Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jimin sighed as he looked at the tiny room that was going to be his home for the next 10 months. This is what he deserved for putting far too much faith in people he met in freshers week.

A slightly mouldy, poorly furnished room in a house with people he barely knew. His supposed ‘friends’ had signed a contract for a much nicer house, much closer to university, within a few months of starting their first year.

Jimin remained blissfully ignorant until almost March, when it occurred to him that most of his classmates were locked into a house of their choosing. He was left scrambling in an attempt to gather up a few suitable housemates, but by that point it was only the lonely and somewhat unlikable remaining.

Thank goodness his friends from dance society had a friend that fit the bill - both lonely and somewhat unlikable. Hoseok and Taehyung reassured him that Yoongi would become more welcoming as they spent time together, but Jimin had yet to observe such an event.

During their first meeting, at a pub quiz, Yoongi stared resolutely at the water marks on the table, only looking up when addressed by either Hoseok or Taehyung, or to answer obscure questions such as the release year of Kendrick Lamar’s first album.

Luckily Yoongi was accompanied by a similarly lonely, but slightly younger, friend named Jeongguk. He at least would interact with Jimin, albeit in a rather stilted manner, preferring to spend his time staring longingly at Taehyung.

At least the room was fitted with a wardrobe, Jimin thought as he lugged his final box up the stairs. The turntable and assorted vinyl records made a thunk as he heaved them onto the bed.

Now he was in the house at last, he somewhat regretted bringing them, in a hopeful gesture of imagined pre-drinks, him and his housemates dancing around the kitchen with drinks before the club. A sobering silence echoed through the house, and whilst he was a tad nervous about spending the night in a new house, it was nothing compared the dread he harboured thinking about the rest of the year with two quiet, and slightly boring, housemates.

Yoongi and Jeongguk were both already settled, with Jimin last to arrive, and therefore the slightly resentful owner of the smallest room in the property.

As he headed to the bathroom to tidy away his toothbrush, he gazed at Jeongguk’s bay window through the open bedroom door. His small rectangular window that only opened halfway paled in comparison.

Nevertheless, he was determined to have a good year, and consolidate his dance club friendships from last year.

His first year at university had not quite lived up to stories of drunken hijinks regaled by his father, and he would make certain to have his own before the year was up.

Speaking of, he had a dance club start-of-year social to attend tonight. The white top he bought was waiting for a ‘white lie’ to be scribbled on it by a drunk Hoseok prior to the club. He’d forgotten to re-dye his hair, so the dark roots poking through would need some serious disguising before he could head out. The light pink was far more work than he had initially expected, and he was getting sick of the effort. Maybe something darker could work?

He hummed in thought as he opened the pack of clothes hangers, mulling over potential hair colours and whether he wanted to organise his wardrobe by colour or style, before being interrupted by a loud slam of the front door.

Jimin swung around with an excited smile, aiming to induce something close to excitement - or merely a polite smile - in his housemate, before quickly schooling his expression into that of mild indifference upon witnessing Yoongi’s thunderous expression from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Hi, nice to see you again’ offered Jimin in what he deemed a welcoming gesture, his voice shaking slightly at the pressure of making a good impression on his housemate. His first impression, far too drunk and screaming at Taehyung about which musical Sally Bowles was a character in in an attempt to snatch first place at the quiz, had perhaps not endeared Yoongi to him.

Other meetings had not gone particularly well either. An especially bad one consisted of Jimin drunkenly collapsing on the floor as Hoseok attempted to wrangle him into bed, Yoongi fixing him with a glare from the doorway with car keys in hand. Their only sober meeting had begun with Jimin tripping over thin air and crashing into Yoongi. No one was hurt, but from the way Yoongi pointedly looked away from him the rest of the time, Jimin was getting the feeling that he was perhaps not going to jump up the Yoongi friendship rankings particularly easily.

‘Yeah’ grunted Yoongi, staring up at him with lips pursed in judgment. He ran his hand through his bleach blonde hair as if thinking of something else to say before shrugging and retreating to the kitchen. Jimin remembered with horror he’d been transporting his fancy dress outfits mostly on his head, and shook off layers of bunny ears, flower crowns, devil horns and more onto the bed before advancing downstairs.

‘What were you up to today?’ Jimin’s voice trailed down the stairs, leaving silence in its wake. As he turned into the kitchen he noted the back door hanging open, and a retreating figure heading to the shed.

‘Fine, don’t be friendly’ he huffed before heading to complete his unpacking. Jeongguk would be far more amenable to his attempts at friendship. He was just shy, not plain rude. He prayed that Hoseok’s assurances of Yoongi’s warmth and friendship would soon manifest.

By the time he had finished organising his things the room looked distinctly less like a prison cell, and the white top beckoned him. He had been consuming shots of Aldi brand vodka amidst unpacking at an alarming rate in preparation for this evening.

He had received several texts from both Hoseok and Taehyung, demanding his presence at the party. His chest filled with a warm tingling as he replied, excitement for this evening, and the year ahead, building by the second.

After 10 minutes of wrestling his hair into a somewhat decent look, assisted by a bumper pack of butterfly clips, he pulled on the skin tight top and baggy jeans and headed out of the house, singing a rather drunk ‘bye Yoongi-ssi’ as he locked the door.

Half an hour, and a rather disapproving look from an old lady on the bus later, he stumbled through the door of Hoseok’s house. He was greeted with a throng of familiar faces, including Jeongguk, who appeared glued to Taehyung’s side.

Taehyung let out a screech as he caught sight of him, running down the hallway to slam into Jimin, resulting in a tangled mess of limbs on the rather hard tiling, something sure to bruise tomorrow.

‘I've missed you so much my baby!’ was muffled through the lump of limbs on the floor in a drunk wail.

‘We’ve gone far too long apart, I barely recognise that tiny frame’ came an insulting follow-up. Jimin tutted, reacting with a swift tap to the head as he squirmed out of Taehyung’s grasp.

‘Hey! We’re practically the same height! And I’ve definitely grown over the summer’

This was met with an eye roll, and a proclamation of just how cute and small Jimin was, before he was tugged into the gathering, squeezing through crowds of gyrating and intoxicated 20 year olds, towards the king and host of the event.

Hoseok sat on his makeshift throne, a barely standing kitchen chair draped in purple fabric, wielding a red sharpie. Despite initially releasing a similarly unbecoming shriek as Taehyung, he gathered himself and began mulling over the white lie possibilities for Jimin.

‘Unless there have been any major changes over the summer, I assume you are still tragically flying solo in the bedroom department?’ he queried.

This was met with a disgruntled nod from Jimin. Despite his continued attempts to appear alluring, including some dark eyeliner smudged around his eyes, he hadn’t been successful in finding anyone to hook up with for long enough to even consider the possibility of sex.

After careful, and dramatic consideration, consisting of plenty of chin stroking akin to an ancient philosopher, Hoseok rose, with the ringing of a bell that gradually quietened the room.

‘I shall christen thee, Sir fucks-a-lot’ he decreed to the onlookers, resulting in a chorus of laughter and cheering, before reaching over to scrawl his nickname on Jimin’s chest in barely-legible chicken scratch. Now the slightly humiliating ritual had been completed, Hoseok sprung into Jimin, knocking him once again to the floor. Taehyung quickly assisted, creating a three-way hug that was practically inescapable.

Jimin groaned ‘I’ve missed this so much’

‘You know you love us’ came a cheeky rebuttal from Taehyung.

‘You’re late!’ Hoseok proclaimed, still clearly in his Kingly headspace.

