Archive of Our Own

Taehyung doesn’t realise when the insomnia truly settles in, only that one night it arrives quietly and then refuses to leave, stretching the dark hours wider and wider until they feel less like time and more like an endless hallway he keeps walking without ever reaching a door.

At first, he blames work, because work is convenient like that; always available, always guilty-looking, always ready to take responsibility for whatever goes wrong in his life. Being a CEO comes with an unspoken understanding that rest is negotiable and exhaustion is simply part of the dress code, something worn as regularly as cufflinks and polite smiles. Early mornings blend into late nights until the body learns to move on momentum alone, fueled by coffee, deadlines, and sheer stubbornness.

He tells himself this is temporary, that once the quarter closes, the deal finalises, or the next meeting passes, his sleep will return like a loyal employee who merely took a personal day without notice.

It does not return.

Even on evenings when fatigue drapes itself over him so completely that his shoulders ache and his eyes burn faintly at the edges, sleep keeps its distance. He lies in bed with the lights off and the room perfectly arranged for rest— cool sheets, a perfect temperature— and stares up at the ceiling as if it might eventually take pity on him and lower itself like a curtain.

His thoughts drift without urgency, circling gently and uselessly; too slow to solve anything and too persistent to ignore, like paper boats looping in a bathtub current. The clock beside him glows with unnecessary confidence, changing its numbers with theatrical slowness, clearly enjoying itself.

1:38.
2:11.
2:47.

By the time sleep finally appears, it does so lightly and without commitment, hovering rather than staying, and leaving again far too early. Morning arrives with stabbing brightness and a dull headache, and with the distinct sense that whatever rest he managed to catch was poorly assembled and missing several important parts.

Hoseok notices before anyone else does, which is unsurprising, because Hoseok notices everything from misplaced signatures to slightly uneven tie knots. 

He begins setting coffee down with extra care and asking gentle questions disguised as scheduling concerns, suggesting, with professional delicacy, that perhaps a slower pace might be beneficial, or at the very least medically interesting.

One of the board members recommends a vacation with the cheerful authority of someone who does not intend to take one themselves, and Taehyung laughs along easily, brushing it aside even as the pressure behind his eyes pulses in steady disagreement.

When another sleepless night arrives and makes itself comfortable, Taehyung stops pretending cooperation is an option. He turns onto his side, reaches for his phone, and immediately turns down the brightness, letting its soft glow spill into the room. Checking email proves immediately regrettable; the news proves worse; and a weather alert from a city he has never visited somehow feels so accusatory that he abandons all three and opens YouTube with the aimless resignation of someone wandering into a kitchen at midnight without hunger.

He scrolls without intention, past recipes he will never cook and travel vlogs he does not have time to take, until a recommendation appears with unsettling accuracy.

“ASMR for people who can’t sleep, even when they’re exhausted.”

The specificity makes him laugh quietly into the dark, because he doesn’t remember granting the internet this level of emotional credentials.

He knows what ASMR is in theory— whispers, soft tapping, careful sounds, strangers performing gentleness toward a microphone— but he has never considered it personally relevant. Still, the thumbnail is calm, the lighting warm, and the room around him feels too silent in a way that presses against his temples.

“Fine,” he murmurs with mild scepticism and the bargaining tone of someone making a deal with fate. “One video.”

The screen fades in without dramatic music or flashing graphics, only soft shadows and warm light, hands moving in and out of frame with unhurried precision. Nothing requires attention; nothing performs for it. The quiet feels intended rather than empty.

When the voice arrives, it is warm and unforced, the kind of voice that sounds like it would instinctively speak softer near sleeping things.

“Hey,” the boy starts, face still out of the frame, “I’m Jungkook. If you’re here right now, I’m guessing sleep’s been… difficult.”

The words are gentle, without assumption or pity, and Taehyung finds himself exhaling more deeply than expected, surprised by the strange sense that he is being accompanied rather than addressed. The speaker does not rush to fill every lull, does not crowd the pause with chatter, but lets it breathe between sentences like space between notes in a melody.

“You don’t need to focus on anything,” Jungkook continues. “You can just listen or not. Either way’s okay.”

There are soft fabric sounds, the faint brush of fingertips across a microphone, a rhythm steady enough to be soothing without becoming repetitive. Jungkook talks about small things— harmless things— the comfort of rain against windows, the relief of unclenching your jaw, the solace of someone carding through your hair, the simple permission to stop holding everything together for a few hours without consequence.

At some point, Taehyung intends to adjust the volume, because it must certainly be too loud or too soft or incorrectly calibrated for sleep, but the thought drifts away before it becomes action, and sometime after that, without any announcement, sleep finally finds him and stays.

He wakes to sunlight slipping across his sheets in warm stripes, the brightness gentle rather than intrusive, and for several long seconds, he remains still, disoriented in the pleasant way one usually only feels on holidays, before reaching for his phone.

6:41 a.m.

He stares at the screen, stunned.

“…what,” he breathes.

He stares at it with quiet disbelief, because the number suggests a full night’s rest and his body, astonishingly, agrees.

That evening, he prepares for bed with unusual alacrity, dimming the lights and closing the curtains with the seriousness of a ritual. He opens the same channel without browsing, without reluctance, settling his headphones comfortably as the video begins.

“Hi,” Jungkook says softly, with the easy familiarity of someone greeting a returning guest. “Welcome back.”

The smile that forms on Taehyung’s face is small and private and entirely unplanned, but it lingers anyway, warm at the edges, like something in him has decided, quite on its own, that this is a good place to be.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

Over time, the videos become part of his nights so naturally that Taehyung never notices the exact moment the habit forms. There is no proclamation or anything of the sort, only the subconscious repetition of reaching for his headphones, opening the same channel, and letting that familiar warmth pour into the dark. What begins as a sleep aid slowly shifts shape, turning into something softer, something with presence. Jungkook’s voice stops feeling like a tool and starts feeling like company.

Some nights Jungkook tells stories— simple ones, half-improvised, about late-night walks and corner stores and childhood snacks that taste better at midnight than they ever did in daylight. His voice rises and dips, as if he’s discovering the story at the same time as the listener.

“Okay, so imagine this,” Jungkook murmurs one night, fingers brushing the mic in slow, careful strokes. “You couldn’t sleep… Well, obviously you couldn’t, that’s why you’re here…” he lets out a giggle, “anyway, you sneak into the kitchen like a very polite thief, one that’s smooth like butter. But not a criminal criminal, you know...merely…snack-motivated.”

Taehyung smiles into the dark.

“And the floorboards are dramatic,” Jungkook continues, whispering conspiratorially. “They betray you, very loudly, as if every step is like congratulations, you’ve been caught stealing cheese at 2 a.m.”

The soft tapping that follows sounds suspiciously like fingertips drumming on a fridge door.

“And you find a cake,” Jungkook decides gently. “There is always cake in these stories. That’s the rule.”

Taehyung softly laughs.

“Now imagine as you take…”

Other nights, Jungkook sings under his breath— not full songs, just drifting melodies, almost-shy humming woven between brushing and tapping sounds, like lullabies that one sings while carding the slumberer’s hair. The closeness of it does strange things to Taehyung’s chest, loosening something he didn’t realise he kept held tight.

“Don’t judge the singing,” Jungkook whispers once, a smile audible in the sound. “I was not prepared to be perceived today.”

Taehyung murmurs back, voice sleep-heavy and amused, even though no one can hear him. “Too late.”

Sometimes Jungkook says almost nothing at all. Those are the nights filled with lid sounds, brushing of the mic, slow tracing motions, and gentle tapping rhythms that feel like rainfall translated into touch. Yet, somehow that silence never feels empty, only shared.

And soon enough, without ever meaning to, Taehyung begins to learn Jungkook in fragments; assembling a person from tone and timing alone.

Like the way he enunciates the word ‘rest’, as if it’s permission instead of advice.

“Rest,” he’ll whisper, in his quintessentially soft but certain tone. “You’re not behind, neither are you ahead, you’re simply there.”

The way his laughter tumbles out quietly when he catches himself rambling.

“I forgot what I was saying,” he admits one night, amused. “That happens a lot. My brain just closes extra tabs without warning.”

The way his voice grows warmer, almost fond, when he talks about comfort.

“Comfort doesn’t have to be earned,” Jungkook mulls, “It’s not a reward system but a need.”

Taehyung, who has absolutely treated comfort like a performance bonus for most of his adult life, frowns thoughtfully at the ceiling.

The comments section becomes part of the ritual, too. At first, he reads them the way one reads notes left on a public wall: strangers thanking and confessing careful pieces of themselves in softened language.

I listened to this after my night shift.
You make the dark feel less lonely.
I didn’t know I needed this.

There is something strangely sacred about the way vulnerability appears when names are hidden.

He tells himself he’s only reading out of curiosity or… anthropological interest, market research, even.

Those excuses last about a week.

One night, lulled and loose with sleepiness, he types before he can overthink it.

Your voice feels like sitting by a window when it’s raining.

He stares at it for a full ten seconds, as if commenting might suddenly become illegal, before posting.

After that, the distance shrinks. Not dramatically, though… simply… enough to feel different. He leaves small truths, careful and nonspecific, offerings without identifiers.

This helped more than I expected.
I slept through the night. That’s rare. Thank you.
You’re good at making quiet feel safe.

Jungkook hearts nearly every comment. The tiny red icon becomes, inexplicably, the most validating symbol Taehyung encounters all day.

Sometimes Jungkook replies.

I’m glad you’re here.
Thank you for listening tonight.
I hope you slept well.

The simplicity of it makes the warmth register harder, not softer.

One evening, midway through a mic tracing segment, Jungkook says softly, “Someone told me today that the last video helped their migraine more than they expected, and I’ve been thinking about that all day.” There’s a gentle pause, like he’s smiling to himself. “I’m really glad you’re here. All of you. Even if you’re just passing through.”

Taehyung’s chest tightens in a small, ridiculous way.

“It’s not about me,” he tells the empty room firmly.

It feels about him anyway.

Weeks drift by like that, smooth and indistinguishable, nights folding into each other like pressed pages, until it is December and all the festivals loom with surprisingly little fanfare. Decorations appear in the city without his permission, just as his calendar grows celebratory against his will.

