s then, at that moment, Yoongi feels Hoseok’s hand brush against his,
hanging by his side, and slowly, he threads their fingers together, just two of
them, but Yoongi is swallowing hard and reaching back out and it’s a loose
grasp, but their hands are joined and Yoongi has never felt so fucking wired
before, has never felt this hysterical, feverish, frantic feeling before, the
feeling that this might actually be happening, and Christ, it really is. It’s
happening.
Yoongi makes a soft, surprised sound, in the back of his throat, and Hoseok
echoes it with his own.
They stand there, for a few minutes. Palm to palm, holy palmers’ kiss. They say
nothing.
It is frightening.
“I,” says Yoongi, after a little while, “I hadn’t been expecting that.”
“Me neither,” whispers Hoseok, and he’s smiling, albeit a little faintly. “I
just. Fuck, I can’t believe this.”
“Me neither,” says Yoongi, and his throat feels so dry, and his brain is
working in overdrive, and he just wants to do something, he doesn’t know what,
he just needs to get this itch for movement out of his system, but Hoseok gets
there first, and turns to him, Hoseok leans in and Yoongi glances back at him,
and oh.
Oh. Hoseok is looking at him in that weird way again, and Yoongi finally knows
what it means.
“Hoseok,” says Yoongi, “this is so fucking awkward, you have to know that.”
There’s a burst of laughter, and Yoongi nearly laughs too, and Hoseok is
mumbling, “Yeah, I know. I’ve never been good with dramatic shit either.”
But then Hoseok is biting his lip, and gazing back at Yoongi, as if he’s seeing
him in a new light now, and Yoongi is doing the exact same thing, and Yoongi
has never wanted to kiss him so much in his life—
Oh. Yoongi wants to kiss him. Yoongi wants to kiss him so fucking much, and
they’re in a fucking classroom, not even away from school, where anyone could
see them, and this is such a huge risk and anything could go wrong, anything
and everything could go wrong, but.
But, thinks Yoongi, everything could still go wrong, and he’d still want this.
Everything could go wrong, and he’d still want Hoseok.
And, he hopes. He really does hope that nothing goes wrong. That life allows
him this peculiar fairytale escape, for once. He hopes that life doesn’t come
down on them too quickly, that life lets them have this just for a little
while, a little while if not more. Just a little while.
“Is this okay?” asks Hoseok, carefully, slowly, leaning in, and Yoongi’s breath
is escaping him, even as his hands lift of their own accord, palms pressing
tentatively against Hoseok’s face, thumbs smoothing over cheekbones, pulses
thumping erratically against each other’s. And it’s Yoongi who kisses him
first, who leans in and seals his lips over Hoseok’s, who closes the gap
between their faces, light and fleeting. “Yoongi,” whispers Hoseok, and Yoongi
kisses him again, and it’s so easy, so good, and the feeling resounds inside
him.
This is—this is new. This is so new, but so nice, and Yoongi likes this, likes
this a lot, likes the warmth of Hoseok’s mouth under his, despite the kiss
being a bare brush of lips, but it’s strangely good. It satisfies the ache in
his chest, just a little.
Hoseok’s curling fingers into his hair, patting at the nape of his neck,
nudging their noses together as he leans in to kiss Yoongi again, and Yoongi
could do this for a lifetime, god.
“Hoseok,” he says quietly, a low rumble that surprises even himself, “we
can’t—we can’t let anyone know, you know—“
“Shh,” says Hoseok, and he sounds so earnest, “I wouldn’t tell a soul, if it
meant being able to do this with you.”
Yoongi’s chest is threatening to burst with all these emotions, but he fixes
his attention on just one of them, and he smiles, before kissing Hoseok again,
before threading their fingers together and tugging Hoseok’s hand towards him,
before giving in to the overwhelming feeling of want and need and this deep,
deep, craving that’s just been building up inside for so long now.
 
 
彡
 
 
He’s never really thought about this, either. Relationships.
But, is this one?
He guesses it might be. He still can’t be too sure. They were Hoseok and
Yoongi, barely a few days ago, Hoseok and Yoongi and classes and lunch and
homework and jokes and banter. But now, they are Hoseok and Yoongi, a few days
later, Hoseok and Yoongi and classes and lunch and homework and jokes and
banter and kissing and these hidden smiles and kissing and hands coming
together under tables and behind propped-up books.
They are still the same. It feels like nothing’s changed. But at the same time,
everything’s changed.
Now, the smiles that Hoseok reserves for Yoongi are different, compared to the
smiles he keeps for Namjoon, or for their classmates, or for the teachers or
for anyone else, for that matter. His Yoongi-smiles are soft, quieter, less
held back but less burning and more like the soft breaking of clouds overhead
when the storm shudders to a stop. Yoongi-smiles are special and just for him,
and Yoongi thinks he might really like that. He really does.
Now, Yoongi glances at Hoseok more, not just because he knows he can without
fear of getting called out, but because he sees something new each and every
time. Something in the angles of his face, in the way his shoulders roll back
when he leans back in his seat, in the lines of his body when he moves to do
anything at all.
Now, Yoongi guesses, things are just a little different, now.
It’s nice though, despite the constant fear that they might be seen, even when
it’s just them in the quiet of someone’s room, or when nobody else is around.
Despite the worry that someone’s just going to find out and everything’s going
to get shot to hell, because it’s unnatural and not supposed to happen and
everything that society deems wrong.
But what part of Hoseok could ever be wrong?
Well. Other than his terrible sense of humour, his ridiculous habit of acting
cute when it’s not necessary, his over-flamboyance, his choice of shoes. But
that’s a whole other story for another time.
Right now, all Yoongi knows, is that he doesn’t know where this is going to go,
how this is going to turn out, but he’s going to take the chance. He’s going to
take the risk, anyway. And if Hoseok wants to take it with him, then, by all
means.
 
 
彡
 
 
Their study sessions together become a regular thing, once a week now, but more
often it gives them a chance to be alone. Something hard to come by, besides
the texts and the occasional phone calls.
Hoseok’s shoulder bumps against Yoongi’s as he leans in to ask about another
question on their literature component for the upcoming pop quiz. They’re in
Hoseok’s room, sitting with their feet up on the tiny little bed, having snuck
away after his mother waved them up with barely a glance, and they’ve been
studying, really, they have. Kind of. More of trying to study, but getting
distracted along the way.
Yoongi blames Hoseok entirely. Hoseok and his hands, his stupid face, his
laugh. His everything.
It feels like hours has passed, but Yoongi groans when he glances at his phone,
and it’s barely been an hour of revising.
“Don’t be so lazy,” says Hoseok, and he drapes himself all over Yoongi like a
blanket. “Mm.”
“Who’s the lazy one now?” Yoongi attempts to push him off, but Hoseok clings,
and drags him down with an ‘oomph.’
They end up sprawled all over the bed, limbs tangled together, and Yoongi
doesn’t like close contact with people usually, but Hoseok is just so warm
right there, in that moment, and he decides maybe he doesn’t mind the way
Hoseok presses his face against the curve of Yoongi’s shoulder.
Hoseok glances up, and smiles. “Hey,” he says, and he leans up to kiss Yoongi,
just something fleeting, but Yoongi reaches around his neck to pull his head
back up, shifting to press their mouths together again, a little deeper, a
little more than what they’ve just been doing.
Yoongi’s never really— he’s never kissed anyone properly, before. And he really
doesn’t know if he’s doing this right, lips on lips and their noses bumping a
few times and maybe a little bit of teeth clacking unnecessarily, but it’s
still good. It’s lazy movement and casual breaths, shared, paper-thin between
the light of the window and the light of the lamp in the corner. And Hoseok—
Hoseok has one hell of a mouth, god, the way he nips and licks at Yoongi’s lip,
the way he curves his palm around to cup Yoongi’s cheek, thumb smoothing over
skin lightly, just brushes.
“Hey to you too.” Yoongi pulls back, an almost-there smile tugging on the
corners. “It pains me to say this, but you’re surprisingly good at that.”
“What, kissing?” Hoseok makes an amused sound, eyes twinkling. “I’m good at a
few other things, too.”
“Oh, really, now.” Yoongi’s voice is still, but he’s swallowing hard, looking
at the way Hoseok is looking back at him. If he’s suggesting what he’s
suggesting, then. “Maybe you’d like to show me, then.”
“Ah,” says Hoseok, and they’re shifting around again, Yoongi getting up to lean
back against the headboard and Hoseok leaning into him again, this time to kiss
him again, wet and sloppy and open-mouthed, and it’s different now, the way it
feels, it sends something buzzing up Yoongi’s spine, a slow build that comes
with the way Hoseok’s tongue twists against his, licking up against the roof of
his mouth. His hands are on Yoongi, all over and everywhere, tucking under his
shirt to skim down his stomach lightly, and Yoongi’s own hands are sliding up
Hoseok’s back, tugging him nearer, nearer, nearer, god, so close until there’s
no more space left between them.
It’s so good, so fucking good and easy and Yoongi really likes this, really
likes the warmth that swivels somewhere low in his gut, the warmth that
threatens to spill over with every inch further down that Hoseok moves his
fingers, and it’s with a soft exhale of Hoseok’s name that he adds, “Do you
want to—”
“Yeah,” breathes Hoseok, a little apprehensively, but Yoongi can see it in his
eyes, half-lidded and wanting, and Yoongi knows the same look is spread out on
his own features. Desire and want and craving need. Christ. He needs this so
much, he needs Hoseok’s hands on him. “Yeah, I do, Yoongi, are you—’
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, and he kisses Hoseok again, “yeah, come on, Hoseok.”
Hands, skin, clothes, mouths. So many things to consider, thinks Yoongi, so
many fucking things, how do people do this without feeling like their nerves
have been dunked into a pot of hot oil, how do people do this without feeling
utterly incompetent, how do people even—
“Don’t worry so much,” whispers Hoseok, “we’ll figure it out together.”
“I’m not worrying,” protests Yoongi, but Hoseok swallows his words in another
kiss, presses his palms to Yoongi’s neck, and kisses him harder. Kisses him
until he’s breathless, kisses him until Yoongi feels like he’s burning up.
Hands and hands and skin and more touching, skimming, brushing, fleeting
touches, and Yoongi’s fingertips skitter along the waistband of Hoseok’s jeans,
cautiously, hesitantly, but Hoseok catches his gaze, catches his will, and
Yoongi feels just a little bit braver.
Hands and hands and skin and more touching, the light pop of a button and the
sound of a zipper, and Yoongi doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, just knows
that all he wants to do is make Hoseok feel good. Sheets rustle, fabric, hands,
skin. Hoseok stutters out a soft breath, fanning against Yoongi’s cheek, and
Yoongi fists his hand around Hoseok’s cock, slow, gauging for reactions,
watching the way Hoseok’s teeth come down over his lower lip with every slow
stroke that Yoongi makes.
Hands and hands and skin and more touching, the build-up is steady and Yoongi
is aware that he’s done this himself a million times, sat in the bathroom or
his room and touched himself, but touching someone else is so much more
different, so much more biting and nerve-wracking and new, discovering what the
other person likes, what the other person needs.
It’s all hands and hands and skin and touching, but Yoongi feels in control,
feels like maybe he knows what he’s doing now, when he swallows Hoseok’s soft
groans with his own mouth, kissing him even as his wrist works to get him off,
kissing him even as Hoseok is breathing his name unsteadily, kissing him even
as Hoseok runs his own hands down Yoongi’s front, runs his own hands down,
down, down, the heel of his palm pressing against Yoongi’s own arousal, and
fucking hell, Yoongi’s hard, he wants Hoseok touching him so fucking much, and
then he’s the one exhaling sharply when his jeans are pushed down and Hoseok
has his own hand around Yoongi’s cock, reciprocating exactly what he’s feeling,
exactly what Yoongi is giving him.
And oh god, Yoongi’s burning up. Yoongi’s burning up and flushing three
different shades of red from head to toe and Hoseok is thumbing over the head
of his cock, fingers running up, down, and fucking hell, Yoongi’s going to
tumble off the edge, going to trip off the cliff of this peaking pleasure and
fall to his fucking death in a burst of noise and the soft curling of toes.
And he does, he does, they both do, and it’s messy as hell, but neither of them
care. Hoseok’s hiccupy little pants are tumbling forth from his lips against
Yoongi’s own mouth, and Yoongi catches them, catches his mouth and tries to
stop shivering, trembling, shaking the way he’s doing so right now.
“God,” breathes Hoseok, eyes still shut tight, a smile in his voice still, “why
didn’t we do that earlier?”
“No idea.” Yoongi nudges their faces together, and sighs quietly, still reeling
from the high. “But we should do that again.”
“Please,” says Hoseok, and he smiles, and it’s so unconstrained, so clarion,
like the storm-clouds breaking high up in the sky to let the ardor of the sun
blaze through.
And this time, Yoongi thinks, he might not want to cover his eyes. Not at all.
Not if the sun is this beautiful.
 
