Archive of Our Own

jeon jungkook is nineteen years old and he’s been in love with park jimin since he was fifteen but didn’t know that that was what this feeling was called.

he was in love with jimin when he was sixteen years old, and thought in all his wisdom and hard earned experience that the best way to deal with that was to push jimin away both physically and also in literally any other way possible.

he was in love with jimin and really and truly going through the growing pains and aching realizations of first love when he was seventeen.

he was in love with jimin when he was eighteen years old, and like - super fucking horny about it.

but he’s nineteen now, and he’s still in love with jimin, and he figures that having given the symptoms of that a solid four years to disappear or wane, he can be pretty sure that this is something that’s not going way.

every once in a while he’ll wake up and wonder, for a moment, if this feeling was just a dream.

he’d convinced himself that he was imagining it in the very early days; that he was blowing something totally routine out of proportion once he was alone with his own thoughts and had time to reflect, his focus on it all that made it what it seemed like, to him.

but every morning when he wakes up - every time he sees jimin for the first time today, for the first time in a while, for the first time since he hugged him goodbye an hour ago - jungkook is left with no doubt in his mind that nothing about this is imagined, because he’s always had an incredibly ambitious and over-active brain, but not even an imagination like his could conjure what warms him when he sees jimin, when he’s next to him.

this feeling isn’t going away and that’s just fine by jungkook, who only finds himself surprised that he’s lucky enough to feel something like this at all, let alone for so long now that he can be somewhat, to some degree, certain of it.

or of his part in it, at least.

but certain as he may be, finally acknowledging this is going to affect more people besides him, more people besides just him and jimin, too.

and so, jungkook decides that before he can decide to do something about it, he’s got to complete the step that always comes before that, first.

it takes like eight phone calls, several screens worth of wheedling kkt messages and a successful attempt to break into namjoon’s studio, but all in all jungkook reigns victorious, because he never doesn’t, honestly. he’s not being cocky, that’s just fact. when he gives something his all, it always turns out in a way that everyone around him deems worthy of praise. jungkook himself might always think he could do more, but he learned a long time ago that he’s not a dependable measure of his own goals and accomplishments. there’s no sense of ‘good enough’ to be found within him, and so jungkook has become practiced at outsourcing the task of deciding his own success to those he knows he can trust to do so, instead. his hyungs have never once let him down; not with this and not with anything else, either.

and so although jungkook knows that given the chance, he’d love jimin with everything he’s got, what jungkook doesn’t know is first and foremost: is he allowed to take that chance? once he knows the answer to that, he’ll deal with whatever comes after. he can’t do anything about how jimin does or most likely doesn’t feel, but the truth of how jungkook feels is an ever pressing weight and it’s time now, he knows, to address that.

“there’s no way i’d have brought this up unless i was absolutely certain,” jungkook says, pushing his hands under his own thighs. he’d hustled namjoon to join seokjin and yoongi on the couch and then taken namjoon’s desk chair for himself. he spins on it a little, now, as nervous as he can ever remember being. “i’m not playing around with this. i’m very serious about it, and i know i’m young, still, i know -”

“jungkook,” yoongi interrupts him, and jungkook is thankful for it, honestly, because the end of that sentence was nowhere in sight. when jungkook gets nervous he either says absolutely nothing or way, way too much. “jungkook-ah. you don’t have to explain yourself to us. we know you wouldn’t play about something like this and we also know how mature you’ve … kind of always been, actually.”

“yeah,” seokjin nods, not even looking at jungkook as he idly pushes his fingers through yoongi’s hair, his elbow propped up on yoongi’s shoulder like he’s his living armrest. “like you were a newborn baby when the stork dropped you at the door of our first dorm, but you grew up really fast. even when you were still a tiny baby on the outside you were basically a grandma on the inside. you do laundry for fun, ‘guk. when other maknaes are sneaking around trying to hook up, you sneak into our rooms to fold our sheets into hospital corners.”

jungkook is about to start arguing then, because it’s not like he does that for fun - he just genuinely can’t bear to walk by taehyung’s room and see his sheets twisted half off the mattress, not when he knows from experience that they’re already covered in crumbs and the debris of eating while he's playing games in the dark and god knows what else. he can’t. he can’t - but seokjin keeps right on going.

“you can tell your hyungs, we won’t let vmin bully you about it - you’re not playing games at all when you’re online, are you? what is it, ‘guk? knitting patterns? recipes that you try out in secret when you’re home alone? you don’t have to hide it from us anymore, you can tell us the truth, we -”

“oh my god, this is not the intervention i invited you all here to perform today!” jungkook says, exasperated. “can you stay on track for like five seconds, please? like i said when you got here, i’m in love with jimin hyung. i have been. since the very beginning. and i want to tell him, now. even though he doesn’t love me back. that’s all we’re here to discuss. so can i please get a little bit of focus?”

these are not the hyungs that jungkook is used to having to corral.

well, that’s not exactly true for seokjin, but generally he can be counted on to be serious when the moment calls for it, and if this doesn’t scream ‘take me seriously’ then jungkook doesn’t know what does. he’s wearing his nicest button down shirt and the laces of his timbs are actually tied, for once. this is as serious as it gets. because jungkook is - as he may have mentioned - deathly, absolutely serious about this.

“i think the fact that you organized your own intervention in itself suggests that you don’t need one,” yoongi interjects, mostly under his breath.

“why are we discussing this, though?” namjoon wants to know, which is more in line with today’s topic, but still not totally satisfactory to jungkook because it’s not the clear cut ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer he came here to ask for. “like, why the three of us specifically? shouldn’t you be talking to jimin about this?”

“well first of all hyung, you’re only here because you’re the leader. you’re my hyung, but you’re not like - a big hyung. you’re a little hyung. you’re a maknae, but you’re also the leader, so you’re here in that respect alone. no offense,” jungkook loves namjoon and he seriously looks up to him but he’s not someone that would otherwise top jungkook’s list of people to seek out for emotional or relationship advice. he’s kind of a disaster and jungkook loves him like that. he also respects their professional roles, which is why namjoon had still been the first person he called to come here. “yoongi hyung’s here because he’s the best at feelings stuff. seokjin hyung is here because he’s the best at keeping me in check. you’re here to tell me if i can do this without potentially ruining all of our careers.”

“so we’re your emotional support hyungs,” yoongi gestures between himself and seokjin, “and namjoon is what? the dojang stamp?”

“yes,” jungkook says, insanely relieved that someone is finally getting it. “yes exactly. thank you, hyung.”

“‘thank you’? for what? for understanding why we’re gathered here today? i feel like that’s kind of … the bare minimum. but you’re welcome, i guess. you’ve always been a very polite kid. we’re proud of you, jungkook.”

yoongi has his head all the way tilted to one side now, basically resting on namjoon’s shoulder, so seokjin can work his fingers through the tangles that inevitably form at yoongi’s temples when he’s working and can’t stop fussing at his hair as he thinks, as he muses. jungkook kind of wants to tell them to just straight up start grooming each other and be done with it, already. they’re fucking gross. and all jungkook wants is to be able to touch and maybe lick jimin without people being at all surprised by that or feeling the need to intervene.

“so am i doing this? do i have permission?” jungkook has the patience of a super patient person when he has to, like if he’s waiting for something that’s outside of his control. but when it comes to stuff that’s down to him, not so much. not at all, actually.

“i mean this in the kindest way possible, as unlikely as that sounds,” seokjin says, and he makes a point of looking away from yoongi to look at jungkook when he says it, so jungkook supposes he really does mean whatever he’s about to say and braces himself accordingly, “but aren’t you like … already doing it? will anything any of us says change how you feel?”

“no, of course not,” jungkook says, folding his arms over his chest because it feels juvenile to stay sitting on his hands, but he doesn’t trust himself not to fidget yet.

“but if you tell me that this is a bad idea for all of us, or for jimin specifically, then i won’t tell him how i feel. or … well …” jungkook thinks about this and pretty immediately sees the problem. “i’ll have to tell him how i feel, because it kind of feels like it’s slowly killing me not to. but it’s not like he feels the same way, so you don’t have to worry that me telling him is going to change anything because it won’t really. not for him. and i’ll figure it out. i think it’ll be easier to move on once i get it out.” that’s what he’s banking on. that’s all he’s got to work with, actually. because the way he feels about jimin just keeps growing, keeps layering itself in new ways through him because it’s always covered every inch of him, but now it’s stacked up and set deep a hundred times over. “but if you think there’s a reason why i shouldn’t, then of course i won’t. i’ll figure something else out.”

the fact that that is the less painful scenario here is a real testament to how much it sucks to be in love with someone you see every single day but can’t be honest with about your feelings, jungkook thinks. he used to think that pain was something you could overcome with nothing but your attitude to it, before this. before jimin and the unbearable agony of having to keep him at arm’s length when in fact, in actuality, he was always either in jungkook’s arms or pulling jungkook into his.

“you really think we’d do that to you? to him or to you?” the fact that it’s namjoon who sounds so surprised by this gives jungkook something terribly, wonderfully hope shaped. “almost anything that you come to us and tell us you’re serious about, we’re going to support you in all the way. but this? this specifically? we’d never stand in the way of you being honest about how you feel. and i wouldn’t stand for anyone ever making you feel anything less than completely supported and celebrated in that.”

this is really not the time, jungkook thinks, for namjoon to do that awful thing he does where he like rises to his full height - metaphorically speaking, because realistically he’s still slumped half over the arm of the couch and letting yoongi basically lie on him - and says some big huge things with his shoulders back and his chest out. it makes jungkook feel like he’s the younger kid that runs around kicking sand in the eyes of bullies who try to stomp on his big soft hyung’s sandcastles, only to have one of the bullies one day push him over and now his big soft hyung is really just a big soft but mildly terrifying hyung who has someone in a chokehold.

as usual, it makes jungkook misty eyed.

“thank you, hyung. that means a lot to me.”

jungkook still doesn’t think namjoon is very good at expressing his emotions or understanding people who feel in ways that are different to how he does, but he’s all of a sudden lowkey jealous of whoever namjoon ends up falling in love with. just because he’s not great at the communication part of it doesn’t mean he’s at all lacking in feeling. he’s kind of overflowing with love, this hyung. maybe that’s the problem - maybe there’s too much of too many emotions whirring around in him for it to be manageable to pick them apart and take on board other people’s versions of them and work out the right translations between the two. jungkook really hadn’t come here today looking to think or talk about namjoon’s feelings, but he also never shies away from the opportunity to learn more about any of his hyungs, so he’s as grateful for this possible new insight as he is surprised by the discovery of it.

but also, he’s kind of on a deadline here. or something like that, anyway. everything feels very seriously pressing, is the point, and jungkook won’t ever be the one to delay the inevitable, whether that’s positive or negative. he can cope with loss, but stagnation can suck his dick.

“you can’t let me throw myself into this just because you’re very fond of me and also for some reason trust me a lot, though,” jungkook cautions his hyungs, which isn’t as alien an experience to him anymore as it once had been. “if i was someone else, would you be giving me the same answer?”

“we’re not giving you an answer at all, ‘guk,” yoongi says, looking half asleep on namjoon’s shoulder now, only barely slitting his eyes open to look at jungkook. “it’s not up to any of us to tell you ‘yes’ or ‘no’, not even namjoon. but we’re advising you that you should do this, if it feels right to you. right?” this last part is directed towards seokjin and namjoon, who both nod with enough certainty that jungkook again catches sight of that horrible hope shaped thing that’s always easier to see when his hyungs are around.