Jungkook mentions it casually in one video, amusement tucked into his tone.

“In my last video, someone commented asking about my New Year’s resolutions,” he says, followed by a quiet giggle. “Some people love them, while some hear the phrase and immediately need a nap.”

“Exactly,” Taehyung murmurs into his pillow in full agreement.

“There’s always so much noise around it,” Jungkook continues, fingers tracing slow circles over the lid. “Big goals, big changes, big pressure to become a brand new person overnight. Which is funny, because you’re already a person. You worked very hard on that.”

Taehyung smiles, eyes closed.

“Yet, it still feels like you should do something, doesn’t it?” Jungkook muses. “But it doesn’t have to be grand or impressive or productive, you know? A resolution can be very small and very soft. It can be drinking more water, stretching your shoulders or perhaps answering fewer emails after midnight.”

“I feel attacked,” Taehyung whispers, with a faint smile.

“You don’t have to celebrate anything,” Jungkook adds gently. “Just take care of yourself this year. That counts, and that’s more than enough.”

The words settle easily, like snowflakes on tree tops.

“For celebrating the New Year Day or Christmas even, or any festival, I think,” Jungkook goes on, voice drifting into a thoughtful hush, “it could be something as simple as sitting somewhere warm, doing nothing important, and not feeling like you have to perform for anyone while you’re there.”

The image forms in Taehyung’s mind with effortless clarity— a small café glowing with amber light, jazz murmuring from hidden speakers, winter pressed softly against the windows while steam curls lazily from a ceramic mug between his hands.

“That sounds nice,” he murmurs aloud, voice already drowsy. “Suspiciously nice.”

“If you do that,” Jungkook says, as if answering him across the distance, “I hope you enjoy it properly but, no multitasking allowed. That’s the rule...The only rule.”

Taehyung huffs a quiet laugh. “Bossy,” he accuses fondly, and falls asleep before the video ends.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

A couple of days later, work runs later than Taehyung would like and longer than he has patience for. It’s the kind of day that is made entirely of meetings that could have been emails and emails that should have been silence. 

By the time he leaves the office, the building has gone mostly dark behind him, the lobby echoing faintly with each step. His shoulders feel wound tight with leftover tension, and the thought of going straight home to a dark, orderly apartment feels oddly unappealing.

The city, however, seems to have decided on a softer mood.

Lights glow warmly against the night, halos of gold and amber blurring at the edges as if someone turned the sharpness down. The cold air seems to carry the distant smell of roasted chestnuts and passing rain, and for once, no one seems to be in a hurry. 

Taehyung finds himself slowing without meaning to, moving past his usual turn, then past another, until he stops in front of a small café he has passed hundreds of times and never entered.

Tonight, it looks inviting instead of incidental.

Taking a deep breath, he goes in before he can talk himself out of it.

Inside, the air is warm and gently sweet, wrapped in the low murmur of conversation and the soft clink of ceramic. A piano sits in the corner, and someone is playing, not for attention, but for atmosphere, notes drifting lazily through the room like steam.

It feels like stepping into the exact picture Jungkook once described.

“That’s…” Taehyung shrugs as he steps in anyway.

He orders hot chocolate instead of coffee, which feels like a small personal rebellion, and settles by the window where the glass reflects the lights like scattered stars. The first sip is rich and comforting, and he can almost feel the day loosening its grip on him, thread by thread.

“Sorry— um— is this seat taken?”

The voice reaches him before the meaning does.

It moves through him with immediate familiarity, affable and soft, and recognition strikes so quickly it feels physical. It’s not the polite kind of recognition either, but a deep, instinctive kind, like hearing a melody you know by heart.

Taehyung looks up, and everything else fills in. 

A young man, perhaps a university student no older than twenty-five, is standing there with a careful half-smile playing on his lips. His hair is slightly ruffled, and his oversized hoodie seems to swallow him in an understated kind of elegance. He’s holding a drink in both hands, shoulders gently hunched, as if wrapped in a quiet, polite uncertainty.

But it’s the voice. The voice that renders him disoriented.

Taehyung blinks, heart stuttering, for he knows that voice. He knows the way it settles into quiet spaces; he knows the way it lowers when saying certain words.

The boy gestures lightly toward the chair. “Every other table is taken, and I’ve already walked around once pretending to check my phone, so if you say no, I’ll have to leave the country.”

Taehyung almost laughs, caught between surprise and something softer. Up close, the voice is less filtered, more textured, threaded with a certain breathiness and warmth, but it’s undeniably the same.

“Sit,” Taehyung says, a touch slower than usual. “No need for relocation.”

“Thank you,” the boy exhales, visibly relieved, sliding into the seat like someone easing into a safe landing. “I underestimated how popular warm drinks are when it’s cold. Rookie mistake.”

Taehyung hums.“Winter repeats that lesson every year, but no one listens.”

They settle into an easy quiet after that, the sort that doesn’t demand to be filled. 

The boy wraps his hands around his cup and watches the pianist for a moment, nodding faintly in time as if he’s hearing more than the melody.

“I like places like this,” he says after a bit. “They don’t ask anything from you; you can just exist, and nobody grades you on it.”

Taehyung glances at him. “If my board members heard you say that, they’d ban the concept.”

“Well… We can have productivity cafés then?” The boy grins. “Chairs slightly uncomfortable on purpose.”

Taehyung snorts. “That’s already most chairs.”

A small laugh slips out of the boy’s mouth, warm and unguarded, and it does something unfair to Taehyung’s pulse.

They talk the way strangers sometimes can when neither is trying too hard, loosely and circling topics instead of interrogating them: about music, movies, the neighbourhood, and how nighttime changes the personality of familiar streets. The boy admits he prefers late hours because the world feels less crowded with expectations.

“People stop performing after a certain hour,” he declares. “Or perhaps they just get too tired to keep it up.”

“That explains my best meetings.” Taehyung lets out a low chuckle. “Everyone is too exhausted to argue.”

“You sound like you’ve survived many,” the boy observes.

“Barely,” Taehyung says. “I deserve a medal and a nap.”

“You can only pick one,” the boy teases.

“Now, that’s cruel.”

The smile Taehyung gets in return is soft and a little crooked, like it arrived without rehearsal.

“Do you come here a lot?” He asks after a while.

“More than my wallet prefers,” the boy admits with a small shrug. “It’s close, and they don’t mind if you sit forever with one drink. I think they’ve accepted that as a personality type by now.”

“That’s a generous policy,” Taehyung says, smiling faintly.

The boy hums in agreement. “What about you?”

“First time,” Taehyung replies. “I’ve been ignoring it for months.”

The boy glances at the door as it swings shut behind a departing customer, then back at Taehyung. “Well, I’m glad that you stopped.”

The words are simple, but something in his voice catches on them, something that lingers half a second longer than necessary.

When they finally stand to leave, neither of them seems in a hurry. Chairs scrape softly against the floor. The boy tugs lightly at his sleeve, then offers his hand.

“I’m Jungkook.”

In that moment, Taehyung is grateful for years of practised composure, because internally several systems fail at once.

“Taehyung,” he says, shaking his hand. Jungkook’s grip is warm and firm and somehow familiar in a way that makes no logical sense.

“Maybe I’ll see you here again,” Jungkook murmurs in a manner that’s neither pushy nor loaded… simply open-ended.

“Maybe,” Taehyung replies, somehow still keeping his voice steady.

However, the moment he reaches home, he loses the argument with himself in under three minutes and opens Instagram instead of YouTube. He types Jungkook’s name, deletes it, mutters about dignity, then searches the café location instead, as if that is somehow morally superior. 

It takes less scrolling than he’d like before he finds a recent photo— the same shy, bunny-like smile, the same bright eyes— captioned with something about quiet places and late-night drinks.

Taehyung stares at it longer than necessary.

“This feels like cheating,” he tells no one but his four walls. “I don’t know the rules, but this feels like it.”

The next day at lunch, Namjoon listens with the patience of someone who already knows he’s been dragged into something against his will.

“Hypothetically,” Taehyung says, stirring his coffee too aggressively, “if you met someone you have never met before but whose voice you recognised immediately, what would you do?

Namjoon squints at him. “Hypothetically, I’d ask why you sound like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just answer.”

“…I’d assume I was projecting,” Namjoon says. “Why?”

Taehyung nods, unsatisfied. “Okay. And hypothetically, if the voice belonged to someone you listen to every night?”

Something shifts in Namjoon’s expression as the realisation sinks in. He sets his cup down. “Taehyung.”

“I’m being serious.”

Namjoon sighs. “Then I’d say you tell them.”

“Of course not.”

Namjoon watches him over the rim of his cup. “You’re pacing this like a slow-burn drama on purpose, aren’t you?”

“I’m pacing this like a sane person.”

“You looked him up last night, didn’t you?”

Taehyung feels his neck burning, “That is unrelated.”

“That is extremely related.”

Taehyung ignores this. “What would you have done?”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “Confirmed it.”

“That’s invasive.” 

“So is memorizing someone’s breathing pattern.”

Taehyung scoffs. “That’s not the point!”

“Isn’t it?” Namjoon lifts an eyebrow. “You’re either deeply lonely or about to fall in love. I’d say both.”

Taehyung blinks. “That escalated unnecessarily.”

“Those are historically connected.”

“It is not—” Taehyung stops. “...that wasn’t even the question!”

Namjoon smiles. “You like him.”

“I met him once.”

“You like him once.”

That night, Jungkook goes live, face still out of frame.

“Hi,” he whispers. “I didn’t have my video ready, so...”

Taehyung lies there, eyes open, listening, now hyper-aware of every inflexion. 

It’s him, there’s no doubt about that. The small laugh, the way he softens voices, the way he slurs some words.

“I hope you found at least one soft moment today,” Jungkook murmurs as he brushes the mic.

Taehyung exhales quietly into his pillow. “I did,” he answers under his breath, and this time he knows exactly where it was.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

In the days that follow, they keep running into each other in ways that feel increasingly unlikely, then mildly suspicious, and eventually so consistent that coincidence starts to feel like a shared inside joke the city is playing on them.

It happens at the café again first.