‘You need to catch up’

‘I've been drinking plenty!’ Jimin assured, although he was cut short by a lukewarm shot glass of tequila being pressed into his hand, with nothing else to make it more bearable. This first shot was followed by three others, his friends plying him with alcohol until he could barely stand, placing them all on the same footing.

As the clock struck 12 the group of dancers and plus ones stumbled out the door, shirts announcing various untruths. Taehyung’s proudly announced him as ‘not a pillow princess’ resulting in a rather flushed Jeongguk, and Hoseok’s proclaiming him a ‘virgin’. Jimin vaguely wondered if it was mandatory for the lies to be sexual in nature, or if his friends just always had sex on the brain. The trio skipped down the street in sync, appreciating the spitting rain cooling them down slightly, with Jeongguk trailing like a lost puppy behind them.

The bouncers all exchanged a fed up look as the groups approached, commanding them into a single file line for their ID’s to be checked.

Jimin recognised one of them, Wonho, from his introductory statistics module last year. They’d been flirting a bit (a lot), but Jimin was wary of his reputation, having heard plenty of cheating rumours. He stared up at the taller boy, admiring the way the black polo hugged his biceps, and feeling a bit giddy in his drunken haze. As he handed his drivers licence over, he gave Wonho a wink and a lazy smile. Wonho eyed up the words on his shirt, scoffing a bitter ‘don’t I know it’ before ushering him in.

The slight sting of rejection sobered Jimin for a second, before the heavy beats coming from downstairs drowned out any disappointment. Something to deal with at a later date, Jimin thought, before reuniting with Taehyung and Hoseok, preparing to dance the night away. And that he did. By the time it reached last call, the whole of dance society was sweaty and completely obliterated. Many were slowly trickling out with new-found companions on their arms. Whilst Jimin didn’t fall into the latter category, he had spent the night completely consolidating all his friendships from last year. He felt semi-confident in a fulfilling social life moving forwards, something he sorely lacked last year.

He clung onto Jeongguk, who had waved Taehyung a somewhat reluctant farewell before calling a taxi, mumbling about how the buses had stopped running a long time ago.

Jimin triumphantly fished the house key from his pocket, glad to be useful in Jeongguk’s attempt to quietly return them both to their beds.

‘Aha!’ he exclaimed, jamming the key against the front door numerous times before Jeongguk gently eased it out of his grasp and unlocked the door, shushing him, as if frightened of awaking Yoongi.

Jimin traipsed down the hallway to the kitchen, loudly filling the kettle and fixing himself some instant noodles, wailing to Jeongguk of his situation with Wonho, and how he was sooo attracted to him, but he didn’t have the best reputation. Jeongguk attempted to show sympathy, whilst frantically attempting to quieten Jimin.

‘Why don’t we head upstairs, so Yoongi-hyung can get some sleep?’

‘Mmmm, don’t you feel the same as I feel about Wonho as you feel about Tae-Tae’ Jimin slurred, ignoring Jeongguk’s plea.

‘Let’s talk about that some other time shall we? We’ve got to get you to bed’

Jimin felt himself being manoeuvred up the stairs unwillingly, before meeting the soft cotton of his brand new bedsheets, patterned with squirrels and hedgehogs, and completely collapsing into the mattress, becoming dead to the world.

Jeongguk quietly shut his door, creeping over to his room with the lovely bay window, and praying to himself that Yoongi hadn’t been woken up by the hassle. He knew Yoongi had to wake up in a couple of hours for work, and wasn’t liable to be quite as understanding as Jeongguk of a drunk Jimin.

Jeongguk had already been privy to multiple bitching sessions where Yoongi grumbled at Hoseok about how unsuitable Jimin was as a housemate - getting drunk every weekend with the dance club when Yoongi was already redoing his third year.

His complaints fell on deaf ears, with Hoseok waving him off with vague reassurances of how joyful and dedicated Jimin was. He failed to acknowledge the fact that Yoongi’s poor opinion of Jimin had been brought about in response to Hoseok’s own tales of Jimin’s drunken antics.

His negative opinion was only strengthened by their initial meeting at the pub quiz, where Jimin lolled all over the table wailing about musicals, and annoying the hell out of him, let alone completely sinking any chance the group had at winning.

Yep, Yoongi was harbouring some real resentment towards Jimin, and Jeongguk was prepared to thwart a housemate feud at any cost to maintain a peaceful living environment. However, that evening he was so exhausted from both mooning after Taehyung and manoeuvring Jimin around back to his room that he didn’t make back it to the kitchen to clean up the packets and kettle left in the sink from Jimin’s hastily and messily prepared noodles. Hopefully Yoongi wouldn’t take the mess to heart.

Chapter Text

Jimin awoke to loud footsteps thudding down the stairs, with his heavy eyelids letting him know that far more sleep was required. He checked his nearly dead phone to reveal a horrifyingly early time of 6:37.

His head pounded, butterfly clips pressing in uncomfortably, and he felt seriously nauseous. As he stirred, he tried to figure out why the stairs were in such constant use. Surely Jeongguk wouldn’t be making this much noise this early in the morning, having only just gone to sleep recently himself.

The only other option was Yoongi, although he didn’t have any reason to even be upstairs, since his downstairs bedroom was equipped with an en suite. Grumbling, and with the sudden and desperate urge to pee, Jimin tugged on his dressing gown and poked a curious head out of his bedroom. The back of a bleach blonde head equipped with headphones was resolutely trudging down the stairs. Jimin quickly scrambled to the bathroom, sighing in relief as he avoided another glare. However, the constant thudding still hadn’t eased as he exited the bathroom.

As he headed back to his bedroom he caught sight of Yoongi on the stairs again, only this time heading up. He seemed almost in a trance, albeit an angry one. His head snapped over to Jimin as he caught a glimpse of the pink dressing gown in his periphery. Finally halting his march, he ripped the headphones off in a fury.

‘How do you like it when someone’s banging around the house when you’re trying to sleep?’

Jimin was stunned, struggling to process the words and form a response in his still drunken state.

‘Also the kitchen is a complete tip. Some of us have to work in the morning instead of gallivanting, and prefer not to live in a pigsty’ He hissed at Jimin, lip curling in distaste.

‘Um…’ Jimin trailed off, suddenly overcome by mirth as it finally clicked exactly what Yoongi was up to. Storming up and down the stairs purely to get revenge on Jimin. He let out a small giggle at just how petty the behaviour was.

This wasn’t received well. Yoongi’s glare intensified as he gesticulated wildly ‘I told Hobi this was a bad idea. Makes sense why no one else wanted to live with you’

This quelled Jimin’s laughter, giving way to an expression of wide-eyed shock. Whilst he could appreciate his loud late night return might’ve been a bit annoying, he couldn’t fathom how on earth it had resulted in this reaction. He felt his own anger build up as he eyed Yoongi. It was his first night back at university, and god damn it if he wasn’t going to enjoy himself. He knew he was a good housemate, and Yoongi wasn’t going to make him feel bad about himself, especially considering the other man barely knew him.

‘Just because you have work doesn’t mean you can be obnoxious. I mean, are you five? I can’t remember the last time I saw someone so petty’

Perhaps the lingering alcohol was making him bolder than he would’ve usually dared to be.

Yoongi’s white-knuckled grip on his headphones somehow tightened, whole body bristling at Jimin’s words. Before he could respond with an equally biting quip, Jeongguk burst from his bedroom, hands raised as though in surrender. Both of them turned to look at him, faces like thunder.

‘Come on, let’s just forget about this and move on’ he pleaded.

Both men huffed and gave him an incredulous look, as though he was being obtuse and should clearly be on their side.

‘There are always little issues right at the beginning, but I’m sure we’ll all settle in soon’ he followed up in an uncharacteristically commanding tone. The childlike bickering between his hyungs had awoken something authoritative, fuelled by his desperation for a peaceful year.

