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Namjoon, freshly finished telling Hoseok about his day, huffs, a little breathless – he hadn’t realised just how fast he’d been talking, or for how long. Hoseok looks entirely focused on his Camel Pose, but he still manages to lean his head back even further so that he’s looking at Namjoon upside down. Once he’s sure Namjoon is looking at him, he, very pointedly, rolls his eyes.
“Okay, so, your feelings are valid, Namjoon,” he says, closing his eyes as he slowly starts to straighten back up again, relying on his core strength rather than his arms to do so. “Just like mine are when I tell you that I think you’re overreacting.” Once he’s fully straightened up, he turns around on his knees to look at Namjoon, and lowers his hips so that he’s resting his glutes on the ground between his legs. “Look, I even said ‘I think you’re overreacting’, as opposed to just telling you that you’re overreacting. That’s growth, right?”
“You don’t just get a free pass to say whatever you want if you preface it with ‘I think’,” Namjoon replies, tossing his legs over one arm of the couch and flopping backwards onto the couch cushions to stare at their ceiling. There’s a suspicious stain up there that he’s been trying to ignore for a while now – he’s pretty sure Hoseok hasn’t seen it yet, because if he had, he would’ve set aside a day for them to try and clean it. “Also, you weren’t even there, how do you know I’m overreacting?”
“You text me immediately after your lecture to tell me that you’d met your ‘archnemesis’,” Hoseok says, slowly making air quotes. “But yeah, sure, definitely not overreacting.”
Namjoon would, normally, be inclined to agree with Hoseok – people just didn’t go around calling one another their nemeses in real life.
But then he had met Min Yoongi.
They were in the same lecture – a voluntary series of introductory lectures on comparative philosophy, which were notorious for never garnering enough sign-ups to make them viable to run. Namjoon had been waiting for two years to attend these lectures, since the lecturer had mentioned them to him during his final year of undergrad, and this year they finally had just enough people express an interest to make the lectures viable, starting from the first week of the second semester.
Namjoon had arrived early that morning, and had taken a seat at the front of the lecture hall. He had been excited to meet his classmates, even more excited when somebody had sat next to him – he had eagerly introduced himself, hoping to get a discussion going before the lecture had even begun.
The man sitting next to him had glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, nodded in greeting, and then turned away.
“Which is fine,” Namjoon explains hastily to Hoseok, who had been in the middle of pulling a face at Namjoon. “If someone doesn’t want to talk, that’s okay, whatever.”
Once the lecture had started, the lecturer had asked the students what they thought the point of comparative philosophy was. Namjoon had raised his hand and explained that, in his view, comparative philosophy gave philosophers the tools to create new languages to define their ideas. Yoongi had immediately raised his hand and countered that comparative philosophy shouldn’t exist.
“He said that all of philosophy is comparative by nature, and that if anybody tried to distinguish between comparing ideas within the same culture, and comparing those between different cultures, then surely they were a mediocre philosopher,” Namjoon finishes heatedly. He’s stood up again at some point during this retelling, so he starts pacing around their tiny apartment in an attempt to blow off some more steam.
Hoseok looks up at him as he carefully unfolds his legs out in front of him. “And that’s… Wrong?”
“Yes! Because it’s just flat out disregarding the fact that, for the longest time, people just weren’t exposed to ideas from other cultures! How can you possibly claim that comparative philosophy is irrelevant, when rising nationalism in countries around the globe is contributing to increasing isolationism-” Namjoon shakes his head to try to clear the buzzing in his brain. “I told Min Yoongi this, but he just gave me this look, like-” He tries to mimic the look, but he thinks he falls short. Hoseok doesn’t look suitably belittled, anyway.
“Isn’t philosophy a pretty argue-y subject, though?” Hoseok asks, standing up and rolling up his yoga mat. “I thought you loved arguing.”
“Debating, not arguing. Normally, if things get heated between students, we’ll stick around after the lecture, have a chat, go to get coffee, but this guy just kept staring at me, and then left as soon as we were dismissed.” Namjoon folds his arms. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m not sure I’d even want to have coffee with someone that doesn’t see the value of comparative philosophy. Why would you even sign up for a series of lectures about something that you think shouldn’t exist, I just don’t understand?”
“It’s because I love you that I’m willing to agree, despite not having a clue what you’re talking about,” Hoseok says fondly, patting Namjoon on the shoulder. Namjoon opens his mouth to say something along the lines of an admonishment about agreeing to something without knowing all the facts, but Hoseok beats him to it. “Yes, I know, but I trust you not to lead me down a bad path of, I don’t know, amoral philosophy or whatever.”
“Immoral,” Namjoon says, because sometimes he can’t help himself. “Morality is intrinsic to humanity, you can’t be a-moral.”
“Yes,” Hoseok says cheerfully. “Come on, I’ll go get coffee with you, and you can tell me more about your archnemesis.”
“I definitely don’t want to keep talking about him,” Namjoon says, frowning as Hoseok leads him towards the door, hand still on his shoulder.
“…and another thing,” Namjoon says after taking a gulp of his coffee, which has gone too cold to be enjoyable anymore. He didn’t think they’d been at the café for that long, but evidently they had. “Maybe I can see his point, that we shouldn’t have to distinguish between comparing philosophical ideas from different cultures, and those within the same culture.” Hoseok, who has been gamely paying attention, nods, his expression only a little bit lost. “In an ideal world, sure! But we don’t live in an ideal world, and if we didn’t specifically say ‘okay, look, this is something that needs to happen more in our academic discipline’, then certain people would just take that as confirmation that it doesn’t need to happen-”
“But should we lower ourselves to the level of these bigoted strawmen?” Taehyung says suddenly, slurping noisily through his straw as Namjoon jumps. He sits down next to Namjoon, takes another sip of something lilac topped with green whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles, and what looks like tiny biscuits, and smacks his lips. “Hello. What’re we talking about?”
“Namjoon has an academic rival,” Hoseok says immediately.
“Sexy,” Jimin replies, carrying his drink and a wooden table number over to their table.
“No,” Namjoon says very firmly. “No, not sexy at all. Unsexy. Why are you both here?”
“I’m just saying that this sounds like an academic’s dream?” Jimin says, sitting down next to Hoseok and angling his table number to face the café’s counter. “Getting all worked up, academically, before relieving some of that brain pressure, you know?”
“All of those words make sense individually, but not in the order you just put them in,” Namjoon says. “Seriously, why are you here? This café’s not near your apartment.”