Jungkook’s already seated this time, notebook open but clearly ignored, tapping his pen against the margin while watching condensation gather on the window. He looks up at the sound of the door, does a visible double-take, and breaks into a grin that arrives faster than politeness.

“You’re back,” he says, like it’s both greeting and discovery.

“I could say the same,” Taehyung answers, already walking over without asking, which becomes the quiet beginning of something new, a sort of permission given without spectacle.

After that, the pattern continues. A bookstore a few streets away, where they both reach for the same display copy and laugh, then pretend neither of them actually needed it while both buying it anyway. A late crosswalk where Jungkook spots him from the opposite side and waves with bright, unfiltered certainty, not the reserved nod of acquaintances but the easy gesture of someone already comfortable.

Taehyung waves back before he has time to question why it feels so natural.

“You’re everywhere,” Jungkook says a few evenings later when they end up at the café again, this time without surprise and without pretence, sliding into their now-usual table like it’s been reserved by habit.

“That sounds like an accusation.”

“It is,” Jungkook says lightly. “I had a whole plan to be mysterious and hard to find.”

“You waved at me across four lanes of traffic,” Taehyung deadpans.

Jungkook bites back a smile. “That was before the plan.”

“Poorly executed plan.”

Jungkook laughs into his drink. “I’ll revise.”

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth meeting, they stop performing coincidence altogether and begin texting in simpler ways.

“You around tonight?”
“Thinking of the café.”
“They still have that dangerous hot chocolate?”

Their conversations lengthen without either of them noticing where the extra minutes come from. Topics wander comfortably; music first, then work in softened outlines, then the strange private habits people collect when no one is watching. 

Jungkook starts to talk about sound the way other people talk about colour, describing textures, moods and emotional temperatures. When he speaks about wanting to create things that make people feel less alone, his voice changes into something more grounded, as if he’s stepped onto something solid.

“I like the idea,” he says one evening, turning his cup slowly between his palms, “that someone can be in a completely different place, having a completely different day, and still feel… accompanied for a little while.”

Taehyung listens with full attention, the kind he rarely gives outside boardrooms, because that kind of sincerity deserves space. He finds himself memorising the cadence, the small pauses, the way Jungkook looks slightly embarrassed after saying something heartfelt, as if honesty is a sweater he isn’t used to wearing in public.

“That matters,” Taehyung replies quietly. “More than you think.”

Jungkook glances up at him, searching his face like he’s checking whether that’s politeness or truth, and seems to decide on truth.

All the while, Taehyung carries his secret like a smooth stone in his pocket— the knowledge of who Jungkook is when the lights are off, and the microphone is on— turning it over in his mind, weighing when and whether to reveal it. The longer he waits, the heavier it feels, but also the more fragile. He doesn’t want to break the ease between them by proving he arrived knowing more than he admitted.

One evening, Jungkook watches him, over the rim of his cup, for a moment too long and frowns slightly. “You look tired.” 

Taehyung laughs. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” Jungkook admits.

“Insomnia,” Taehyung says with a shrug.

Jungkook’s expression softens immediately, concern settling in. “Have you tried anything that helps?”

There’s a half-second window where Taehyung could lie, redirect, or generalise, but he misses it on purpose.

“Yeah,” he says. “ASMR, actually.”

Jungkook chokes on his drink so abruptly it’s almost impressive, coughing into his sleeve, eyes wide. “Seriously?”

Taehyung watches him with open amusement now. “That reaction suggests strong feelings.”

“No, I just… wasn’t expecting that answer,” Jungkook says quickly, recovering with visible effort. “Most people say tea or podcasts…or, you know, suffering.”

“I tried suffering,” Taehyung chuckles. “Low success rate.”

Jungkook laughs, but there’s colour high in his cheeks now. “Guess the internet did something right for once.”

“It did,” Taehyung says, meaning more than the sentence shows.

He doesn’t push further, for the moment is delicate, and he can feel it. Whatever lives behind Jungkook’s fluster is not ready to be named out loud.

That night, Jungkook lies awake with his phone resting on his chest and his thoughts moving far too quickly for sleep. He tells himself he is only curious, only verifying, only passing time— all very weak lies— and opens Taehyung’s profile again.

It is exactly what he expected and somehow worse: clean, minimal and painfully professional. It’s a collection of event photos, press shots, architecture and one candid laugh caught mid-turn that looks nothing like the composed public image and therefore becomes Jungkook’s favourite immediately.

He scrolls longer than necessary and then, suddenly aware of himself, drops the phone onto the blanket as if it burned him.

“Get a grip,” he mutters to the ceiling. “You shared a table with him once.. no, five times, no, wait…” He closes his eyes. “Ugh, anyway, definitely, not sharing a destiny.”

His heart disagrees loudly, though.

So, he does the first thing that comes to mind— grabbing the phone again and opening his chat with Jimin.

Jungkook:
I met someone weird..

Jimin:
You say that like it’s rare lmaoo

Jungkook:
Ugh. But, weird in a specific way!!

Jimin:
Oh no, it’s a specific way everyone panic

Jungkook:
-.-
He feels familiar

Jimin:
…that’s called attraction

Jungkook:
It’s not attraction, wtf?!?!

Jimin:
Does your pulse do the fast thing?

Jungkook:
Oh, my god, shut up

Jimin:
That is not a no
😏

Jungkook groans, drops his phone onto the bed, and stares at the ceiling again, wishing his heart would calm down while knowing it absolutely will not.

Jungkook:
He said he listens to asmr to sleep

Jimin:
…and you make asmr

Jungkook:
Yes, thank you, detective

Jimin:
So you’re already married in fate terms

“I hate you,” Jungkook mutters, but he’s smiling despite himself, heart still running too fast, already knowing tomorrow he will check the café without calling it hope, and already knowing hope will be there anyway.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

Over the next week, even that small distance fades. The messages grow shorter, easier, as if the asking part has already been agreed upon. 

“Are you there yet?”
“I’m almost there.”
“Order for me?”

Taehyung notices the shift in small ways, in the way he starts accounting for Jungkook: wrapping up meetings with greater efficiency, choosing the quicker route without consciously deciding to, letting other invitations lapse without much resistance. Somehow, all roads bend toward the same warm-lit café, toward the same familiar voice that says his name as if it’s always meant to be in the air.

Tonight, the place is fuller than usual, low conversation layered thick enough to feel like background music. They end up sharing the small side table near the bookshelf, their knees almost, but not quite, touching in the narrow space. Jungkook has ordered something iced despite the weather and is absentmindedly peeling the label from the bottle in careful strips, which Taehyung finds himself watching with disproportionate interest.

“You do that when you’re thinking,” Taehyung says.

Jungkook looks up. “Do what?”

“That,” Taehyung nods toward his hands. “You’re dismantling the branding.”

Jungkook glances down and laughs quietly. “I didn’t even notice.” He sets the bottle aside. “That’s embarrassing. You’re very observant.”

“It’s a hobby,” Taehyung says. “People are more interesting than spreadsheets.”

Jungkook grins. “That’s the most CEO thing you’ve ever said.”

“Pretty sure, I’ve said worse.”

“I’m sure you have,” Jungkook replies, smiling into the rim of his drink, then studies him for a second longer than casual. “You look more rested this week.”

Taehyung’s eyes soften. “I am.”

“Good,” Jungkook says. “Otherwise, I was going to start prescribing naps.”

Taehyung grins. “I’d follow that prescription.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook smiles.“I’d write it in very bad handwriting so it feels official.”

The pianist starts up again somewhere behind them, softer than before, the melody wandering. Jungkook turns slightly to listen, elbow resting on the table, expression going distant in that thoughtful way Taehyung has learned means he’s cataloguing sound instead of hearing it.

“Can I tell you something without you deciding it’s strange?” Jungkook asks.

Taehyung’s lip twitches. “That depends on how strange.” 

Jungkook arranges his face into the most deadpan look. “What a helpful answer.”

Taehyung chuckles. “Proceed anyway.”

Jungkook hesitates only briefly. “I like voices,” he says. “Not in a creepy basement way. It’s just that… I notice them, I guess. You know the texture, the tone, the way people say certain words. Some voices feel… safe, I guess.”

Taehyung’s pulse gives a small, traitorous jump.

“And?” he asks lightly.

“And yours does,” Jungkook says, then immediately looks like he didn’t mean to say it that directly. “I mean… it’s rich and so easy to listen to.”

Jungkook groans, hiding his face. “That sounded less weird in my head.”

And Taehyung? He feels the irony press against his ribs from the inside. 

“I could say the same to you,” he answers, and means it in three different ways at once.

Jungkook smiles, but there’s curiosity there now, sharper than before. “Do you listen to a lot of stuff at night?” he asks. “Music, podcasts, that kind of thing…since you said you had insomnia.”

There it is, the open door.

Taehyung feels the truth rise automatically: I listen to you every night, and your channel, your voice, is the reason I sleep. 

The sentence stands fully formed behind his teeth, and he opens his mouth to say it.

But, at the last second, he buys himself a second with a sip of cooling chocolate. 

“Sometimes,” he eventually answers. “Depends on the night.”

Jungkook watches him like he knows an ‘edit’ just happened. “That’s a carefully chosen sometimes.”

“I’m a busy man,” Taehyung replies.

Jungkook lifts an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s what busy means.”

“It does now.”

Jungkook huffs a soft laugh, but he doesn’t let it go completely. “What kind of audio helps?” he asks. “I’m collecting recommendations.”

Taehyung tips his head. “You’re collecting them?”

“Yeah. For a… project.”

Not a lie, but not the whole truth either.

Taehyung turns the cup slowly between his hands. “Quiet voices,” he says at last. “Unrushed ones. The kind that sound like they’re not trying too hard.”

Something flickers across Jungkook’s face, recognition almost, followed by a shy deflection. “That’s… too specific.”

Taehyung hums. “Good data is.”

“You’re impossible to interview,” Jungkook huffs.

Taehyung grins. “I’ve been trained.”

“I can tell,” Jungkook mutters, rolling his eyes.

Their knees brush under the table when Jungkook shifts, neither of them pulling away immediately. The contact is light, accidental, but it redraws the space between them in a way that makes both suddenly aware of distance; how little there is, how noticeable it’s become.