“absolutely. we trust you with your own feelings, jungkook. and we trust you with jimin’s, too. totally. so while we can’t exactly say we’d say the same thing to someone who wasn’t you, that’s only because we couldn’t have this kind of faith in anyone else to look after your heart, and jimin’s too.” seokjin is sometimes the perfectly terrible combination of namjoon’s straightforward, matter of fact delivery and yoongi’s heartfelt sentiments and it kind of kills jungkook most of the time. right now, especially. because they’re not giving him permission to tell jimin that he’s in love with him, but they’re telling jungkook that they trust him to be responsible with what he feels. to make his love something that’s good for both jungkook and jimin, if that was what jimin wanted. and it isn’t, and jungkook almost knows that for sure, but it still means a lot to him that they value his feelings enough to support him trying.

“i love him so much,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper, now that he no longer has a jury to convince or a dragon to slay. he feels small, somehow, dwarfed maybe by the possibility that blooms from having his hyung’s support. he’s going to do this, and he hadn’t thought this far yet, not really, because he hadn’t wanted to get ahead of himself like he always, always does. not on this. not with jimin. “he’s - he’s so important to me and i want to do this right. i have to get this right.”

“then be honest with him, jungkook-ah. tell him that you love him. tell him how you love him,” is namjoon’s parting advice, and jungkook carefully clips it and loops it so he can replay it again when he needs to remember what they’ve told him. when he needs to remember what they’ve taught him.

armed with their trust and spurred on by flood of his own feelings, jungkook wades out into the unknown.

jungkook goes to tell jimin his truth.

it had started with the palm of jungkook’s right hand.

jimin was newer to this than jungkook was, even though he was older, and jungkook was already comfortable around the rest of the hyungs, taehyung the newest besides jimin but still familiar to jungkook by now, an ally already.

maybe it would have happened differently if jungkook had been the last of them to join the group, if he’d been the youngest and the final piece of the puzzle. maybe that would have made more sense for him, for them, in the larger scheme of everything.

but that wasn’t how it happened and by the time jimin was getting introduced to them, they sort of were a ‘them’ already. jungkook felt like part of something, felt like his place in this team might not be certain but wasn’t something he needed to worry about constantly, so the addition of another hyung wasn’t anything huge and the hyung in question was just as little as jungkook had been, back then.

but one day, months after jimin had joined, only months before they would debut, something had changed. jungkook hadn’t seen it change, didn’t even know for sure what it was that was different now, but he’d been trailing his hyungs out of the practice room just like he always did and a hand had been dropped back and held out towards him like hands very often were and jungkook had taken it like he always would.

he hadn’t really been looking, hadn’t noticed whose hand it was because he’d been too busy checking to make sure that he’d tied his laces so that the tongue of his shoes stood up and out, the ‘nike’ logo proudly displayed.

but something about the way the hand had held his had made jungkook look up, had called out to him for attention and when his eyes had followed the hand up a smooth, nicely muscled arm to jimin’s face, looking back over his shoulder to smile at jungkook, jungkook’s hand in his had started to sweat.

and jungkook had always been a generally sweaty kid, always running at something or throwing himself somewhere and that had only gotten worse now that they were spending twelve hours a day sometimes being put through their paces for choreography practice, but that had been the first time that jungkook could ever recall his palms being a part of him that got tacky and warm.

and so that; that had been the beginning.

finding jimin is - as usual - easy. far too easy.

telling jimin that he’s in love with him is … well … kind of anticlimactic, actually.

jungkook lets himself in when he gets back from the gym and he’d been thinking that he’d try to talk to jimin today since they both have the time for it, but he hadn’t planned on going to find him right now. jimin is asleep on the couch in the living room, though, lying on his stomach with one arm underneath himself and one thrown up over his head, his socked feet curled down over the edge of the cushion and just the sight of him takes jungkook’s breath away. like it usually does. like it always has.

“hey,” jungkook says softly, crouching down next to jimin and reaching out to brush his hair back from where it’s fallen down into his face as he sleeps.

“mmmh?” jimin asks without opening his eyes, and that makes jungkook smile, but then jimin actually looks at him. he slowly blinks until he’s looking right into jungkook’s eyes and then he smiles and closes his eyes again like the sight of jungkook’s face is a dream he wants to try and find his way back into. “mmhi ‘guk.’

even if today is the end of this, or rather - the last time jungkook can ever hope for the beginning of it - jungkook’s got to do this now. he can’t keep looking at jimin and letting jimin look at him, pretending that it doesn’t cave him in, doesn’t hollow him out like he has to be ready and prepared for the coming onslaught of something so much, something so good. something better than anything he’s ever known. and maybe he’ll never get to know what it feels like, but he’s decided he’d rather know that he’s always going to be empty if it means dealing with this kind of hope that pushes and pulls at him, that scares and excites him in turn, but never lets him be at rest.

“are you still sleepy? can we talk, maybe?” jungkook asks quietly, surprised when his voice doesn’t shake.

jimin rolls over onto his back and stretches both of his arms up over his head, arches his back and twists until his spine pops. his expression is still smudged and blank with sleep, but he blinks purposefully as he yawns and sits up, holding a hand out for jungkook, waking himself up for him.

“‘f course. what’s going on? you’re okay, right?” he doesn’t look concerned, still too half asleep for his eyes to have any real focus to them yet, but jungkook knows that that would change in a split second if he said he wasn’t okay; if he said or did anything that suggested to jimin that he needed help, that something was wrong.

“i’m fine, hyung,” jungkook says, because no matter what happens next, he will be.

he has to be. he doesn’t have a choice. his task now is to rip the bandaid off and then get on with whatever comes next. neither of them are going anywhere no matter what, because that’s the only kind of reality jungkook truly wouldn’t be able to survive, so however this falls out, he’ll deal. it’ll be easier, knowing at least that he doesn’t have to keep this bottled up anymore. it’ll be better, to watch it all wash away down a drain than to have to walk around and sit down and stand up and lie down like a soda can that someone has put into a paint mixer. it’s too much, it’s always all the time far too much and once jungkook gets it out, he’ll be okay. he’ll be more okay than he is now, at least.

so jungkook lets jimin lead him off to his and hoseok’s room, and he even lets it happen when jimin throws himself down onto his bed and then reaches to pull jungkook down with him. hoseok is out, left early this morning and told them not to expect him back until tonight, so they’re safe from interruption. they have the time and the space and the privacy for jungkook to get this out and then drag himself back to his own room to lick his wounds, maybe to another hyung’s bed after that to cry himself to sleep, if he needs to.

“so what is it, what did you need to talk about?” jimin pulls jungkook into his arms, tugs at him to lie back against his chest, and for the first time, jungkook thinks about putting this off. he settles back into the curve of jimin’s body and pulls jimin’s arms tighter around himself and he turns his face up into jimin’s chest, seeks out the warmth and familiar comfort of him and jimin lets him, jimin just lets him make himself as comfortable as he possibly can in the cradle of his body as he holds jungkook close to him, holds him tight. jungkook just wants another moment of this. one more minute to think that maybe this doesn’t have to end. sixty seconds more of having jimin hold him like this and having hope, still, that this could be the beginning of more.

jimin brushes jungkook’s hair back out of his eyes so he can look at him properly, so he can see him fully and he patiently waits for jungkook to speak.

when jungkook reaches out for jimin he pulls too hard, grips too tight, but he can’t help it. he squeezes the small, soft set of jimin’s knuckles in his hand and he’s terrified that when he speaks jimin is going to let go of him and then never reach for him again, not like this, not to touch him just because. even if this goes south and they both work to find their way back from that, it’ll be a long time before jimin can train himself to touch jungkook without worrying, without second guessing how it might be taken, without fear of how jungkook might interpret it.

but then jimin runs the pad of his thumb across the heel of jungkook’s hand, and jungkook realizes that there is a different kind of fear to feel for this, because jimin touches him like it’s an easy thing, and nothing about the way jimin’s skin feels on his is easy for jungkook.

“i’m not a kid anymore,” jungkook says, falling back into his old habit of starting out tough conversations on the defensive, because he’s grown some, he’s grown a whole lot lately, but being scared always makes him feel like a child again. he’s terrified and it makes him feel small, but he isn’t, even if he has to remind himself of that. he’s an adult now.

“i’ve grown up. i’m old enough to know what i want.”

“okay,” jimin says, looking confused, which is fair. it kind of sounds like jungkook is accusing him of something, when what he’s trying to do is tell him he’s in love with him.

whenever jungkook has to ask for something, when there’s something he can’t either get for himself or just forgo entirely, he tends to talk around the issue before he gets to the point. and when it’s something like this - something all wrapped in his feelings, a buried anchor that has grown roots across his seabed; tendrils creeping deep to meet the iron call of his blood - jungkook always finds himself addressing the potential problems and negatives before he ever actually asks for what he wants.

“i’ve thought about it a lot,” he says, focused now and determined to make jimin understand, even if he can’t return jungkook’s feelings.

“‘guk,” jimin sounds patient, which jungkook knows by now means that he’s feeling incredibly impatient. his hand, when he tips jungkook’s chin up to look at him more, isn’t careful. he touches jungkook like jungkook’s body is his own, like his hands know jungkook’s skin just as well. it’s completely, achingly familiar. “i believe you. but you’re gonna have to tell me what you’re actually talking about before i can agree with you.”

“i want … i want to be with you, hyung. more, i mean,” jungkook is fumbling this, he’s stumbling at the final hurdle and maybe that’s never actually happened to him before, but it feels awfully, horribly familiar to him anyway. “i want to be with you more than we are already. more than i am with anyone else. like … as much as i can. in a different way.”

jimin’s silence rings out like a gunshot.

his hand is still, where it rests on jungkook’s chest now, but he doesn’t move it away, at least. he’s not sitting up and pushing jungkook off of him, out of the room, as far from him as he can get him. it’s kind of depressing to jungkook to find that he’s pleasantly surprised by this.

“you mean like … kind of like dating?” jimin asks eventually, and his voice is tiny - small in a way that jungkook has never associated with him before. he sounds lost, but like he’s trying desperately to cover it up.

“yes,” jungkook lets the word slice him open, throws it out between them to finish this, for him. “that’s what i want, but i know that you probably don’t - don’t want that too, you've already dated people and they weren't ... it wasn't like this, so -”

“okay,” jimin says, quick and loud enough to startle jungkook just as much for the volume of it - the vehemence of it - as the meaning. “let’s do it. let’s date.”

jungkook blinks at him.

“hyung,” he says, letting that word act like a grappling hook while he tries to get his feet back under himself, “i mean … i’m talking about dating … me. like you and me dating. each other.”

jimin laughs at him and jungkook feels his mouth lift into a smile as a pure reflex to the sound. he can’t believe he’s smiling when his heart is beating in every cell of his body, his awareness of his own body somehow hyper-focused even as it feels like it’s falling away entirely. but it’s jimin, and he routinely shows jungkook that the otherwise impossible is both possible and even likely when it involves him, so jungkook can’t be too surprised.

jimin wraps both arms loosely around jungkook’s shoulders and just for now, just for a moment longer, jungkook lets himself settle back into it. when jimin’s face tilts back down into jungkook’s field of vision, he’s smiling at him upside down.