“We were at Jeongguk’s,” Taehyung says. “But his friend came over.”
“Normally we’d stay, but Tae wanted boba, and this is the closest place to Jeongguk and Seokjin’s that sells boba that doesn’t taste like ass,” Jimin says, smiling warmly at the server who brings over his plate of waffles, fruit, and ice cream. “Thank you!” Under the weight of the full force of Jimin’s smile, the server sets the plate down and stammers out a ‘you too’ before fleeing the scene. Jimin turns back to Namjoon. “And don’t try to distract me, I want to hear more about your rival. Is he cute?”
Namjoon frowns thoughtfully at the dregs of his coffee. “I mean… Yes? Objectively? But it’s hard to look past the fact that he doesn’t know how to correctly engage in a class that he has voluntarily signed up for, and the ideas he does choose to share are combative and-”
“Ah, so he’s hot,” Jimin says, nodding his head wisely as he halves his waffles. “He’s hot, and that makes you mad.”
“What? No,” Namjoon says. Jimin looks up from where he’s carefully stacking all of the strawberries onto one of the waffles; just as carefully, he raises a disbelieving eyebrow, before pushing the plate so that it sits between him and Taehyung. “Well, yes. He’s hot, I suppose. But he makes me mad because he’s bad at philosophy, not because he’s hot!”
“Maybe he’s not a philosophy student,” Taehyung says, taking Jimin’s proffered cutlery and beginning to eat the strawberries off his half of the waffle, one by one. “I mean, you’ve never met him before this lecture, right? And your department’s not exactly big, and you’ve been there forever.” This was true – Namjoon knew most of his cohort by name, and all of them by face. The voluntary lectures were technically open for anyone to attend though, although, in practice, most students only tended to go to lectures that were relevant to their degree.
Hoseok snorts indelicately. “His first taste of philosophy, and he gets into an argument with Namjoon. Poor man.”
“Maybe I was… A little unfair,” Namjoon concedes. He huffs out a breath. “Fine, next time I see him, I’ll be friendly.”
This proves to be more difficult than Namjoon had originally expected – Yoongi doesn’t sit next to him in lectures again. He still sits in the front row, but he seems to choose the side of the lecture hall that Namjoon isn’t sitting in each time.
Namjoon can take a hint, so, on the occasions that he enters the room after Yoongi, he sits on the opposite side, too.
None of their arguments match the ferocity of the first, but they become such a regular occurrence during lectures that, to Namjoon’s utter mortification, they both receive an email from the lecturer that says, while he’s appreciative of their ‘enthusiasm’ for the subject, their discussions are ‘leaving little room for other students to air their thoughts’. Maybe they could ‘save some of their discussions for after class?’
Enthusiasm.
So, Namjoon tries to engage with Yoongi less during discussions, makes a concentrated effort not to immediately respond to everything Yoongi says in class. Yoongi, meanwhile, just seems to engage less in general – he never lingers after class to talk to any of the other students, and he barely contributes to discussions after they receive the email, so Namjoon can practically pretend he isn’t there at all.
Admittedly he still finds himself glancing over at Yoongi out of the corner of his eye more often than he would care to admit, especially after Namjoon’s raised a point. Most of the time, it looks as though Yoongi isn’t listening to what Namjoon is saying, but Namjoon would swear that, occasionally, it looks as though Yoongi’s adding Namjoon’s points to his notes.
Despite all of this observing that Namjoon is doing, however, he is still genuinely surprised to see Yoongi in the university library, almost two months after the start of term. He knows he shouldn’t really be as surprised as he is – he knows very well that Yoongi is a student, and students typically visit the library – but this is the first time Namjoon has ever seen Yoongi outside of the Philosophy Department’s lecture theatre.
He's sitting alone at one of the long tables, books piled high on either side of his workspace as he sits hunched over a laptop. His hair is getting a little long at the back, brushing across the top of his black turtleneck.
Namjoon slips his phone into his pocket and comes out from behind the bookshelves, having already spent a little too long lurking there while he had been reading Jimin’s responses.
He meanders towards the Literature section of the library – somebody had checked out the copy of The Nichomachean Ethics under the ethics section of the library, so he’s hoping there’s another copy under classical Greek miscellaneous writings that’s been translated into a language that he could read. His route takes him right past the table Yoongi is sitting at – and, what do you know, when he glances over, there is the book Namjoon is looking for, sitting pretty at the top of one of his sizeable piles of books.
Yoongi isn’t even using it.
Namjoon clears his throat to get Yoongi’s attention; he keeps his head bent over his laptop, but he glances up at Namjoon through his eyelashes, raising his eyebrows when their eyes meet. “Are you using Aristotle?” Namjoon whispers.
“I have the same set reading as you do, so…” Yoongi trails off significantly.
Namjoon rolls his eyes and marches off, his footsteps loud enough that a few other students look up as he passes.
Unfortunately, although the Literature section seems to have every classical Greek author imaginable, there is a noticeable gap in the Aristotle section.
“Surely not,” Namjoon mutters, heading back over to Yoongi’s corner of the library.
Sure enough, there it is – a second copy of the book they both need, nestled underneath the first.
“Okay, why do you need two copies?” Namjoon hisses.
“Different translators,” Yoongi says, this time not even bothering to look up at Namjoon. “I can’t read ancient Greek, and I’m not planning to learn, so I’m cross-reading to avoid translator biases. Obviously.”
Namjoon glares up at the ceiling, as though the light fixtures will provide him with sympathy; finding none, he dumps his rucksack onto the floor and sits down opposite Yoongi. This, finally, makes him look up fully, eyes wide. “I’m going to sit here and use the books you’re hoarding,” Namjoon whispers; the ‘and there’s nothing you can do about it’ goes unsaid, but is, in Namjoon’s mind, heavily implied.
“Whatever,” Yoongi mumbles, bending his head again. His hair is tucked neatly behind his ears, so Namjoon can see the tips growing steadily pinker.
Namjoon breathes warm air onto his hands, regretting his decision not to wear gloves. He’s waiting with Hoseok for Jimin outside of the cinema, and while it isn’t that cold for late autumn, it’s cold enough that, now that he’s standing still, Namjoon can feel the chill in the air.
“Jimin’s on his way – he says he’s running a little late, but he’ll get here in plenty of time before the movie starts,” Hoseok says suddenly, tapping away at his phone. Namjoon listens to the rhythm of his nails hitting the screen and thinks about asking Hoseok if he can sample the sound for one of the tracks he’s been tinkering with in his off time, before he remembers that Hoseok’s statement probably needs a reply.