 
彡
 
 
“You look happier, these days,” says his mother, one night. The clinking of
chopsticks and spoons against bowls is a familiar noise that fills the quiet
dining room. They eat dinner together, as a family, maybe once in a while. It’s
been some time, though. Yoongi sometimes misses it, misses being together in
one room with everyone. But there are the spaces in between that just cannot be
filled anymore, and he knows that cannot be changed. Not now. Not ever.
But he hadn’t realised that his mother had noticed. She usually—she never
really pays attention, anymore. Not to him. Yoongi has drifted by in the
winters of his life, under the radar, just slipping through the cracks of her
attention. And ever since the winter of the last, she hasn’t been the same. Not
really.
To be fair, none of them have been the same. None of them will, anymore.
His father doesn’t acknowledge anything. He doesn’t really, anymore. Nothing
important. Feelings aren’t important, anymore. His concentration lies in his
business, and the portion of rice that he shovels, inhales, digests. Not his
son. Not anyone important. No one is important, in this house. Not anymore.
Yoongi glances up, and says, “Yeah. I’ve been happier. These days.”
“Has something happened, recently?”
So much. So, so much has happened. Where would he even start?
How could he even start?
He can never tell them.
Yoongi swallows back the words that push up his throat, and he smiles. Not the
smile he wears in school. Just the one he puts on at home, the one that he’s
been wearing for the past few years. That is, if he ever does smile. A small,
tiny, almost-there-but-not-really thing. It’s a sad smile. He knows what it is.
“Not at all.”
“Oh,” says his mother, and that’s all there is to it. A glimmer of hope that
she would ask him more, but it fades with each second that passes, and the dim
sounds return, just the background discord of ruminating teeth, and the soft
taps of metal against porcelain. Life goes on.
Life goes on.
Yoongi just goes on.
 
 
彡
 
 
Autumn falls in with a rush of leaves, scattered browns and reds and oranges
and yellow, drifting across the haggard sky, haphazardly painting the grey
sidewalks. When Yoongi takes the daily trek to school in the early mornings, he
finds a simple amusement in swishing his sneakers about the fallen fronds that
decorate his path, in watching the pale moon wane and the slow sun wax,
spilling across the firmaments like the orange juice he’d accidentally tipped
across the table the other day.
Autumn comes slow and quiet and Yoongi knows it means that the fun and joy of
summer is over, autumn with its mellowed cheer, the precursor to the frost, the
precursor to the biting cold that nips at his fingertips, his tongue, his toes.
Autumn is the calm before the storm, and Yoongi can’t remember the last time
he’d had an autumn this easy, this smooth, this soothing.
He knows, it only means that this winter will be the harshest yet.
But which winter could ever be harsher than the one that whips constantly
inside him?
It comforts him, though, knowing that there’s someone now that he can go to,
just to forget about it. Just to forget the things that have happened. Just to
forget the ache that breaks, just to forget the breath that sets, heavy and
wild, after his eyes slam open in the dark, hands gripping the sheets, night
terrors, night terrors, night terrorising him again and again and again.
Where are you, peace? Where are you, righteousness? Where are you, the end?
Come descend like the old days, come drape yourself over life, over these days
that roll by, over these nights that still cry.
Yoongi sometimes wonders if anyone can hear him.
Then, Hoseok laughs his way into his day. Jung Hoseok, this one kid, Jung
Hoseok, him with the never-ending story of the smile that bewilders the world,
because who smiles that summer smile in the month of September, in the months
of October and November, who smiles that huge summer smile without the taint of
the autumn rain that soaks the bones and dredges up sleepless nights?
Who smiles?
“Well,” says Hoseok, “I just want people to be happy.”
“But you can’t be happy all the time,” says Yoongi, “it’s not humanly
possible.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Hoseok shrugs. “But. I just. I just want everyone to be
happy. That’s all. If I can’t, then other people should. And,” he adds, “I want
you to be happy, too.”
Yoongi doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t get how one person can be so
carefree about it. He doesn’t understand how Hoseok can just be Hoseok,
sometimes.
But, Yoongi says, genuinely, sincerely, “I am.” And he is. He doesn’t
understand it, but he’s happier, now. He doesn’t know how it could have
possibly happened, how it can still happen—but it’s happening. Hoseok has
happened to him, and keeps happening, in flashes of ardent enthusiasm, in
flickers of steady hope.
And Hoseok reaches over, curls a hand around the back of his neck, and says,
“That makes me glad, too.”
And maybe, just maybe, the autumn will be good to him, while winter rings like
a church-bell in the distance.
Loud, ominous, looming.
 