Jungkook clears his throat softly. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Aren’t you already doing it?” Taehyung points.

“Do you always answer questions with questions?”

“Only the good ones.”

Jungkook’s smile returns, smaller. “Were you this easy to talk to when you were younger, or is this a learned skill?”

Taehyung considers it honestly. “No,” he says. “I was quieter and less patient, I think. More convinced I was right about things.”

“What changed?”

“Time,” Taehyung answers. “And being wrong repeatedly in public.”

“That would do it,” Jungkook giggles. “I recommend private embarrassment. Same growth, just less audience.”

Taehyung shakes his head. “I’ll schedule some.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook looks gleeful, eyes twinkling. “Put it between meetings.”

They linger longer than planned. 

The café staff changes shifts around them, their cups empty yet neither reaches to stand.

Later, walking out together into the cold, their shoulders bump once, twice, like punctuation neither edits away. At the corner where they have to part, Jungkook tucks his hands into his sleeves and rocks back slightly on his heels.

“I’m glad we ran into each other that day,” he says, straightforward, no joke layered over it.

“Me too,” Taehyung murmurs, just as direct.

There’s a pause that could become something else if pushed, but neither takes it. Not yet.

That night, when Jungkook records, he sits in front of the microphone and finds himself thinking about steady voices and warm cafés and the way Taehyung listens without interrupting. Halfway through, he hears himself say, softer than planned,

“If someone made your day feel lighter today, I hope you know you did the same for them.”

Across the city, already in bed, Taehyung goes very still when he hears it, because it lands far too precisely to feel general.

A small smile tugs at his mouth.

He still doesn’t know when he’ll tell him, only that he wants the moment to be worthy of the voice that carried him through so many nights.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

It happens on an entirely forgettable Tuesday, which somehow makes the news feel even more unfair, because life-altering inconveniences should at least have the decency to arrive on dramatic days. 

Jungkook is halfway through editing audio when his landlord calls, voice falsely sympathetic and brisk with logistics, explaining that the apartment has been sold, paperwork finalised, timelines fixed, and, yes, he’s very sorry about the short notice, but a month should be enough for a young person, right?

Jungkook thanks him automatically before hanging up, and sits there staring at the paused waveform like it personally betrayed him. He doesn’t spiral, not exactly, but a dull pressure settles behind his ribs. He opens a rental app, scrolls, closes it, opens it again, then gives up and goes back to editing, because denial is easier when it’s productive.

He mentions it a few days later without planning to. 

They’re by the river with takeaway burgers, paper crinkling, the air cool enough that people walk slower without realising why. It slips into conversation between nothing topics: bad traffic, a weird café playlist, a stupid assignment, whether fries taste better stolen than ordered.

“My landlord sold the place,” Jungkook says between bites, like he’s commenting on the weather. “I have to be out in a month.”

Taehyung turns his head slightly. “That fast?”

“Apparently that’s the generous version.” Jungkook huffs a breath, waving the burger like it’s the problem itself. “He sounded very proud of himself for not making it two weeks.”

“Are you stressed?”

“Not yet,” Jungkook replies, then after half a second, “Ask me again at three in the morning when I’m treating floor plans like a personality test.”

Taehyung watches him for a moment longer than the joke requires. “Do you have options?”

“Technically, yes…financially, they’re all insulting.”

A few beats pass in silence, their arms brushing once, twice. Taehyung speaks again like he’s continuing an earlier thought rather than introducing a new one.

“You could stay with me for a bit.”

Jungkook laughs immediately, mostly reflex, possibly disbelief, then realises Taehyung isn’t laughing and cuts himself off mid-sound. “Wait. No, you’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“No, you are not. It’s something people say to be polite.”

Taehyung scoffs, offended. “I’m not polite enough to offer my place out of courtesy.”

Jungkook glances at him sideways. “You barely know my dishwashing standards.”

Taehyung feels the corner of his lips lifting. “I’ve seen you return your tray properly and separate recycling without being judged; I feel confident.”

“That is not the same as living with someone,” Jungkook insists.

“No,” Taehyung agrees easily. “It’s worse. Living with someone means discovering how they load the dishwasher wrong.”

Jungkook snorts, then shakes his head. “No. Nope. Absolutely not. Have you lost your mind?”

Taehyung frowns. “I’m being extremely reasonable. My place is quite big, you’d save rent, it’s closer to your university, and you wouldn’t have to panic-search at three in the morning.”

“I don’t know. That’s… it’s a lot.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Taehyung says, tone steady, not pushing. “You’d have your own space. Come and go however you want. If it gets annoying, you can leave and say I chew too loudly or something.”

“That’s not a real complaint.”

Taehyung shrugs. “It could be.”

Jungkook studies him, searching for the social script, the part where this turns into obligation or awkwardness, and doesn’t find it. Taehyung just looks… certain. Not eager, not persuasive, simply sure.

“Why are you so okay with this?” Jungkook asks finally.

Taehyung takes a second before answering, as if he’s checking the truth before handing it over. 

“Because I like having you around,” he says, simple as that, eyes back on the water.

There’s no flourish to it, which is exactly why Jungkook’s chest goes tight.

He looks away first, buying time by unwrapping and rewrapping the same part of the burger. “You really should add warning labels before saying things like that.”

Taehyung lets out an amused huff. “I didn’t know it was perilous.”

“It is if I make a bad decision right after.”

“Then think about it,” Taehyung says. “I’m not timing you.”

But the strange thing is, the answer is already there, sitting fully formed behind Jungkook’s hesitation. Not because it’s practical, though it is, and not because it’s easy, though it would be, but because somewhere along the line Taehyung stopped feeling like a person he just met and started feeling like a familiar place.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, exhaling a small laugh at himself. “Temporarily. And if you regret this, I’ll pretend you never offered and vanish dramatically.”

“I’ll keep the spare key ready for your dramatic exit,” Taehyung says.

They keep eating, conversation sliding into other things, but the air between them has shifted, a little more warner, like something invisible just agreed to exist.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

Living together turns out to be suspiciously easy, the kind of easy that makes Jungkook keep waiting for the delayed inconvenience that never actually arrives. He expects friction, at least a little, the polite kind that people warn you about when habits collide, and space becomes shared instead of borrowed, but instead the place seems to accept him without protest, like it was always holding a placeholder in his shape.

His plants take over the sunniest stretch of the window within two days. His recording equipment grows from a neat stack into a controlled sprawl inside ‘his’ room. Cables learn their paths along the wall. A soft blanket appears on the couch and never leaves again. Somehow, none of it feels like an intrusion.

Taehyung steps around all of it with calm amusement, occasionally lifting a vine when he’s watering them, occasionally asking, “Is this one supposed to lean like that or is it staging a protest against mistreatment?”

“It’s expressive,” Jungkook says defensively. “Don’t judge him.”

Taehyung sniggers. “...It is a ‘him’?”

“Don’t make this weird.”

“I’m not the one assigning gender to foliage…” Taehyung starts.

Their routines settle into opposite ends of the day without either of them suggesting it. Jungkook keeps the late hours because his university projects or recordings run past midnight. At some point, usually without deciding to, he drifts into the kitchen— the light flicks on, a pan is set down, something simple is thrown together more out of restlessness than hunger. The soft clatter of pans and the low hum of the refrigerator become part of his background noise.

Taehyung discovers this by accident the first time, coming in for water and finding Jungkook still there, sleeves pushed up, a plate already halfway assembled. After that, he pretends it isn’t something he anticipates— the faint sounds from the kitchen, the light still visible under the door. He wanders in “for water” often enough that a plate is slid toward him without comment.

“You’re here?” Taehyung asks one night, voice rough with sleep.

“You say that every night like you expect a different answer.”

“One day you might surprise me.”

“You’re getting noodles either way, so manage your expectations.”

In return, Taehyung keeps the mornings. The staff arrive later, which gives him an hour where the place belongs only to him— the low sound of the kettle, the quiet rhythm of drawers opening and closing, a cup set down where Jungkook will find it if he wanders in half-awake. 

More than once, the younger wakes to the muted clink of porcelain or the faint smell of coffee lingering in the air, and briefly considers becoming a morning person before deciding that would be too drastic a personality shift.

Jungkook’s recording nights, too, settle into their own rhythm. He closes his door, checks his levels, breathes once, and lets his voice soften into that familiar, careful warmth. He makes sure he’s silent when he’s starting, but Taehyung always knows anyway. 

The atmosphere shifts in small, nearly imperceptible ways, or maybe Taehyung only imagines that it does. 

He tells himself he isn’t listening, and proves himself wrong every time.

Sometimes he catches only fragments through the wall, a laugh or the hush of fabric against the mic, but even pieces are enough. 

Most of the time, he lies on his back, eyes closed, feeling oddly like he’s eavesdropping on something sacred and familiar at the same time. And knowing that this voice belongs to the person who left a half-finished glass of milk on the counter somehow makes it softer, not less magical.

The younger still doesn’t know, and Taehyung doesn’t quite know how to tell him, so the truth settles between them like something delicate, handled with care.

Jungkook, meanwhile, starts noticing things that don’t line up neatly.

It begins with small moments that could be coincidences if they didn’t stack so precisely.

Taehyung hums along to a melody Jungkook only ever sang once at the end of a late upload, not even a full tune, just a drifting line, and when Jungkook looks at him, Taehyung doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it.

“You know that?” Jungkook asks.

“Know what?”

Jungkook squints. “You were humming it.”

“Humming what?”

Jungkook waits, but the confusion looks real. He lets it go, mostly.

Another time, Taehyung says, offhandedly, “Did your university presentation go well?” and Jungkook nearly drops his spoon.

“I didn’t tell you it was today..?”

“Huh,” Taehyung says. “You sounded nervous last night.”

Jungkook frowns. “Sounded?”

“I meant the pacing,” Taehyung says, as if that’s obvious. “You were pacing yesterday. You always do before something important.”

Jungkook feels his brows scrunching. “That is extremely... accurate.”

“It was loud pacing.”

The feeling grows, not uncomfortable exactly, just charged, like standing close to static.

One night, when the quiet stretches too long and curiosity wins, Jungkook asks from the couch, voice tilted casual on purpose, “Do I talk in my sleep or something?”