“yeah, i got it jungkook. i heard you. so let’s do it.”

when jimin doesn’t add anything else - not even the ‘just kidding’ that jungkook is whole-heartedly expecting - he can’t help himself anymore, he has to sit up and twist around, has to look at jimin properly, has to look at what’s going on on his face from up close. he holds himself up, on his knees between jimin’s legs with his hands taking his weight on either side of jimin’s waist.

“but why, hyung? why would you agree to this?”

jungkook isn’t fishing for compliments here, not even a little bit. he just doesn’t understand. he can’t see enough of jimin’s point of view to follow the line of logic, for once. for the first time he can ever remember, actually.

“well,” jimin bites at the corner of his mouth but he’s not frowning and he’s meeting jungkook’s eyes head on. “why do you want to date me?”

“because i like you. i like you like … a lot. more than i’ve ever liked anyone ever before, you already know that hyung, and dating seems …” jungkook flounders a little, because as many times as he’s thought about this before, he’s never thought this far. he never thought he’d get here. “well … i don’t know what dating would be like, but that’s the point, right? to find out. and i want to. and with you, because you’re the person i like the most.”

that’s a whole lot of the wrong ‘l’ word and it sounds wrong to jungkook’s ears, but he lets it hang like a rope ladder even though the truth of this is a staircase cut into solid rock for him, because he doesn’t want to scare jimin off. it’s a big difference to jungkook, because it’s a big deal to him, but jimin can’t notice the absence of something he’s not looking for.

“well that’s why i want to date you too,” jimin says, and then his hands are around jungkook’s wrist, he’s touching him even after jungkook confessed his feelings, so it doesn’t seem to matter so much that his fingers are tentative against jungkook’s skin, now. “you want to date and i want to date you too, so let’s do it.”

“just like that?” jungkook has to ask, because it can’t be this easy. it shouldn’t be this simple. he asked for what he wants and it seems like he’s going to get it and that’s generally jungkook’s truth, but this was supposed to break the chain. this was supposed to be the seminal fracture he’d fight to find a way to heal stronger from. “just … yes?”

“yes, jungkook,” jimin says, smiling now and then skimming the pads of his fingers up over the bones in jungkook’s wrists, his palms warm along jungkook’s forearms. “it’s you, so it’s yes.”

and jungkook doesn’t understand that, not really, but that’s exactly how he feels about jimin, so what can he do but take it? he wants it so much and here it is and he’d be a fool not to take it.

“okay,” jungkook says, goosebumps breaking out across his skin in the wake of jimin slipping his hands up inside the sleeves of his t-shirt. “okay, hyung. great.”

and for a while, it almost is great.

the easiest part was finding himself wanting to be near jimin always.

long before jungkook consciously recognized that desire in himself, he was well used to the pull in him, the thing inside of his chest that saw jimin and immediately responded with want.

it took years for jungkook to realize just how far that feeling extended; just how much territory his want of jimin could grow to cover. but eventually he’d realized what he probably should have been able to see from the beginning - that for jimin, jungkook was capable of the impossible. he could achieve everything, if jimin’s hand was his. he could only achieve anything if jimin’s laughter was huffed against the back of his neck, or if he still for the life of him can’t shake some image of jimin that’s staying stuck in his head - his smiling mouth, the mock-irritated wrinkle of his forehead, the soft pads of his fingers at jungkook’s elbow, his sharp little hips digging into the meat of jungkook’s thighs because he refuses to sit in his own seat if he can squish into jungkook’s with him instead.

it’s always been about jimin, for jungkook.

and on his darkest days, at the break of day on especially grey mornings that follow far too short nights, jungkook thinks that this being about jimin for him isn’t just an added bonus he gets from giving what the seven of them are trying to do his absolute all, but actually it’s the other way around. he wonders, in those moments, in the times and places when he feels like everything in him and everything about him has been touched by jimin, has been seen by him, has come to life because of him, if this life would totally be different for him, if he didn’t get to live it with jimin by his side. he knows, when he strips back the logic (apologizing to his rapmon hyung as he does) and sets aside reason (so sorry, yoongi hyung) that he’d be a different person if he’d never known jimin. a lesser version of himself, if he’d never gotten the chance to love him.

way before jungkook even thinks about telling jimin how he feels about him, he knows that if he never does - if he never gets to share the truth of this feeling with jimin or with anyone at all - he’ll still have been changed by it forever. and he’s glad for that, even when he’s terrified of it too. even when he thinks the end of it might be the end of him, jungkook doesn’t wish this had gone any other way.

no matter how badly it might turn out, jungkook couldn’t regret a single second of it.

even when it goes terribly, horribly wrong, jungkook can’t bring himself to wish he’d never felt this way at all.

dating jimin mostly seems to consist of … well … dating jimin.

like there’s a lot of going on actual dates, which jungkook had neither foreseen nor really knows how to feel about.

when they’d told the others that they’d decided to date, everyone had been pleased for them. yoongi had smiled wide and easy and hoseok had cheered and taehyung had thrown his arms around both of them, his hold on jungkook more like a headlock than a hug.

for a few days, jungkook had felt constantly braced for disaster - he’d walked into every room and watched every minute tick by on the clock like some kind of doom was surely impending - but none had come. nothing had actually really and truly changed, and jungkook knows he’s supposed to be relieved by that, but.

but.

tonight is their fourth date and it’s a spur of the moment thing, all of them getting back earlier from their schedules than they’d anticipated and with most of an evening off unexpectedly now.

“we should go out to eat,” jimin says, before he’s even finished unwinding his scarf from around his neck. “and then maybe hit up a noraebang? if you want?”

he and jungkook have been playing around all day, trying to outsing each other in between fittings and rehearsals and meals and shoots, other members joining in when their caffeine highs spiked, and jungkook isn’t surprised by jimin’s suggestion. it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. actually, it’s something they do fairly regularly, and that’s maybe why it gives jungkook pause. everything they do on their dates is something they do together all the time anyway, already. they’ve both always spent time alone with the other members, or pulled them into their excursions, but up until now they’ve also been the pair that have spent the most free time together.

“ooh, yes! what were you thinking - there’s that new glass noodle place? or we could do barbecue? tempura?”

it’s not just jimin and jungkook who pause to look at taehyung, when he says this. he looks between them, as if waiting for an answer, and then flicks his eyes to the other members too, still blank faced.

he doesn’t get it, jungkook realizes. he knows both jimin and jungkook better than the rest of the hyungs do, he spends the most time with them outside of work, and he still doesn’t see that things are different now, because they aren’t. it’s not just jungkook who can’t see how things have changed for them now that they’re dating, and realizing this is a small kind of heartbreak; the end of some kind of tiny little world for jungkook.

“whatever you want to eat, hyung,” jungkook says, tugging lightly at jimin’s hand when he opens his mouth, no doubt to patiently explain to taehyung that jungkook and jimin are supposed to do things together alone, now. jungkook can’t bear to hear him try to sell it as something he wants. “my treat, okay?”

so the three of them go out to eat together, and then the three of them do their damndest to turn a whole floor of a noraebang into their own stage, and it’s fun - it’s always fun, it’s fun just like it always is and always has been - and then they go home together, the three of them, and jimin pushes taehyung into his room with his foot pressed hard into his butt cheek, and then he follows jungkook further up the corridor to walk him to his room.

“i had fun tonight. i love spending time with you,” jimin tells jungkook, and then he pulls jungkook into a hug and it’s lovely and it’s warm and it makes jungkook tingle all over just like it always does, just like it always has.

“same. me too, hyung,” jungkook says, and then he steps back from jimin’s embrace, steps into his room, and closes his door behind him.

the thing about being in love with jimin, is that even just the thought of him makes jungkook feel like someone has switched something on in him; like there's a part of him - a place in him - that warms at the idea of jimin, alone. the knowledge that he exists. that he is close. that he is here, and that he's who he is and how he is - loved. by jungkook. seeing him, touching him, talking to him ... those are all their own kinds of feelings, their own individual packages of aches and pangs and thumps and thuds of joy that knock around in jungkook like shoes inside a washing machine.

but the thought of jimin is simply this; a familiar kind of heat. a soft, welcoming hum of something that jungkook sinks into like a warm bath.

that night, jungkook holds jimin in his arms. and then he goes back to his room. and he thinks of jimin, like he usually does. like he always does.

that night, jungkook falls asleep with his own arms wrapped tight around himself, and with an extra blanket on his bed.

that night, jungkook falls asleep shivering.

and the next morning, he wakes up cold.

after their eighth date - just the two of them this time - jimin lets jungkook hold his hand the whole way back home. when he hugs jungkook at his bedroom door, he lets jungkook put his face into the crook of his neck and after jungkook feels jimin’s chest expand under a huge breath, he brings a hand up to the back of jungkook’s neck and holds him there.

when jungkook steps back and looks up, there’s something in jimin’s eyes that he doesn’t recognize. there’s a pause, and it feels like the empty space in the corridor and the peaceful quiet of the apartment around them becomes a vacuum, and then a pressure starts to seep in around them, a vine that tickles at jungkook’s ankle and in the next second is wound tight around his neck, crushing his windpipe.

jimin takes a stumbling step forward and jungkook blinks at the beginnings of a flush high along his cheeks and then jimin puts his hand on jungkook’s chest, palm warm and solid and sure, and jungkook’s tongue goes dry and then gets instantly, helplessly wet.

“i -” jimin starts, and his voice shakes.

“jungkook, i -” he’s not looking into jungkook’s eyes and it’s because he’s looking right at jungkook’s mouth. he lifts up onto his toes and jungkook’s heartbeat kicks back in so hard and fast that it almost hurts, but he doesn’t mind, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a fuck, because -

the front door slams shut, loud enough in the total silence of the apartment to make them both jump.

“we’re hoooooooooome,” hoseok sings out just as he’s rounding the corridor and coming into view, and instead of looking surprised to see jimin and jungkook loitering in the hallway, his grin only grows.

“oooh, date night? cute! such sweet little baby boyfriends!” when he reaches them, he presses smacking kisses to both of their cheeks and jimin looks like he has no idea what to do with any of this; seems dazed, lost somehow, but jungkook kind of wants to choke slam hoseok - his friend, his hobi hyung - into the nearest wall.

he’s gone before jungkook can get his shit together enough to say or do anything that isn’t immediate violence and he’s followed shortly after by namjoon, struggling to pull the strap of his messenger back up over his head with his phone in one hand and a stack of books under his arm.

“i don’t think he means to be so … derisive?” namjoon frowns, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “or … patronizing, maybe?” he squints as he thinks about it, and then shrugs. “either way, he doesn’t mean to make light of your …” he pauses, and something withers away to nothing inside jungkook’s ribcage. “relationship. yeah. we all respect what you’re doing. we support you all the way. both of you. and … this.”

it’s not like namjoon never gets tongue tied or wanders off one path on his sprawling maze of thoughts, but he’s usually better at speaking in full sentences, at least.

when he leaves, and jungkook finally looks at jimin again, jimin is looking down at the floor, his gaze trained on his own feet.

“so,” jungkook says, a whole sentence that consists of only that.