‘Sure we will’ Yoongi grumbled, heading down the stairs for the final time and leaving the house with a door slam that left the windows rattling.

Jimin scoffed, rolling his eyes at Jeongguk. ‘What an arse’

‘I will admit I’m not sure what’s gotten into him, he’s never usually that angry. But to be fair, we were pretty loud coming in last night. He’s got a long shift today, we should’ve been more considerate’

Despite Jeongguk claiming equal responsibility, Jimin felt a bit of a sinking feeling as he remembered his stumbling and clattering around, thumping down on the floor in front of Yoongi’s room at one point. Never mind, he’d made his bed now, he’d have to lay in it. Besides, Yoongi was being a complete arse, and didn’t say hello to him properly yesterday, before he’d even done anything to offend him.

The nausea he’d felt earlier suddenly hit him in a rolling wave, leaving him dashing to the toilet. He made it just in time, emptying the contents of his stomach before resting his cheek on the cool tiles of the floor. Jeongguk followed shortly after, providing a glass of water and some ibuprofen. He gulped it down with muffled ‘thank you’s.

‘I promise. You’ll come around to each other. It’ll all be fine,’ Jeongguk reassured before turning tail and heading back to his room, obviously not really enjoying Jimin’s vomiting.

Jimin’s head throbbed as he staggered his way back to bed, taking Jeongguk’s words to heart in a hopeful fashion.

He would apologise once Yoongi returned, and he wasn’t still harbouring drunken boldness. He was certain Yoongi would be somewhat reasonable. The beginnings of an apology were forming in his mind as it was overtaken by the draw of sleep. His lips parted in a resting position as he curled into the duvet, eyes fluttering shut.

The frantic buzzing of his phone awoke Jimin many hours later. Grabbing for the phone tucked somewhere beneath his pillow, Jimin remembered how little battery was remaining. He began to feel around for a charging cord with his other hand, resulting in a misjudged starfish as he tried to keep his balance, and a slow topple onto the floor. Scrunching his nose up and finally scrabbling his way to a charging cord, he checked his phone. Taehyung’s smiling face greeted him as he accepted the facetime. A shriek could be heard in the background, far too loud for his sensitive and hungover ears.

Hoseok landed on Taehyung with an ungainly thunk, knocking his way into view.

‘You look pretty rough Jimin, did you manage to snag a cute boy to go home with?’ Hoseok queried as Taehyung attempted to shove him off to no avail.

‘Haha very funny’ he scowled at the two smiling faces.

‘Jeongguk had to practically carry me home if that counts’

‘Tragic to hear, I pity you, although I cannot relate’ Hoseok grinned smugly as he positioned himself to give Jimin a good view of the purple bruises littering his throat and collarbones.

‘Christ! Did he try to eat you?’ Jimin exclaimed, rolling his eyes, a gesture that agitated his already brutal headache. He winced, recalling his argument with Yoongi that had briefly escaped his memory.

‘You just don’t understand true passion’ complained Hoseok.

‘Pfft, maybe so but I certainly understand common decency in public, and that display you were putting on yesterday was verging on pornographic’

Jimin had witnessed Wonho heading over to separate Hoseok and his amour of the evening on multiple occasions. They eventually left at 2am after being given the ultimatum of staying two metres apart or leaving entirely. The shameless grinding and groping was a bit too much for even the most seasoned one-night stand aficionado, Taehyung and Jimin exchanging glances in shock at the sight.

‘That man didn’t understand my passion either, kicking me out like that!’

Taehyung scoffed ‘‘that man’, aren’t you pretty intimately acquainted with him Jimin-hyung? You should’ve bravely stepped in to save the King of dance society’

Running his hand through his hand and looking away rather bashfully, Jimin regaled the tale of his interaction with Wonho at the club.

The two boys both recoiled a bit, looking pissed off. ‘How dare he! Just because you don’t want to have sex with him right away! Prick!’

The outrage made Jimin laugh, shaking his head as though putting the conversation out of his thoughts.

‘Anyway, I had a far worse experience this morning with Yoongi-ssi. He’s such a clean freak, and so petty it’s ridiculous’ He vented, watching closely for their reaction as he ran through the incident earlier that morning.

Hoseok rubbed the back of his neck, pulling an awkward expression. ‘He’s just very big into respect and all that kind of stuff. Like if you had work or an exam coming up he’d go out of his way to be extra quiet. Can take things to heart a bit easily sometimes. But he’s a great guy and very understanding once you get to know him’ Taehyung piped up, agreeing emphatically, and explaining it took him a little while before Yoongi warmed up to him as well.

Wrinkling his nose slightly, Jimin shrugged, before ending the call with promises to meet up later in the week, and a plea that Hoseok put on something more full coverage, lest someone thought he’d been mauled.

Heading down to the kitchen, he felt some of the anger from earlier resurface as he surveyed the ‘pigsty’. The kettle was sitting in the middle of the sink, with a couple of instant ramen packets crumpled on the kitchen side. He muttered curses as he returned the kitchen to a clean state, which took about 15 seconds, and tried to remind himself of his intention to apologise, and the positive opinion the others held of Yoongi.

‘Perhaps if you had actually made an effort and said more than one word to me yesterday, I would’ve known you had work early in the morning!’ Jimin insisted, voice pitching up slightly as the volume increased.

‘It doesn’t matter, you should’ve been respectful anyway’ Yoongi’s voice was definitely verging on a shout now.

Jimin’s intended apology had been sidetracked by Yoongi’s gloomy, and frankly enraged mood upon returning from work. His best attempts at remaining civil and contrite had quickly snowballed into annoyance as Yoongi picked up one singular crumb of noodle remaining on the kitchen side, making a performance of throwing it in the bin.

‘Was that so hard’ he muttered under his breath in a patronising tone. Jimin hadn’t even known it was possible to patronise someone so quietly, and it was igniting levels of rage that Jimin was not prepared to control in his hungover state.

‘Come off it, it’s one crumb, and to call the place a tip is just ridiculous, it took me about 3 seconds to clean the kitchen up’ Jimin retorted in a less-than apologetic tone.

And then they were off.

Seven minutes, and lots of shouting later, Jimin threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘Whatever, I’m going!’

‘Fine by me, just stay out of my way and keep the house clean’ Yoongi responded in kind, before turning tail and storming out into the garden. Jimin was seething, both horribly angry and terribly fearful for the year ahead. He would far rather have a quiet and moody housemate than one he actively disliked.

As the weeks progressed, it became obvious his fear was not unfounded.

His relationship with Yoongi remained mostly silent and strained, and the house remained impeccable. Now the red mist had lifted, Jimin was going out of his way to ensure the house was kept to standard, and avoid another altercation. Even if that meant washing and drying all his dishes before eating, leaving him with lukewarm food nine times out of ten.

Jeongguk was enthused by this attempt at peace, having been privy to multiple venting sessions from both sides of the conflict. At the six week mark a group hang had occurred, courtesy of a slightly worried Hoseok who aimed to foster a positive feeling between the two, feeling guilty he set them up as housemates in the first place.

What started as a nice evening, with everyone catching up and choosing a movie with a few drinks had quickly dissolved into a deadly glaring match. Yoongi’s muttered condemnation of Jimin as an ‘alcoholic’ after the dancers did a shot roulette, prompted by Jimin. Jimin’s resulting description of Yoongi’s movie choice of Inception as ‘convoluted garbage’ hadn’t helped matters. Despite many light hearted jokes made by the others, the icy tension remained.

Yoongi eventually left early, waving off complaints and pleas to stay with claims of a paper to write. Jimin’s victorious smirk only lasted for a couple of seconds before the others turned on him, exclaiming that one of them needed to be the bigger person eventually.