Taehyung looks up from his book. “Not that I’ve heard, why?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook says, scratching at a loose thread on his sleeve. “You keep knowing things at the exact wrong time.”

Taehyung raises an eyebrow. “That sounds more like good timing than wrongdoing.”

“Mm. Suspicious answer…Also, sounds rehearsed.”

Taehyung smiles. “You’re expressive, iIt’s not hard.”

“That feels like a polite way to call me obvious,” Jungkook replies, frowning slightly.

“If you were obvious, you’d know what you’re feeling before I do.”

Jungkook opens his mouth, pauses, then points at him. “See, that! That right there.”

“What?”

“You say things like you’re not saying things.”

Taehyung only smiles again, which is deeply unhelpful.

Later, sprawled across his bed, Jungkook gives up trying to untangle the feeling and texts his brother instead.

Jungkook:
My roommate keeps predicting my emotional state like it’s weather

Seokjin:
Finally someone competent

Jungkook:
-__-
I’m serious

Seokjin:
Who said I am not?

Jungkook:
Ugh :/
It’s weird

Seokjin:
Is it weird or is it attractive?

Jungkook:
Why are those your only options
-__-

Seokjin:
…because I know you?

Jungkook:
This family is useless

Seokjin:
And you are in love ;)

Jungkook:
Stop saying that!!!

Seokjin:
Stop describing it then
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The confusion doesn’t disappear, it simply changes flavour, becoming warmer and more anticipatory.

For instance, one night, after a rough recording session, which had too many retakes and his voice refused to cooperate, Jungkook steps out of his room, rubbing the back of his neck and finds Taehyung already on the couch, television muted, two mugs on the table, as if this was scheduled.

“You’re still awake?” Jungkook asks.

“Wasn’t sleepy yet,” Taehyung says, which is technically true but not the whole truth.

Jungkook picks up the mug and pauses. “Chamomile?”

Taehyung smiles gently. “You mentioned your project’s due tomorrow, so I thought chamomile might help.”

Jungkook sits, shoulders slowly lowering as the warmth reaches his hands. They don’t talk about the “uni project” but about nothing instead, a bad movie trailer, whether plants can get bored, or if toast counts as cooking, which helps more.

It disarmingly feels like being known without being inspected.

Later that night, when the lights are off and the phone’s glowing on his face, Jungkook texts Yoongi.

Jungkook:
Do you ever feel like someone knows you without you telling them anything

Yoongi:
Yes.
That’s either love or a horror movie

Jungkook:
Hyung! be serious, please

Yoongi:
Ugh.
Depends

Jungkook:
That is not helpful :│

Yoongi:
If it feels calm, it’s good
If it feels tense, run

Jungkook:
it feels calm

Yoongi:
Then stop interrogating it

Jungkook sets the phone down and stares at the ceiling, the answer not solving anything but somehow settling him anyway. Whatever this feeling is, this steady awareness, this pull, this ease, it’s been building quietly for a while now, like a song starting under the noise, waiting for him to notice the melody.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

The dots connect on a night that doesn’t really feel important enough to hold a turning point, which is probably why it manages to— quietly, without announcement, without anything enough to prepare him for it.

Jungkook is tired in the stubborn, unfocused way that makes small problems feel unreasonable. He’s already postponed recording twice, already negotiated with himself about doing it tomorrow instead, but the schedule in his head won’t loosen its grip. The headphones, however, have vanished. He checks his desk, under it, behind the monitor, in the kitchen for no logical reason, then back in his room again, slower this time, as if patience might reveal them.

Nothing.

He stands in the hallway, rubbing a hand over his face, and remembers, maybe, setting them down earlier when he’d been talking to Taehyung about something completely unrelated. Or maybe not, for memory becomes unreliable when he’s this tired.

Taehyung’s door is closed, the light off beneath it. Jungkook hesitates anyway, knocks softly out of habit, waits, then exhales at himself. 

“He’s asleep, genius,” he mutters under his breath, and eases the door open just enough to peek inside, already prepared to retreat.

The room is dim with that soft, blue-grey city glow that slips through the curtains. Taehyung is fully asleep, not drifting, not turning, deeply and comfortably gone. One arm is folded under the pillow, hair fallen into his eyes, expression unguarded in a way that feels oddly private to witness. 

Jungkook steps lightly, already scanning surfaces instead of looking at him, because that feels like crossing into something personal.

It’s then that he notices the glow.

A phone, Taehyung’s phone, on the bedside table, screen still awake, brightness turned low.

He glances at it without thinking, and then doesn’t move.

It takes a moment for recognition to strike, not because it’s unclear, but because his brain refuses to file it correctly at first.

His video. Not just the channel, the specific upload. One from three nights ago, which he almost scrapped because he thought his voice sounded off in the middle.

Jungkook goes very still.

The first feeling isn’t flattery or affection, rather a sharp, disorienting jolt of exposure, like walking into a room and finding a mirror where a window should be.

There’s something strangely intimate about it, seeing his own careful softness reflected back from someone’s bedside table at two in the morning.

He thinks, irrationally: How long?

Followed immediately by: Did he know?

His gaze flicks to Taehyung again, searching for evidence in a sleeping face and finding none. Of course, none. He almost laughs at himself for that.

And before he can stop himself, he peers at the phone and then at Taehyung again.

The peacefulness makes it worse, or better. He can’t tell yet.

“This is… weird,” he whispers under his breath, in a voice that just sounds thrown more than anything.

Because Taehyung did say he listened to ASMR. Because Taehyung never said which channel. Because Taehyung never hinted. Because Taehyung listened to him, apparently, and didn’t make it a thing. Didn’t perform knowing. Didn’t turn it into praise, or teasing, or confession.

That part unsettles him most.

And that part makes him step back from the table like he’s intruding on something he wasn’t meant to witness, even though it’s only a phone and a video and nothing technically private. It still feels private.

He leaves the room quietly, closing the door with more care than he used opening it.

Recording becomes impossible after that. He sits down, puts the spare earbuds in, records fifteen seconds, and deletes it. His voice sounds different to his own ears now— too aware, too visible. He keeps picturing Taehyung lying exactly like that, listening in the dark, hearing every softened consonant, every breath he edited around.

“Great,” he mutters to the empty room. “Now I’m self-conscious in my own job.”

He tries to be annoyed. It almost works.

Except the annoyance keeps tangling with something else— questions he can’t file neatly. Why did Taehyung never mention it? Why did he keep it separate? Is that why he was so careful with Jungkook on tired days, like he recognised the signs early?

Jungkook sighs, shutting his eyes. 

Memory starts replaying differently under the new light, like an album he suddenly realises has a hidden track.

Taehyung listening, really listening, when Jungkook talked about recording.

Taehyung knowing exactly which days Jungkook felt wrung out without being told.

Taehyung humming melodies that were never shared anywhere but late uploads.

“Oh.”

“Oh, you sneaky—” Jungkook says softly into the dark before groaning and pressing his palms over his eyes. “I did not need this plot twist.”

He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything. People watch things, they listen. That’s literally the job. Still, the knowledge sits under his ribs, heavy and warm and complicated, and refuses to be categorised.

Sleep takes a long time to agree to him. When it finally does, his last clear thought is not romantic or poetic or resolved, but a tired, puzzled admission drifting through his mind:

Okay. That explains a lot, and absolutely nothing.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

Morning arrives gently in this apartment, never all at once, but in layers— light sliding through the curtains, distant traffic soft as a tide, the quiet clink of ceramic from the kitchen, which usually means Taehyung is already awake and pretending he didn’t wake up early on purpose.

Jungkook knows the sounds by now, and that’s what makes it dangerous.

He lies still for a minute, staring at the ceiling, yesterday loading in full resolution whether he invites it or not: the misplaced headphones, the dim room, the bedside table, the frame of his own video glowing in the dark.... 

Jungkook’s stomach tightens again, not with panic exactly, but with the awkward awareness of having seen something he wasn’t meant to see and not knowing what the etiquette is afterwards.

He considers, briefly, pretending to be sick

Instead, he gets up.

The hallway smells like coffee and toasted bread, which is normal, but then it turns to be offensive because of how normal it smells.

Taehyung is at the counter in soft morning clothes, hair still sleep-mussed, scrolling through something on his tablet while waiting for the kettle like he’s not the kind of person who makes insomnia look tailored. 

He glances up at the sound of footsteps

“You’re alive,” he says mildly. “I was about to check your pulse.

“I slept late,” Jungkook answers, which is true but incomplete.

“That’s why pulse check,” Taehyung teases. “The midnight cooking concert didn’t happen.”

Jungkook leans against the counter, watching him with more focus than usual, like the answer key might be printed somewhere visible if he looks hard enough. “You monitor my kitchen activity now?”

“I monitor my chances of getting fed,” Taehyung replies. “Related, but distinct.”

It’s easy, and that’s the problem. He’s being exactly the same.

Jungkook accepts the mug that gets placed near his hand without being asked and says thank you automatically, then realises, with a small internal groan, that this is one of the things. Taehyung anticipates without making it obvious. It felt thoughtful before, now it feels… informed.

“Did you sleep okay?” Taehyung asks, eyes still on the tablet.

There it is. A simple question that suddenly feels loaded.

“Mm,” Jungkook says, buying time with a sip and burning his tongue slightly. “On and off.”

“Headphones missing?” Taehyung asks.

The mug pauses halfway down.

“…Why would you say that?”

“You do that crease between your eyebrows when you’ve lost equipment,” Taehyung replies, finally looking at him. “You did it last week when your cable disappeared.”

“I found them,” Jungkook says slowly.

“Good. Where?”

I don't know... But what about your phone on your bedside table? What about the unconscious betrayal of your viewing history?

“Misplaced them,” he says instead. “My fault.”

Taehyung hums like it closes the case, and reaches past him for a plate, close enough that their shoulders brush. The contact is light, ordinary, but Jungkook registers it anyway, hyper-aware now in a way he wasn’t before, like someone adjusted the focus ring on the moment.

“You’re staring,” Taehyung adds casually.

“I’m thinking.”

Taehyung smirks. “That’s usually more dangerous.”