“so, goodnight. sleep well, jungkook,” jimin says, still not looking at jungkook, and then he’s gone.

jungkook waits until he hears jimin’s bedroom door close down the hall before he puts his forehead to his own bedroom door. he closes his eyes and he finally, painfully, breathes.

after their tenth date, jungkook asks jimin if he can kiss him. sort of.

they go bowling in the middle of the night, and they pick a lane right down the end away from the drunken team dinner groups spilling all over the first few lanes and the first time jungkook gets a strike, jimin picks him up and twirls him around in the air.

by the time they get home, jungkook feels like his feet haven’t touched the ground again yet.

jimin only gives him a surprised look when he follows him into his and hobi’s room instead of going back to his own, so jungkook feels supremely justified in throwing himself down to lounge on jimin’s bed while he gets changed from his date outfit into his night clothes.

“can i ask you something, hyung?” jungkook asks and he’s still lightheaded from the way jimin has touched him tonight, feels dizzy under the warmth of the way jimin has looked at him all day and it makes him bold, makes him feel very briefly fearless.

“sure,” jimin half grunts, absentminded as he sits down next to jungkook to pull his socks on.

the line of his back through his thin t-shirt makes jungkook feel a little too close to something like feral, so he folds his hands up behind his head as a preventative security measure and trains his eyes on the light fixture in the ceiling instead.

“are we ever gonna kiss, or - ?” he lets the sentence hang just like that, the end of it not really a conclusion at all so much as jungkook throws it out like a challenge, sets it up to be a gauntlet.

when jimin turns to look at jungkook, it’s with a frozen set to his mouth.

“is that …” jimin bites at the corner of his lip, which feels like one further microscopic step in the slow violence his body has been waging on jungkook’s mind. “do you want to?”

jungkook stares at him.

and then the teachings of namjoon’s ‘celebration of sexuality’ talks kick in, heralded by yoongi’s sensitivity training.

“physical and sexual attraction is an element of this for me, if that’s what you’re asking, hyung.”

jimin’s nod to this is oddly solemn. almost professional in its curtness.

“okay, right. that’s an essential element of dating, whether that’s because of its presence or absence or the flow between both. it’s good that you’re aware of that. good job, ‘guk.”

even though jungkook doesn’t understand quite why he feels like he’s at a job interview all of a sudden - which is not to even mention that he’s never actually had a job interview, because he found his career by sacrificing both his soul and his dignity instead - he can’t help but feel a small flush of pride, anyway. he really likes knowing that jimin thinks he’s done something well. that’s kind of a primary motivation for jungkook. he wriggles a little where he lies and is exponentially pleased when jimin decides to reward him by putting his hand on his knee. his pinky finger is just millimeters from a rip in jungkook’s jeans and jungkook gets lightheaded again when he looks at it.

“so are we gonna?” is the best way jungkook can think of to say ‘please. please. fucking please, hyung.’

jimin looks down at his hand on jungkook’s leg and seems to pause, his tongue pushed down between his bottom lip and his front teeth, making his already ridiculously attractive mouth a visual kind of siren call to jungkook. his hands slide out from underneath his head before he thinks about moving, and by the time his brain catches up with his body, he has one hand on jimin’s shoulder and the other has hooked itself down around the inside of jimin’s thigh. jimin sucks in a breath and jungkook wants to know why he does, wants to ask if this feels good to him, if he wants to be touched by jungkook just as much as jungkook wants to touch him, but it feels like jungkook has already said far too much and so ultimately he decides it’s a better use of his time to silently stare at jimin’s mouth instead. his lips are shining after jimin licked at them, presumably, and jungkook is fervently thankful that he missed that, because he’s pretty sure that if he caught a glimpse of jimin’s tongue right now, he might die.

“is this okay? can i touch you like this, hyung?” jungkook asks, taking a risk and flexing his hand where it clutches at jimin’s thigh. he feels jimin freeze up underneath it, his shoulders drawing up towards his ears.

“you can touch me however you want to,” he says, and jungkook doesn’t understand why he sounds so sad about that. why his whole body is screaming ‘discomfort’ but he still tells jungkook what he must think jungkook wants to hear.

“but what about you? what do you want, hyung?”

jungkook’s hands both withdraw to fall back into his own lap, but as soon as they do, jimin is reaching for him again, taking both of jungkook’s hands in his own and bringing them to his waist.

“i want whatever i can - whatever you want. whatever works for you, ‘guk.”

“what does that mean, hyung?” jungkook is completely lost now. he holds on tight to jimin and there’s nothing remotely charged or sexual about how he touches him, now. it feels juvenile; almost innocent in its desperation. he’s all but clinging to jimin because even when he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on his head - maybe especially then - jungkook just wants him close.

“it means … ” jimin brushes his hair back out of his face and takes a deep breath that whooshes back out of him in a rush. “this is part of dating. this is one of the reasons you wanted to date and that’s why we’re doing this. so let’s do it.”

all of this is said much in the same vein as how jimin had responded to jungkook’s initial confession. like this whole thing is some kind of equation and jungkook doesn’t think it is, he doesn’t understand how it could be, but whatever math jimin is doing here gets him to a solution that lines up perfectly with what jungkook wants but can’t show his work for, so that seemed fine, to jungkook. that seemed like two people at the same point, in agreement about an end result that meant it didn’t matter if they came at it from two different angles or had to travel on two different subway lines to meet one another in the middle. but now - especially now, but ever increasingly, lately - jungkook thinks maybe the pages that came before the one they’re sharing now matter a whole lot more than he’d thought they did. jungkook realizes now that what came before this is two different stories, two entirely separate journeys and maybe one is a fairy tale, maybe one is a series of minhwa but the place they’re meeting now looks more like an ending than anything jungkook has ever encountered before and he’s starting to suspect it’s not a happy one.

“do you want to kiss me, hyung?” jungkook asks, desperate and aching and burning with a new kind of fear that eats away at him like wildfire sweeping through a parched forest. “do you want to touch me? do you like me, hyung?” he asks, and it feels like jimin is someone he doesn’t know, or like maybe he only knows jimin and has no clue who he is, what he has become as he sits here, because he thought they knew one another inside out, but this way - together, like this - they don’t fit.

jimin’s hands are palm up in the sheets on either side of him, open and empty and unmoving. he looks down at himself and says nothing, for a moment, for a smattering of seconds that fall on jungkook like bricks.

“i love you, jungkook,” jimin says, finally, and that’s an answer and jungkook knows that it’s true.

but it’s also not an answer to any of the questions that jungkook has just asked, and that fact feels like something much heavier than truth, something hulking and brutal and final.

“i love you too, hyung,” jungkook says, and that - then - is the beginning.

that moment, jungkook will think later, was the beginning of the end.

for the longest time after they first met, jungkook’s impression of jimin was ‘endless.’

he was always smiling, always trying and even when he fell down, even when he faltered, he climbed back up onto his knees and then found his feet, smiling as brightly as he’d been before, a little battered now, a little bruised, but never broken. whatever was inside of jimin, whatever he was made of, it was never in short supply as far as jungkook could see, and that was a good thing too, because jungkook found himself greedy for it, found a hunger in him for jimin unlike anything he’d ever felt before. he always wanted to be near him, always wanted to be at the center of jimin’s attention, and jimin seemed happy to provide. jimin never pushed jungkook away, never told him to go bother someone else, never asked jungkook to go anywhere that wasn’t ‘here. come here, jungkook.’

even when jimin wasn’t around, jungkook could picture him easily, could conjure up an image of him, the idea of him, the familiar comfort of him, with next to no effort. there was so very much of him to draw to mind, so much about him that jungkook felt like he saw in a different way than he saw anything else, because when he was with jimin, when he was looking at him, he knew as they happened that he’d remember these moments forever.

there was no end to jimin, for jungkook. no places around his edges where he wore thin. no part of him where jungkook found himself grasping for something tangible, grappling for something solid to hold onto. jimin never felt fragile to jungkook. nothing about him felt uncertain.

now, their every moment together feels brittle, to jungkook.

he looks at jimin and thinks sometimes that he might slip away, disappear completely from jungkook’s sight between one glance and the next.

when they talk now, they exchange words that feel old, that feel borrowed somehow. sentences set with a film of something that jungkook hates the taste of but doesn’t know how to wash away because he doesn’t know whether it’s in his mouth or jimin's, he doesn’t know what it is or where it came from.

in front of everybody else, nothing changes, not really. jimin still sits squished up next to him, still lays his arm across jungkook’s shoulders so he can play with his hair, still lets jungkook pick him up and pretends to flail and yell like he couldn’t just turn around and scoop jungkook up and carry him off to -

to where? to do what?

jungkook doesn’t know and he thinks jimin doesn’t either, because when they’re alone together, everything changes, and not in any of the ways jungkook had thought it might.

when they’re alone together, just the two of them, jungkook lets their hands brush together and jimin almost jumps a foot in the air, pulls his hand away and tucks it into his pocket or folds his arms across his chest like he’s sorry for something, like maybe he wishes he actually wanted to touch jungkook, but doesn’t.

he hugs jungkook after their dates, or stands still to let himself be hugged, and because of how close they’ve become over the years, to jungkook this feels like an awkward, uncomfortable hand shake.

the silences between them grow, stretches of dead air that used to be tiny pauses between breaths now reaching out so far and for so long that jungkook feels like he can’t breathe in them at all.

it’s like they’re two different sets of people; perfectly fine when there’s other people around, everything just the same as it always was, just like jungkook had wanted it to be, then and there. but behind closed doors, when there’s no one else watching, there is nothing at all to see. this is where they’re supposed to overflow, this is where they’d let go and overlap and be two people in one thing, two people together in some way.

jungkook has never felt as far from jimin as he does when it’s just the two of them.

he is alone with jimin and jimin is the same solid, endless, bountiful person he was before, but somehow the moments they spend like this are shattered, set like shards of glass in jungkook’s hands.

and the more he fights to feel something, the tighter he tries to hold on, the more it hurts. the deeper it goes. the more damage it does.

jungkook had known that no matter what happened when he told jimin how he felt, they would change, the two of them. the way jungkook saw this going, a great crack would splinter between them and it would take jungkook a while to bridge that distance again, but he could return to jimin in honesty, his whole self, even if jimin didn’t want him and never would.

but then something that was supposed to be like the opposite had happened instead and jungkook had never imagined that this - the combination of them, that final step to bring them together - would leave them as they are. toe to toe and skin to skin but cutting away at each other because neither of them is willing to keep the other at so much as arm’s length while they claw their way through this, while they drag themselves through the motions of something that’s supposed to be so good.

it’s not good, what this is. it’s awful for the suffocating nothingness that it is instead, the hollowed out bark of a rotten tree, a single bite of fruit beset from every side by unyielding pip.

jimin is right next to jungkook, right before his eyes almost all the time, just like he has always been, but jungkook looks at him now and is afraid of what he’ll see, sometimes.

and still, he can’t speak. he doesn’t cry or shout or take a step back or run and run and run as far from this as he can get. not even when it feels like he’s drowning in it. like he’s been dragged under and pinned down by something he can’t even see; the oxygen pulled from his lungs by the vacuum of what should be something but isn’t. so terribly, painfully isn’t.

nothing about jimin has changed.

he’s beautiful and he is steadfast, a vision made solid. a dream breathed to life.