 
彡
 
 
It’s almost too fast, the way it falls.
The way the months speed by, the way the days twist and shatter past.
There is still that hope, the light at the end of the tiny little straw that
Yoongi has been attempting to squeeze himself through, the hope that he might
do alright by the end of the year. The hope that he doesn’t fail. The hope that
he at least does well enough to not worry his parents anymore. That is, if they
still even care.
But there it is, the hope that hides in the bottom of his book bag and the
scribble of the tip of his pen, and it wouldn’t be there without Hoseok,
honestly.
It makes him think that maybe, hey, maybe there’s a chance. Maybe.
Maybe Yoongi can still make them see him.
“Your parents really don’t mind that I keep coming over?” asks Hoseok one day,
some hours into the evening. They’d spent most of today lounging around, just
with each other, Hoseok’s head resting on Yoongi’s thigh as he reads lazily,
Yoongi on his back as he fiddles with his phone.
“More like they don’t care,” says Yoongi, unthinking.
“Why not?” asks Hoseok curiously, tilting his head to glance up at Yoongi.
Yoongi meets his gaze. He doesn’t know if he should tell Hoseok. The words brim
and bubble up inside his chest, but he thinks, not today. Maybe not just yet.
He should just keep it to himself, for now. It’s his to keep, anyway. “Just,”
says Yoongi, “nothing really. They just don’t really bother about what I do.”
“Oh,” says Hoseok, but Yoongi can tell he’s still wondering. Rightfully so.
Hoseok’s mum is one of the sweetest people Yoongi has ever met. She’d welcomed
them so warmly the other day, asking after them, smiling the whole way. Yoongi
could tell where Hoseok had inherited his nature from. And it must be nice. To
have a parent so caring. Hoseok’s mum had even nagged over him not hanging up
his coat properly. Yoongi misses that. Maybe.
She’d cared a lot, once. His own mum.
Yoongi had cared too, but he’d found it harder and harder to keep himself
awake, to keep himself from slipping away into the recesses of his own room,
away from everyone else in the house. He just had to get away. And he did. And
now, he can’t get back.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Yoongi, pushing the thoughts away, back where they
came from, “really. I mean. I’ve got you and Namjoon and Seokjin. That’s more
than enough.”
“But,” says Hoseok, “they’re your parents. They should care.”
Should. They should. But they don’t. And Yoongi is fine with it, now.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” says Yoongi, and he knows that Hoseok can tell
that he doesn’t want to tell the entire truth, but Hoseok doesn’t press the
issue any further, and Yoongi is glad for that. “Come here.”
Hoseok raises an eyebrow, but shifts over anyway, hovers over Yoongi and lets
Yoongi thread his fingers through his hair, lets Yoongi tug him over to pull
him down beside him, and fit him into his side, and all there is to them is the
slow rise and fall of their chests as they lie on the floor, heads together.
“Nice,” whispers Hoseok, and Yoongi doesn’t even have to agree in words, he
just tightens his hold on Hoseok and kisses the skin beneath his jaw. “You know
what we should do, right now?”
“What?” asks Yoongi, a little preoccupied with mouthing along Hoseok’s neck.
“Mess around a little.” Hoseok rolls away, and before Yoongi can get a word
out, Hoseok is already straddling him by the hips, sitting on his lap. And
Christ, that brazen grin of his. Yoongi can already see the cogs turning in his
head. “Are you—”
“Fuck yeah,” breathes Yoongi, because who is he to turn down a proposition like
that? “Hoseok.”
“Mm,” says Hoseok, and he’s bending to kiss Yoongi, lips on lips and tongues
and wet, wet heat, and it goes shooting down Yoongi’s spine so fucking fast he
groans into Hoseok’s mouth, sliding his hands up the back of Hoseok’s shirt.
Yoongi’s wearing khaki shorts, and Hoseok’s wearing jeans but their hips are
rolling up against each other’s, just barely, but Yoongi already wants the
layers off, so wanting, fuck, he just wants it so much. “Hey,” breathes Hoseok,
and he’s speaking in between kisses, nipping at Yoongi’s lower lip with each
word that comes out, “can I suck you off?”
Holy shit. Yoongi stares up with him, gaze hazed over, and could he even have
said ‘yes’ faster to that? “Please,” he chokes out, words catching along with
the burning arousal that flickers when Hoseok slides down the length of his
body, a grin playing across his features as he ghosts his fingers along too,
and fuck, Yoongi has never been so turned on in his life, just imagining
Hoseok’s mouth on him, around him, and he’s going to come so embarrassingly
fast, he can already tell.
And fuck, Hoseok’s got one hell of a mouth, and he knows how to use it, and
Yoongi can barely bite back the moans that are stifled hurriedly in his throat
when Hoseok dips down to take his cock into his mouth, slow, encapsulating heat
that makes Yoongi’s grip in Hoseok’s hair tighten, and his skin burn. He feels
like there’s a flame licking up his back with every swirl of Hoseok’s tongue,
with every slide, upwards, downwards. Yoongi can barely believe that Hoseok has
never done this before.
“Fuck,” exhales Yoongi, and he can’t, he fucking can’t handle the way Hoseok
glances up at him with his lips curved pretty around Yoongi’s cock, and
Yoongi’s going to collapse just watching him, just watching the way he takes in
Yoongi, spent and trembling and almost, almost, almost there. “I’m—I’m going
to—”
There’s a soft ‘pop,’ and Hoseok has pulled off from Yoongi’s cock, and Yoongi
nearly makes a frustrated sound, because no, no, no, come back here, come back
and finish what you fucking started, but then Hoseok is wrapping his hand
around Yoongi’s cock and the stimulation is tripping him off that edge again,
building up quick and heavy and slamming into him like a freight train, and—
Yoongi has to remember to choke back the moan that rises to his lips when he
comes, the heady waves of gratification washing over him in a burst, the sigh
that comes after when he winds down.
“Wow,” says Hoseok, voice a little hoarse. And Yoongi echoes that sentiment,
because wow indeed. Each time just gets better and better. And god, Hoseok is
amazing. He’s really. He’s really fucking amazing. And maybe it’s just the
hormones talking, at this point in time, but he really likes Hoseok. So much.
“Ew,” says Yoongi, though. “Need a shower.”
“Space for two?”
“If we’re quiet.”
Hoseok laughs, and tugs him up, and Yoongi’s knees feel so wobbly, but he feels
fucking great, and he knows it probably won’t last for long, but he’ll take
what he can get for now. He’ll take this, and Hoseok, and this excitement and
this undying rush that floods his veins anew with each glance that they share,
and he’ll take it with arms open.
Hoseok laughs, and Yoongi smiles, and they quietly pad their way to the shower,
fingers loosely linked.
 
 
彡
 
 
“Hey, so,” says Namjoon one day, late into September, and this is where the
tides flip and come crashing down on Yoongi, “why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Yoongi nearly chokes on the coffee he’s drinking. They’re seated at a table in
this new cafe Seokjin had wanted to try, on his only free day this week, being
otherwise swamped with tutorials and extra revision classes, and of course,
Seokjin has been bullied into treating them again. Yoongi swears it’s his turn
next week. Really. He promises. Sort of.
“Why are you asking this now,” says Yoongi, and he hopes it doesn’t come off as
the strangled noise he makes somewhere in the back of his mind. Because
Namjoon—he doesn’t know how Namjoon would take it. Namjoon’s pretty open-
minded, but Yoongi doesn’t really know to what extent. The subject has never
come up. And Yoongi always prays that it never, ever, ever comes up.
“Well,” says Namjoon, nonchalantly, “I think Seokjin has a girlfriend. And I
was just wondering, why don’t you, either? I see a lot of girls trying to get
your attention, but, like, you just ignore them.”
“Girls trying to get my attention,” repeats Yoongi, disbelieving. “Me. Really.”
“Have you looked at yourself, recently? Girls go for that kind of thing.”
Namjoon twiddles his straw around his cup. “That kind of bad boy image, sullen
and brooding and piercings and all that shit.”
“Who’s sullen and brooding?” Seokjin returns with a plate of donuts, and
Namjoon happily takes one immediately. “Yoongi?”
“I’m not sullen or brooding,” says Yoongi, huffing. “And why would girls want
to go after me, when I don’t even want—” He pauses. Shit. Holy shit. He almost
gave himself away there. Isn’t his speech filter supposed to be working today?
Any day, for that matter? Nope. Never. His self-sabotage game is depressingly
strong. “I mean.”
“You don’t want what?”
“Hey, so, Namjoon said you might have a girlfriend,” says Yoongi hastily,
changing the subject, and Seokjin turns to Namjoon, eyes wide, and Namjoon
makes an apologetic face. “So, who is it?”
Seokjin’s complaining can be heard for the next fifteen minutes. And by the
time that ends, everyone’s already forgotten about the initial question. And
Yoongi has never thanked the heavens this much before, for his two friends’
minuscule short-term attention spans.
Successful evasion. For now.
 