“Is he alright?”
Hoseok, long since used to Namjoon’s often delayed replies, nods. “He’s bringing a friend.” He suddenly laughs loudly. “He says his friend is ‘like a baby who hasn’t socialised with anyone outside of his four friends in about a thousand years, please be gentle with him’.”
Namjoon feels the cold seep of foreboding trickle down the back of his neck, before promptly dismissing it – there were thousands of people in Seoul who could fit that description, probably, and besides, Jimin has never mentioned Yoongi before. Namjoon is pretty sure he’s told Jimin about Yoongi, so wouldn’t he have mentioned knowing him by now?
“This is Yoongi-hyung,” Jimin says ten minutes later when he arrives, one arm linked with Min Yoongi’s. Namjoon stares up at the sky and curses himself for ignoring the gift of prophecy he had been momentarily gifted with. “Hyung, this is Hoseok-hyung and-”
“Namjoon-ssi,” Yoongi says stiffly; Namjoon offers him a wordless nod.
“Oh, you two know each other?” Jimin asks enthusiastically. Namjoon knows that Jimin is usually incredibly perceptive of his surroundings, which means that he is deliberately trying to ignore the frostiness of their greeting. “Small world! I’ve been meaning to introduce you before – hyung, you should come over this weekend for game night!” This is said to Yoongi, who shifts from foot to foot.
“Isn’t it Jeongguk and Seokjin’s turn to host?” Yoongi asks.
Jimin waves a dismissive hand. “They’d invite you themselves if they were here. Come on, you should come!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Yoongi replies, everything about his posture evasive – his hand fiddling with the strap of his bag, his eyes not meeting Jimin’s, how he leans away from Jimin slightly, despite their arms still being linked.
Namjoon’s phone vibrates in his jeans pocket.
Namjoon scowls at Hoseok, firmly stuffing his phone back into his pocket.
“Okay, so, in my defence,” Jimin says as soon as Namjoon calls him out on it. Yoongi had disappeared to the bathroom while they waited in line to get their tickets printed out at the dispenser, so now’s as good a time as any to find out why he’s even here. “You’ve never actually said his name.”
“Neither have you!” Namjoon says while Hoseok continues to cackle with laughter. “Wait. You said he only has four friends. Is this Jeongguk and Seokjin’s friend?” ‘Jeongguk and Seokjin’s friend’ has taken on something of a mythic quality for him and Hoseok – whenever they hang out, they always seem to miss him by a few moments, or he’s out of town, or ‘he’ll be here in a bit, hyung, are you sure you can’t stay?’
And all this time, he’s been Min Yoongi.
“He’s really nice!” Jimin frowns. “Which is why I didn’t even consider that Yoongi and the guy you want to hate fuck are the same person, Yoongi’s like, a dumpling.”
“I do not want to hate fuck him-”
Somebody coughs behind them. All three of them turn to see Yoongi, cheeks coral pink, holding out three bags of snacks towards them.
“I stopped to get food.” He’s holding the snacks so far away from him, as though he’s worried they’ll burn him. “It’s my fault we’re late, so… I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I got a mixture.”
“Ah, so thoughtful, hyung,” Jimin says cheerfully, plucking one of the bags from his fingers. “Not like other hyungs I could mention, who willingly let their dongsaeng starve-”
“I bought you food yesterday, Park Jimin, don’t even try it,” Hoseok says, sizing up the bags carefully before choosing. “Thank you, Yoongi-ssi! Wait, are you older than us, too?”
“Probably,” Yoongi says with a shrug. “I’m a postgraduate student, but I took time out to do my enlistment before university.” He’s holding the remaining bag of snacks out towards Namjoon, but he’s refusing to make eye contact; even when Namjoon takes them from him with a murmured ‘thanks’, his eyes make an aborted flicker towards Namjoon, but don’t travel the full distance. “I was born in ’93.”
“Ah, can we call you hyung, then?” Hoseok asks. “Namjoonie and I were born in ’94!”
“Sure, if you want,” Yoongi says, still not making eye contact with anyone. He shuffles to stand next to Jimin, and peers over at the list of movies playing. “What’re we watching?”
“The new Marvel film, uh, whatever it is?” Jimin says, flicking through his phone to check for the booking.
At this, Yoongi drags his gaze from the board, but only so he can roll his eyes at Jimin. “Come on, seriously?”
“What’s wrong with Marvel films?” Namjoon says immediately.
Now.
Namjoon has no particular opinion on the concept of Marvel films. Of the few that he’s watched, he thinks some are better than others, but that’s the same with any film studio’s output. He wouldn’t call himself a fan, and he’d imagine that if people do have critiques for the films, they’re probably justified.
However, there’s something in Yoongi’s expression that’s rubbing him the wrong way.
“Most of them are like… The bare minimum of what a film should be,” Yoongi says. “The scores, for example? Mediocre. If you played me a nursery rhyme on a toy piano, and a symphony with a full orchestra, most Marvel films would be the toy piano. Don’t get me wrong, there’re definitely exceptions, but we’re talking about the studio as a whole.”
“Why would you even compare a toy piano with a symphonic orchestra, though?” Namjoon points out. “They’re two types of instrumentation that serve two entirely different artistic purposes.”
“You can’t seriously tell me you’d refer to a Marvel score as art-”
“Maybe you should read more Levi-Strauss, because then you’d know that one of the functions of art is entertainment. Which, judging by how many people go to see these movies, you can’t argue that they’re not entertaining.”
“Maybe you should read more Levi-Strauss, because then you’d know that he literally points out that something should only be worthy of the name ‘art’ if it doesn’t allow itself to be completely swayed by extraneous contingencies. And if you so much as glance at just who helps fund Marvel films, well…” Yoongi finally, finally, turns to look at him, and he’s got a smirk on his face that makes Namjoon want to push him up against one of the cinema’s interior pillars, get up in his face, and –
“That’s ridiculous, because, uh, if you follow that definition through to its logical conclusion, you’d have to discount the entire Western Renaissance canon of art because of it being ‘swayed by the extraneous contingency’ of, you know, Christianity,” Namjoon says, tamping down thoughts of getting Yoongi to shut up by kissing him.
Yoongi shrugs, as though to say ‘go ahead, discount it’, and Namjoon’s furious.
“We’re watching this Marvel movie because Jeongguk likes them, and he wants someone to talk about it with,” Jimin says, folding his arms and raising his eyebrow.