jungkook loves him like he’s never loved anything or anyone before, like he never wants to love anyone or anything ever again.

but when they are alone together and quiet now, stilted and unsure;

when they do not touch one another, or - worse still - must;

and when jimin looks at jungkook like there is something he desperately wants, something he very dearly desires, he looks past jungkook then, as if whatever that is could find no home in him, could have no place here, in this.

nothing about the way jungkook feels about jimin has changed, and so he stays by his side and lets it happen, lets them take and take and take from one another what feels finite now, what feels every single time like the very last bit, the last thing either of them has to give.

it is awful and it aches and it stalks jungkook all night long, breathing hot on the back of his neck, a shadow he can’t shake even when the sun is directly at zenith, high in the sky.

the end is inevitable, and still jungkook waits.

he got what he wanted and the horror of what it became is like a slow kind of death, when he’d been prepared to let this go with a quick and brutal finish.

it drags out, pulling jungkook behind it in its wake.

and still he holds on.

still he clings, with broken fingernails, with his palms and elbows and knees cut raw, his feet bleeding and blistered.

even this, this terrible wrongness that they’ve created, is something they did together and stand now hand in hand in the ruins of.

and jungkook will take that over anything better, over anything at all that comes at the cost of jimin.

even this.

even like this.

because it’s jimin.

it’s jungkook and jimin,

and jungkook won’t ever be the first to walk away from that.

so he stands as still as he can, holding his breath and willing his very heart to stop beating, so as not to disturb the butterfly that sits on his shoulder, barely allowing himself enough movement to bring his eyes to one side, to watch the way the butterfly’s beautiful wings flutter slowly, like it is readying itself.

the butterfly is preparing for flight and jungkook knows that. he only goes back and forth on whether or not he’ll force himself to watch the butterfly go.

because no matter how still jungkook stands, even if becomes a statue, something made anew in stone, the butterfly will not stay.

it’s inevitable, the butterfly’s flight from him, and all that jungkook wonders is which will hurt him more;

to watch the butterfly go and know, then, that it is gone.

or to shut his eyes to the flight, and to always wonder, instead, if it was ever really here at all.

after their seventeenth date, neither of them can pretend anymore.

this time jimin follows jungkook to his room, and it feels fitting somehow that this means he has to perch awkwardly in jungkook’s desk chair. it feels like jungkook is about to get fired. it feels like he’s about to be sentenced.

and all he can do is wait for it.

“jungkook,” jimin starts, his fingers twisted together like vines in his lap. “‘guk.”

jungkook says nothing.

“our … relationship,” jimin swallows, “um, us. is this … what you wanted? is it enough, of what you wanted?”

when jimin finally lets their eyes meet, he looks almost guilty, to jungkook. he looks at jungkook like he has done something wrong, but what’s worse still is how he looks at jungkook imploringly. he’s looking at jungkook like he’s begging him to understand.

and jungkook very viscerally does.

so he recognizes this moment, now that it is finally here.

and he knows what he has to do.

“this was enough, hyung,” jungkook says, and then he grinds his back teeth together to try and keep the sting of tears at bay.

jimin looks at him like he doesn’t know him, like they’re strangers to one another, and maybe they are, now. maybe that’s all they’ll ever be, after this.

“‘was’, ‘guk?” he asks, and his face is so open, so empty and lost that he looks almost like a child even to jungkook. he looks younger than he’s ever been when jungkook knew him.

“we don’t have to do this anymore,” jungkook says, and he is numb, now, and that’s okay. feeling nothing is better than aching for the absence of something. feeling nothing comes like relief.

“we can stop now, hyung,” jungkook tells jimin, because maybe jimin hasn’t been able to make himself leave yet, but he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to be here. that he doesn’t want this. that he doesn’t want jungkook. and still, in the end, jungkook wants what’s best for him. he’ll give jimin what he needs if jimin loves jungkook too much in a different way to do what’s right, here.

“but -” jimin says, and he’s white lipped now. his knuckles are hard right angles bent around the arms of jungkook’s chair. “but i love you, jungkook, i’m i-”

“i know, hyung,” jungkook says and he wants to look away from jimin, he tries to, but he finds that he can’t. “i know you love me. and i love you. but this - this isn’t love. we’re not in love, hyung.”

“oh,” jimin says softly, his voice small, the word fat and dark like a broken blood vessel, tender in the middle like a bruise. “i - okay. if that’s what you want, jungkook.”

and it’s not.

but neither is this. not like this.

“everything can go back to the way things were now, hyung. we’ll be fine. it’ll be better, this way,” jungkook treats jimin like he’s the one that needs reassuring. like for once he’s the kid that needs coddling. “once everything goes back to normal, you’ll see.”

“okay, ‘guk,” jimin says, pale faced and gripping the arms of the chair to push himself up onto his feet.

it seems like he pauses, or falters, just for a second and jungkook stands too, prepared to reach out for him if he has to. if he’s allowed to.

but when he stands, jimin bows his head in something like apology, in a way that says he can’t bear to look at jungkook.

and it’s this, finally, that feels like ‘goodbye.’

nothing changes dramatically after that, because nothing had really changed to begin with.

it doesn’t feel real when jungkook tells the rest of the group that he and jimin have broken up, because it doesn’t feel like they were ever truly together in the first place.

they all come to him in turn to check on him, to offer him comfort, and he doesn’t take it because he doesn’t want it. he doesn’t need it, because you can’t miss something you never had. you can’t ache for the loss of what was never really yours to begin with.

or so jungkook tells himself, when the hurting is too much, when his lungs fill with something that burns and the only thing that’s more painful than drawing in sharp, gasped breaths is letting them go and finding himself empty again. emptier than he’d thought it was possible to be.

but that doesn’t make sense. that just doesn’t sound right, so jungkook doesn’t bother to say it out loud and he tells himself he’s just imagining it, when he feels it creep up on him again. he puts his face to cold tile or curls down into the smallest ball he can make, he hides underneath his covers and in headphones that he wears like a new appendage now, angsty angry music blasting to chase away his thoughts. to cover up the sound of his own crying, sometimes, when he doesn’t want to hear it because he has no excuse or explanation for it.

everything goes back to the way it had been, the way it always was, and life goes on.

every day, in a million tiny little ways, jungkook forces himself to go on.

which is why jungkook can’t even begin to understand it, when jimin starts to splinter.

he seems fine at first; numb to it all and exhausted by this, by everything else, just like jungkook is. but then he starts to avoid jungkook. and jungkook can only be surprised that it took him this long.

but then just as suddenly as he’d disappeared, he shoulders his way back to jungkook’s side and he seems angry, now. he seems really fucking mad. when he speaks to jungkook, it’s sharp, sometimes almost venomous. he looks at jungkook with something in his eyes that makes jungkook feel like he’s standing too close to a blaze.

and jungkook must have been more damaged by their break up than he thought - or than he’d let himself acknowledge, rather - because he finds himself reacting to jimin’s ire with nothing but relish.

jimin snaps at him and jungkook snaps right back and everybody else is looking at them like they’re the ones that are scared, but jungkook isn’t, because jungkook finds it so fucking cathartic to finally do something about his frustration, about the loss and confusion that makes him feel like he’s slowly bleeding to death from a wound that he still can’t fucking find.

so they clip each other constantly now, cracking off one another like snooker balls on a table.

they clash almost every time they’re in a room together and for some reason, this makes jungkook feel much better by the time he’s alone again. for some horrible, twisted reason, even this feels better to jungkook than what they’d been doing before, because at least this is honest, at least this is them screaming in each other’s faces like they actually give a shit about something, and this is exactly what jungkook had been missing.

jungkook feels like he’s standing in the wreckage of what was supposed to be their home, but all it is now is a skeletal, bare bones frame of something that taunts him and jungkook doesn’t want to be there anymore, can’t bear to be here alone, so he welcomes jimin when he comes banging on the door and he hopes - if he has the right to - that jimin’s fury burns this whole thing down to the ground.

the blaze is set, but it doesn’t seem to slow.

everything is burning and all it really does is warm jungkook, but shouldn’t this be only ashes, by now?

it burns on.

it follows them to europe, packed like another piece of their luggage when they load up and set off on tour.

it gives jungkook whiplash, how quickly he can go from having a pleasant and totally mundane conversation with someone else to gritting his teeth and balling up his fists at jimin’s rigid and retreating back. on stage, everything is normal. in fan meetings, they act like they’ve never had a single argument in their lives. sometimes they go days without speaking at all when they don’t have to, but that’s the only part of this that jungkook truly hates, because it’s too much like what they’d done before, how they’d been together.

namjoon comes to talk to jungkook.

namjoon and yoongi come to talk to jungkook.

yoongi and seokjin come to talk to jungkook.

hoseok and taehyung give their all to drawing jungkook into whatever kind of shenanigans they think might distract him from punching a wall.

but jungkook waves his hyungs off when they come to check up on him like he’s hurt or something, and he rolls his eyes when the still smiling faction of the sunshine line look at him like they don’t know what he’s going to do next.

because he’s not going to do anything. and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.

he and jimin are fighting and though it’s not new for that to happen, it is newly an occurrence that lasts for more than a day. that stretches out across weeks. could potentially spill out into months, for longer than that still.

but it means that jungkook gets to have jimin up in his face, grabbing at his collar with his fists and growling absolutely senseless, pointless things at him from between his teeth and jungkook had missed this - jungkook had wanted so very much to have jimin close, to have him close to him and bare - that even this feels like a step in the right direction when what they’d tried to do before had been a tumble down two flights of stairs.

jimin is jungkook’s hyung, so that means jungkook can’t give as good as he gets. not in front of the others, at least, but behind closed doors whenever they have the energy for it, jimin squares up to jungkook and jungkook meets him head on, stands toe to toe with him in this, whatever it is. jungkook doesn’t know, but he knows he likes it. he knows that the fact that it’s something different, something new, and it’s him and it’s jimin and it’s full of raw emotion makes it something far more like anything he could have wanted in the first place.

it’s something.

and he’s doing it with jimin, and he knows that it’s supposed to be hurting him, supposed to wear him out and tear him down, but it doesn’t. it doesn’t at all.

he believes jimin, when he spits something out about jungkook being the most infuriating fucker on the face of the planet. jimin is telling jungkook how he feels, and jungkook, pathetic little heartbroken lovesick fuck that he is, eats it up. lets it light him up inside the flare of jimin’s anger, a tangible and burning thing that jungkook refuses to step back from.

it’s not love, but it’s not careful ambivalence either and jungkook will take it.

they spark off each other, the electricity they generate feeling like all that’s keeping jungkook warm, most days.

it’s nothing like what jungkook had wanted, but it’s nothing close to what it had been like when they were together, and that’s progress.

to jungkook, it feels better to have jimin look at him with hatred, than it did to have him touch jungkook haltingly.

sometimes, when jimin is up in jungkook’s face, kicking at his feet to push right up into his space and shove at his chest, his jaw clenches and he bares his teeth and he looks right into jungkook’s eyes like he’s all he can see, like he couldn’t look away if he tried, and that, to jungkook, feels something almost like good.

they spend a day off in paris, all of them together, and they end their first and only night in the city of love by watching a fireworks display, the seven of them awed and solemn, silent in a moment that feels seminal for them, somehow.