 
彡
 
 
He doesn’t manage to escape it.
Namjoon is insistent, and keeps bringing it up, and soon, Yoongi’s gonna run
out of excuses, gonna run out of distractions to feed him, and he can’t, he
can’t, he really fucking can’t. It’s tiring. It’s so tiring to have to grin and
shake his head and pretend that nothing’s up, pretend that oh, everything’s
just fine and that no, not at all, he’s totally not involved with one of his
best friends, he’s not caught up in this tumbling, fumbling bundle of nerves
and feelings and wired emotions that erupt every single time he even glances at
Hoseok, he’s not, he’s not, he’s not—
But he is.
He can’t even deny it to himself, anymore. It feels a lot less like attraction
now, and a lot more like the terrifying beginnings of something more genuine,
something that begins in his chest and ends in his chest, something that makes
him smile to himself just at the thought of it, something strange and real and
thrilling and electrifying and Yoongi just wants to know more of it, wants to
hold this emotion in the palm of his hands and ask its reasons for its
prevalence, ask why it has appeared so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
All the same, it hasn’t been sudden. It hasn’t been unexpected. It has been
only months, months, months now, some seven or eight months and everything has
changed, everything is different and new and so much brighter now, so much
lighter now, so much more than Yoongi has ever allowed to step into his life in
the past few years and he wonders if there—
Of course there will be tears. There will be fears. There will be the nights he
wakes up and yearns for someone’s hand to hold, to grasp, to clutch.
But in the morning, Hoseok is there, and there is a need for nothing other than
a soft nudge, a smile, and a quick little bump of the shoulders and a
smouldering fire alights in his—heart? His heart, his heart, his beating,
thumping, alive heart.
For once, for once in a long time, it doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart.
Maybe he should tell Namjoon.
Maybe.
Maybe. Just maybe.
“If you want to,” says Hoseok, quietly. They’re in the library, huddled behind
a stack of economics texts, and they’re making absolutely sure that no one can
hear them. They hope. “I mean. If you think he should know.”
“But,” says Yoongi, “how?”
How indeed.
It’s not like he can just waltz up to Namjoon, just blurt it out, and expect
everything to be all rainbows and sunshine. It’s not—it’s just not. He’s just.
Afraid.
Scared as fuck, to be more exact.
He can’t keep on running away, though. He can’t let himself be a coward
anymore, he can’t let himself be ruled by this fear, this fear of rejection and
fear of being pushed away and fear of being ostracised. Yoongi needs to do
this.
He just needs to try.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” reminds Hoseok, but Yoongi wants to.
He wants to. Namjoon deserves to know, anyway. He should. He’s his best friend.
Namjoon’s been there for him for everything, every single fucking thing, and
this one thing—he can’t let this one thing just float there, disembodied,
unknown till his last breath.
“Hey, so,” starts Yoongi, one day, pulse thundering in his throat and feeling
sick to his stomach with nerves, “remember when you kept asking me why I don’t
have a girlfriend?”
Namjoon pauses mid-scratch of his pen, and he glances up immediately. “You
totally do have a girlfriend, don’t you,” he says triumphantly, and Yoongi just
slowly shakes his head. “Then?”
“I don’t,” says Yoongi, “because I don’t. I don’t like. Girls.”
Namjoon snorts. “Funny. Very funny.”
“I’m not joking,” Yoongi hears himself say, as if his voice has been
disconnected from his body, as if he’s just listening to the conversation
happen, now, “Namjoon, I’m not joking. I’m really not.”
Namjoon just stares at him, a myriad of expressions cycling through on his
face. Confusion, disbelief, amusement, more confusion? Yoongi can’t place it.
“What.”
“I’m,” says Yoongi, and the word gets stuck going up, holy shit, he’s never
even said the word aloud before, he’s never even said it to himself, and he’s
saying it, he’s going to, he says, “I’m gay.”
And it’s out there now, he’s said it, and Namjoon is still looking at him with
that weird mix of expressions and Yoongi feels like his heart is going to leap
out of his chest at any moment but he’s just calm, calm, so fucking calm on the
outside it probably looks like he’s actually calm but he’s not at all, not in
the slightest bit, not fucking calm at all.
“You’re actually being serious,” says Namjoon, and it’s not a question, it’s a
statement, and it’s gotten through, and Namjoon knows now, he knows and he’s
going to say something, and it could be anything. “You never said anything
before.”
“I was afraid,” says Yoongi, “really, I was fucking terrified, man. I’m still
fucking terrified. Do you hate me now?”
Namjoon splutters incoherently, nearly dropping his pen onto the floor. “Why
would I hate you? Jesus, Yoongi, relax. I’m not going to run out of the door
screaming about how you’re some kind of deviant. Trust me.”
“You’re not?”
“Were you really expecting me to?” Namjoon’s expression softens. “Hey, man, you
know I would still stick by you no matter what. Who cares if you like dudes
anyway?”
“Everyone,” says Yoongi immediately, “everyone cares but nobody will know.
Nobody has to know.”
Nobody important, at least. But Namjoon is important. Namjoon has always been
important.
Namjoon exhales. “Fuck, I wasn’t expecting that at all.”
“Sorry,” says Yoongi, and he’s wincing, because springing that on Namjoon had
been way too sudden, but how else would he have done it anyway? Not like he
could have dropped hints. Like clues on a map to a treasure chest. It doesn’t
work that way. Nothing ever works the way people want them to. Especially not
when life grabs a hold of it and shakes it by the shoulders and unsettles it in
the worst ways possible.
But Namjoon still hasn’t left, still hasn’t moved, and Yoongi thinks, alright,
this is working out well. This is good. This is alright. Maybe he can tell him
the next bit, now.
“No way,” says Namjoon, “no fucking way.”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, “yeah fucking way.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The next day, Namjoon nearly falls out of his seat when Hoseok comes over,
walks through the door, waves hello, and slots himself neatly beside Yoongi on
the sofa, before linking their fingers together.
Namjoon makes a strangled, choked-laughter noise, that sounds much like a
chicken dying. “You’re both in on this joke.”
“No,” says Hoseok, not really grinning, but a tiny smile on his face anyway,
something a bit more nervous, something a little more anxious. “We’re actually
together.”
And their hands are joined and it’s palm to palm, and Yoongi has never felt so
many conflicting feelings in his life, hell, it feels like a war zone in his
chest but one look over at Hoseok and everything intensifies sevenfold,
everything buzzes brighter and beams louder and Yoongi wants to fall into
everything Hoseok is and forget about everything that Yoongi used to be.
Namjoon just takes one more look at them, and says, “You’re both terrible. Why
didn’t you tell me earlier? All the times I could have walked in on you by
accident, fuck.”
“You almost did, once,” says Hoseok, just for the fun of it, and Namjoon
groans, slapping his palm over his eyes. Hoseok laughs, and Namjoon is grinning
despite himself, and Yoongi? Maybe Yoongi is smiling, maybe Yoongi is laughing
too. Maybe Yoongi is forgetting about how terrified he’d been at first, maybe
Yoongi is starting to realise that it’s not so bad when there’s someone else
right there beside you, when there’s someone else who can be there right when
you need them, when there’s someone there at all.
It’s not so bad when there’s Hoseok there with him. Not at all.
And their hands are still joined, still joined and so comfortable, and so
familiar, and so easy.
Yoongi is experiencing a summer daze in the middle of autumn.
He knows it won’t last. He knows it won’t always be like this. He knows that
there things might not have turned out this way, he knows that things could
have turned out so much worse, he knows that—
Hoseok squeezes his hand in his, presses his nose against the skin beneath his
ear, and murmurs, soft, like the breeze that whooshes past in the backyard
during the lightest of spring’s earliest mornings, “You can stop worrying, for
now. Just for now.”
And Hoseok is so real, so tangible, so here and so there and so much, so, so,
so much, and Yoongi wonders if he could ever really call this a fling. Could
he, really? After all of this? All of these things? These strange, swirling
emotions that stir unnecessarily from the tips of his fingers to the hollow of
his wrists to the base of his spine to the drop of his ankles. After all of
that? It feels like so much more than that, now. But he holds onto those words,
and holds onto Hoseok, and yes.
Just for now.
Yoongi tightens his grip on Hoseok’s hand, and promises.
At least, just for now. He can live this summer day, just for now.
Before the tide washes away the words on the shore.
Just for now.
 
 
彡
 
 
“I have to babysit today,” Yoongi says, shifting his phone over to the other
ear, chair swirling back around to face his desk, “you could come over and
help, if you wanted.” Weekends usually are like this, spent watching his kid
neighbour, and making sure he doesn’t set the house on fire. Or break a plate.
Or break a leg, for that matter. Jeongguk’s a cheeky kid.
“Sure,” comes Hoseok’s voice over the phone, bad reception making it crackle,
“what time?”
“Two.” Yoongi checks his watch. “I hope you like preteens.”
A quick laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m great with tots.”
“I’m not a tot,” says Jeongguk, some time later, staring up at the two of them.
“I’m fourteen now!”
“Still tiny.” Yoongi ruffles his hair, and grins at the way Jeongguk glares at
them, little fires in his eyes. What a cute thing. Thinking he’s all that.
Absolutely adorable. Annoying little brat. “Don’t worry. One day you’ll be
taller than me.”
Immediately Jeongguk smiles. “Yes,” he says sweetly, “then I can get my
revenge.” And he scampers off, probably to go play with his pet mice. His
little minions. Yoongi still remembers the time Jeongguk let them all loose and
he had to sweep the house six times over to get all of them back.
“Scary kid,” comments Hoseok, eyes wide, “but cute.”
“Yeah,” agrees Yoongi, “but he’s a nice kid. Really.”
“Have you been watching him for long?” asks Hoseok, following Yoongi to where
the living room is, and taking a seat next to him. Yoongi usually pulls out his
phone or a book around now, and waits for Jeongguk to get back down, for
Jeongguk to bother him with homework, or for Jeongguk to ask him to play a game
with him. But, since Hoseok is here, conversation fills that gap easily.
“A year or so.” Yoongi hears the thundering of footsteps above. “I like kids.”
“Surprising,” says Hoseok, chuckling, “you really don’t seem the type.”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, something curling in his chest at that, rising and
spreading, and it’s a sharp sting that reminds him of too many things, and too
many days, long past gone. “I look like a delinquent, don’t I? I wonder why you
even hang around me, for that matter. Good student Jung Hoseok.”
Hoseok snorts, amusement flooding his voice. “Please. You’re too cute to be a
delinquent.”
“Cute, huh?” Yoongi reaches over to tap his cheek. “Says the one who learns
girl group dances in his free time.”
“Girl group dances!” Jeongguk pops up from behind them, and Hoseok nearly falls
off the sofa. Yoongi is too used to his magical disappearing and reappearing
acts to be surprised. “Teach me!”
“Really?”
“Really,” echoes Jeongguk, “please, please, please, I’m bored, and Yoongi is
boring.”
“I’m boring?” chokes out Yoongi, glancing at Jeongguk with an eyebrow raised.
“Since when am I boring?”
“It’s okay,” says Jeongguk, ignoring the question and patting Yoongi’s head in
the most condescending manner he’s ever seen a fourteen-year-old do. “One day
you’ll be as cool as me.”
Hoseok is laughing his face off. Yoongi doesn’t know whether to be insulted or
impressed. Probably a combination of both. Jeongguk reminds Yoongi of a younger
him. Amazing. “You have learnt well, young one.”
Jeongguk grins, canines flashing, and he tugs at Hoseok’s sleeve again,
slipping back into innocent-child-who-really-really-really-wants-this-thing
mode. After all, who can resist.
The afternoon is spent well, laughter filling every nook and cranny of the
house, and Yoongi likes this, likes watching two of his favourite people
interact like this, likes watching the way Jeongguk warms up to Hoseok so
quickly.
Maybe this could have been another situation, in another lifetime, in another
universe. Maybe.
But it isn’t. And, thinks Yoongi, watching Jeongguk giggle as Hoseok is
thrashed soundly in Wii Sports for the third time that afternoon, he’ll take
what he can get.
“So,” says Hoseok, hours later. Hands in pockets, leaves patting gently at the
sides of their shoes as they walk along, taking the long route to Hoseok’s
place. Their shoulders are barely brushing, but there’s an invisible seam that
runs between the two of them, connecting them where their hands cannot meet in
public. It’s enough. Just enough, for now. “I never realised you were good with
kids.”
“Well I,” says Yoongi, and he thinks about it again, thinks about the searing
flash of words embedded into his shoulder, thinks about the empty bedroom,
thinks about the past, the past, the past has come back to bite him in the
throat and he should let go, he can’t fucking let go, but it shouldn’t be this
fucking hard, but Yoongi is calling up his breath, back again. “I used to watch
my sister a lot.”
“Your sister,” starts Hoseok, but then he’s skidding to a halt, and he’s
staring, eyebrows furrowed. “Yoongi.”
“She would have been Jeongguk’s age, around now.” The autumn wind soaks his
skin, pushes his hair into his eyes, draws him away from the ache that rings
out, loud and clear, inside his chest. “She would have liked you, I think.”
The wind ruffles their hair, licks at their heels.
“Yoongi,” repeats Hoseok, softer, and Yoongi isn’t going to break, no, don’t
fucking break, not here, not in public, he can’t break in public, but Hoseok
says his name again, and Yoongi isn’t going to—he’s not, he’s not, he’s
not—Yoongi inhales, and it’s jerky, uneven, surprising. “God, Yoongi.”
“I know, I never said anything before,” says Yoongi, too fast, the words
squeezing out of his throat just a little too quickly, “I don’t talk about her
much, and it’s been a few years, and I just—”
Arms slide around him, warm, comforting. Yoongi exhales sharply, and Hoseok
tightens his hold on Yoongi, one hand curling into the nape of his neck, and
the other around his waist, and it’s so fucking intimate and so assuring and
just so Hoseok, god, Hoseok’s chin hooked over his shoulder and his entire body
just leaning into Yoongi, just there and solid and the solace that Yoongi has
been craving desperately, silently, for years, months, weeks, days—and he has
it now.
They stand there quietly for a few moments, on the sidewalk, just wrapped up in
each other.
Yoongi presses his nose into Hoseok’s hair and breathes him in, breathes in the
crisp fall air and the scent of Hoseok’s shampoo and the remedy that he brings
with every fibre of his being.
“I’m sorry,” whispers Hoseok, and Yoongi can’t bring himself to ask Hoseok to
let go, can’t bring himself to say that someone might see them, someone might
stop and ask what they’re doing, can’t bring himself to even say a single word,
because what’s this in his eye, what’s this, what’s this? “You don’t have to
talk about it, really, I swear, I just—I just wanted to—”
“Yeah,” croaks Yoongi. He will not break, he will not break. Almost like a
mantra, it swirls about in his head. It comprises those four words, and her
laugh. Her giggly little laugh that bubbled out of her tiny little self every
single time Yoongi picked her up and swung her around and poked her nose with
the tip of his finger and called her a brat. “It’s okay.”
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
“You don’t have to say you’re okay if you’re not,” says Hoseok, and Yoongi
stamps down the strangled noise that echoes inside, the quiet, locked-in
despair that’s been dormant for all these years. He never cried. Not even one
fucking time. And he’s not about to start now.
“I just,” says Yoongi, and he’s laughing, he’s actually laughing, he’s standing
here laughing like a lunatic with Hoseok’s arms around him, in the middle of
the sidewalk, where anyone could see them, but he can’t remember what’s going
on anymore. “I’m being such a fucking drama queen, I’m sorry.”
“Shit,” says Hoseok, “don’t say that, you idiot.” And he waits until Yoongi has
stopped laughing, has caught his breath, has started to shiver in the billowing
cold, before he lets go to tug him along. “You’re an idiot,” says Hoseok
quietly, tucking his hand into Yoongi’s, despite them being outdoors, despite
everything, despite the fact that Yoongi doesn’t know how to fucking deal with
situations like a normal human being, “you don’t say a single thing, you never
tell anyone about anything, you keep on pretending that you’re fine when you’re
not, and I wish you’d just stop being an idiot, Min Yoongi.”
“It’s my default state,” says Yoongi automatically. Humour as his number one
defense. How many times has he relied on it, now? How long has he been like
this, now. “Two years.”
Two years. Only two whole years since she’s slipped out of his life. Their
lives. Left this space that cannot be filled, left this gap that just could not
have been imagined prior to everything. The wound has barely scabbed over, but
it still feels so fresh.
She’d been Yoongi’s everything. Little one, they called her, our little one, my
little one, Yoongi’s little one. His tiny little baby sister, who never got to
grow up, who never got to grow old.
Yoongi misses her so much, sometimes.
Yoongi misses her all the time.
Hoseok’s hand tightens in his, and he says, “Come on.”
And Yoongi lets himself follow.
 