Laughter abounded at Jeongguk’s quiet joke that they were both equally short, and suffering from short man rage. Sinking into the sofa with a pout, Jimin spent the remainder of the evening imagining a conversation where Yoongi bowed down and professed his sincerest apologies.

Because Yoongi certainly did owe him, and Jeongguk, numerous apologies. Multiple times a week Jimin was kept up until 1am by wailing and moaning coming from Yoongi’s various sexual partners. He had complained to Jeongguk, but apparently the 1am cut off was something they had agreed upon the year prior as a ‘respectful’ time.

Now Jimin wasn’t usually one to complain, but every time a high pitched squeal echoed up the stairs he felt his stomach rolling with fury and his nostrils flaring. Hypocrite. Who was Yoongi to talk about respect when he was keeping Jimin up so consistently.

Worse than that was the next morning when Jimin got a clear shot of his conquests leaving down the gravel drive through his window. Every single one was more attractive than the last, both male and female, and Jimin for the life of him could not see the appeal.

Fine, perhaps his hatred was clouding his judgement and memory. The only reason he got so drunk at their first meeting at the pub quiz was to try and ease his awkwardness, and had slightly overestimated his alcohol tolerance.

Hoseok had shown him a photo of Yoongi that Jimin was rather taken by, the older man grinning widely, with his arms wrapped around his family dog. His hair, mint green at the time, was ruffled in the wind and his eyes were closed in the bright sunlight. Jimin had almost begun fantasising about a potential relationship, which would blossom slowly over the year, when Yoongi had arrived, face like thunder, with barely a word for anyone.

Whilst he was still attractive, wrapped in a baggy leather jacket and heavy boots that Jimin was rather partial to, he barely resembled the man in the picture with a gummy smile and slight blush on his cheeks.

Nonetheless, Jimin attempted to involve him in the conversation, asking general questions with a smile directed at Yoongi, who would look around silently until someone else answered, as though pretending he was unaware the question was intended for him. Jimin gradually grew drunker as the night progressed, resulting in his rather embarrassing display by the time the musical round arrived.

Regardless of his initial attraction to Yoongi, any understanding of how he garnered such an expansive roster of sexual partners was quashed by his standoffish personality. His special brand of brash rudeness did seem to be saved especially for Jimin however, with Yoongi always flashing Jeongguk a barely noticeable, but fond smile.

After their initial meeting Jimin had also noticed the way Taehyung and Hoseok would bring up nice things Yoongi had done for them, like helping them with essays and bringing them coffee.

Whilst this may have been in a calculated effort to reshape Jimin’s opinion, it only made him dislike Yoongi more. Seeing how nice he could be to others made him more convinced than ever that Yoongi was just petty and obnoxious, like a small child that couldn’t get over some perceived slight.

In the midst of one of his various bitching sessions, Jeongguk pointed out that they were practically twins, both refusing to take any responsibility and take steps to remedy their poor relationship.

‘Maybe if he wasn’t so stubborn and would actually spend more than two seconds in my presence we could work up to a mutual apology. Let me remind you that I did in fact attempt to apologise, but he was just a patronising dick’

Jeongguk sighed, shaking his head in defeat. ‘He was probably just having a bad day’

The conversation mirrored his discussion with Yoongi not an hour early, only Yoongi’s excuse for his continued animosity had been that Jimin hadn’t even bothered to clean the kitchen properly.

Jeongguk let out another long-suffering sigh, parroting his earlier words to Jimin ‘this happened well over a month ago now, you guys just need to sort it out, it’s kind of making hanging out a bit tricky’

At this, Jimin made a silent resolution to maintain civility with Yoongi. After his horrible lack of proper friends until the very end of last year he couldn’t afford to lose these ones. Especially after Hoseok had been so kind to him, helping him to find a house once his supposed friends abandoned him.

He would make extra sure to not get into an argument, or at the very least not be the one to start something.

Chapter Text

Things with Wonho had improved significantly. Over the last few weeks he’d been slowly worming his way back into Jimin’s favour, appearing randomly with a coffee at the library, or hanging around outside the social studies building.

Despite Jimin’s distaste for his sullen comment that night at the club, Wonho was still his only romantic prospect, and tragically Jimin still found him very attractive. He was much taller, towering over Jimin in a way that made him feel protected and always walked on the side closer to the road.

‘Ahh, a gentleman’ he’d commented the first time Wonho had switched them around to keep Jimin away from the road, resulting in a wink that set butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

His relentless pursuit was slightly confusing, especially since he seemed to have backed off entirely on the sex front, something that he was always a tad pushy about in the past. Not in any kind of creepy way, just overly explicit flirting that Jimin wasn’t quite ready for.

His hands would always start sliding up Jimin’s shirt when they inevitably made out in a club, before being quickly batted away. However this time was different. He’d seemed to decide upon a more traditional style of flirting, wooing Jimin slowly with kind gestures and good morning texts.

Expecting a visit from Wonho at the coffee shop he frequented after his 9am seminar, Jimin had made sure to wake up extra early to dress up.

He had two small silver hoops in his cartilage piercings, and a dangly star and moon set dangling from his earlobes, with an oversized forest green jumper and some jeans that he knew made his ass look great.

He hoped his freshly mousy-brown hair would elicit a compliment, having finally given up on the upkeep of his pastel pink hair (not until he had splattered pink hair dye all over the bathroom, something that made him endlessly grateful that Yoongi had an ensuite and wouldn’t be able to witness his destruction) and opting for something more low-maintenance.

He plopped down in his usual corner seat with a huff, breathing into his hands in an attempt to warm them up. Damn his past self, who scoffed at his mum when she attempted to ensure he was packing glovest. Now it was coming up to the end of November, a chill had well and truly set in. Frost was settled over the grass every morning, and Christmas decorations had begun to pop up everywhere, including the coffee shop.

He’d have to hunt some cheap gloves down somewhere, or his hands would no doubt fall off in the coming weeks. Wrapping his hands around his mug of gingerbread latte, he finally began to regain feeling in his pinky fingers, enabling him to grip a pen.

Jimin always preferred to write his essay notes on paper.

Whilst the powerpoints were always much too fast to write by hand in lectures, planning out his essays on paper just seemed right. He found it much easier to flip between pages to find a nicely highlighted reference than to switch between hundreds of different tabs attempting to locate the right tidbit of information.

Plus it made him feel a bit more erudite than his fellow patrons, many of which were students hunched over a laptop, bags heavy under their eyes. It almost made him feel as though he was attending Hogwarts for some reason. As he settled down, mentally preparing himself for a lengthy study session, the shop bell rang, announcing the arrival of another customer.

Jimin’s heart sped up a tad, hoping it was Wonho, before he caught a glimpse of bleach blonde hair and headphones bundled up in a scarf, gloves and about three coats. Resisting the urge to giggle at his Michelin-man style appearance, he recalled his intentions to become civil with Yoongi.

This was perfect.

He could just go and ask Yoongi to sit with him - ‘be the bigger person’ as Taehyung had so eloquently put it. As he watched, psyching himself up, Yoongi began frantically patting his pockets, groaning and giving the barista a look that resembled the murderous glare Jimin was so often on the receiving of.

‘I’ll pay from my account then please’ he muttered, tugging off his gloves to better search his pockets.

The cashier tapped a few buttons, requesting Yoongi’s name, before making a faux-sympathetic face.

‘Unfortunately your account balance is 8 pence short’ He informed Yoongi in a sing-songy tone. It made Jimin bristle slightly, and he was only watching. He couldn’t imagine how riled up Yoongi must be getting.