and then they go back to their hotel, and jungkook follows jimin back to the room he’s sharing with taehyung, and taehyung skirts around them to clear out as quick as he possibly can, his hands up as he brushes by like he’s afraid he’s going to get burned.

when it’s just the two of them again, it’s a different kind of fireworks.

it’s explosive, and it makes jungkook’s eyes burn but it’s not pretty and it’s not loud.

it’s quiet and it’s ugly, and jimin’s face flushes with something that’s neither pleasant nor pleased.

it’s just the two of them, just like this, and it hurts.

it’s september, when they get back to seoul.

it’s colder out than it ought to be for this time of year, dark grey skies that seem to lose their light long before they should.

they’re supposed to be getting ready to release the second part of the ‘the most beautiful moments in life’ album, but it gets pushed back until october and everything feels all of a sudden very off in a way that it hasn’t yet, for jungkook, because even when he and jimin are at each other’s throats it doesn’t interfere with their work.

there’s still a ton of schedules to get through; fittings and rehearsals for last minute performances, shoots for music videos and promo material, endless meetings that all blend into one. everybody seems tired from tour still, or maybe they’re just exhausted by jungkook and jimin’s antics, but none of the several sit down group conversations they’ve had had lead them to any kind of solution that works to settle whatever is still raging between them, and the rest of the group have resigned themselves to letting the two of them figure it out. they’re not worried about the group, yoongi explains to jungkook. they’re just worried about the two of them.

there’s no need to be, jungkook thinks.

jimin seems to need to yell at jungkook for literally any reason he can think of, and jungkook is happy to stand there and take it, all too happy to push back at jimin’s shoulders and turn whatever he’s just spat at jungkook right back on him. it’s intense, but instead of draining jungkook, it pushes him past the line of exhaustion into that place where he’s so tired he’s hyped the fuck up. he feels like he’s been elecrocuted.

when jungkook waves off the hyung’s offer of going out to eat - knowing that jimin is out with his friends and due home any time now - hoseok only frowns and asks him to throw the plastic plates, if they have to throw something.

he might be joking, but even he doesn’t look sure whether he is or not, and jungkook wants to laugh, but he knows it wouldn’t sound anything like mirth, so he just nods and goes back to scrolling through the web novel he’s reading on his phone.

jungkook is sitting on the couch in the living room when jimin gets back, and he’s not there because he’s waiting on him. he’s there so jimin can’t leave him alone, ignored and un-thought of in his room. he’s here so jimin has to look at him, can yell at him if he wants to, can do whatever he wants once he’s doing it with jungkook.

“did you have a nice time, hyung?” jungkook asks, his voice basically a simper; a parody of how he’d talked to jimin when he was young, when he’d worshipped all of his hyungs, but jimin especially.

“fuck you,” jimin says, stretching his scarf past taut between his hands like he’d like to strangle jungkook with it, and jungkook blinks, because normally they exchange at least a neutral statement or two before they go for each other’s throats.

when he looks at jimin, his cheeks are flushed and jungkook wonders if he’s been drinking, or if it’s just from the cold. jimin looks at jungkook with his top lip already curling away from his teeth to say something biting and jungkook hopes, stupidly, that he’s flushed with emotion. any kind of emotion.

in another universe, jimin crosses the room and jungkook gets up from the couch and they meet one another in the middle; jungkook catching jimin at the waist and lifting him up into the air to lock his legs around jungkook’s waist, because jungkook is so greedy for him he needs all of him, wants the weight of him, the warmth of him, every single piece and part of him in jungkook’s arms where he can feel it all, so he can know what it feels like to have all of him.

in another universe, jimin kisses jungkook like he’s been thinking about doing it all day long and jungkook kisses back the exact same way, because it is all he’s been thinking about all day long.

in another universe, when jimin bites at jungkook, it’s with needy, careful teeth and lips that suck at his tongue.

in this universe, none of that happens.

here, in this universe, jimin sinks his teeth into jungkook in an entirely different way.

here, jimin seeks to do damage, and jungkook offers himself up for it just so he’s owed a turn too.

“what’s the problem, hyung? did you just tonight realize you’re the least talented idol in your friend group? that took you a while, huh?” that’s not true. that’s not even a little bit true, but this thing that they’re doing isn’t about that kind of truth. it’s not about what they say, it’s about how they say it. it’s about why they say it.

“let me guess,” jimin says, taking unzipping the bomber jacket he has on over his hoodie and dropping it on the floor instead of hanging it up, so he can bring a finger to his mouth and make a show of pretending to think about something. “you’re sitting here waiting for a hyung to take pity on you and offer to take you somewhere so you don’t have to face the sad reality that you don’t have any friends at all.”

“what would you know about friends, hyung? all the people you hang out with are just your more successful celebrity exes.” nothing has ever happened between jimin and any of his friends, not as far as jungkook knows, but the others joke about it, so why can’t jungkook?

“you’re my ex, you dumb fuck,” jimin spits, and that’s a low blow that hits jungkook somewhere below his solar plexus; cuts deep when jimin follows it up with an eye roll.

“oh please, hyung,” jungkook sighs, getting to his feet and standing up so he can’t hide his face in the cushions and cry, “i’m not your anything. we were nothing. that was fucking nothing.”

and maybe it’s the fact that that’s true, that makes jimin pause for the first time since they’ve been doing this. he’s already got his hands lifted into the air when jungkook gets to him but jungkook doesn’t get to find out whether he’d been going to grab him or push him because he freezes, when jungkook says this. his hands fall away to hang at his sides again and he takes a deep, shuddering breath, staring right at jungkook but not like he usually does, when they do this, not with small, angry eyes. his eyes are huge now, so wide that they start to water as he stands there, and jungkook stupidly thinks that he looks like that one kind of scene in anime where someone realizes they’ve been run through with a blade only after it’s happened.

but as abruptly as the switch happened, it happens again.

it’s like jungkook made the tide turn by being honest for once, but jimin sets it right back on it’s original course.

“oh i know that you’re not my anything, jungkook,” he says, his face hard and his hands balled into fists now. when he pushes them both into the pockets of his own hoodie, instead of reaching out to get at jungkook like he usually does, like he’s supposed to, jungkook feels like he’s been slapped. “i know that we’ll never be anything at all.”

he looks away after he says it, and jungkook can’t bear that, jungkook hates that, because that isn’t how this is supposed to go. jimin isn’t playing along. he’s not doing it right. this feels wrong, and jungkook has had enough of the wrongness they create together.

“hyung,” he says, the word pulled from his throat like a string of thorns, and he breaks the rules too, then, because he can’t help himself, he can’t stop it from happening when he reaches out and doesn’t shake jimin or push him or stick his finger in his face like he’s supposed to, but tries to tuck his own hand into jimin’s pocket to touch jimin’s, instead.

jimin’s eyes go hard, freeze over like sheets of ice, and he doesn’t slap jungkook’s hand away, but he steps back so jungkook can’t reach him anymore and that hurts even worse.

“don’t touch me,” he says quietly, and it’s quiet and it’s plaintive. it’s a plea.

it’s like a tiny crack on a windshield that starts off like a pin prick but then splinters out in every direction, a hundred different fractures born from one tiny place of brokenness.

jungkook shatters.

he’s past jimin before he realizes he’d started moving. he’s shoving his feet into the first pair of boots he sees and he won’t realize until much later that he has slammed the door hard enough to rattle the windows because he doesn’t hear it, doesn’t see or know anything at all until he’s downstairs, until he’s pushing his way outside the building and throwing himself out into the night air.

it’s dark and it’s cold and jungkook is only wearing a long sleeve tshirt.

he doesn’t turn back, doesn’t even think about going back inside.

he’s been walking for about ten minutes when the heavens open and the pouring rain comes.

jungkook laughs, and keeps on going.

jungkook can’t see the screen of his phone through the rain, through his tears, through his soaking wet hair hanging down into his face. he tries to wipe at it with the sleeve of his shirt, but that’s heavy and sodden with rain water too, so all it does is smear the wet around.

“what,” he says when he answers, sure it’s one of the other hyungs, home now and wondering where he’d gone.

“where are you?” he’s asked, just like he’d thought he’d be, but it’s jimin’s voice on the other end of the line.

“what do you care?” jungkook counters, covering the phone with his hand so he can try to clear his nose. he’d rather die out here than have jimin hear him crying over him.

“jungkook,” jimin says, and even over the heavy patter of the rain on the pavement, jungkook can hear how exhausted he sounds. “just tell me where you are. you didn’t even take a jacket with you, you must be soaked.”

“it doesn’t matter. i’m fine. don’t worry about me,” jungkook says, wiping uselessly at his eyes with his damp hand. ‘don’t think about me at all,’ he wants to say, because he’s sure now that nothing jimin thinks about him is nice or kind or pleasant at all. not with how jimin speaks to him. not with how jimin doesn’t want to be near him, can’t bear to have jungkook touch him.

“jungkook. where. the fuck. are you,” jimin is quickly losing patience, and jungkook is stuck between not wanting to talk to him, not wanting to tell him anything, and the ancient, iron clad hardwiring that’s pushing him to answer his hyung’s question as succinctly and helpfully as he possibly can.

“i’d tell you,” jungkook says, frowning around at his surroundings, “but i don’t actually know. i haven’t got a clue where i am.”

jimin is silent for a beat. for two. jungkook’s heart keeps count.

“you don’t - you’re lost. is that what you’re telling me? you ran out in the rain without a coat on and now you’re lost somewhere and neither of us knows where.”

jungkook wants to apologize, stupidly, but he won’t. all he wants is to be back home, dry and warm and maybe bundled up in his pajamas in jimin’s bed, in jimin’s arms, but he’s not turning back. none of that is waiting for him back home, so he keeps walking, keeps moving through the wet, miserable night in any direction that isn’t back there, that won’t lead him back to what he’d run from.

“i’ll find my way back eventually,” jungkook tells jimin, unconcerned whether he actually does or not. “it’s fine. it doesn’t matter.”

‘stop worrying about me,’ he wants to say. ‘stop making me think you care about me, because that hurts more than you yelling at me, that feels worse than you hating me.’

“the next taxi you see, you’re getting into, do you hear me?” jimin says, his voice for the first time in a very long time - long before they started arguing, long before they started hating each other because they realized they couldn’t love each other - sending a shiver down jungkook’s spine. this right here is why they unanimously agree that jimin is the most intimidating member of their group. it’s no competition.

but everything’s a competition to jeon jungkook, especially the things that shouldn't be - that aren't meant to be - so he pushes, because that’s what he does best.

“i don’t have my wallet with me.” that’s a lie. his wallet and his phone had been the only things he’d shoved into his pockets, but jimin doesn’t know that. jimin doesn’t need to know that. jimin doesn’t want to know anything about jungkook that goes above or beyond what’s absolutely necessary.

“did i ask?” jimin says, so quietly, so calmly, that the hair on the back of jungkook’s neck stands up.

“no. you gave me an order. and respectfully, i’m telling you exactly what you can do with that order,” jungkook can’t bring himself to actually spell it out, because jimin very nearly really does scare him when he’s like this, but he’s still proud of the stand he takes. it’s a lot more than any of the other hyungs ever manage when jimin gets properly, truly mad.