Namjoon watches, surprised, as Yoongi instantly backs down, his face becoming softer at the mention of Jeongguk. “Sorry, Jimin-ah.”
“Ah, hyung, I’m sorry that you’re not going to enjoy watching this film,” Jimin says, linking his arm through Yoongi’s again.
Yoongi hums. “But if Jeongguk likes talking about them, I can sit through a new one. It’ll be nice, getting to talk with him about something he enjoys.” The sweet look on Yoongi’s face twists a little as he frowns at Jimin. “Just don’t make me watch all of them in full, how many of them even are there, ten? They’ve honestly all merged into one at this point.”
“Oh, Yoongi,” Jimin says, patting his arm. “You sweet, sweet boy. There’s almost thirty.”
“And the television shows!” Hoseok pipes up, falling into step next to Namjoon as Jimin leads them towards the theatre.
Namjoon stays quiet, thinking of the fond look on Yoongi’s face when he’d spoken about Jeongguk.
Namjoon’s in the library again, and he’s –
He’s not looking for Levi-Strauss’s The Savage Mind. So what if he’s in the Social Sciences section? Philosophy’s a broad subject, he can be in the Social Sciences section of the library if he wants.
But if he happens to spot the book, randomly, while he’s definitely not looking for it…
He slides the book off the shelf. It has been a while since he last read it, maybe it would be prudent to skim through it. Just to check his understanding of it.
He carries it to the self-scan machine to check it out, only to find that one of them is out of order, and the other is being used by a stressed-out looking student checking out what has to be every text in the Hippocratic Corpus, so he takes his book over to the help desk to get checked out.
There’s no one there, so he waits patiently, flicking through the book. Eventually, a woman sitting on an office chair wheels out of the office behind the help desk, makes eye contact with Namjoon, and yells,
“Yoongi-yah!”
There’s a dull thump under the desk, and Yoongi shuffles out, rubbing his head.
“What, noona, I was trying to fix the printer-” The woman jerks her head at Namjoon and wheels back into the office. “Sorry for the wait, I was – Namjoon-ssi?” Yoongi blinks up at him, a long, slow blink as he continues to rub his head. He’s wearing the chunkiest black sweater over a crisp, white shirt, and Namjoon needs to say something because he’s been staring at the line where the cuff of his sweater meets his wrist for too long now.
“Can I check this out, please?” He slides the book over to Yoongi, remembering at the last second just why he’s checking this particular book out when Yoongi’s eyebrows almost fly up his forehead. He doesn’t say anything as he takes Namjoon’s student card and wordlessly scans the book out to him, but he doesn’t need to.
He hands the book back to Namjoon, who bows, hoping to end this whole interaction as soon as possible; unfortunately, Yoongi keeps holding onto the book, so the two of them are just sort of hovering there, holding a book between them over the desk.
“I, uh, want to apologise,” Yoongi says, incredibly slowly. “Jimin said I was being ‘needlessly combative’ when we hung out last weekend.” He smiles, an echo of the smirk that had been haunting Namjoon for the last few days. “Well, he actually said I was ‘being a dick’, but I read between the lines.”
“I don’t even like Marvel films that much,” Namjoon blurts out, instead of saying anything sensible, such as accepting Yoongi’s apology, or offering his own. Even a goodbye would be preferable to this increasingly awkward conversation.
Yoongi frowns. “You were… Very defensive. I figured you were a fanboy or something.”
“God, no, I’ve seen, like, four of them, and three of those were because Jeongguk was already watching them when I went to see him,” Namjoon says. “I just… You’re easy to argue with.”
“That sounds like an insult, but you’re saying it like it’s a compliment,” Yoongi says, raising an eyebrow. Namjoon’s not sure how he means it himself, so he just shrugs. “Well… I’ve got a queue building, so unless there’s anything else…?” He waves vaguely at a spot behind Namjoon, where, sure enough, four students are waiting for help from Yoongi.
“Oh! No, I’m good,” Namjoon says.
Yoongi nods; they’re both still holding the book over the desk. “Okay. See you Saturday, then?”
“Saturday?”
“Jimin invited me to game night?” Yoongi says, finally letting go of the book.
“Right, right. Yeah, see you there, then,” Namjoon says, stuffing the book in his bag and getting out of the way.
‘Game Night’ is something of a misnomer. In truth, they only ever play one game, and that game is Seokjin and Jeongguk’s copy of Super Mario Party.
“No!” Hoseok wails as, on screen, Yoshi loses ten coins. “We’re not a threat! JK! Namjoon and I don’t even have stars!” Next to him on the floor, Jeongguk giggles as his first place Shy Guy is bolstered by yet another ten coins.
The game only lets four of them play at a time, which they usually get around by splitting into three teams of two and sharing controllers. With the addition of Yoongi, though, they’ve split into three teams of two and Jeongguk, who is still beating them all.
To be fair, Namjoon and Hoseok aren’t great at Mario Party. Jimin and Taehyung are something of a wild card each time they play, depending on which mini-games come up; Yoongi, meanwhile, is apparently playing Mario Party for the first time.
Namjoon would be worried if Jeongguk wasn’t winning.
“Ah, sorry, hyung,” Jeongguk says, sounding not at all sorry as he rolls high enough to breeze across the board and swipe another star. “But I have an alliance with Yoongi-hyung – it is his first time playing.”
“But Yoongi-hyung and Seokjin-hyung are in second place!” Namjoon points out as Yoongi takes his turn. Yoongi had chosen Mario as his and Seokjin’s character, ‘because I know him’, but he’s playing… Suspiciously well. True, there’s an element of luck to Mario Party, and Namjoon doesn’t want to be that dick that accuses someone of cheating at Mario Party, but he’s sure he is.
“Because Jeongguk isn’t targeting them,” Taehyung says fairly. “You’ve got to respect the alliance.” He claps Jimin’s shoulder as Jimin takes their turn, his tongue poking out between his teeth as he makes Peach hit the dice block. “Nice roll,” Taehyung says as Peach rolls a zero. Jimin gives him a thumbs up in response.
Mario Party can sometimes get a little vicious, but it seems as though everyone’s behaving themselves in front of Yoongi, and they manage to get to the end of the first game without anyone yelling. Jeongguk annihilates them, winning each of the bonus stars on top of the sizeable amount he had accumulated during the game, but no controllers are thrown, and nobody tackles anybody else to the ground.
“Okay, new game,” Jimin says, pulling up the random pairing generator they always use on his phone. He holds up his phone to show them the new teams.