 
彡
 

She’d been sick.
They didn’t have that kind of treatment where they used to live, his father had
said. We have to move, his mother had said. I don’t want to go, his sister had
whined, but Yoongi had been the one to thread their fingers together and
whisper that it’s for the best, that they’ve got to go so that she can get
better again. Get better for big brother, alright? Get better and then they can
go out and play again.
Their little one. Precious kid, she was. Never stopped smiling, never once.
Get better soon, Yoongi had told her, so many times, three o’clock in the
morning and wiping the cold sweat off her forehead as she blinked up at him
with tired eyes, so tired and wired and tired, get better soon and you can go
to school and you can meet with your friends and I can take you out for ice
cream and we can go play in the park and I’ll get you a puppy and you can beat
me at Monopoly and I promise to write you all the songs in the world, you
little brat, just get better.
She never got better. Yoongi still wrote those songs, anyway.
Maybe it was an act of rebellion. Maybe it was an act of mourning. Maybe it was
just Yoongi, sneaking out of the house on a Wednesday night, climbing anxiously
into a chair, eyes shut as a needle descended onto his shoulder, making sure he
never forgot. Maybe it was just Yoongi.
He’s no poet. He’s no sonnetier. Yoongi cannot immortalise her in words upon a
strand, nor can he make her eternal through verse that never fades. But he can
keep her with him, just a little part of her memory, in skin-ink that will last
as long as he lives.
Just a line from her favourite children’s song.
She’d always insisted that she was too big for kiddy tunes. Yoongi still sang
them anyway, even though she complained that he couldn’t even sing. He would
still hum them to her, until she fell into a fitful sleep, clutching at his
hand, her tiny palm in his. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.
Life is but a dream.
And Yoongi wishes he could wake up from this dream. This dream where he knocks
on the door and waits for three seconds before realising no one will answer,
this dream where he turns to tell something funny but there is no one to hear
it, this dream where there is always an empty seat beside his at the dining
table.
Get better soon, Yoongi had told her, in the hospital, right before the reaper
raised his sickle, right before the hour hand was up, right before she smiled a
last time, get better soon and I love you so much, I love you, kid, you know
that right, I love you so much, please get better, why can’t you get better,
please, please, I love you, you little brat, you annoying little baby.
And she’d just smiled, and told him, okay.
Okay, big brother. Don’t cry, okay? Okay. I love you too. Don’t cry, remember!
Promise me you won’t cry, okay? Okay. I love you.
So he didn’t cry.
He still hasn’t cried. He promised. Remember?
Yoongi keeps his promises.
 
 
 彡
 
 
“Hey,” says Hoseok softly, and the world turns upright again. “hey, look at
me.”
A breath, a sigh. The world crawls ahead.
“Hey,” says Hoseok quietly, and Yoongi exhales his aches, curls into the curve
of Hoseok’s shoulder and catches the past in his fist and lets it go, “hey, I’m
here.”
A breath, a sigh. The world begins to walk on.
“Hey,” says Hoseok tenderly, and he presses his lips to the top of Yoongi’s
head, and Yoongi won’t cry, Yoongi won’t break his promise, Yoongi will not
show weakness, he can’t afford to, Yoongi will be strong and Yoongi won’t
break, he won’t break, he won’t break, and he’s held all of this in for two
entire years, and why is it all just only spilling out now, why now, why here,
and why not two years ago, why not two years ago, why, why, why, “hey, Yoongi.”
A breath, a sigh. The world picks up its shattered plates, sets them down.
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, and he thinks, maybe he won’t break, if Hoseok keeps
holding onto him like he’s the life-line that Yoongi should be clinging onto
instead. “Yeah, Hoseok.”
And, “Hey,” says Hoseok, and he holds Yoongi’s hand in his, “hey. Will you be
alright?”
Yoongi pauses, takes a breath, a sigh. Maybe he will be. Maybe.
“Maybe,” he says, and that’s a step.
 
 
 彡
 
 
The first signs of snow come with the realisation that Yoongi has to unpack all
of the bags in his chest again, the realisation that he’s never really moved
past it, only pushed it away into a cobwebbed-over corner of his closet and
left it to expand, until his lungs couldn’t take it, until it threatened to
burst into millions of tiny pieces, like the first burst of snowflakes early in
the morning, falling from the heavens, powdery-white, cold, nipping.
Yoongi spends his days huddled by the heater no matter whose house he’s in, a
book propped up on his knee, as Hoseok drapes himself over Yoongi like a human
scarf, reading over his shoulder.
That one day had been enough to unravel everything, of sorts. Yoongi hadn’t
realised that talking about it would be so. Relieving. Like a massive burden’s
been lifted from his shoulders.
He’s talked to Namjoon about it, only briefly. Namjoon had been there when
everything had happened, anyway. But in those two years, they’ve more or less
just shied away from the topic every time it’s come up. But now. Now, it’s like
the floodgates have opened, and everything that’s just been blocked up in
Yoongi has just poured forth.
Even his parents have started to notice, now. His mother has caught him humming
to himself a few times now, as he washes the dishes. His father has heard him
call out a cheery greeting as Yoongi leaves for school. They watch him at
dinner with a strange look on their faces, and a continually brightening one on
Yoongi’s, albeit slow, albeit unsteady.
It’s almost strange, to think of it. They’re still stuck in the past. But
Yoongi has started to rip away the glue beneath the soles of his sneakers,
Yoongi has started to stagger one foot forward. And it’s so strange, and so
precarious, but so assuaging.
Yoongi will never feel completely without the ache that plagues him, but the
lightness of heart isn’t an illusion. There is less of what was there, now.
Hoseok bumps his nose against Yoongi’s cheek, says, “What are you thinking
about?”
And Yoongi replies, “You.”
 