“i know you’re stubborn, but is this really the hill you want to die on, jungkook? are you seriously going to catch hypothermia just to prove a point, here?”

there’s a sound like a door slamming in the background on jimin’s end, and jungkook wonders who he could possibly be slamming doors on or about when jungkook’s not even home right now. he doesn’t wonder why he’s not hanging up, why the vague unease he’s been feeling the more unfamiliar these streets get has all but disappeared since jimin called. he knows too well why that is. nothing about any of the changes that have taken place in their relationship or friendship or outright antagonism lately makes jungkook love jimin less. nothing jimin says or doesn’t say or can’t bring himself to say to jungkook means that the sight and sound and warmth of jimin suddenly feels like anything less than home, to jungkook.

“it doesn’t matter. none of it does,” jungkook murmurs, rubbing the heel of his hand into both of his eyes and tilting the bottom of the phone away from his mouth so jimin can’t hear him cry.

the rain is heavier now, and echoing strangely. it must be the acoustics in this alley jungkook is standing in. there’s a couple of restaurants dotted along both sides, but spaced out enough that there’s not very many people around. jungkook gets a few strange looks from the couples scurrying by sharing umbrellas, but all he thinks about is how for once, he probably doesn’t have to worry about being recognized.

“did you go left or right at the 7-11 with the huge hot bar section?” jimin asks, his voice in jungkook’s ear startling him after a couple of moments of dead air.

he must be trying to figure out where jungkook is with google maps. jungkook doesn’t see how he thinks that’s going to help him, because even if he finds out where exactly jungkook is, he still won’t be able to do anything to make him come home.

“left,” jungkook answers truthfully, because being honest with jimin is the most dangerous thing he can do, and jungkook is feeling reckless.

“okay,” jimin stays on the line but goes silent.

jungkook must be closer to the main street than he thought he was, because he can hear the hum of traffic again.

“did you take a right before the underground mall or did you keep going straight?” jimin sounds out of breath, and jungkook abruptly feels bad. it’s maybe cruel of him to do this when he knows how anxious jimin gets when one of them goes out of sight when they’re out in public, or takes too long to come back from the bathroom when they’re performing or rehearsing in an unfamiliar space.

“i’m fine, hyung,” jungkook assures him, not ready to do what he’s told but also not willing to make this worse for jimin than the simple fact that it involves jungkook already does, “you don’t need to worry about me. i’m gonna turn back soon. i’m sure i’ll be able to figure out how i got here, i have to come back to something familiar sooner or later, it’s not like i’ve gone that far.”

jungkook’s journey to this point hasn’t exactly been entirely linear, or all forward facing momentum. he’s paused a few times to pace. a few more to look around in bewilderment. more still to turn his face into the shadows between the streetlights so people walking by wouldn’t see him cry.

he’s not really crying anymore, but he has been on and off since he ran out of the apartment. he’s hurting more than tears can help, now, as he listens to jimin’s voice, so far away from him in so many ways.

jungkook is realizing with a growing and grim kind of horror that he can’t do this anymore. being close to jimin in this new way - namely, combatively - might be giving jungkook something that he feels like he needs, but it’s not something that he really wants. it feels good in the moment and it feels better than nothing after that, but pleasure or whatever mutilated version of that this is can’t come at a cost greater than its worth, and that’s exactly what it’s doing, jungkook realizes now. he’s hurting himself by clinging to shards of jimin. he’s hurting himself and jimin and the rest of the group as well by letting himself do what feels right in the moment, but isn’t actually right in any way at all.

he doesn’t hate jimin.

he loves him.

he’s all the way, desperately, utterly in love with him and he has to find a way of dealing with that that isn’t either outright antagonistic or a refusal to deal with it at all.

he said what he had to say and jimin did his best to give jungkook what he wanted, but it hadn’t worked and jungkook is glad it didn’t, if that’s all it ever was.

he has to move on, and he has to do it for jimin, for namjoon and yoongi and seokjin and hoseok and taehyung, but more importantly - most importantly - for himself.

“hyung,” jungkook says, turning on his heel and starting back down the alley he finds himself at the end of, “hyung i think we -”

“there you are, you little nightmare,” jimin says, and jungkook is wondering how jimin knows what he’s thinking, wonders how acquiescent jimin is going to be to what he’s got to say now, but stops in his tracks, skids to a halt in the middle of what had started to become a light jog when someone steps right into his path.

“found you,” jimin says, both in jungkook’s ear and to his face, standing right in front of him and holding the umbrella he’s carrying out to shelter both of them.

jungkook looks at him, tossing his wet bangs out of his eyes and blinking against the rain.

he’s wearing what he’d been wearing when jungkook had ran out on him; jeans and a hoodie and nothing else. he’s got his sliders on still and he’s breathing hard because he ran here, he ran right out into the rain to find jungkook even before he had any way of knowing where he was or how he’d get to him, and jungkook can’t help it, jungkook can’t do anything except fall more in love with jimin every single moment they spend together, no matter how it’s spent.

he takes a step forward and ducks down under the brim of the umbrella, reaching out to envelop the curl of jimin’s fingers around the handle in his own.

he brings the umbrella down a little to better shelter the two of them, and then even though it’s the very last thing he means or wants to do, jungkook starts to cry again.

jungkook is once again blinded by both his tears and the still pouring rain, so jimin has to take him by the elbow and guide him along by his side until he can pull them into the sheltered doorway of a long closed shoe shop.

when they’re standing still, jimin keeps the umbrella up but angles it out so it’s mostly shielding them from anyone who happens to walk past.

“jungkook,” he says, and it’s been so long since jungkook heard him say his name with anything other than at absolute best veiled venom that to his mortification, he can only cry harder.

“you have to tell me what’s going on, ‘guk,” jimin urges his gently, his hand still on jungkook’s elbow, warm through the thin and sodden sliver of fabric that is his wet tshirt. “are you upset because we fought? because we don’t have to do that ever again. i think we shouldn’t keep doing that, because -”

“because it’s dumb, hyung,” jungkook somehow manages to choke out. “because for like five minutes it felt good to pretend that i could hate you, but it shouldn’t, because i couldn’t. not ever. not even now.”

jimin’s eyes get glassy too, and the horror of that shocks jungkook into a sudden and solemn kind of calmness. he’s hurting his hyung. he’s hurting jimin and he has to fix it. he has to, even though he has no idea how.

he reaches out, cups both of jimin’s elbows in the palms of his hands because it feels like a safe way to touch him. jimin is cold and bony, the anatomy of him sharp in jungkook's hands and it feels fitting. it feels like the only thing that’s grounding him.

“i could never hate you, hyung,” he doesn’t blink, he barely breathes. he needs more than anything for jimin to hear him. for jimin to understand what he’s saying and know it. “even if you’d just broken my heart in the first place, even if you’d never tried for my sake at all, i -”

jimin doesn’t step back or push jungkook’s hands away, but his mouth falls open and his eyes go wide and then they narrow again, his mouth twisted and his jaw clenching.

“what the fuck does your heart have to do with anything?” he asks, and there’s nothing soft or gentle in his voice now, not anymore. his eyes are iced over again and the hand that’s still holding the umbrella shakes. jungkook can’t tell if it’s because he’s cold, or because he’s furious. he doesn’t understand what he said to get them back to this place, but he won’t let them stay here. he won’t let them get caught back here.

“it was a disaster, hyung. and i know why that is. i know why you couldn’t go through with it, but that’s not your fault, it was both -”

“of course it was my fault, jungkook,” jimin interrupts, hard and fast and disbelieving. he takes a step closer like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, like it’s just instinct for him to have to adjust by tilting his head a little to look up into jungkook’s eyes when they’re this close. “it was all my fault. i’m the hyung, i’m your hyung and you came to me and asked me for something that you needed, and i couldn’t fucking do it, i couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

“but that’s not your job, hyung,” jungkook tries to reassure him, his hands gripping harder at jimin’s elbows, sliding up higher to band both of his biceps, solid enough that they're warm under jungkook's palms, even through jimin's sodden hoodie. “you can’t give me what you can’t -”

“i couldn’t give you what you needed because i was too fucking busy thinking about what i wanted, instead,” jimin says, low and harsh, his vitriol all for himself, “all i had to do was give you what you asked me for, but i couldn’t, ‘guk, because i wanted so much more than that. you asked if you could kiss me, if you could touch me, and i couldn’t let you, even though that was all i wanted, because i couldn’t make myself stop thinking about how all i was for you was practice,” a tear spills over his lash line, and he shakes his head like he’s annoyed with himself for that.

“all i could think about was how as soon as you’d figured out whatever you needed me for, you’d move on, and i’d have to see you with someone else, someone better, someone that you wanted, someone that could make you happy, and i -” his voice fails him, at last. it cracks, and then it gives out entirely and he looks down at their feet, biting hard at his bottom lip to quell his crying.

“all i had to do was be what you needed, and i couldn’t. i’m so sorry, ‘guk. i’m sorry i’m so selfish.” this is whispered, jimin’s head bowed and both of his hands shaking, now.

it takes jungkook forever to find his voice. it takes him an eternity just to remember he has one.

“hyung,” is all he can say, a stupid, useless, far too small word that can’t communicate any of what he’s trying to say. not even a sliver of what he wants to say.

“it was fine,” jimin says hollowly, sorrowfully. “it was fine and it could have stayed that way but i had to go and ask you for more. i pushed my luck and i shouldn’t have,” he lifts his head to look at jungkook again, and jungkook is wrecked by the expression on his face; the regret he finds there.

“you were so brave to tell me no, to tell me that that’s not what you wanted, ‘guk. i was so proud of you. i’m still so proud of you for that,” his smile is watery, but strong. “you’re so good, jungkook. you’re so good all the time and i’m sorry that makes me greedy for you in a way that you don’t want.”

jimin’s free hand lifts to mirror jungkook’s, both of them clutching at each other’s arms in some kind of strange and desperate embrace in this darkened doorway on this deserted section of street in the middle of the night, in the eye of a downpour.

“but hyung, you - i -” jungkook still can’t speak. he can barely think. his mind is racing, his heart chasing after it, hot in its heels, but his mouth is lagging, his tongue a useless thing.

“i asked you for more, ‘guk. i tried to tell you that whatever we were doing, it wasn’t enough for me. and you told me it was already too much, jungkook. you told me that this fucking paper thin thing we had was already more of me than you wanted and you were right to, you did the right thing, sweetheart,” jungkook’s heart trips and stumbles painfully. achingingly. “and i was so angry, then, but i was never angry with you. not even for a second. it made me so mad to look at you, to be near you, but i was mad at myself, jungkook. i’m so fucking mad at myself for ruining this for you and it was easy to stomp around and snipe at you like we’d just had a difficult break-up, but we hadn’t. not really. that must have been so confusing for you, ‘guk, i’m sorry that i -”

“hyung, this is confusing me,” jungkook manages to say, finally.

jimin had been reaching out toward him, had been lifting his hand like he meant to cup jungkook’s face in it, but he lets it fall away, when jungkook says this.

“hyung, i think we did something really, really dumb,” jungkook is shaking too, as he drops his right hand to grab for jimin’s left.