“Oh, hey, I’ve actually got a shot at winning!” Hoseok says cheerfully, moving to sit next to Jeongguk on the floor and patting his thigh. Taehyung moves to sit closer to Seokjin by scooting a few inches over, close enough that they can share a controller while still allowing Taehyung and Jimin to hold hands.
Yoongi stands in front of the empty space Hoseok has left next to Namjoon on the couch.
“Can I sit?” Yoongi asks, nodding at the seat.
“Sure,” Namjoon says, shifting a little to give Yoongi some more space. Yoongi sits carefully; whereas Hoseok and Namjoon had been sprawled across the couch, one of Hoseok’s legs tossed across Namjoon’s thighs, Namjoon and Yoongi sit ramrod straight, their legs arranged neatly.
“How’s the book?” Yoongi asks.
Namjoon’s initial reaction is to bristle, to wonder why Yoongi’s bringing it up – is it a passive way for him to say ‘I told you so’? To remind Namjoon that he’d referenced an author incorrectly, and Yoongi had caught him out on it?
He takes a second, takes a breath. “It’s good. Been a while since I last read it, you know?”
Yoongi nods, his shoulders relaxing. “The only reason I remembered it so well was because I read it recently. My reading lists are so huge this year, I can really only remember the last five or so things I’ve read, and one of those is a delivery menu for a place just down the road from me. I probably shouldn’t have signed up for a different department’s lecture series during the most important year of my PhD, but it looked interesting, you know? Of course you know, you’re in the class – in the department too, right?”
Yoongi, it turns out, is chatty once he gets going.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Yoongi says when Namjoon mentions how surprised he is by this; Namjoon immediately wishes he hadn’t said anything, because he can visibly see how Yoongi closes off, draws himself back in. “I get that a lot.”
Namjoon thinks about how, when they’d both received an email calling them out for taking up too much class time, he’d been embarrassed but had still carried on contributing – Yoongi hadn’t. “It’s not a bad thing!” Namjoon says hastily. “I’m just surprised because you don’t stick around after class, you know?”
“I teach in the Music Department five minutes after the lecture ends,” Yoongi explains, his face clearing again. “If I don’t get there on time, those brats will ditch.” It sounds rude, but his expression is fond when he talks about the undergraduates.
“You’re a Music student?” Namjoon asks interestedly – his focus on their current game of Mario Party is tertiary at best.
Yoongi nods, hitting three high numbers on their triple dice. He seems to be paying some attention to the game, because he’s at least checking which way he should be going on the map – Namjoon’s just been mashing the ‘A’ button during his turn on the controller. “I enjoy it, but it was a compromise with my parents.”
“A compromise?” Namjoon asks.
“I wanted to go straight into pursuing a music career from high school – before that, actually, I was floating around on the underground rap scene during the last few years of high school – but my parents wanted me to get a ‘marketable degree’.” Although Namjoon tries to school his expression, his feelings are clearly evident all over his face, because Yoongi smirks. “I won’t tell them if you don’t.”
Namjoon sinks back into the couch, thoughtful. He loves his degree, but even he can admit that job opportunities aren’t vast or lucrative for Philosophy or Music students, especially in comparison to their counterparts in STEM. His parents had been happy to let him make his own decision, trusting that his research on how a philosophy degree had ‘great cross-applicability’ would come to fruition, one day. “What’s your thesis about?” He asks, because he doesn’t want Yoongi to stop talking, not yet.
Yoongi, surprisingly, snorts. “Music in contemporary film, specifically the scoring of big budget, blockbuster franchises with multiple directors.”
It takes Namjoon a second, and then he groans, putting his head in his hands. “You must think I’m a moron.”
“Not at all,” Yoongi replies politely.
“No, but, I looked you in your face and argued with you about a Marvel score,” Namjoon says. “I’m just like those men who explain comics to their female creators.”
“You’re not,” Yoongi says firmly, his tone at odds with the very gentle touch Namjoon feels on his shoulder. “The fact that you know that’s a thing that happens tells me that you’re not like that.”
“Yeah, you’re not like that, Namjoon-ah,” Seokjin says, making Namjoon jump so much he dislodges Yoongi’s hand from his shoulder. Mortifyingly, he had forgotten that everyone else was in the room with them, a fact that they’re clearly aware of when he looks up and sees that all five of his friends have shit-eating grins on their faces.
Namjoon adds Yoongi’s contact details to his phone, sends a text back to confirm that he’s free and, while he waits for a reply, he goes to look for Yoongi’s hoodie.
Sure enough, there it is, balled up in his bag that’s still dumped by the front door. He unfolds it to shake out the creases a little – it’s the same hoodie, but there are slight differences, small enough that they’re only noticeable because he’s looking out for them. The arms aren’t as stretched out as they are on Namjoon’s hoodie, but the shoulders on Yoongi’s hoodie are stretched out just as much, if not a little more so, than Namjoon’s. Namjoon’s hoodie strings are usually even, while these aren’t, and – Namjoon takes a sniff – the hoodie smells different. A different brand of detergent, perhaps, or the slight difference in smell that comes from living in a different building.
It’s at that precise moment, crouching by the front door with his nose pressed deep in Yoongi’s hoodie, that Hoseok comes home from his morning dance practice.
“I’m checking to see if it’s… Smelly,” Namjoon offers after a moment of staring up at Hoseok guiltily.
“If you need to sniff it to double check, you should probably put it to wash anyway,” Hoseok replies, holding out his hand in a polite offer to throw the hoodie into their wash basket.
Namjoon clutches it closer. “I can’t.”
“You can’t… Wash it?” Hoseok replies, frowning at the hoodie. “You’ve washed it before, Namjoon-ah, it’s not handwash only?”
“No, I mean, I need it for today.”
“You have other hoodies?”
“It’s… Not mine,” Namjoon says eventually. “I need to give it back to Yoongi today.” Hoseok, very pointedly, raises an eyebrow as he stares at just how close Namjoon’s still holding the hoodie to his nose; Namjoon lowers it.
Before Hoseok can say whatever is clearly on his mind, Namjoon’s phone vibrates in his pocket; he almost swipes his own legs out from underneath himself in his haste to look at the message.
He sends the location of the café Namjoon and Hoseok usually frequent, followed by;
Namjoon, despite himself, grins at his phone. It just runs so counter to the idea of Yoongi he’d had in his head at the start of the semester – this is a man that talks enthusiastically, who seems to know a little about everything, who sends cute emojis.
He’s never been endeared by someone’s use of an emoji before, but he reasons that that’s because none of his friends send lots of emojis.