“About how you’d survive if I stopped cooking at night.”

“I wouldn’t. I’d simply fade.”

Jungkook huffs despite himself. The ease keeps slipping through his guard like sunlight under a door.

They eat at the small table by the window, knees occasionally bumping because neither of them adjusts their chair properly. Conversation wanders from weather to a ridiculous email Taehyung got to Jungkook’s new plants, preferring music or silence, and Jungkook keeps waiting for a tell, a crack, some sign that Taehyung is hiding knowledge behind his eyes.

There’s nothing but warmth and attention, which somehow makes it so confusing.

Halfway through his toast, Jungkook hesitates, too serious to be accidental.

Taehyung frowns, studying him. “What is it?”

Jungkook opens his mouth then closes it, shaking his head. “You’re just—” He stops himself before something fragile comes out of his mouth. “—weirdly very nice.”

“I have a brand to maintain.”

Jungkook quirks an eyebrow. “Of being emotionally available?”

“Of being fed regularly.”

There’s that grin again, the one that arrives sideways and unannounced, and Jungkook feels the tension in his chest loosen a fraction. Not gone, but…rearranged.

He still doesn’t know what to do with what he learned last night. It sits between them now, invisible but present, like a note folded in his pocket. But watching Taehyung reach for the wrong jar and almost put salt in his coffee instead of sugar, listening to him complain mildly about work whilst the morning light catches in his hair, Jungkook realises confrontation suddenly feels less urgent than understanding.

He decides, without announcing it, even to himself, to wait and see a little longer.

And when Taehyung reaches over to steal the better half of his toast without asking, Jungkook lets him, which might be the clearest sign yet that something irreversible has already started.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

The days don’t reset them the way Jungkook half-expected they might. Awareness doesn’t fade with sunlight but lingers, subtle yet persistent, like a second rhythm under everything they say.

He notices it most in how often he almost tells Taehyung things now, then stops, rewinds, and edits. Not big secrets, just small details that he usually shared without thinking.

He doesn’t censor himself completely, but there’s a new filter in place that he’s not used to having.

It’s new. He doesn’t like that new.

By Friday night, the apartment settles into its usual rhythm. Taehyung’s at the dining table with his laptop open, glasses on, reading something dense and businesslike and Jungkook’s on the floor with his back against the couch, sorting audio clips, one earbud in, one out. It’s the kind of shared silence that normally feels companionable.

Today it feels companionable plus something else.

Taehyung looks up first. “You’ve cursed at that file for the thirteenth time now.”

Jungkook huffs. “Are you spying on me?”

Taehyung’s lip twitches, “Ah, the gift of ears, wonder what they can do...”

Jungkook glances over and catches the corner of a smile he’s clearly not supposed to see, and feels that now-familiar, inconvenient warmth stir again. 

It would be, oh, so easy if Taehyung were different, if he were acting like someone with something to hide. Instead, he’s relaxed and occasionally ridiculous, which makes Jungkook more curious, not less.

“Do you listen to stuff while you work?” Jungkook asks, aiming for casual.

Taehyung hums. “Sometimes.”

“What stuff?”

“Instrumentals, mostly.”

A beat passes. Jungkook rotates one earbud between his fingers.

“Do voices help you focus?” he asks.

Taehyung thinks about that longer than the question seems to require. “Not during working. But otherwise, depends.”

Jungkook watches him over the top of his laptop screen. “On what?”

“Some voices age well, I guess,” Taehyung mumbles. 

Jungkook glances at him then, suspicious but amused. “Age well?”

“They don’t grate after a while,” Taehyung says, typing something. “You start noticing different things instead.”

“Like what?”

Taehyung shrugs, like he hasn’t thought about it at all. “Breathing. The way they hesitate before certain words. Little habits.”

Jungkook squints at him. Taehyung looks entirely unbothered. “That sounds suspiciously distinctive.”

“What can I say, I’m a man of refined taste.”

Jungkook huffs. “You’re a man of sleep deprivation.”

“That too.”

“Unbelievable,” Jungkook mutters as he goes back to his own screen.

The conversation drifts, but the line stays with Jungkook, looping quietly in the back of his mind while he works. Not confirmation, not quite, but not nothing either.

Later, when he stands to stretch, he finds Taehyung watching him with that thoughtful, slightly softened focus he’s come to recognise as unguarded attention.

“What?” Jungkook asks.

“You look tired this week.”

“That sounded like a performance review.” Jungkook lets out an easy smile.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I am just saying we can order in the dinner.”

Jungkook hums. “I’ll accept it with conditions.”

“Of course, you will,” Taehyung murmurs. “What conditions?”

Jungkook grins. “You’re buying.”

Taehyung doesn’t hesitate. “Done.”

“Wow, that was easy.”

“I like winning negotiations early.”

They do not order.

However, neither of them actually announces the decision out loud, for it happens the way a lot of their shared habits seem to happen— by accident and momentum. 

Jungkook opens the fridge just to confirm there’s nothing useful inside and makes a thoughtful noise at a container he doesn’t recognise. Taehyung wanders in behind him with the stated purpose of “just looking,” and within a minute, things start migrating outward on their own. A carrot rolls onto the counter, then eggs appear,and then something that might become a sauce is placed down with optimism rather than certainty. 

By the time either of them remembers their initial plan, the workspace is already claimed, and it feels lazier to undo this setup than to follow through.

“You’re chopping like a kangaroo,” Taehyung points out.

Jungkook sputters. “That’s not a thing?!”

“Uh-huh, it is now.”

Jungkook bumps him lightly with his elbow without heat. “You’re banned from narrating.”

And Taehyung? He merely smirks.

“Then stop giving me material.”

Their elbows bump. Twice. Three times. Neither adjusts position enough to prevent the fourth.

At one point Jungkook reaches across him for the salt, and Taehyung doesn’t move back quite fast enough, and for a brief, unbalanced second they’re close enough that Jungkook can feel warmth through fabric, can count eyelashes if he wants to— which he absolutely does not, except he accidentally does.

“Sorry,” Taehyung mumbles, though he doesn’t sound particularly alarmed.

“You’re in my workspace,” Jungkook points, equally quiet, equally not alarmed.

“File a complaint.”

“I will.”

Taehyung laughs under his breath and finally shifts, but the air keeps a trace of the closeness like a fingerprint.

When the cooking is done, they migrate to the couch with their plates balanced carelessly, where the television is already running, playing a show that neither of them follows closely. 

Jungkook sits angled slightly away from the armrest, Taehyung turned just enough toward him that their knees meet and remain there without either of them remarking on it. The contact remains unceremonious, like something that established itself earlier and sees no reason to change now.

Conversation comes and goes in loose threads— comments about a badly written line, an absentminded complaint about the slight spice in one of the sides, a distracted observation about the actor on screen— but it never fully takes centre stage, and Jungkook finds, without deciding to, that his attention keeps drifting sideways instead. Not to the show, not to his phone, not to his food even, but to Taehyung— not in a dramatic way either, just with a growing, unforced curiosity that feels different from the earlier puzzle-solving instinct.

He notices how Taehyung listens even when the topic is small enough to be safely ignored, how he doesn’t just wait for his turn to speak but receives what’s said, even the throwaway remarks. When Jungkook mutters that the sauce came out better than expected, Taehyung hums softly in agreement and asks what changed this time, and it isn’t the question itself that registers, but rather the timing of it, the way it arrives just after the thought forms.

There’s a pattern to it, Jungkook realise; sort of a half-second of anticipation that shows up everywhere once he starts looking for it. Taehyung reacting just before the sentences finish. Smiling just before the joke lands. Reaching for the water bottle right when Jungkook glances toward it, but hasn’t moved yet. But nothing about it is intrusive, nor is it showy, only aligned, like two audio tracks that were recorded separately but sync perfectly when layered.

It shifts something in him, that realisation. 

Until now, he’s been circling ‘he knows me’, turning it over like a locked box, but sitting here with the weight of a few days, a warm meal and shared quiet pressing gently around them, the angle changes. The apprehension loosens. 

Not why didn’t you tell me?

But why were you so careful with it?

Because now Jungkook knows it isn’t that Taehyung knows him in some impossibly creepy, all-seeing way, but that he pays attention, consistently and deliberately, to him, Jeon Jungkook, and not some idea of him. And the difference between those two things hits him with surprising force.

So much force that he realises something softer and far more disarming— he’s been on the receiving end of care long enough now to recognise its shape, and would hate anything that could endanger it.

Sighing, Jungkook worries his lower lip.

He glances at Taehyung. “Can I ask you something?”

Taehyung looks at him without hesitation. “Anything.”

Jungkook takes a breath, steadying himself. “When you said you listened to ASMR,” he begins, wavering just enough to give himself away.

Taehyung’s eyes soften, a faint brightness flickering there as he nods once.

Jungkook swallows. “Was it mine?”

“Yes,” Taehyung answers, just as quietly.

The silence that follows stretches before Jungkook nods, staring down at his hands. 

“Since when?”

“Since the night I couldn’t sleep and stumbled on that video,” Taehyung says. “I listened to it, the one where you were wearing a grey Assassin Creeds hoodie.”

Jungkook lets out a soft, disbelieving breath. “You remember the hoodie?”

“I remember the relief I felt for the first time.”

“And…how long did you know?”

“That you were the one making it?” Taehyung asks.

“Yeah.”

“A while,” he admits quietly. “Wasn’t sure at the beginning… but it’s been a while since then.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t.”

Jungkook looks at him, searching. “Why?”

Taehyung exhales slowly. “At first I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to change how we talked. You were just… you. The guy at the café who argued about piano tempos and hated burnt espresso.” A small, fond glance. “I didn’t want you to suddenly become the voice that helped me sleep. That felt unfair to put on you.”

Jungkook swallows, gaze dropping. “It wouldn’t have been unfair.”

“It would’ve changed the balance,” Taehyung says gently. “At least for me.”

A beat passes. Jungkook’s fingers play with his sleeves. “And after that?”

Taehyung’s mouth curves in a rueful half-smile. “After that it got harder to say, not easier.”

“I keep trying to figure out which part bothers me,” Jungkook admits. “That you listened without saying anything, or that you knew it was me and still didn’t.”