“we did a lot of dumb things,” jimin agrees, letting jungkook hold his hand, but not understanding, not yet, “but it was me, jungkook. it was hyung’s fault, it was up to me to -”

“hyung, i’m not a kid anymore,” jungkook says, thinking back to what he’d said when he’d tried to tell jimin how he felt. thinking back to how this had gone so wrong the first time around. “i’ve grown up. i’m old enough to know what i want.”

jimin doesn’t cut jungkook off, which in the larger context of just this conversation feels novel, on this dark and miserable night. here, on the cusp of what could be a bright and beautiful dawn.

“i want to be with you, hyung,” jungkook says, and he doesn’t allow it when jimin frowns and starts to interrupt.

“i want to be with you, hyung,” he says again, to make sure jimin gets it.

“because i’m in love with you.” he starts to cry again, but that’s okay. it feels different now. this feels good.

“i’ve been in love with you since i was fifteen years old. i’ve been in love with you every single day, every minute of every day, even when i thought you hated me. even when i thought my heart was broken, over you.”

“but -” jimin stares up at him, his eyes wide and searching like he’s waiting for a punchline. like he’s waiting for this to make sense.

“every day, hyung. every single day. even the really bad ones,” jungkook sniffs and smiles. “especially those ones, because all i wanted then was to curl up in your arms. to have you hold me and tell me that everything was going to be alright, because even when i wasn’t sure, if you thought so, i could believe you.”

“i thought you were holding back because you didn’t want me. when you were asking me for more, i thought you were telling me i’d already tried to have too much of you. because i wanted more than that, hyung,” jungkook feels like a cracked plate, like a broken bowl that ends up in pieces because it tried to fill itself beyond full. he looks at jimin and he feels like a shattered thing pieced back together and held that way by liquid gold. “i want all of you.”

“jun - jungkook,” jimin says, this one word a huge thing; two syllables that say exactly what jungkook can read clear across his face, the same thing that’s thumping wildly in jungkook’s chest.

“i know, hyung,” jungkook says, half smiling, half laughing, still crying. “me too, hyung.”

the rain only gets heavier as they run carefully home through it, but neither of them notices.

they run through the downpour hand in hand, not thinking to flag down a taxi because they can’t think about anything other than getting home, only pausing to sneak glances at each other like they’re both checking the other is still there and then smiling shyly, laughing like children when they catch each other.

jungkook shakes the rain off the umbrella outside the door to their building and then he keeps it in his hand as they ride the elevator up to their floor, his other hand still in jimin’s and his heart in his throat, his whole body singing with a song he’s never heard before.

he follows jimin inside when he keys in their code and he pauses just inside the doorway to stand the umbrella on the mat they have there, and then before he can look back at jimin or toe his shoes off or do anything at all, he’s pushed up against the back of the door.

“jungkook,” jimin says, a repeat of the very last thing he’d said to jungkook, but different now. lower. thick and inky in a way that punches the breath right out of jungkook’s lungs. he’s standing between jungkook’s spread feet again, his palms on jungkook’s chest, his eyes on jungkook’s mouth.

“please, hyung,” jungkook says this time, braver now than he’s ever been before, because jimin reached out for him; jimin has him caged here, where he wants him. “show me, hyung.”

and jimin is smiling when he leans up and in, his hands pushing up over jungkook’s wet tshirt to curl over his shoulders and hold on tight.

he rubs the tip of his nose against jungkook's, and when jungkook's eyes widen, jimin's crinkle up into a grin and he ducks his face down to nose at jungkook's chin, to peer up at him through his eyelashes from far, far too close.

just having jimin like this, having jimin look at him and touch him, is already everything jungkook ever wanted, and then some.

jimin is still smiling when he finally kisses jungkook, his lips parting to catch the little sigh that jungkook breathes when their mouths meet. he takes jungkook's bottom lip between both of his, then, and when he sucks around the round of it, jungkook feels his pulse low, low in his gut. and lower than that, too.

“love you, ‘guk,” jimin says, laughing when jungkook catches him at the waist and bends down to kiss him so jimin doesn’t have to stretch up onto his toes anymore.

“love you, hyung,” jungkook whispers, his mouth at jimin’s cheekbone, his arm tight all around jimin’s waist, and his head spinning when jimin brings their mouths back together to brush his tongue up over jungkook’s bottom lip. he lets jungkook suck at his tongue, the tip of it pointed in a way that's always driven jungkook absolutely crazy, and he trembles at the thought of where else jimin might let him have it besides his mouth.

“let me show you, ‘guk,” jimin says, low in his throat with his lips pressed to jungkook’s pulse point.

he looks up at jungkook from under his eyelashes, and then he steps back and holds his hand out.

jungkook takes it, and follows him.

jungkook takes it, because he’d follow him anywhere.

all jimin has done is push jungkook down onto his own bed and strip the soaking wet tshirt up over jungkook’s head, and already jungkook feels like he’s about to burst out of his very skin.

jimin stands between his spread knees and peels his own sodden hoodie off, revealing his damp, bare chest, and jungkook forgets to breathe.

he tugs jimin down on top of him, his hands everywhere, wanting to touch everything, needing to feel all of jimin, and jimin knots his fingers in the blankets at either side of jungkook’s head and lets him take his fill.

“i love this,” jungkook gasps, his body already flooded with pleasure, tingling and oversensitive as soon as jimin wedges the meat of his thigh high up between jungkook’s legs and groans when jungkook holds on tight, both of his hands linked around the back of jimin’s gorgeous muscled leg, his thumbs pushing up under the leg of jimin’s briefs. he rocks against jimin just like that, already hard enough in his boxers that he can feel himself make a mess.

“i love you,” jimin moans, when jungkook tips him over onto his back in the sheets and then follows him down, pushing his legs apart so he can stack them both together, jimin’s smaller hips held down inside the cradle of jungkook’s, the head of his cock peeking out over the waistband of his underwear, shining wet and making jungkook’s mouth water.

“me too, me too hyung,” jungkook says as best he can with his tongue between his teeth, jimin’s cock hard against his but the head so soft and sticky below jungkook’s bellybutton when he rolls his hips up and up and up.

jimin’s hands find jungkook’s waist, clench hard around his hipbones, and then his fingers tuck themselves down into the front of jungkook’s boxers.

“can i, do you want me to -” jimin says lowly, quiet in the space between them, the bare inch of it that there is when jungkook has to stop kissing jimin to swear.

“please, hyung,” jungkook whines, and then his boxers are being pulled down.

“you too, please hyung, wanna feel you,” jungkook begs, and it takes some wriggling, a lift of jimin’s hips that makes jungkook see stars, but then there’s nothing at all left between them and when jimin knots his hand in the band of jungkook’s boxers, yanks it tight around jungkook’s thighs to pull him down, jungkook opens his teeth around the slope of jimin’s shoulder and tries not to sob.

they move against each other, jungkook grinding down against jimin and jimin pushing back up into him, the slide of probably the only parts of them that have never touched before so good that jungkook’s toes curl, his fingers grabbing too hard at jimin’s hair but jimin doesn’t seem to care, only hooks his other arm high up around jungkook’s waist and pulls him down harder, pulls him in closer.

jungkook has his cheek pressed to jimin’s, breathing shallowly against his cheek when the feeling gets to be too much, when he feels so good that his hips stutter and his cock jerks against jimin’s, paints a wet little dribble of pre-come in a smudge across jimin’s belly when he lifts up and looks down, watches the way they look together and has to suck at his own bottom lip to not cry out.

“want you, ‘guk. wanted you so much,” jimin says, sounding poised on the brink of something, held at the edge of somewhere that jungkook wants to bring him, wants to go with him. he lifts his chin, the jut of it asking jungkook for something he’s all too willing to give him, and jimin’s tongue is between jungkook’s teeth again when jungkook starts to come.

he brushes his lips against jungkook’s slowly, softly as jungkook shakes through it, and then he goes boneless underneath jungkook, splayed out and pliable for him when jungkook reaches between their hips and swipes the mess of his orgasm off jimin’s stomach to wrap his hand around his cock and jerk him off with it.

jimin lifts a hand to the back of jungkook’s neck, his grip strong and sure when he stares up at jungkook, focused on him until he sees something that pushes him to what he’s straining for, his eyes closing and his eyebrows lifting like he’s in pain, like it’s ecstasy, when his hips falter finally, and he starts to come.

jungkook milks it from him, the sight of jimin’s cock leaking into his fist the hottest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s never touched anyone else before, but he knows it’ll never be like this again. he looks at jimin, panting slightly and trembling still, and he knows he’ll never want anyone or anything else.

when jimin rolls them over again, gets jungkook on his back under him so he can push his hair away from his face and kiss him hard and desperate, like he still wants jungkook even though he already has him, the mess they’ve made together spills sticky between their hips, the sheets a wrecked tangle underneath them and jungkook a winded thing, the quiet wreck after a terrible, wonderful storm.

it’s rushed and it’s chaotic, the rumpled splay of them the very picture of some disaster.

it’s perfect,

because it’s the truth of the two of them,

no more trying to put themselves and one another into neatly labelled boxes that they could never fit in,

and it’s everything not even jungkook had the imagination to think they could have.

the clean up is just as hasty, and they race each other to climb under the blankets once they’ve tossed jungkook’s into the laundry basket and fetched the ones from jimin’s bed, instead.

jimin wins, and stretches back against jungkook’s pillows, smiling when jungkook sees it and takes it as the opportunity it is; ducking under jimin’s lifted arm and hugging into him, holding on. he’s warm and he’s solid, he’s everything jungkook ever wanted him to be, right here in his bed, where he needs him.

“we’re gonna do this properly, this time,” jimin murmurs, his eyes winking shut around a yawn. “m’gonna be so good to you, ‘guk.”

“i know, hyung,” jungkook tells him, brushing his nose against his shoulder and closing his eyes so he can concentrate on the smell of him. the heat of him, here in jungkook’s sheets. “we’re gonna be so good together.”

because they already are, and they always have been.

it was only their shared and mistaken belief that they weren’t that derailed them for a moment.

“i’m gonna love you so well, baby,” jimin says, and jungkook can tell from the sound of his voice that he’s got his eyes closed too, that sleep is creeping up on him in tendrils.

“me too, hyung,” jungkook smiles as he turns properly up onto his side, curling in and down around jimin. “gonna love you like i always have, hyung,” he says, and then he doesn’t say anything at all, isn’t conscious for it when jimin links their hands together and hums, his nose pressed into jungkook’s hair.

they wake up tangled in one another the next morning, late enough that the sun is high in the sky already.

jungkook feels jimin next to him before he opens his eyes. he smells his shampoo, feels the weight of the arm he has around jungkook's waist, the palm of his hand up underneath jungkook's shirt, warm on his stomach and already familiar in a way that jungkook loves. jungkook is barely awake yet, still half tethered to a dream that could never be as good as this reality, and he turns slowly, carefully in jimin's arms so he can face him. so he can see him, here like this. asleep in jungkook's bed. with jungkook held safely in his arms. and when jungkook watches jimin’s eyelashes flutter open, he gets to be both the first thing jimin sees that day, and the cause of jimin’s slow, sweet smile.

“good morning ‘guk-ah,” jimin slurs, sleep in his eyes and smudging the lift of his mouth.

“hi, love,” jungkook says, and then he reaches for the covers and pulls them up over both of their heads, wriggling down into the sheets and tugging jimin after him, to greet a new day the best way he can think how to.

with jimin.

with jimin.