(He immediately recognises that this just isn’t true – all of his friends use emojis, and Hoseok can, and will, craft full sentences using them – but he chooses to come back to that thought another time.)
Namjoon doesn’t immediately see Yoongi sitting in the café; when he does spot him, tucked into the corner with his bulky laptop and even bulkier headphones, it’s to find that Yoongi’s already noticed him first. He’s looking at Namjoon with a small, patient smile on his face, which broadens into a grin when their eyes meet. He holds up a second cup of coffee.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I just got two lattes,” Yoongi says as soon as Namjoon approaches. “Have you eaten?”
Namjoon shakes his head, trying to hide his smile as he sits down opposite Yoongi – he’d assumed that this would just be a quick hoodie swap, but the fact that Yoongi’s bought him coffee, specifically coffee in one of the café’s mugs, means that he wants Namjoon to stay as much as Namjoon wants to himself.
“Help yourself,” Yoongi continues, pushing a plate of pastries closer towards Namjoon. “And thank you for bringing my hoodie at such short notice.”
“Oh, it was no problem!” Namjoon says a little too enthusiastically as he hands over Yoongi’s hoodie. It’s still a little rumpled, even after Namjoon had hung it up in the tiny bathroom and ran the shower to try to steam out some of the creases, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to notice, or care, stuffing it into his own bag.
“Still, thank you,” Yoongi repeats, glancing through the window behind Namjoon. “Got any plans today?”
“Just some reading for class,” Namjoon says, holding up his phone. “I was gonna head to the library, but I might just stay here?”
“It’d be nice to have some company,” Yoongi says, turning his attention back to his laptop.
So Namjoon settles in, uses the background noises of the cafe and Yoongi’s rhythmic tapping to lull himself into a state of concentration. The article he’s supposed to be reading is poorly written, in an inaccessible, jargon-filled way, and he’s so focused on not losing his place that he doesn’t notice Yoongi get up or return to the table until he feels a saucer graze his fingertips, making him startle a little.
“Sorry,” Yoongi says, nudging the refilled coffee closer. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I was worried you were never going to look up again - coffee’s no good cold.”
“You didn’t have to,” Namjoon says, taking a grateful sip before stretching out his hand, stiffened from holding his phone for so long. He just has the bibliography left to read of the article, which, considering how bad the article itself was, he thinks he can get away with not looking at too closely.
“I know,” Yoongi says simply.
Considering how rocky the start of their relationship had been, they fall into a surprisingly easy rhythm - they meet for coffee at least twice a week, with Yoongi coming to meet him on a Wednesday after he’s done with the undergraduates, and the pair of them meeting on a Sunday to study companionably. They hang out with everyone else on Saturdays for game night, and then they usually do something else during the week - an exhibit that Namjoon thinks Yoongi might be interested in, or an old, hole in the wall record shop that has somehow evaded gentrification that Yoongi takes Namjoon to after he finds out that Namjoon likes to make his own music in his spare time. When Namjoon admits that he’s never actually listened to a record, meeting four times a week becomes five when Yoongi starts inviting him over to his apartment to work through his impressive record collection.
“It’s not ‘oh, music just sounds better on vinyl, blah blah blah’,” Yoongi says as they lay on their backs and listen to Hyun Jin-Young and Wawa’s New Dance 1. Yoongi’s apartment is a tiny studio, but he actually takes the time to fold up his sofa bed every morning, so there’s enough room for them both to lay on the floor and stare up at the ceiling as they listen to Yoongi’s choices. “Take this, for example,” Yoongi continues; Namjoon can just about see his hand waving vaguely at the record player in the corner of his peripheral vision. “It wasn’t created with the intention of it being listened to through headphones. It’d probably sound disjointed if you tried. I think that’s what people are referring to when they say ‘vinyl sounds better’ - older songs crafted for vinyl are naturally going to sound better on vinyl than they do digitally. Not to mention there’s a world of difference between listening to music on a high quality record player and through shitty 30,000 won earphones that come for free with your phone.”
After a few weeks of listening to his records and hearing him debunk common misconceptions about vinyl, Namjoon comes to the conclusion that Yoongi might’ve just been looking for an additional reason for them to hang out more - so, when he notices that Yoongi’s starting to come to the end of his collection, almost two months after they’d started, he calls his parents to ask to borrow their records.
When he turns up at Yoongi’s apartment the week after, carrying a huge box of records spanning dozens of genres, the smile Yoongi offers him is wide enough that he has to scrunch up his eyes to accommodate it.
The weather starts to warm, the blossom on the trees hitting that awkward pre-bloom stage where the buds are more green than white, and Namjoon finds himself basking in the warmth of the early spring sun as he waits for Yoongi to get out of his meeting with his academic advisor. They see each other often enough, now, that it would probably be easier to count the days they don’t see each other in a week, rather than the days they do. Some nights, they even stay at one another’s apartments - the first time it had happened, Namjoon had forgotten to let Hoseok know that Yoongi would be sleeping on their couch, and Hoseok, stumbling to get a drink from the kitchen in the middle of the night, had woken both of them up with his screech upon finding what he had believed to be some sort of macabre, pale foot dangling off the arm of their couch.
Namjoon’s still smiling over the memory of this when he spots Yoongi coming out of the music building. He sees Yoongi before Yoongi sees him, because he’s talking with another guy - Namjoon can’t see much of this stranger except for the back of his head as he walks, backwards, in front of Yoongi, but he can see how uncomfortable Yoongi looks, so he sends him a quick text.
Yoongi checks his phone immediately, smiles down at the screen, and then peers around the man - he catches Namjoon’s eye, waves, bids goodbye to the man, and hurries over.
“So, that was a ‘yes’, huh,” Namjoon says with a grin as Yoongi draws up alongside him and gestures for them to keep walking.
“I’ve managed to avoid him for almost the entire academic year,” Yoongi says with an eyeroll. “Pushy exes are the worst.”
“Your ex?” Namjoon says, glancing over his shoulder at the man. He’s now too far away to make out anything except his height - tall - and his hair - dark.
“Yeah,” Yoongi says slowly. “Is that… A problem?”
“What? Oh, no! Me too!”
“…he’s your ex, too?”
“No! I meant I like men, too. Exclusively.”
“Cool,” Yoongi replies. “I’m bi.” They walk quietly, a little awkwardly, for a moment, before Yoongi blurts out “I seriously can’t believe that this has never come up?”
“I can’t believe you thought I was the token straight in our friend group,” Namjoon says, pretending to pout, which makes Yoongi relax into a laugh.