“I didn’t hide it because I was ashamed,” Taehyung says, and the steadiness in his voice has strain underneath it now. “I didn’t say it because the longer I waited, the more it started to matter how I said it, and the more it mattered, the easier it was to convince myself that tonight wasn’t the right night.”

“That sounds like an excuse.”

“It is,” Taehyung agrees softly. “Just not a dishonest one.”

Jungkook watches him, surprised by the lack of self-protection in the answer.

“I wanted to tell you early,” Taehyung continues, words coming slower now, less arranged. “The first week we started meeting regularly, I almost did. We were walking back from the bookstore, and you were talking about how people think intimacy only counts if it’s face to face, and I remember thinking, ‘you have no idea how you’ve been sitting in my dark at two in the morning telling me it’s okay to rest’. I almost said it right there. But you looked so… unguarded when you talked about it that I didn’t want to put a spotlight on it. I didn’t want you to feel watched.”

Jungkook’s throat tightens slightly. “I wouldn’t have felt watched.”

“I know that now,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t trust my timing then.”

“And after that,” he goes on, voice quieter, “it stopped being simple information and started being something that could change how you saw me. Not because it’s a big secret, but because it’s a personal one. You were helping me sleep before you even knew my last name. That felt… fragile. I didn’t want our first real connection to turn into a reveal moment.”

Jungkook swallows. “I keep wondering if you liked me because of the voice first and the person second.”

Taehyung turns fully toward him at that. “No. I was grateful to the voice first and then completely, inconveniently gone for the person. Those are not the same feeling.”

Jungkook’s shoulders drop a fraction. “It felt strange seeing my video on your phone… that’s how I found out,” he admits before he peers at him, hesitating.

“Did it ever feel weird?” He continues. “Listening to me like that. Knowing me here too.”

Taehyung considers it honestly. “Not weird; personal, maybe. But not in a bad way. It felt like being let into a room you built carefully. I tried to be respectful inside it.”

“I didn’t record last week,” Jungkook admits.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung murmurs. “Not for listening. But for not telling you sooner once I knew it mattered.”

Jungkook studies him for a long moment. “You really were going to tell me eventually.”

“Yes.”

That pulls a breathy huff out of Jungkook despite himself. “You’re really bad at being the villain in this story.”

“I wasn’t trying to be the hero either.”

They sit with that, their knees fully touching now, neither adjusting away. 

Jungkook studies their hands resting near each other on the cushion, hesitates, then lets his fingers drift close enough to make the invitation obvious without forcing it. Taehyung answers by turning his hand and fitting their palms together, slow enough that it can still be refused. It isn’t.

The contact feels different now… somewhat acknowledged, chosen, maybe.

“I think,” Jungkook says softly, watching their hands instead of his face, “I’m a little embarrassed that you’ve heard my softest voice more times than anyone I actually dated.”

Taehyung smiles faintly. “I’m a little honored.”

“That too,” Jungkook admits, and then, because the truth seems easier to say once started, adds, “And a little scared how much I like that it was you.”

“You know that a connection doesn’t invalidate itself just because it has roots, right?”

Jungkook looks at him, eyes searching, a little unsteady. “You say things like that too easily.”

“I don’t say them easily,” Taehyung teases. “I say them slowly.”

The corner of Jungkook’s mouth lifts, tension easing by degrees instead of disappearing. “That was smoother than it had any right to be.”

“I had time to think about it.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook murmurs. “Apparently you did.”

They stay like that for a while, close enough to feel each other’s warmth through cotton and knit, their hands still loosely linked, thumbs drifting now and then without either of them admitting they’re doing it. Jungkook keeps starting to speak and then abandoning the attempt, smiling to himself like his thoughts are arriving out of order. Taehyung watches him with an affection he no longer bothers disguising, not intense or consuming, just steady and unmistakably there.

Jungkook turns toward him at last, intending to say something half-formed, some small joke about how none of this was in his five-year plan, and the words stall when he realises how close they already are, how naturally they’ve drifted into each other’s space without negotiation. His eyes flick once to Taehyung’s mouth and then back up again. There’s a question there, and also a trace of nerves, the kind that asks not ‘can I?’ but ‘are you sure you want this from me’.

Taehyung answers the only way that matters. He stays. His gaze softens, his grip on Jungkook’s hand firms just slightly. He lets Jungkook see that nothing about this is accidental and nothing about it is fragile enough to break under a little courage.

That is all the permission Jungkook needs, even if he still takes it slowly, like someone stepping onto a frozen lake and discovering the ice is thicker than it looks.

The kiss is barely there at first, just the brush of lips that makes Jungkook’s breath hitch before he understands why. Taehyung answers with another soft press, letting his fingers trace the edge of Jungkook’s jaw for a heartbeat. Jungkook leans in instinctively, resting his hand lightly on Taehyung’s shoulder, as if grounding himself in the only steady point around him.

Their lips part and meet again, slower this time, and Jungkook notices the gentle curl of Taehyung’s lips against his. 

There’s no urgency, no need for proof. Just the warmth of proximity, the way their hands brush along arms and sleeves, fingers tangling for a second before letting go. 

Jungkook feels something inside him untangle, a tension he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and he leans in further, not solely in need, but also in trust.

Taehyung’s palm slides along Jungkook’s forearm, thumb stroking lightly, a shiver rising up his spine. Their lips find each other again, soft and deliberate, parting only to let fingers brush the corners of each other’s mouths and the sweep of cheekbones. Jungkook exhales, surrendering fully to the moment.

When they pull back, it’s only slightly. Foreheads rest together, noses brushing, and Taehyung’s hand lingers against Jungkook’s collarbone. Both of them smile— small, incredulous smiles, the kind that happen when something long hoped for is finally, impossibly real.

Jungkook lets out a breath that turns into a shy laugh. “Okay,” he says softly, voice rougher than before. “This… worked a lot better than pretending to be calm and not knowing anything.”

Taehyung smiles, eyes warm. “You were never pretending very convincingly.”

“Wow,” Jungkook murmurs, mock-offended. “I thought I was mysterious.”

“You’re transparent,” Taehyung laughs. “Just in a good way.”

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

Something shifts after that, not all at once, not in any way he can point to and name, but steadily, like a door left open long enough to forget it was ever closed. 

Jungkook doesn’t chase the change or try to define it. He just notices, quietly, that something inside him has definitely tilted now, in a way that makes him oddly aware of where Taehyung is at all times, like a quiet internal compass recalibrated overnight. It isn’t dramatic, and it isn’t loud. If anything, it’s embarrassingly subtle, but he notices that he keeps drifting closer without planning to, keeps reaching out mid-thought, keeps wanting proof of presence in small physical ways he never used to need.

He tells himself it’s just an adjustment, like new information settling into old feelings, nothing more complicated than that.

But it does not feel like nothing.

The next day, he records again for the first time since finding out, and the awareness sits with him the entire time; not distracting exactly, but intimate. He hears himself differently, hears how softness in his voice feels more exposed, the pauses more deliberate. Halfway through, he stops, drags a hand down his face, and stares at his reflection in the darkened screen.

“So you’re still self-conscious,” he mutters to himself, half-laughing. “Great.”

When he steps out of the room, Taehyung is in the kitchen, slicing fruit with unnecessary precision. Jungkook leans against the doorway and just watches for a while. The quiet steadiness of it. The familiarity. The person who had been listening in the dark and still chooses to stand here in the light.

Taehyung glances up first. “How did it go?”

“I forgot how to talk.”

A soft huff of laughter. “That’s inconvenient for your line of work.”

“I’m serious. I kept thinking about you listening.”

The knife pauses mid-cut. “Did that make it harder or easier?”

Jungkook exhales through his nose, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Umm…Both? Which is so annoying.”

“That sounds like you,” Taehyung says, mild but fond.

Jungkook crosses the room without deciding to and comes to a stop close enough that their socks nearly touch. He doesn’t reach right away, that still feels like a line he’s shy about crossing, but the proximity speaks for him.

“Am I allowed,” he asks, eyes flicking down then back up, “to be a little weird about it for a while?”

“You’re allowed to be a lot weird about it.”

“Good,” Jungkook murmurs. “Because I think I’m going to be.”

It shows up in small increments after that. He sits pressed against Taehyung instead of beside him. He reads comments aloud with his chin resting on Taehyung’s shoulder, voice half-muffled by the angle. He wanders across rooms mid-task just to make brief contact— hand at a waist, shoulder bump, fingers grazing knuckles— and then pretends he had some other reason for being there.

Once, Taehyung is answering emails when Jungkook appears at his side and quietly hooks two fingers into the cuff of his sleeve.

Taehyung keeps typing. “Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re attached to my arm.”

“I noticed.”

“Do you need something?”

A pause. “Maybe.”

“Do you know what?”

“Not yet.”

Taehyung turns his head slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Let me know when you figure it out.”

Jungkook doesn’t let go.

It sometimes gets worse at night, when everything is quieter, and thoughts get louder. They’re brushing their teeth side by side when Jungkook says, words slightly garbled. “It still feels a little unreal that you heard me at my most careful before you knew me at my most annoying.”

“I heard both,” Taehyung replies, rinsing his toothbrush. “You’re consistent.”

Jungkook laughs weakly. “That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s meant to be.”

Jungkook spits, rinses, then studies him in the mirror.“You weren’t disappointed? Meeting me.”

Taehyung doesn’t answer immediately, which makes Jungkook’s stomach dip, but then he speaks. “No. I felt relieved. The voice was warm, but the person was warmer. That felt unfair in my favour.”

The vulnerability that flashes across Jungkook’s face is quick and unguarded. He bumps his shoulder lightly into Taehyung’s, pretending that’s all the feeling was.

 “You say things like that and then act like you’re not smooth.”

“I’m not smooth, I’m accurate.”

“That’s worse.”

Later, on the couch, Jungkook stretches out and lets his head settle in Taehyung’s lap like it’s the most natural position in the world. He only realises a second too late that he didn’t ask, that he didn’t hesitate, and he starts to shift upright with a murmured apology already forming, but Taehyung’s hand is already there, fingers sliding into his hair like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

The relief is almost immediate. It makes his chest ache a little.