‘Don’t worry, I can pay!’ he heard himself proclaiming, in a slightly too loud voice for the quiet coffee shop. Now not only had everyone snapped to look at him, he had exposed himself as a weirdo sitting there staring at Yoongi.

Jimin nearly tripped over his feet in a haste to get over to the counter, before triumphantly whipping out his debit card and paying. Almost afraid to look at Yoongi, praying his olive branch had been received in the way it was intended, he glanced up to see a shocked expression staring back at him. He felt his cheeks start to flush as Yoongi remained silent, prompting a serious case of word vomit.

‘Truce! I just thought, you know, we’ll be living together for the whole rest of the year, and it’ll be better if we’re at least civil. And it won’t be as awkward for our friends. So I was hoping we could have some kind of truce - not like friends, just civil. I guess I already said that. Like I’ll try not to get sloppy drunk and wake you up. But you have to stop sleeping with people past midnight as well. It’s so loud and I can’t believe Jeongguk is ok with it. But y’know I guess that’s a prior arrangement so I can’t really complain about that -‘

He was cut off by Yoongi’s hands waving in the air between them, as if to surrender.

‘Ok, Jesus. Just calm down, it’s too early for you to be this loud’ Jimin rolled his eyes, already feeling a bit humiliated by his outburst, and now preparing for Yoongi to reject his offer with that patronising tone he always used when arguing with Jimin. He could feel himself bristling, ready to snap at Yoongi, before he was interrupted.

‘I’m not saying no, I’m just saying calm down a bit’ Yoongi offered, his voice much more measured than Jimin was used to. It was also much lower and raspier than usual, leaving Jimin to wonder if he was ill, or if he’d just never heard Yoongi talk this up close without raising his voice.

Taking a deep breath and gesturing in the direction of his table, Jimin tried to work his voice into a normal tone, still coming out a tad high pitched in the wake of his outburst.

‘Do you want to study with me?’

Yoongi nodded almost begrudgingly before turning to watch the barista, who was finishing up his drink. Heading back over to his seat, Jimin shuffled some of his notes around, clearing a space for Yoongi’s laptop.

By the time he had managed to reorganise enough to reveal a small patch of empty table, Yoongi was already walking over, balancing what looked practically like a dessert. A giant mug of hot chocolate, complete with cream, marshmallows and a candy cane was slopping off slightly onto the dish he carried it in.

Once again Jimin had to resist the urge to laugh, watching Yoongi’s intense focus as he attempted to prevent the uncharacteristic drink from spilling, face barely visible over the thick scarf wrapped around his neck. Had they been friends Jimin would’ve made a snarky remark about how the drink might not have been too expensive without all the toppings, however given the situation he restrained himself.

Continuing to push his notes around nervously, Jimin startled at a heavy sigh from Yoongi.

‘Stop fidgeting for God’s sake, it’s not like I’m going to kill you’ There it was again. The slight mocking that got Jimin’s back up, eyes sharpening with hostility.

‘You’re not exactly scary, you’re shorter than me and you’re drinking hot chocolate’ Jimin retorted, although it lacked the usual vitriol. Yoongi let out a short surprised laugh, before retreating back into a neutral expression. That was unexpected.

Jimin had fully expected the comment to result in another full blown row, if not a frosty silence. Instead he felt as though he’d almost caught a glimpse of the boy in the photo Hoseok had shown him. He saw a flash of a smile, albeit a speedy one.

With his nerves calmed somewhat, and his building hostility quashed, Jimin clasped his hands and attempted to assume a diplomatic pose, placing his hands on the table and leaning back to assert some kind of dominance.

Finally removing his hundreds of layers of warm clothing, Yoongi slumped down in the chair opposite Jimin, revealing a stained grey hoodie and baggy jeans. His cheeks were slightly flushed from the cold air, and the tip of his nose was bright red where it had poked out from under his scarf. The scrappy notebook he pulled out of his bag was thankfully a perfect fit in what little space Jimin had managed to clear, hot chocolate resting on the unoccupied table beside them.

‘Let’s get down to business’ Jimin attempted to joke, trying to keep the awkward situation as light-hearted as possible. With that, Yoongi’s lips twitched in what almost looked like another smile.

‘I feel like I’m on The Apprentice’

‘Haha you’re so funny’ Jimin rolled his eyes ‘Ok… so basically we need to sort this out so people can actually stand to hang out with us. Like in a group’

Yoongi gave a noncommittal nod and tilted his head slightly ‘I can agree to no audible house guests past midnight, as long as you’re quiet coming in and keep the kitchen decently clean’

‘And you need to stop being so patronising, it drives me up the wall’

‘Hey now you can’t go expecting me to change my personality’

Jimin let out a small huff, nose wrinkling with displeasure.

‘I suppose I can give it my best attempt. For the sake of the others’

‘Excellent. Let’s shake on it. Apprentice style’ Jimin reached across the table, half expecting Yoongi to reject his gesture. Nevertheless Yoongi’s much larger hand met his midway, firm and warm. Slightly embarrassed of how tiny his hand looked in comparison, Jimin jerked his hand back a tad too quickly, watching a slight confusion pass over Yoongi’s face, but just as quickly as it appeared it was gone.

The two lapsed into silent study, only the noise of pen, or in Yoongi’s case pencil, audible. It was almost pleasant. Jimin always enjoyed studying with other people, and to be honest this was going better than most times as he was actually able to be productive. Usually Hoseok or Taehyung were talking his ear off while he hopelessly attempted to hone in on whatever point the author was trying to make. Jimin curiously eyed Yoongi’s scrappy notebook until he finally gave in and broke the silence. ‘You prefer to hand write your notes?’

‘Very observant. So do you’

Jimin narrowed his eyes, although only for a second, before responding. ‘Only for my essays, it makes it easier to see everything’

Nodding lazily as though to suggest he had the same reasoning, Yoongi twirled his pencil. Jimin for some reason found himself entranced by the image of Yoongi’s long and slightly knobbly fingers artfully spinning the pencil. Yoongi opened his mouth, seemingly about to say something before he thought better of it.

The ringing of the shop bell broke Jimin from his trance, stomach immediately clenching at the sight of Wonho, tall and broad, entering the cafe. His eyes searched the room, scanning for Jimin before lighting up in an easy smile, which quickly settled into a deeply furrowed brow upon noticing Yoongi.

Jimin felt his cheeks flush a bit with pleasure. Whilst he obviously didn’t want Wonho to get annoyed, it was always nice to inspire some jealousy. Wonho probably thought he was on a date with someone, or maybe just hanging out with someone new, and was feeling put out.

Fighting back a smile at the thought of Wonho being invested enough in Jimin to make him jealous, Jimin lifted a hand to beckon him over. The motion made Yoongi turn around, pencil halting mid-twirl as a similarly furrowed brow appeared on his face.

‘Hey Jimin-ah. Yoongi-ssi’

Wonho gave Yoongi a curt nod before focusing his attention on Jimin. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘Wonho-ssi’ acknowledged Yoongi, mimicking his stiff gesture before turning back around to face Jimin.

Feeling slightly bewildered, Jimin let out a little awkward laugh.

‘Do you two know each other?’ he questioned, feeling slightly disappointed that Wonho’s dislike of Yoongi appeared to be pre-existing (although, of course he could relate).

They both shrugged, Wonho mumbling something about Yoongi being a friend of a friend, which was met with a derisive scoff and narrowing eyes.

The air felt tense, in a way he was used to with Yoongi, but not Wonho. Something must have happened between them. Maybe an early morning escape after a one night stand?

