Work Text:
Yoongi looks down at his watch, brows furrowing at the sight of eleven fourteen pm displayed by the hands in the watch. He looks at the door, almost expecting Jungkook to comically burst in through the front door with reasonable apologies tumbling out of his lips for being late without even sending a text, leaving a sticky note or a voicemail on his phone.
The door remains still, and Yoongi turns back to the table with popcorn (long gone cold), drinks and snacks prepared on the table and feels his patient wearing extremely, dangerously thin. This entire week, Jungkook had been returning home later than usual by an hour or two, sometimes slipping into bed when Yoongi was already asleep. Yoongi asked once, and Jungkook had said that he was working longer shifts at the diner he works at. The way Jungkook avoided eye contact with Yoongi didn't go unnoticed by him, but Yoongi wasn't going to pressure Jungkook into giving an answer. As long as he was taking care of himself ok, Yoongi would be fine.
Little did he know, tonight, all his patience is thrown out the window when the hour hand ticks over to twelve. The usual warmth and comfort his blanket provided somehow only fuels his frustration, because not only does it feel too warm, the missing presence besides his body makes uncomfortable tinglings crawl beneath his skin. Yoongi doesn't think about one of the possible explanations to that, being missing Jungkook always there.
It could've been something that's developed during their tougher times, where reality and cash nearly proved to be a hurdle too high to leap over, and they'd survived off odd jobs and packet noodles for weeks on end. They relied on each other so much, that when occasionally Yoongi had to be away for business, the night that he returned Jungkook would refuse to leave his side at any time. Yoongi had thought he wasn't so affected, but turns out now that he's the one on the side of being neglected - a terrible word choice, but once it's there his brain zones in on all the negative connotations associated with 'neglected', Yoongi feels worse - he feels sick.
Of course, the ever present small voice grows louder, sending him absolutely unlikely possibilities, of Jungkook getting dragged along to a club by his coworkers, of Jungkook pressing up against one of his coworkers - if he remembers, Jungkook mentions a guy called Yugyeom that he often goes bowling with - and of a nude Jungkook pressed into the sheets, lips pronouncing sounds that is not Yoongi.
Keys jingle, and Yoongi feels relief settling in his bones that unfortunately, is not enough to brush aside the posionous thoughts circling his mind, as the door opens and Jungkook steps inside with his usual backpack and another, somewhat familiar bag slung over his right shoulder. Yoongi waits for Jungkook to set down his bags, closes the door, then clears his throat so he won't scare Jungkook. Nevertheless, he still jumps and his eyes immediately meets Yoongi's, surprise evident.
"H-Hyung? What are you doing still up?" These are not words of apologies, and if Yoongi hadn't missed Jungkook over the past few weeks, he would've understood it as one of concern. In his frustrated and tired state, Yoongi decides that Jungkook doesn't want to see Yoongi right now.
"Why can't I be up?" His words are bitter and sudden, and Jungkook's pupils widen, as if he cannot register what he's just heard. Yoongi pushes his blanket aside and stands up, takes a step towards Jungkook, "is there something you want to hide from me? Is that why you don't want to see my face right now?"
"Wh-"
"What have you been up to lately, Jungkook? Why didn't you even text or call me that you were going to come home late? Did you forget that we have a fortnightly movie session tonight? What were you so busy doing?" Yoongi almost cringes at his own words, at how petty and immature he sounds. At how accusing he sounds, but once he starts there is no brake pedal. "What has gotten your attention lately, so much that you made up the excuse of working extra hours to avoid me, because we have been and are doing well financially, so there's no need for you to work extra hours, is there?"
Jungkook remains rooted to the spot before the door, expression mirroring the "deer caught in the headlights" saying, and Yoongi continues to step forward, until he's stepping inside Jungkook's personal space. It's the intimacy he's craved for a while now, but it feels foreign, not having experienced this in so long.
Silence hangs over their heads, and Yoongi isn't in the mood for explaining himself, so he readies to turn away and sleep on the couch tonight because he can't bear lying in the same bed with Jungkook when he's feeling like this, but Jungkook places his hand at a spot just above his hips, and damn him because they both know Yoongi is weak there. Not even of the sexual kind, there's something about it that just makes Yoongi feel pleasant and he could fall asleep just with Jungkook rubbing circles onto the skin there.
"Hyung. I'm really, really sorry. I-I didn't have any idea you were feeling this way, and if I did there was absolutely, no way I would've kept working those extra hours." Yoongi's heartstrings pull together and apart painfully, and he wants to shut Jungkook off, but hope glimmers within his chest and he keeps quiet, eyes casted at their feet. "Please believe me however, when I told you that I was working extra hours. I would, and could never lie to you. Tonight I was working extra hours, and I would've arrived home much earlier but my plans went a little unexpectedly off track."
Jungkook lightly tugs Yoongi with him, towards the bags he had placed next to the door earlier, and now that Yoongi is thinking a little more clearly, he notices that it's a guitar shaped bag.
"You didn't-"
"No hyung, I didn't buy you a new guitar." Jungkook speaks and picks up the bag with a giddy smile. He unzips the cover, and pulls out the guitar from within. It definitely does not have the polished look a new guitar usually possesses nor the shiny strings, but there is a familiar scratch at the very bottom and a faded kumamon sticker around the side. The last thing he received from his family before he was kicked out for pursuing his dreams for music, and the thing that earned him a few coins on a good day performing at a park, and the thing he pawned off so he and Jungkook could have a roof over their heads was this very exact guitar.
"Since, like you said, we've been doing well financially, I thought it was time. After you pawned it off, I went back several times to tell the guy not to sell it, to keep it until, well, I could buy it back. I had finally saved up enough tonight, but he said he wouldn't give it back unless I did some chores for him. I stuck gum on the shop window when I left, but, yeah. This was what all those extra hours were for, but again, I'm so sorry I didn't consider your feelings-" Yoongi doesn't listen to the rest of Jungkook's honest and whole-hearted apologies, turns to gently put down his guitar that he genuinely thought he'd never see again, and wraps his arms - well, as much as he could - around Jungkook's body.
Jungkook stills briefly, before he relaxes and hugs Yoongi back, and doesn't say a word about the wetness forming in his black shirt.
"I'm sorry. And thank you, so, so much." It's a little mumbled and nasally when Yoongi says it, but he can feel Jungkook smiling fondly down at him, so he smiles as well.