 
 彡
 
 
“I’m going to fail every single paper,” says Yoongi.
“You’re not gonna fail,” says Namjoon, again, for the fourth time in twenty
minutes. They’re walking to Namjoon’s place, attempting to beat the cold before
the snow picks up again, and Yoongi has just come out of a three-hour
Literature paper that has just handed his ass to him soundly. “You’ve been
studying for ages, and a hell of a lot more than before. I’m pretty sure you’re
gonna at least get a C.”
“A C,” says Yoongi, flicking a snowflake off his nose, “yeah, sure.”
“Come on, man.” Namjoon elbows him in the side. Yoongi narrows his eyes. “You
could ask Hoseok. I’m sure he’d say the same thing. You’ve been trying so
fucking hard recently, I’d be surprised if you failed anything at all.”
And it’s a surprise to himself. He’s been trying. He really has. Some part of
him swears that he’s not gonna get anywhere, forget about even giving it a go,
forget about it, what motivates you anymore, anyway? What would you even get
from it?
But then, there is the big, brilliant grin that comes when Hoseok glances over
at Yoongi’s Economics homework and says that he’s got everything right. But
then, there is the satisfaction that comes with hours of their backs propped up
against each other’s, throwing questions lazily, back and forth, in between
actual snippets of conversation. But then, there is the strange appeal of
seeing Hoseok beam at him when he says that he’s gotten a manageable grade on a
quiz.
Then, there is the though that maybe, just maybe, Yoongi would like to have
someone be proud of him for something, at least.
“You’re not gonna fail,” says Hoseok, and he pokes at Yoongi with a ruler.
“You’re gonna do so fucking well in the exams and you’re gonna make your
parents so fucking proud of you.”
“I’d rather have you be proud of me,” says Yoongi, his words tripping out on
accident, but they’re never really on accident.
Hoseok shakes his head, smiling. “I’m always proud of you, idiot.”
“What for?”
“For everything.” The sides of their hands brush. “For just being you.”
“You’re ridiculous,” says Yoongi, and he throws an eraser at Hoseok, but
somewhere inside, he’s sure as hell not going to admit how much that made him
soar. “Sap.”
“Shut up,” says Hoseok, grinning, but the tips of his ears are red, and Yoongi
wants to kiss him all the time, now. This is so weird. Yoongi’s never felt
anything like this before. Completely done in by everything Hoseok does.
Everything Hoseok is doing. And Yoongi might be just a little in over his head.
But he doesn’t care.
And if he’s going to be honest with himself, Hoseok’s the best thing that’s
happened to him in a long, long time. Realistically speaking, they’re just
kids. They’re barely grown into the summer of their lives, but they’ve already
lived a million winters over. This could end so fucking fast. Who knows where
they will be in a year’s time, anyway. They might not even be together in days,
weeks, months, years.
But the undeniable fact here is that Jung Hoseok has made something more out of
the mess that is Min Yoongi.
And Yoongi doesn’t think he’ll ever want to forget that.
And Yoongi knows exactly how he won’t forget it.
 
 
 彡
 
 
Winter is cold, but the water that trickles from the shower feels even fucking
colder.
Yoongi thumbs gently over the new ink that decorates his hip. Only a week in,
but it’s looking alright, despite the slight scabbing over, and the reddened
skin that still hurts, just a little, when he presses down too hard.
Black print across pale skin. The contrast is startling.
It’s probably one of the stupider decisions he’s made with his life, but who
really cares, anyway. It’s his body. He can get stupid tattoos if he wants to.
Well. His parents would probably say otherwise, but it’s not like they would
even realise.
“Jesus Christ,” says Seokjin predictably, when the three of them meet up that
week, and Yoongi has just casually mentioned that he has words scrawled across
his hipbone, now. “You’re taking care of it, right?”
“It’s not like it’s the first time, Seokjin,” says Yoongi, and Namjoon is still
grumbling about how Yoongi didn’t even tell him before he went to get it.
“Besides, it was sort of a last-second decision.”
“What’s it for?”
“Hmm?”
“That.” Namjoon motions vaguely. “You don’t do things without a reason.”
“Ah,” says Yoongi, “just. For everything that’s happened this year, I guess.”
Namjoon chokes on his burger. Yoongi’s smile is a lazy drawl. “Oh, god. No way.
You’re insane.”
“I’m missing something here, aren’t I,” says Seokjin. “When am I ever not
missing something. You guys suck.”
 
 
 彡
 
 
November blows over quickly, a big rush of stormy weather that freezes half the
city over and sends the rest to the comfort of their homes to soak their toes
in the heat of their dry rooms. November goes and December comes, another big
rush of stormy weather, but the rush of people that come along with it is an
oddity in itself. Why would people willingly venture out into the cold just to
unpeel their wallets from their frozen-over pockets?
A Christmas miracle in itself, figures Yoongi, when he finds himself part of
that crowd, trudging outside in his boots towards the closest block of stores.
He’s never done the whole presents thing. The last time he’d bought a present
for someone had been his little one, nearly two years ago. He’d gotten her a
woolly hat. She’d liked that. She did.
“Wow,” Namjoon had said, when Yoongi had asked him if he’d wanted to come
along, “you really, really, really like him, don’t you. Amazing. And no way
you’re making me go out in that weather.”
Yoongi probably does. Y’know. Like Hoseok enough to hike through five inches of
sleet and snow and sludge, just to go peek through frosted windows for
something nice to get him. Just something tiny. Nothing big. Nothing super out-
of-the-box. Just small.
It’s the least he can do. The least he can say.
He doesn’t really want to admit it to himself, but he figures life will just be
a lot easier if he just accepts the fact that he’s falling for Hoseok faster
than he can spin a beat on his prized Maschine he’d saved up for years to get.
Yoongi considers these thoughts as he’s thumbing over a piece of ribbon in a
giftshop, wondering if snowman wrapping-paper would be too tacky. Probably. He
hates snowmen. He’d been younger, a lot younger, back in his hometown, and some
kids had pushed him into a snowman and he’d gotten stuck in the snow for an
hour. Ugh. He hates snowmen.
“Shopping for someone?” inquires the store assistant from behind the counter,
smiling. Yoongi smiles back faintly, nodding. “Girlfriend?”
“Ah,” says Yoongi hesitantly, “uh, yeah. Girlfriend, definitely.”
The storekeeper claps her hands together. “I’m sure we can find something for
her in here!”
Half an hour later, Yoongi escapes the store, hands empty, and swearing on his
life to never step foot into another Christmas-themed store ever again. No.
Never, ever, ever again. He hates snowmen, he hates them so, so, so much. And
reindeer. And tiny Santa figurines. And the colours red and green. Never again.
Okay. Maybe he’s overexaggerating. Yoongi shudders at the just-memory of
awkwardly refusing everything the storekeeper attempted to hand him. He’s
pretty sure Hoseok would not appreciate a pink marshmallow-scented candle.
Probably. But marshmallows.
He takes a detour to 7-11 to grab a packet. Just to satisfy hunger pangs.
“Sharing is caring,” says Jeongguk, making an attempt to grab at the bag of
fluffy deliciousness, when Yoongi walks through the door and greets Jeongguk’s
parents, who are just about to go out for some kind of work appointment. “Hey!”
Yoongi pops one into his mouth, and chews. “Let’s play a game. Every time you
win, you get one, okay?”
Jeongguk narrows his eyes at him. “What kind of game?”
“It’s called the Silent Game.”
“I knew you’d say that,” whines Jeongguk, and Yoongi just laughs, before
tossing him one. This little brat. “Yoongi!”
“They’re for the both of us, don’t worry,” says Yoongi, and Jeongguk cheers,
before skidding off to get his homework. He takes advantage of Yoongi every
single time he comes over. No need for a tutor, Jeongguk says, who needs one
when there’s Yoongi around? Besides, he doesn’t have to pay extra, he says.
Psh.
The cold day is spent with heads bowed over math homework, Yoongi frowning
despondently at a page of fractions, Jeongguk eating half the bag of
marshmallows, and the wind howling outside. Yoongi’s glad he got out of that
weather quick. He’d hate to have gotten stuck out in that.
“Pay attention, okay,” says Jeongguk, nudging Yoongi, and Yoongi blinks, jerked
out of his thoughts. “I’m asking you a question.”
“Hmm?”
“What do I get for this girl I like,” asks Jeongguk, teeth worrying at his
lower lip, and Yoongi nearly laughs, because he’s just spent the entire morning
worrying over the exact same thing. “What?”
“Nothing,” says Yoongi, stifling a grin. “Was just thinking about something.”
“Ah,” says Jeongguk, eyes twinkling, that evil kid, “you don’t know what to get
either, do you?”
“Who says I’m going to get anything for anyone?”
“You didn’t have to say.” Jeongguk chortles. “So, did you think of what you
might get him, yet?”
The words register in Yoongi’s brain a little too quickly. Him. “What did you
say?”
“For Hoseok,” says Jeongguk, and god, this isn’t happening, Jeongguk does not
know about them, Yoongi has never—he’s made sure to be so careful, what—how
does Jeongguk even know? Yoongi’s going to disintegrate purely from the shock.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just,” says Yoongi, “you—you know?”
“Yeah,” says Jeongguk nonchalantly, reaching for another marshmallow. “It was
kinda obvious, you know.”
“It was?” says Yoongi, increasingly panicked. Shit. If a fourteen-year-old
could see through them, who else could? Christ. He hopes to god nobody’s picked
up on anything. Please, please, please.
“You’re freaking out, aren’t you,” says Jeongguk, way too calm for this entire
situation, “don’t worry, it’s not that obvious. I was just kidding. Really.
Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” says Yoongi, but who the fuck is he kidding, he’s so
fucking terrified of this happening, and he’s been so cautious for the past
year, and he might just fall over, despite how monotonous his voice sounds at
the moment, despite how stoic his face is on the outside. “I’m just having a
difficult time processing the fact that you apparently realised that I—that
we—”
“You’re dating, yeah,” says Jeongguk, and he pops another marshmallow into his
mouth. Yoongi’s still a little too dazed to tell him to lay off the
marshmallows until he finishes the fourth set of problems on algebraic
expressions. “I think that’s nice.”
“You—you don’t think—”
“No,” says Jeongguk, staring at him, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re Yoongi. I don’t
think it makes you any different. You’re still lame. And boring as ever.”
“I am not boring,” exclaims Yoongi.
“Whatever,” says Jeongguk, “anyway, back to the topic. What do I get her? Like,
really. I keep thinking but all I keep coming up with are these really, really,
really bad ideas.”
This must be another part of the never-ending dream that Yoongi is stuck in.
No way another person has found out, and they are this alright with it. It must
be some kind of prank. Everything’s gonna turn upside down on him, isn’t it?
There’s no way, there’s no fucking way. It shouldn’t be playing out so easily.
“Hey,” says Jeongguk, “why won’t you just believe that it’s okay, for once?”
Yoongi’s just afraid. Unable to believe that things can be this good. Not after
all the things that have happened, not after all the years of disappointments.
Life can’t be this nice to him.
How could it?
 