“I can’t believe you thought I was,” Yoongi shoots back, knocking his shoulder against Namjoon’s. “What was it, hmm? I need to know what part of my personality needs changing.”
“I didn’t want to-” hope, is the correct answer. “Assume,” is what Namjoon finishes with. Yoongi seems to know that Namjoon’s not being entirely truthful, but he doesn’t call him out on it, choosing instead to walk silently at his side as they walk to the subway station. Namjoon surprises himself with just how vehemently he wishes Yoongi would call him out on it, push him to be more honest, so he does so himself. “Hope.”
It’s been long enough since the conversation had ended that it takes Yoongi a second to realise what Namjoon is saying; when he does, he quickly turns to look at Namjoon, eyes widening as he seems to search for something in Namjoon’s expression. Namjoon doesn’t know if he finds what he’s looking for, but he maintains the eye contact, lets Yoongi look for it as long as he needs. Eventually, Yoongi smiles warmly and says, “Yeah, I get that, Namjoon-ah.”
Every other Sunday, Yoongi works on the front desk of the library from nine at night until one in the morning. When Namjoon had questioned the necessity of this in a digital age, Yoongi had snorted with laughter.
“Until the same AI system can help someone scan books out to themselves, unjam a photocopier, and remind students that they’re not supposed to be bringing food amongst the books that’re older than they are, there’s still a market for hapless night librarians,” he had said.
One of the benefits for Namjoon is that Yoongi’s more or less free to talk on nights where he’s working - the front desk is far enough removed from the workspaces that no one can hear that Yoongi’s on the phone, so it means he can just call Yoongi, usually from about 10, and have long, sprawling video conversations with him.
“Is your lighting different?” Yoongi asks suddenly, leaning forward to peer at his own screen.
“No?” Namjoon says, rubbing his thumb along his right sinus. “Same as it always is.”
“You look a little… I don’t want to say ‘weird’, but you do,” Yoongi laughs. “Maybe it’s just my phone.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Namjoon says, resting his chin on his hand. He’s tired, more tired than he usually is at this time of night, but he doesn’t want to go to bed just yet - Hoseok’s out for the night, staying over at Jimin and Taehyung’s in preparation for an early morning dance practice, and Namjoon’s not quite ready to spend the rest of his night in more or less complete silence.
He manages to draw out their conversation until just before midnight, which is earlier than they usually stop, but Yoongi has seemingly noticed that he’s flagging a little.
“Go to sleep, Namjoon-ah,” he says softly. He’s got his hoodie pulled up right over his fingers, and he’s curled his hand under his jaw to rest his fingers on his cheekbone. He has a collection of big jumpers and hoodies that he only seems to wear on Sunday nights to protect himself from the worst of the cold whenever a student enters the library; some of them look like hoodies Namjoon owns, which doesn’t surprise him. Namjoon knows that he and Yoongi own at least one of the same hoodie, so it’s not implausible that they both own others, too.
“Want to talk to you,” Namjoon says, marvelling a little at the way Yoongi’s fingertips jolt with the force of the smile he offers.
“I’ll still be here tomorrow,” Yoongi says. “Go, sleep.”
“Text me when you get home from work?” Namjoon asks. When Yoongi raises an admonishing eyebrow, Namjoon holds up his hands defensively. “I promise I won’t be awake! Just so I know that, when I do wake up, you’re home safe.”
Yoongi’s face softens, and he nods, the movement scrunching up his cheek under his hand. “Alright, but make sure you do get some rest, all right?” He finishes, his eyes flitting over his screen. “And drink some water.”
As Namjoon turns in bed for the tenth time in as many minutes, he thinks about ancient pottery. How, when it’s discovered in the ground, smashed into jagged, painful shards, each piece is carefully cleaned and put back together. The pottery’s not seamless like it once was, but it’s whole, clean. He’s sure there’s a Japanese art form about repairing pottery so that it’s better, more valuable, but he’s so tired that he can’t for the life of him remember what it’s called.
It bothers him for another ten minutes until he gives in, flings his hand out onto his bedside table, and swipes up his phone to search for the answer.
He gets distracted, however, by a notification from Yoongi. He has his phone face down and silent while he’s in bed, so he’d missed the text Yoongi had sent half an hour ago – ‘I’ve just finished work :]’
Because he’s so tired, he doesn’t think twice – barely even thinks once – about texting back. ‘not sleeping, kind of want to shatter my skull, clean it, and put it back together again’.
It flashes up as ‘read’ almost immediately, and the reply is just as fast – ‘have you taken any painkillers for your headache? it’s not quite kintsugi, but it might help you sleep? i was worried you were coming down with something, hope you feel better soon.’
‘your amazing’ Namjoon texts back sleepily, already getting out of bed. He finishes the text with a quick ‘love you and your big beautiful brain’ and goes to search through his bathroom cabinet for painkillers.
He wakes in the morning with a slight, dull headache, but nothing as bad as it was. He also wakes with the distinct feeling that he’s done something stupid.
He’s not sure what he could’ve done – he doesn’t have class today, so it’s not as though he’s forgotten to set an alarm or anything. As he picks up his phone to check his to-do list, he finds that it’s still on, and open to the conversation he’d been having with Yoongi.
“Shit,” Namjoon mumbles, reading over his rambling texts. The last one, the one Yoongi has left on ‘read’, makes him swear again, and he scrambles with his thumbs to call Yoongi.
“Namjoon-ah?” Yoongi croaks sleepily upon answering. Great, not only has Namjoon inadvertently given him the stupidest confession of romantic interest known to man, he’s also woken him up after he’d worked late. “You alright?”
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon offers immediately. “For last night.”
“…s’alright,” Yoongi responds eventually. “Figured you didn’t mean it. You never make grammar mistakes over text, so I just assumed you were tired and in pain. ‘s your head better?”
Namjoon frowns. It’s a way out – laugh it off, make it a joke – but he doesn’t want to take it. Doesn’t want to lie to Yoongi, make him think that he isn’t in love with him, or at least that he’s not on the path towards being in love.
“Namjoon?”
“I meant it,” Namjoon says, hunched over himself as he flexes his hand in his lap, palm wide, fist clenched, as something else to focus on other than his thrumming heart. “I mean, I love you as a friend, obviously, but I think… It could be romantic, if we choose to take it in that direction. So, yeah, I meant it that way, too. Sorry about the weird rambling before it, though.”