“You’re very clingy today,” Taehyung murmurs.

“I’m calibrating,” Jungkook replies, eyes closed.

“That’s what we’re calling it?”

“Yes. Please don’t interrupt the process.”

Taehyung’s thumb traces a slow line near his temple. “How long does calibration last?”

“Unknown. Ongoing process.”

A quiet breath of laughter.

“I’ll adjust my schedule.”

A soft smile curves across Jungkook’s mouth. After a moment, he speaks again, softer. “I think part of me is still catching up, even when I want to rush it, to the fact that you were there before you were… here.”

“I was,” Taehyung agrees.

“And you stayed.”

“I did.”

Jungkook opens his eyes and looks up at him. There’s no joke ready this time. “You’ll tell me if I get too much.”

“I will.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. But you’re not.”

“You didn’t even measure.”

Taehyung’s eyes soften. “I don’t need to.”

Jungkook watches his face for another second, like he’s checking for cracks, then nods once to himself. He reaches up and presses a slow kiss to the inside of Taehyung’s wrist.

The intimacy that grows after that is less about intensity and more about ease: more touching in passing, more leaning into shared space, more half-kisses that interrupt sentences, more laughter breathed into each other’s space. It feels less like escalation and more like permission expanding.

And threaded through all of it is Jungkook’s new softness— the way he checks with his eyes before moving closer, the way he stays close once he gets there, the way he pretends playfulness when what he really wants is reassurance— and Taehyung’s answering steadiness, never trapping, never pulling away, always meeting him exactly where he stands.

◞ ྀི◟ ͜ ׁ  ◞ ྀ ♪

The morning arrives slowly, as if it has nowhere better to be, light slipping through the curtains and settling across the sheets before it lazily climbs over tangled limbs. 

Jungkook surfaces first, not fully awake, just aware enough to register warmth and weight of someone else breathing close. For a while, he doesn’t open his eyes. He just listens. 

There’s something grounding about it. The weight of Taehyung’s leg half-thrown over his, the way their shoulders are pressed together. It’s familiar enough now that his body registers it before his brain does. And he lets himself float there for a while, in that in-between place where thoughts are soft, and nothing demands anything yet.

When he finally turns his head, Taehyung is asleep on his back, one arm flung above his head, mouth slightly open like he fell asleep mid-thought. His hair is a mess. The blanket is barely covering him.

Jungkook stares for a moment longer than necessary.

There are still moments, even now, even after everything, where it catches him off guard that this is real, that the person who once existed only as a username now takes up more than half his bed, and steals his blankets and mumbles complaints when woken too early.

He reaches over and smooths Taehyung’s hair back. Taehyung doesn’t wake, but he leans instinctively into the touch, and Jungkook’s mouth curves.

Jungkook smiles to himself. “Unfair,” he murmurs. “You can’t be this cute asleep.”

Taehyung answers by frowning in his sleep and dragging the blanket higher like he’s personally offended.

The first kiss is meant to be quick,  just a soft press to the cheek, but Taehyung turns at the wrong moment, and it lands closer to his mouth, lingering by accident. 

There’s a pause.

Taehyung’s eyes open slowly, unfocused, then warm with recognition instead of surprise.

“Well,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep, “that’s one way to start the day.”

“You weren’t supposed to wake up,” Jungkook mutters, suddenly shy for no reason.

“You kissed me wrong.”

“I did not.”

“You missed your target.”

“That implies I had one.”

“You absolutely did.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t move away.

Taehyung smiles, lazy and fond, before reaching up to hook two fingers into the collar of Jungkook’s shirt, tugging him down properly this time. 

The second kiss is slower, still edged with sleep. Jungkook melts into it with a soft sound he doesn’t bother to hide.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Taehyung says against his mouth.

Jungkook blinks. “You remembered without a calendar reminder, I’m impressed.”

“I’m capable of growth.”

“You threatened a chair last week.”

“It had it coming.”

They don’t make plans, and that, exactly, is the plan. 

The morning becomes a string of small, indulgent things, like brushing their teeth shoulder to shoulder, arguing gently about coffee strength, Jungkook stealing fruit from the cutting board and getting his wrist caught mid-theft. 

“You sneaky—” Taehyung squints.

“You left it unattended.”

“That’s not how that works.”

Music plays low from someone’s phone. The heater clicks on late, but the apartment already feels warm.

At some point, while Jungkook is leaning against the counter pretending not to hover, Taehyung casually slides a small box toward him, too casually.

Jungkook looks at him. “What did you do.”

“Open it.”

Inside is a simple silver ring, thin and clean. Nothing flashy… just right.

“It’s not a proposal,” Taehyung says quickly. “Relax. I just saw it and thought of you.”

Jungkook stares at it longer than he means to. Something tight catches in his throat; that quiet, unexpected kind of feeling that shows up before you’re ready for it.

“So…” Taehyung starts. “May I?”

Jungkook laughs softly before presenting his hand. 

Taehyung slides it on, and it fits.

Jungkook looks at it. “You know, you’re too fucking smooth for someone who pretends not to be.”

Taehyung scoffs. “I told you I never pretend.”

“You absolutely pretend.”

Taehyung shrugs like he has no idea what he’s talking about.

They spend the afternoon folded into the couch, trading chocolate, half-watching a movie neither follows. Jungkook dozes briefly with his head on Taehyung’s chest, and Taehyung absolutely does not move even when his arm falls asleep because some things are worth the pins and needles.

“I have to do a live tonight, if I get time,” Jungkook says later, voice still fogged with sleep.

“A Valentine’s live?” Taehyung asks.

“Don’t brand it like that.”

Taehyung smirks.“I’m going to brand it exactly like that.”

Jungkook huffs. “You’re not invited anyway.”

“That’s cruel.”

“Strictly professional environment,” Jungkook answers noncommittally.

Taehyung laughs, turning his hand to lace their fingers properly. “You record whispering into a fuzzy microphone.”

“Extremely professional and exclusive event.”

Taehyung flicks up a brow. “I live here.”

Jungkook tilts his chin. “Security will remove you.”

“Security is you.”

“Exactly.”

The live starts late evening, soft-lit and cosy, fairy lights blurred in the background. Jungkook settles into his chair with an ease that comes from long practice, greeting people as they arrive, voice warm and teasing by turns. The chat scrolls fast— hearts, familiar names, inside jokes, people breaking down over the how he looks— and he rides the current of it comfortably.

He talks about comfort, about small routines, about how love is sometimes just being understood without needing to explain every piece of yourself. His tone grows quieter as he goes.

“I used to think connection was one-directional here,” he says thoughtfully. “Like I talked and you listened. But it turns out sometimes the person on the other side is… closer than you think. Sometimes they’re already part of your everyday life and you don’t even know it yet.”

The comments start moving fast.

this feels personal
why am i blushing
who is he talking about
who healed him

Jungkook laughs softly. “Okay, nobody spiral.”

More comments flood in.

whoever you are, mystery person, thank you for taking care of him
if the person is real you better treat him right
this is the softest he’s ever sounded

At that exact moment, there’s a knock on the studio door, and it opens two inches before Jungkook can answer.

“Hey,” Taehyung says, peeking in, hair slightly messy, holding up a phone charger. “Did you steal—”

He freezes when he sees the setup.

He looks at the screen, then at the live chat flying.

“Oh,” he says alowly.

The chat detonates.

Jungkook starts laughing instantly. “You’re fine. Come here.”

“I was told this was exclusive.” Taehyung teases.

Jungkook shakes his head. “Policy update.”

“I’m underdressed for your strictly professional environment.”

“Just come on.” Jungkook rolls his eyes.

Taehyung hesitates only a second more before stepping in fully, and Jungkook, reckless with fondness, reaches out and catches his hand, tugging him into frame beside him.

The chat surges so fast it blurs.

“This,” Jungkook says, smiling in that shy, bright way that never quite goes away, “is the person I was talking about.”

Taehyung looks at him and threads their fingers together, startled and soft all at once. “That’s my introduction?”

“You’re lucky you got one.”

Taehyung leans toward the mic, voice dropping into that low, familiar warmth. “Hello,” he says softly.

The chat becomes unreadable.

Jungkook laughs in disbelief. “Okay. Breathe. Everyone breathe. Why are so many of you here, today?!”

“You invited them,” Taehyung murmurs.

“I didn’t think that many—”

“You never do.”

Jungkook turns pink. “You’re not supposed to be smooth on my live.”

Taehyung laughs quietly.

Then, without announcing it, he pulls out his phone, types something quickly, and posts from his own account.

Still listening. Still sleeping better. Thank you for all of it.

Jungkook sees it a second later.

“What did you—”

The chat is in full chaos now.

HE’S HERE
OMG HE IS HERE
THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Recognition hits. Jungkook’s laugh breaks out, helpless and fond. “You practiced that.”

“Absolutely not. I’m naturally impressive.”

They’re both a little flushed now, a little giddy. Jungkook turns to complain, and Taehyung turns to reply, and they misjudge the distance, and their lips brush in a gentle, surprised kiss that lands and stays just long enough to count. They both go still, then pull back with matching wide eyes before dissolving into embarrassed laughter.

“That was not planned,” Jungkook says.

“I disagree,” Taehyung grins. “Very advanced choreography.”

“You’re banned again.”

“Cruel.”

The chat is in absolute shambles.

The second kiss happens because they’re already close and smiling, and neither of them really wants to pretend it didn’t. It’s slower this time, more intentional.

When they part, Jungkook looks a little breathless.

“Happy Valentine’s,” he says.

“Best interruption I’ve ever made,” Taehyung adds.

Later, long after the live ends and the apartment returns to its gentle hush, they fall into bed the way they always do now— without thinking about it. 

Jungkook curls in close, tracing a lazy line along Taehyung’s wrist, already halfway to sleep.

“For someone who started out as a voice in the dark,” Taehyung murmurs, words blurring at the edges, “you’re very loud in my life now.”

Jungkook smiles, brushing his cheek against Taehyung’s. “Tired already?”

Taehyung trails kisses from his hair to his temple, down the curve of his cheek, and finally rests on the soft corner of his mouth.

“Never,” he whispers gently. “Just… sleep.”

And this time, they both do.