 
 彡
 
 
Christmas flits nearer and nearer, and the lights and the flash-bang-bam of the
celebrations that come along with it are a reminder of just how stark past
Christmases have been for Yoongi. Not this year, he hopes. Not at all.
Yoongi takes it upon himself to purchase a tiny potted plant, and he sets it on
the table in the living room, and decorates it with a tiny paper star that he’d
coerced Jeongguk into making for him.
His father is the one who asks him in the morning, over breakfast, “What’s that
doing there?”
“It’s almost Christmas,” says Yoongi. “I thought it’d be nice.”
“And since when did you care about Christmas?” His father is looking at him
strangely. Yoongi wishes they weren’t having this conversation. “You could care
less about anything, the last time I remembered.”
“I think that would be you, and not me,” replies Yoongi quietly.
His father says nothing. He just lifts his newspaper back up again.
Yoongi grabs one more piece of toast, swings his bag off the floor and onto his
shoulder, and makes for the door without another word to spare.
He reaches Hoseok’s place in record time, and it’s his mother who opens the
door, who makes a surprised sound at seeing him. “You’re soaked,” she says,
“dear, come in quick, before you catch a cold.”
“Thank you,” says Yoongi gratefully, and he really is soaked to the bone,
having trekked over mindlessly, forgetting his jacket and his scarf in his
haste to just get away, away, far, far away from his house and his father and
the space that still exists between them, the space that’s hardened and
solidified after two entire years.
Footsteps come thundering down the stairs. “Yoongi, hey,” comes Hoseok’s voice,
and Yoongi glances up to see Hoseok’s eyes widen, as he approaches Yoongi.
“Woah, what happened? You look like you just ran straight out of the shower.”
“The shower would have been a lot warmer,” says Yoongi, and he smiles. “I kind
of split a little too fast.”
“You idiot,” sighs Hoseok, and he reaches out momentarily, probably to rest a
hand on Yoongi’s shoulder, but then they both remember who’s still standing
right there, and Hoseok retracts his hand almost immediately. “Come on, I think
there’s a dry towel upstairs somewhere.”
Yoongi follows him up, and gratefully takes the towel that Hoseok hands him
when they’re in his room, sequestered away from the rest of the world.
“Parents again?” inquires Hoseok, resting a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder now, and
not taking it away, now that there’s no one to see them. Yoongi appreciates the
comfort he tries to give, and the comfort he does give, and it really does
soothe over the sting that rings out in his chest.
Yoongi nods, slight, and sits down on the bed when Hoseok motions for them to.
“It’s just—” he starts, voice tense, “the same as always.”
The same as always. Never changing. Never recalibrating.
They’re stuck in this perpetual bubble of loathing and discontent and Yoongi
can’t breathe in there anymore, he needs to get out, he needs to, but they’re
still sitting there, still huddled there in that bubble and what can he do? How
can he break them out of this years-ongoing fissure that’s just about severed
their relationship completely?
Yoongi really doesn’t know. But he’s still holding out hope.
If there’s anything he’s gained over the past year, it’s the ability to hold
hope in the palm of his hands, once again, and forevermore. And that’s all to
one person again, as well. Wow. He’s just done so much, so fucking much.
Yoongi doesn’t know how to say thank you at all, doesn’t know the words to
convey his thankfulness, his honest gratitude.
So, he just leans over to rest their foreheads together, to kiss him lightly,
to say nothing, because Hoseok will understand, he always understands, and he
probably knows Yoongi better than he knows himself, at this point.
“Forget about them for a while, okay?” The warmth of Hoseok’s mouth against his
is like a remedy that he can’t get elsewhere. “Mm,” says Hoseok, voice sounding
a little sleepy, “I didn’t expect to be celebrating Christmas like this.”
“Like this?” Yoongi kisses him again, hands sliding up to clasp at his cheek,
fingers splayed along the arch of his neck, shifting slightly to lean into the
way Hoseok is leaning back up into him, his own fingers reaching for the hem of
Yoongi’s shirt, skimming along skin and taut lines and angles that Yoongi
wishes Hoseok could just put his hands on, put his mouth on. “You’re lucky,”
murmurs Yoongi into Hoseok’s slightly-parted mouth, as he nips at his lower
lip, “it’s not even Christmas yet, and you’re getting a gift ahead of time.”
“This is a gift, now?” Hoseok laughs, and noses along under Yoongi’s eye,
peppering kisses to the corner of his lips, to his cheek, to that little spot
under his ear that always makes him shiver. “You’re my gift, then, this year?”
“I hope you weren’t expecting me to come in ribbons,” says Yoongi, laughing too
when Hoseok makes a sad noise.
“I’d still like to unwrap you,” says Hoseok, and Yoongi sucks in a breath,
looks at Hoseok, and sees the want in his eyes, and fuck, fuck, fuck yes, does
he want this too. He’d let Hoseok do anything with him, he fucking would.
Christ. “Can I?”
“Yeah,” breathes Yoongi, “you better.”
Hands and hands and skin and more touching, Yoongi’s shirt comes off quicker
than Yoongi can say Hoseok’s name, and the first thing Hoseok sees is the
elegantly scrawled words that loop across Yoongi’s hip, and half-disappear into
the waistband of his jeans, and Hoseok does a double-take. “I thought you said
you only had one on your shoulder?”
“This one is recent,” says Yoongi awkwardly, “heh. Pretty recent.”
Hoseok tucks a fingertip into the band of Yoongi’s pants, and tugs them down,
just a little, to see the rest of the sentence. “Oh,” says Hoseok, and it’s a
few moments before he chokes out another, “oh.”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, “yeah, Hoseok.”
“Holy shit,” says Hoseok, and he’s running a finger over the words, tracing
each one, and Yoongi’s breath comes just a little bit faster, because shit,
Hoseok keeps touching him like that and he’s going to be so turned on, so fast,
but then Hoseok says, “I can’t believe you actually went out and got something.
Just because—”
“It’s my way of remembering,” says Yoongi, and he swallows hard, defaulting to
his defensive state again. “I’m sure you know by now how terrible my memory is.
I’ll probably forget your name by tomorrow.”
“You ass,” says Hoseok, but there’s no venom in the words, he’s smiling, and
he’s smiling so fondly and it makes something stir in Yoongi, not that burning
heat that he associates with arousal but the ache, the ache, the gorgeous ache
that resounds in his chest somewhere, the ache that comes with affection and
sincere emotion and the smile that never fails to make Yoongi feel like he’s
worth ten thousand times of what he’d been before. “You romantic fucking sap.
Christ. I’m going to kill you.”
“Could we at least fuck before you kill me?”
Hoseok laughs, and it’s so fucking sunny, it reminds him of the very first
morning they’d met, that sunny laugh on a not-so sunny Monday morning, and
Hoseok’s laugh has never changed, and will never change, and Yoongi kisses him.
“We’re gonna have to be quiet, though,” breathes Hoseok, and Yoongi can barely
hold back the nervous excitement that thrums through his veins, when Hoseok
kisses back, and shifts down to move his mouth across the expanse of skin that
is Yoongi’s neck, clavicles, chest, all the way down until Yoongi is biting the
inside of his cheek so hard, just to avoid from letting a moan slip.
Hoseok’s mouth sucks kisses into his skin, and when he reaches Hoseok’s hip,
that’s when Yoongi has to inhale sharply, because Hoseok is tracing the words
along with his tongue, and Christ, fucking hell, Yoongi’s going to die,
Yoongi’s going to collapse with each swipe and swirl of Hoseok’s tongue over
the letters, and Hoseok is fucking whispering them as he goes, and there he
goes, and there he goes, “Do,” and Yoongi’s fingers curl into the bedsheets,
“you,” and Hoseok is fucking smiling against his hip, “know,” and Yoongi’s
going to kill him first, just wait and see, “what,” and Hoseok pauses to curl
his tongue over the cursive of the word, “your,” and Yoongi wonders who he’d
saved in a past life to be this lucky, “smile,” and Hoseok is nearly at the
end, and why the fuck is this so intense, “did,” and Yoongi just wants, wants,
wants so badly, “to,” and Hoseok glances up at him through his eyelashes, that
cheeky fucking look in his eyes, “me?”
“Get the fuck back up here,” says Yoongi, voice low, and Hoseok complies, and
Yoongi is kissing him even harder than just now, mouths crushing together, and
fuck, if Hoseok ever does that again, Yoongi doesn’t know what he’ll do.
“What—”
“I’d thought about it, before,” exhales Hoseok, against his lips, “running my
tongue along your tattoo, maybe. God, it’s fucking hot. I’m so glad you got one
right there.”
“Shit,” says Yoongi, the words shooting straight down his spine, adding to the
burn that’s just swelling in his gut, “Hoseok.”
“It’s not just the tattoo, Christ,” says Hoseok, and he’s grinning
breathlessly, “do you know how hot you are? I’ve been wanting to put my mouth
on your piercings for ages, did you know?” He dips his head, and kisses just
under Yoongi’s lobe, right below where he’s got three piercings in his ear, and
Yoongi’s heart is going to jump out of a window. “I wish you didn’t just have
them in your ears, though.”
“Oh my god,” says Yoongi, “fucking hell,” and he never knew Hoseok had a mouth
like that—and he totally meant that both ways. Fuck. “What else?”
“You mean, what else do I have to say?” Hoseok’s teeth tug at one of his
piercings lightly, and Yoongi needs to touch himself so fucking badly right
now, god, he’s so turned on. “Should I talk about how much I’ve thought about
having your fingers in me?”
Fuck. Yoongi has thought about it before, has thought about actually having sex
with Hoseok. Yoongi has thought about the look on Hoseok’s face as he slowly
puts his fingers in him, one, two, three, and Yoongi has thought about it, the
sounds he’d make, the things he’d say. God, has Yoongi thought about it. And so
has Hoseok, apparently.
“No need,” says Yoongi, and he’s flipping Hoseok over, to straddle him by the
hips, to pin him down and lean in to murmur, “you don’t have to think about it
anymore.”
Hoseok exhales. “Yoongi.”
Hands and hands and skin and more touching. Clothes are shed slow, patient,
quiet, both of them making sure to not let out too loud a sound, in case
they’re heard. But Yoongi can’t help the hiss that escapes when his foot his
the corner of the bed on fumbling over to reach behind the drawer, and the
laugh that rumbles from Hoseok when he gets stuck tugging his shirt off,
momentarily.
It’s not really like the movies. Not at all. It’s awkward and it makes Yoongi
want to seize up and laugh irrationally and it’s too much self-consciousness
and hands and hands and skin and more touching.
Hoseok makes these soft little noises, that start from the back of his throat,
that catch on the back of his teeth, and god, Yoongi wishes he could hear them
in full, wishes he could hear the way Hoseok is responding to Yoongi’s hands on
him, his slicked-up fingers slowly working their way into Hoseok. He takes his
time, learning from the sharp inhales, and the softer murmurs that slip from
Hoseok’s lips, and the fingers that curl and unfurl with each passing second.
Hands and hands and so much skin, so much touching, so much burning pleasure
that seeps through his palms and straight through every nerve in his body, and
Yoongi has never felt this on such a grand scale before, compared to hushed
past nights spent together, compared to the solitary confines of his own room.
“Yoongi,” breathes Hoseok, into the curve of Yoongi’s shoulder, when Yoongi
finally presses into him, unsteady hands and unsteady hips but the tight,
ebbing gratification is more than enough to guide them along, this unskilled
act that’s made up for it in the enthusiasm that’s put forth, the want and the
need and the desire and just everything that’s led up to this.
And here it comes, and here it goes, and Yoongi rocks back into Hoseok, curling
in on himself when he comes, and it’s a miracle that they manage to smother the
sounds that nearly drag themselves out of their throats, but Yoongi catches his
breath, he catches his breath and catches Hoseok’s breath and kisses him
through it, this amazing fucking feeling that can’t even be reciprocated
through any other means.
“There’s no way you’re not letting me top next time,” mumbles Hoseok, palm
splayed across Yoongi’s chest as he takes in the air, and Yoongi laughs
quietly, knocking their faces together, taking the time to just take him in,
despite how sticky and gross and tired they feel, right now. “Get off, ew.”
“Why, isn’t that a thing? Post-coital snuggling?”
“Not in this relationship.”
“And here I’d have thought you’d be into that kind of thing.”
“Why, are you?”
Yoongi makes a face, and tugs him up. “Come on,” he says, and the words are so
light. Yoongi feels so light. And maybe it’s just the aftereffects talking, but
Yoongi feels so fucking happy, for once in a long time. Just being here.
And the snow outside is falling fast, but the sun is alight just where Yoongi
is, and there’s nothing else he needs.
Nothing else at all.
 