“Not weird,” Yoongi says immediately, in a tone that would be fierce if it wasn’t so thoroughly laced with exhaustion. “Knew what you meant.”
“…Hyung?” Namjoon whispers, because Yoongi’s not acknowledged the other thing yet.
“Sorry,” Yoongi says, making Namjoon’s stomach swoop up to clog his oesophagus.
“No, don’t be,” Namjoon replies quickly. “You’re not obligated to feel the same way I do, haha, that would be ridiculous-”
“I’m just saying I’m sorry that I hadn’t replied yet,” Yoongi mumbles around a yawn. “Sorry, I’ve had like, four hours sleep, I’m a little slow.” Namjoon looks at his phone’s clock and winces, bringing his phone back to his ear to catch what he thinks is a whole sentence, but could just as easily be the end of one. “Course I feel the same way, Namjoon-ah.”
“…What?”
“Can’t believe you didn’t know,” Yoongi says, followed by a muffled rustling that sounds like he’s turning over in his bedsheets. “Thought I was being pretty obvious.”
“Obvious how?” Namjoon replies.
“Dunno,” Yoongi replies sleepily. “Steal your hoodies sometimes. Wanna hold your hand all the time. Argued with you in class because I wanted you to talk to me.”
“None of that is obvious,” Namjoon says slowly. “Well, okay, the hoodie thing is, that one’s on me – but in my defence, we do own the same hoodie, so I just assumed we owned… Many same hoodies.”
Yoongi snorts, and Namjoon wishes he could see him, laughing sleepily in bed. “Didn’t you notice your clothes going missing, Namjoon-ah?”
“Honestly, no,” Namjoon says, and he can’t help laughing too, a quiet, low laugh so that he can still hear Yoongi’s laugh in counterpoint.
He should hang up - Yoongi’s clearly exhausted, and he could probably do with an hour or two more of sleep - but he likes being able to hear Yoongi’s deep, measured breaths.
“I don’t want to be that couple,” Yoongi mumbles. “But if you don’t hang up first, you’re gonna end up listening to me sleep.”
“Yeah?” Namjoon says delightedly. “What kind of couple do you want to be?”
“Not the embarrassing kind,” Yoongi says, sounding most of the way asleep already.
“How about the kind that goes on a date later?” Namjoon asks; Yoongi hums affirmatively. “I’ll call you later, alright? Get some more sleep.”
“You too,” Yoongi says around a deep yawn.
“So… You do find him hot,” Jimin says bluntly.
“That’s your takeaway from this?” Namjoon asks. It’s Saturday game night, and maybe, perhaps, he should have been more cognisant of Yoongi’s alleged ‘obviousness’ about his feelings. Gone are the days when they had sat stiffly upright, carefully not touching one another on Jeongguk and Seokjin’s couch - Yoongi has both of his legs splayed over Namjoon’s as he rests his back against the arm of the couch, while Namjoon idly massages his calf, and this isn’t even a new position for them to be in. He can’t pinpoint when they developed this physical closeness, especially considering that there are still some days where they’ll go full hours in one another’s company without making direct eye contact, but he knows that this position doesn’t feel strange to him.
“I’m just saying, I told you that you thought he was hot, and you dismissed my keen observations,” Jimin says with an artful shrug.
Namjoon sighs. “Yes, I do find him hot. Obviously.” He says this while carefully avoiding Yoongi’s eye; while he’s pretty sure Yoongi knows that Namjoon finds him attractive, the thought of trying to say that while maintaining eye contact makes Namjoon want to lie face-down on Seokjin and Jeongguk’s floor.
Jimin nods, satisfied, and then turns his gaze on Yoongi; Namjoon can feel Yoongi’s legs tense, as though he’s preparing to flee. “Hyung, aren’t you glad I gave you Namjoon-hyung’s number when you basically begged me for it?”
“Okay, thank you, everyone,” Yoongi says, scrambling to stand up before offering Namjoon a hand. “We’re going home, goodbye.”
This does not have the intended effect.
“You already live together?” Taehyung says, flinging himself up from the floor into a cross-legged position.
“Don’t be silly, Taehyung-ah, Namjoonie lives with me,” Hoseok says dismissively, before he frowns at Namjoon. “Right? You haven’t moved out today, because rent is due next week and I can’t afford it on my own.” He gasps. “Unless Yoongi-hyung is coming to live with us? That’d be cool.”
“Never mind all that!” Jeongguk says; when he sees Namjoon open his mouth to respond, he quickly adds “I mean, I’m happy for you, sure, but you can’t leave, I made snacks!”
“Jeongguk-ah, you put some leftovers in the microwave,” Seokjin says.
As they continue bickering about the snacks, Yoongi settles back down next to Namjoon on the couch, a smug little smile on his face.
Jimin leans over to them both. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you distracting everyone,” he mutters, narrowing his eyes.
“Don’t know what you mean,” Yoongi says innocently.
Jimin continues to glare at them for a moment, but his face melts into a warm, pleased smile before long. “Seriously, I’m happy for you both - you’re a good fit.”
“Thank you, Jimin-ah,” Namjoon says quietly as Yoongi slots his hand into Namjoon’s.
They’re still holding hands much later, as they walk from the subway station to Yoongi’s apartment. Rain has come and gone during the time they’ve spent at Seokjin and Jeongguk’s, and the streets are gleaming under the lights of the city.
“I’d like to kiss you,” Yoongi says, apropos of nothing.
Namjoon snorts. “I’d like to kiss you, too, hyung.”
“Then why are you laughing?” Yoongi asks with his own laugh, stepping lightly over one of the many puddles covering the path.
“Lots of reasons,” Namjoon says. Yoongi raises an eyebrow for clarification. “I’m happy. I’m imagining telling myself from a few months ago that what I’d want most in the world, right now, is to kiss Min Yoongi. I’m also laughing about you just blurting out that you’d like to kiss me.”
“Well, I would,” Yoongi insists, crinkling his nose. He squeezes Namjoon’s hand. “Can I?”
“Yeah,” Namjoon says, his voice coming out a little higher than normal; he coughs. “Yes, you can.”
Yoongi pulls them to a stop in the middle of the path. Namjoon’s foot is almost completely submerged within a puddle, but he finds it almost impossible to care as Yoongi steps closer, up onto his tiptoes, and kisses him softly. He’s still holding onto Namjoon’s hand, and he moves his other hand to rest it on Namjoon’s shoulder, the weight of it sturdy and grounding as he presses closer. Namjoon curls his hand around Yoongi’s waist, smiling when he recognises one of his own hoodies under his hand.