‘Well, I’d better get going anyway’ Yoongi forced out in a strange, almost robotic voice that Jimin hadn’t heard before. He began layering himself up again and shovelling his study materials into his rucksack. The height difference between him and Wonho became glaringly obvious as he stood, although his overflowing dislike for Wonho made him appear several inches taller than usual.

‘Better be careful Wonho-ssi, I’ve heard some pretty wild tales about you, got to look after your reputation better’

Flinching a bit, Wonho forced a laugh, puffing his chest slightly as he set his bag on the table where Yoongi’s things had been not a minute before.

‘And Jimin-ah, I’ll pay next time. Hyung’s treat’ The sudden switch to a warm, almost conspiratorial tone gave Jimin whiplash.

He didn’t even get a chance to respond before Yoongi was practically out the door. His mind was spinning. Yoongi had never addressed him like that before, or even remotely suggested that Jimin could call him ‘hyung’. Hell, two hours ago all the interactions they’d had were either glaring at each other, or voices so sharp they were on the brink of shouting.

Trying to misrepresent their relationship to Wonho as closer than they were was weird - also a futile attempt as Jimin had complained to Wonho many times about his insufferable housemate. Wonho had never reacted strangely at the mention of Yoongi’s name before. And what did Yoongi mean? Wonho should be careful? What on earth could Yoongi know about him that was bad enough to provoke that kind of reaction.

Wonho let out a small chuckle, grinning at Jimin again.

‘Goodness, you’d think I did something awful to him! Weird dude. I’d be so confused in your position’’

‘Um, yeah to be honest I’ve never seen either of you act quite like that before’ Jimin laughed awkwardly.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. I was dating his friend Namjoon a bit last year but it didn’t work out. Think he took it quite hard. I guess Yoongi-ssi is just a overly protective’

Something about the story didn’t sit quite right with Jimin. Obviously it made logical sense, what with casual dating being commonplace at university. Despite his argumentative and obstinate nature, Jimin had seen how deeply Yoongi cared for his friends, especially Jeongguk. Yet he wasn’t broadly unreasonable - unless of course embroiled in a fight with Jimin.

Yoongi’s cold, robotic tone echoed through his head.

Whenever they were arguing it was always a fiery rage. This was like ice.

The frosty air bit at Jimin’s cheeks as he unlocked the front door, conflicting feelings from earlier resurfacing. After a few minutes of unease weighing low in the pit of his stomach, Wonho’s charming demeanour began to wear through his suspicions, and coffee quickly turned into lunch and an afternoon library session.

But now without Wonho in front of him, Jimin began to second guess himself. Maybe Yoongi was just being extremely dramatic and exaggerating, or maybe his judgement was being clouded by how attractive Wonho was. He hummed in thought as he unlaced his shoes. Wonho didn’t have the best reputation if he was honest with himself.

The cheating rumours were widespread and numerous. Jimin wasn’t sure why he was still hanging out with him. Although that wasn’t entirely true. He was the only person that had shown any kind of interest aside from just hooking up, and Jimin had always fancied finding a boyfriend at university. He’d romanticised the idea of study dates and trips to the christmas market together.

And yes, maybe his standards were slipping after over a year with only one person showing an interest. Cheating wasn’t the worst thing ever, he attempted to convince himself. You could learn from it, and change, especially once you found the right person, which could very well be Jimin.

‘I’m delusional’ he muttered softly, heading to his bedroom. A loud clattering from the kitchen stalled him at the bottom of the stairs, peeking around to catch a glimpse of Yoongi cursing quietly as a tray came to rest by his feet. He bent over to grab it, jumping when he noticed Jimin’s pale face staring at him from the dark of the hallway.

‘Fuck’s sake’ he grumbled.

Jimin flashed him a cheeky grin, which was met with what could almost be described as a smile, and a slight nod. By the time Jimin had changed into sweatpants and made his way downstairs to cook his own dinner, the kitchen was empty.

Chapter Text

Life went on as normal over the next few weeks. However, since their truce, Yoongi and Jimin had remained mostly civil, routinely disrupted by a few harsh words about emptying the bins on time (Jimin) or leaving shoes scattered where anyone was likely to fall over them (Yoongi). Jeongguk had been eagerly reporting the progress to Taehyung, perhaps just searching for a reason to contact him, and leading to the creation of a group chat.

The previously argumentative pair were immediately bombarded with celebratory emojis hailing the end of their cold war, and establishing the beginning of a flourishing friendship group, as Taehyung described it.

Jimin was more than often awoken to the aggressive vibration of his phone as requests for coffee, clothes to borrow, and advice for increasingly ridiculous situations flooded in. The latter could primarily be attributed to Hoseok, whose sexual escapades had reached an almost legendary level of stupidity.

‘The library toilets, really?’

Hoseok swiveled in his chair, a cocky grin plastered on his face. He shrugged as though to say what else did you expect?

‘Honestly, I’m impressed with myself. Obviously I’m irresistible but even I thought this would be taking it a step too far,’

Jeongguk shook his head at Jimin’s outraged expression, chuckling slightly before adjusting his headphones, his face going from lighthearted to stricken as he dragged his eyes back to the essay before him.

Jimin plopped down on the swivel chair beside Hoseok, tutting at him as he grabbed his notes from his backpack.

Jeongguk groaned opposite them, head lolling forward into his hands in despair.

‘Completely ridiculous, not to mention disrespectful to everyone else’ Jimin mocked, pulling a faux-disappointed face at Hoseok.

Hoseok’s face turned solemn for a brief moment.

‘I swear it was no more disruptive than Jeongguk’s tears will be when his essay extension is rejected’

Jeongguk jerked his head up frantically. ‘Don’t speak it into existence, hyung’

‘Jesus, this must be serious’ Jimin pondered with an incredulous expression. ‘Usually Jeongguk says manifestation is bullshit’ Hoseok laughed, throwing the youngest a pitying look.

Someone a table over turned to stare them down, with a look that implied she was not above getting them kicked out.

‘At least tell me which bathroom so I can avoid it,’ Jimin whisper-shouted at Hoseok, who shook his head smugly.

‘My legacy shall live on forever’ He replied, mimicking a crown being placed on his head.

Jimin rolled his eyes, mentally making a note to never use the bathrooms here ever again. Hoseok was such a sap. As much as he tried to make out he was having wild sexual experiences with a plethora of girls, they all knew he was completely smitten for just one girl.

Yiseo was almost as tall as Hoseok, taller with heels, and with long dark hair and a sharp kind of beauty that drew the eye. Hoseok had been crushing on her hard since first year, and finally plucked up the courage to make a move at the start of this year, telling himself it was now or never.

She was hard to please, not impressed in the slightest by Hoseok’s usual routine of dancing seductively and approaching with a roguish charm. After trying unsuccessfully to win her over for a full month, he had resorted to flowers, love notes, and ultimately a song he had performed for her.

Lucky for him, she’d finally taken pity and admitted his feelings were reciprocated. Nowadays when he wasn’t ordering everyone around at dance practice, he was trailing after her in a slightly sickening display of love. His bravado and bragging about how often he was getting laid would usually be a source of relentless mockery, if they hadn’t all seen how desperately he pursued her, and how torn up he was that she wouldn’t fully commit.

The three settled into a steady rhythm, shoving their laptops at each other when a page required proofreading. Jimin, as last to arrive, was sent on a pilgrimage to collect more much-needed coffee. He was greeted upon his return with the sight of Jeongguk silently fist pumping and mouthing ‘yes, yes, yes!’ over and over again.

He flipped his laptop around, pointing wildly at an email which Jimin could assume was the approval of his extension request. He flashed a smile, watching with mirth as Jeongguk gently shut his laptop, indicating with a thumb that the other two should leave with him.