 
 彡
 
 
“So,” says Namjoon, tapping his fingers across the surface of the table. “Are
you ever going to tell them?”
Yoongi shakes his head. “No. Probably not.”
He can’t. How could he? They would never get it.
But, it doesn’t matter anymore. Yoongi’s alright, now. He doesn’t need the
validation he so desperately craved once-upon-a-time. He’s content, now. And a
mind content is better than all the riches of the world. And Yoongi is fine
with where he is, now, who he is, now.
“It’s been a good year, mm?” says Namjoon, and he raises his glass. Yoongi
echoes the motion, the hint of a smile showing through. “It’s been one hell of
a good year.”
It has.
 
 
 彡
 
 
“Merry Christmas,” says Yoongi, hands shoved deep into his pockets. The scarf
around his neck is the one that Seokjin had just gotten him, as a gift. “Hey.”
Hoseok trudges up to him, smiling behind his yanked-up collar, hands in his
pockets too. “Merry Christmas to you, too. Come on, don’t stand out there for
so long.”
Yoongi is tugged into the warm interior of the house, and he sighs. The house
smells like an actual Christmas. The smell of food wafting over from the back,
the soft tinkle of a carol from the radio on the sill, the tender care that
Hoseok takes with unraveling his scarf as Yoongi sheds his shoes by the door.
“I’m glad you’re here,” says Hoseok, beaming, “my mum was really happy to hear
that we’d be three people this year, instead of just two.”
“Where else would I be?” says Yoongi, and he smiles back, following after
Hoseok.
Hoseok’s mother is in the kitchen, and she greets them with a welcoming smile,
so motherly.
“Thanks for having me over,” says Yoongi, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“The more the merrier,” says Hoseok’s mother, and she shoos them back out,
citing unfinished dishes as current competitors for her attention. Yoongi
nearly offers to help, but Hoseok drags him out, whispering how his mother
likes cooking alone. It relaxes her.
Yoongi gets that.
“So,” starts Yoongi, “I hope you weren’t expecting any gifts.”
“After last week?” Hoseok grins, eyebrows wiggling. Yoongi wants to kick him.
“Course not.”
“Too bad,” says Yoongi, taking his hand out of his jacket pocket, to wave a
little flat square in the air. “I got you something anyway.”
“Oh,” says Hoseok, the word rising in tone, “oh, you really—you didn’t have
to.”
“I wanted to.” Yoongi bites his lip, holds it out. “Merry Christmas.”
Their fingers brush when Hoseok takes it from his hand, and they stay there for
a little longer than they’re supposed to. It still makes Yoongi’s pulse echo in
the base of his neck, a heavy thump that resounds in his chest as well.
Paper rustles, crackles, falls to the table. Hoseok holds up the little disc in
his hand, eyes wide. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” says Yoongi, shrugging nonchalantly, but the line of his shoulders is
tense. He hopes—he really hopes he likes it. “It’s nothing special, really, I
just. Wanted to.”
“Are you kidding?” Hoseok’s smile is a spotlight, and Yoongi’s the only one on
stage. “You made a mixtape. Christ. And you’re saying it’s nothing?”
“Really,” says Yoongi, rubbing at the back of his neck, “I mean, I just. I hope
you like it.”
“I’ll probably listen to it until my laptop breaks down.” Hoseok throws his
arms around him, and murmurs into his shoulder, “Thank you, Yoongi. Sorry, for
not getting you anything, though.”
“You didn’t have to.” Yoongi presses his face against Hoseok’s neck, breathes
him in, breathes himself out. “All this is enough.”
It’s more than enough for him.
And this Christmas is the best one Yoongi has spent in a long, long, long time.
 
 
 彡
 
 
The winter has come and gone, and Yoongi is still here.
Yoongi has not disappeared with the December winds, nor has he let January
sweep him away without a glance, neither has February done him over with a
swift kick to the side. The anchor that he’s hooked his feet into these past
few months has kept him from floating astray, has kept him from drifting off to
god knows where, till god knows when. It’s not like all the other winters, now.
The winter has come and gone, and the spring tides come in now.
They get their results on a blustery morning. Disgruntled, nervous, anxious,
excited, terrified students, the whole lot of them, receiving pieces of paper
with a bunch of letters on them, determining their futures, their fates.
Yoongi receives his with a thundering pulse, and it nearly gets crumpled in his
wavering hand, but he pulls himself away to a corner, smooths it open, and
stares at the slip, eyes unbelieving.
“Yoongi,” calls Hoseok, and Yoongi nearly throws himself at Hoseok, and Hoseok
laughs in surprise, eyes wide, and Yoongi’s fucking done it, he didn’t fail a
single thing and he’s not going to disappoint anyone and he did good, he did
good for once in his life, and Hoseok is hugging him so tightly he thinks he
might burst into pieces, “I’m so proud,” he whispers into Yoongi’s ear, “see, I
told you, I told you, you’d do well.”
“Yeah,” says Yoongi, and he’s grinning, he’s actually fucking grinning from ear
to ear, and Hoseok is grinning back and he doesn’t care that there are people
milling about around them, watching, observing, chattering away. “How about
you?”
“How do you think I did?” teases Hoseok, and he brandishes his certificate in
Yoongi’s face. “Hit my target.”
“Congrats,” says Yoongi, sincerely, and now they’re just standing there,
beaming at each other, and Yoongi swears there are a few students wondering
what the hell is going on, why is that kid who never smiles grinning like a
lunatic in the middle of the hall, why is that one guy who always smiles
smiling at him, the lunatic in the middle of the hall, and Yoongi just lets out
a laugh, tugging Hoseok away. “Come on, let’s blow this joint.”
They slip away before anything else can happen, fleeing the premises and
tripping past the buildings and sidewalks and parks and just clutching at their
bags, the wind in their faces. They have no idea where they’re going, probably
just walk until they find a hole-in-the-wall that they can crowd into, out of
the cold. Yoongi will probably pay for the food and make Hoseok get the drinks.
They will probably eat, elbows bumping, knees huddled together, their words
filling up the gap between them, easy conversation, familiar actions.
It probably won’t seem like much. But to him, to them, it’s already so, so, so
much. Just being there. Just being together. Being able to spend that time
together, right there, and then. Hoseok will jab his chopsticks at Yoongi and
Yoongi will threaten to accidentally spill all the chillies into his soup, and
they will call up Namjoon much later and ask if he wants to come over, and they
will catch up with Seokjin while he’s out of class too, and Yoongi will go over
to ruffle Jeongguk’s hair and tell him that he’s officially done with school,
and the cycle will repeat itself, again and again and again.
But now, the new juncture has come. The new point in life where they both have
to figure out different things for themselves now. Yoongi knows that this has
been a lucky year for him, for them, and sooner or later their luck’s gonna run
out. Good things never last.
But, as Yoongi glances over at Hoseok, he thinks, this is one of those good
things he’ll remember for the rest of his life.
Their fingers thread together, light, easy, loosely linked. Ushering in the new
season. This new season of change, all over again.
January and February come cold and burring, but Yoongi only knows the de novo
warmth of March.
And Yoongi only knows the warmth that comes with the hand in his.
 
 
 
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