The canteen was completely stifling as they grabbed a table in the back corner, frantically ripping off their coats, hats and scarves. The walk over had been periodically interrupted with celebrations from Jeongguk, amazed he had been approved for his third extension in as many weeks. By the time they reached the canteen he had calmed down significantly, taking on a slightly sombre mood as he stared at his phone.

After a few minutes of conversation about the upcoming dance showcase, a conversation which notably lacked any input from Jeongguk, the two turned to him questioningly.

‘What’s up with you?’ Hoseok inquired, ruffling Jeongguk’s hair as he tried to squirm away.

‘Two minutes ago you were ecstatic’ Jimin tacked on, although he was almost certain he knew what the problem was. Taehyung.

Jeongguk’s obsession had spiralled completely out of control. He’d been pining after him since their initial meeting last year at the pub quiz. Ever since this year had begun, they’d actually been hanging out and talking to each other, with Taehyung clearly regarding Jeongguk as a good friend. As much as he loved the proximity, Jeongguk was struggling to manage his feelings.

Jimin was pretty sure Taehyung reciprocated, but not to the same extent. He could envisage Taehyung being down for a friends with benefits type situation, and he obviously enjoyed how flustered Jeongguk got around him, but nothing long term. Taehyung wasn’t going to be that type of person this year. Last year he’d had a relationship that only lasted 6 months, but had become very toxic very quickly, and Taehyung had vowed not to get tied down this year, and fully enjoy ‘the university experience’.

Regardless, nothing would stop him flirting relentlessly with Jeongguk.

Jeongguk planted his face in his hands, not wanting to expose his hopeless crush to Hoseok.

‘This guy from one of my sociology modules keeps messaging me and I don’t know what to do’

‘Is he a creep? Or are you just not into him?’ Hoseok interrogated.

‘No, nothing like that. He’s nice. And funny enough. We have good conversations. He’s just a bit too loud I guess’ Jeongguk trailed off lamely.

Jimin practically snorted. One of Jeongguk’s favourite traits about Taehyung was the very reason he was rejecting this other man. He wondered if Jeongguk was actually obtuse, or merely so blinded by Taehyung he had failed to realise.

‘There’s no harm in going on a date’ Jimin said firmly. ‘Could just be a coffee date or something. Might take your mind off all the other stuff you’ve got going on at the moment’ He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Jeongguk, prompting another faceplant.

Hoseok wrinkled his nose. Did they actually think he was unaware of Jeongguk’s sickeningly massive crush on Taehyung?

‘I agree completely,’ Hoseok said, giving an exaggerated thumbs up, before suddenly gasping. ‘I know, let’s do a quiz. Find out if he’s the man for you’

Jimin rolled his eyes, about to say something about how they weren’t 12 years old, until he caught the sparkle in Hoseok’s eye that indicated he knew exactly what was going on, and what he was doing.

‘Excellent idea, hyung. C’mon Kookie, we’ll even do it with you’ He encouraged.

After five minutes of frantic scrolling, Jimin happened upon the perfect quiz. ‘Find your dream man’ the title proudly announced in neon pink bubble writing.

Much groaning from Jeongguk followed as he painstakingly copied over the website address to his own laptop.

Silence fell over the group as they ran through the questions.

Jimin couldn’t help but think of Wonho as he looked at his results, mulling over how he lined up. Much taller than him, check. Handsome, check. Honest and loyal, ehhh. Witty, almost.

Jeongguk cleared his throat, announcing his own results.

‘Apparently I need a man that’s taller than me, obviously handsome, honest and loyal, extraverted, kind, friendly, and an out of the box thinker’ He said the last part in air quotes, face reddening as he realised that he’d basically just described Taehyung.

Hoseok and Jimin smiled at him knowingly.

‘How does the sociology dude match up?’

Jeongguk rubbed at the back of his neck, staring at the screen with an unimpressed face. ‘Pretty spot on, I suppose,’ he admitted ruefully, grabbing at Jimin’s laptop in an attempt to shift the focus.

He skimmed over the results, letting out a chuckle ‘This is pretty much Yoongi-hyung’.

Jimin startled, making an outraged noise as he began to feel nauseous at the thought. ‘Excuse me, absolutely not. He’s not any of these things. He’s practically the devil incarnate’

Hoseok’s face lit up, quickly sidling up to Jeongguk so they could share the screen. He too let out a laugh.

‘Kookie’s not wrong. Introverted, witty, kind, confident, honest and loyal, 5”5’

Jimin whacked him on the shoulder. ‘It definitely doesn’t say that last part’

‘And I have yet to see any of those qualities from Yoongi-ssi. He’s a complete prick’

He flashed back to when he walked into the kitchen to find Yoongi doing all of Jeongguk’s washing up and making him soup when the younger boy was sick a few weeks ago. Fine, maybe he was kind. But nothing else.

‘I mean, he’s very clearly introverted. And witty. You two are always snipping at each other about something’ Jeongguk chimed in, clearly enjoying the change of pace, focus steadfastly placed on a steadily reddening Jimin, fists clenched.

Despite their truce the other day, Jimin’s frustration with Yoongi had not decreased. Whilst they had not had any major incidents, Yoongi had not been any less annoying. Jimin had just taken it upon himself to be the bigger person and be less reactive.

The moaning coming from Yoongi’s room would now stop abruptly at midnight, as per their agreement. One night it kept going for an additional five minutes, leaving Jimin enraged, and on the brink of marching downstairs. He had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself.

The sight of a tall ginger boy sauntering down their driveway at 8.30 didn’t do anything to soothe him, instead reigniting his annoyance. He needed to seriously sort himself out. He was developing a near-obsession with all of Yoongi’s minor indiscretions, particularly the fact he still owed Jimin £4.75 for his hot chocolate. Every time he saw Yoongi it was more annoying than the last. A smug smile never seemed to fade from his face, particularly in the morning.

As much as he complained about Jimin’s kitchen etiquette, his massive scruffy jacket was always slung over one of the communal chairs. After days of politely, but through gritted teeth, asking Yoongi to please hang it in the corridor, Jimin began shoving it off the chair, leaving a crumpled pile on the less than spotless kitchen floor.

Yoongi in turn had taken to placing Jimin’s toastie maker on the floor instead of the kitchen side, despite Jeongguk using it as well. He claimed it was ‘taking up too much space’, despite the other two kitchen sides, and the kitchen table being completely available. Jimin had seen Yoongi with a toastie one lunchtime, and had pursed his lips in suspicion.

Jimin sneakily took his revenge by chucking away one of Yoongi’s mugs. Ha, try having hot chocolate now.

‘I haven’t seen it anywhere Yoongi-ssi’ he simpered when Yoongi enquired as to its whereabouts. Yoongi had narrowed his eyes, obviously suspecting something was afoot.

Jimin felt he couldn’t really say anything the next day when he couldn’t find his favourite cereal bowl, although he was certain Yoongi had a hand in its disappearance. He had stewed in his room, angrily eating malt wheats out of his second-favourite bowl, plotting ways to make Yoongi’s life unpleasant.

The crockery and cutlery stealing had continued for about two weeks until Jimin caught one of Yoongi’s many one-night stands eating muesli from his cereal bowl, and had marched to Yoongi’s room, banging loudly on the door.

Yoongi appeared, hair sticking up in all directions, in only boxers. Jimin was taken aback slightly, gaze dropping to scan over Yoongi’s torso briefly before dragging back up to his practically still asleep face, eyes barely open. Yoongi’s bewildered and sleepy expression quickly warped into a self-satisfied smirk as he took in Jimin’s outraged and red face.

‘Keep your filthy hands off my stuff’ Jimin hissed, pointing a stubby finger aggressively.

‘As far as I can tell, my hands aren’t on anything’ he replied smugly, grin widening as Jimin let out a strangled noise, looking two seconds from stomping his foot.

‘You know what I mean’ Jimin insisted, having to restrain himself from screaming as Yoongi’s door swung shut in his face. He hated that he was so affected by this. Yoongi’s reactions to his misgivings no longer seemed angry, merely annoyed. He was going out of his way to enrage Jimin in whatever way possible as payback. Jimin seethed.

He hated him even more than before.

Jimin spent far too much time in his room mulling over how to get back at Yoongi. One would think that when all his kitchen equipment suddenly reappeared he would be happy, but instead a new suspicion occupied his mind. What was Yoongi planning next?

He had spent so much time considering the situation that his university work had begun to suffer. Hence the urgent meeting with Jeongguk and Hoseok, who had managed to keep him on track for a whole hour before Jeongguk’s delighted exclamation.

‘Yoongi-ssi is the last person in the world I would ever go out with’ Jimin declared, narrowing his eyes as if daring the others to contradict him.

‘Besides, Wonho is a pretty good match to the quiz, I think’ he followed up, voice sounding slightly uncertain.

Hoseok and Jeongguk met eyes, both with a less than impressed expression.

‘If you’re happy, we’re happy hyung’ Jeongguk replied in a tone that got Jimin’s back up a bit. He knew they disapproved of Wonho, but hopefully they would come around.

‘So what’s this guy’s name then, the one from sociology?’ Jimin quipped, eager to switch the topic of conversation.

Jeongguk flushed again, and the conversation moved away from Jimin.

Chapter Text

Jimin awoke to something pinning him to the bed by his waist. What the hell? He looked down to see an arm wrapped around him. The more awake he felt, the more he could feel a body pressed against his own. What. The. Fuck.

His mind was racing. What on earth had happened? Maybe Wonho got drunk and had come over? But why couldn’t he remember?

As he shifted, the mysterious hand tightened around his waist, and his bedfellow let out a groan. He tried to look behind him, eyes straining with just how aggressively he was trying to get a glimpse into his periphery.

‘Go back to sleep’ came a low grumble, causing Jimin to startle. That was absolutely not Wonho. He jerked upright, dislodging the hand that was gripping tight. Another groan quickly followed, and Jimin whipped around to see Yoongi rolling to bury his head in the pillow.

‘So early,’ another grumble came, although quieter this time.

Jimin sat in stunned silence, completely unsure about what had happened. Why the fuck was Yoongi anywhere near him at all, let alone in his bed. As he looked wildly around the room, he came to the bizarre realisation that he was completely naked. He froze, fixing the ruffled back of Yoongi’s head with a horrified stare.

Yoongi eventually seemed to notice that Jimin was not, in fact, going back to sleep as requested. He huffed a low sigh, turning around to face Jimin, before pushing himself upright so they were face to face.

‘What’s up?’ he murmured softly, one hand rubbing sleep from his eyes, and the other coming up to brush against Jimin’s (naked!) shoulder, leaving sparks in it’s wake.

Jimin completely blanked. They’d never been this close before. He could see Yoongi’s long eyelashes sweeping against his cheek as he blinked again and again, trying to wake himself up. He could see the tufts of hair spiking up in all directions, all of a sudden noticing a cow lick he’d never seen before as Yoongi ran his hand through his hair.

More importantly, he was extremely attractive. And as far as Jimin was aware, they were both naked.

‘Uhh’ he stuttered, looking away and making staunch eye contact with his wardrobe. He couldn’t compute what was happening.

Yoongi chuckled quietly. ‘You don’t need to be shy, it’s not like I have plans to leave any time soon’

His hand moved to Jimin’s jawbone. He gently nudged Jimin’s face back to face his own. Then he was leaning in. Jimin’s heart was thundering in his chest, and for some bizarre reason he found himself leaning forward too, eyes fluttering closed as he inhaled deeply, catching the faint scent of Yoongi’s shampoo.

He sprung to life, hands flinging back the duvet as he scrambled out of bed, sweat beading on his forehead. He took a few seconds to compose himself, hand smacking against his forehead in an attempt to knock himself back into normality. He stood frozen, desperately trying to make sense of whatever he’d just imagined.

Maybe he was destined to die a virgin. Even his sex dreams didn’t include any actual sex.

And on a pretty serious side note, what the fuck?

What business did Yoongi have interfering with his dreams? He already spent enough time bugging him in real life, let alone in insane, nightmare-style visions.

What the hell could have prompted his subconscious to create such an abhorrent concoction? He had half a mind to go and rinse his mouth out, just on the off chance that dream-Yoongi’s germs had made their way to his lips.

He screwed his eyes tightly shut, racking his brains to figure out what had caused his unconscious mind to have such an overwhelming lack of judgement.

Damn Jungkook and Hoseok and their fucking quiz (it had obviously been at least 50% Jimin’s idea but there was no need to dwell on that now). Idiot Jungkook and his insistence that Jimin’s perfect match was Yoongi. It had obviously infected his psyche to the extent that a scene only rivalled by Lovecraftian horrors had been produced.

Yoongi was the bane of his existence. Not even his primary school bully had occupied his mind to such an extent that he appeared in dreams. Every time they saw each other riled Jimin up to the point he was considering purchasing a Yoongi-shaped punching bag, just to ease some of his rage.

A stiff drink would sort him out. He sighed heavily. Despite being a university student, he hadn’t quite reached the depths of drinking alone in the morning. He mulled it over, considering if just this once he could make an exception, before deciding he wasn’t quite prepared to take a step towards burgeoning alcoholism. Damn his friends. Strong coffee would have to do.

He scuttled down the stairs at an unprecedented speed, hastily dumping a full tablespoon of instant coffee into a mug before slumping against the kitchen counter as he waited for the kettle to boil. His heart was still racing as he snuck fervent glances at Yoongi’s bedroom door through the grimy plastic panelling of the kitchen door. It remained thankfully shut as he poured himself a cup. He dug through the fridge hoping to find some kind of milk, before eventually resigning himself to the prospect of black coffee at the grand time of 8:06 in the morning.

Jimin shut the fridge door with slightly more force than necessary, before taking a wild jump back. Yoongi stood there, a smug quirk to his lips as he took in Jimin’s flustered state. He clutched a hand to his chest, backing into the sink frantically.

‘Christ, what are you, a fucking ghost!’ he exclaimed, eyes narrowing at Yoongi’s laugh. As he laughed, Yoongi ran his hand through his hair, mussing up the already bed-ruffled hair in a rather similar fashion to Jimin’s dream. Jimin only realised he was staring when Yoongi cleared his throat, a quizzical expression taking up residence on his face. He sputtered slightly, cursing himself for blushing so easily. He could feel his face heating up. His gaze darted around the room, desperately avoiding any kind of eye contact.

‘Piss off, it’s too early to be so annoying,’ he muttered, vaguely catching the quirk of Yoongi’s lips out of the corner of his eye. How dare he sneak his way into Jimin’s dreams, and then show up the next day just to rub salt in the irritating wound.

Whatever. It’s not like Jimin would have to see him. He could find out Yoongi’s schedule from the ever-observant Jungkook, albeit in a sneaky way, and plan his every move to avoid running into Yoongi.

He flounced out of the kitchen, perhaps too aggressively, as some of his horrifyingly disgusting black coffee sloshed on the floor, but definitely aggressively enough for Yoongi to get the message that he should stay away.

Jimin had arrived uncharacteristically early for yet another attempt at the pub quiz, where he now sat stewing, arms folded as he slouched on the table. He and Taehyung were far from reigning champions, but had built up an admirable reputation for their perseverance in the face of such constant defeat.

When their team name popped up on screen at the bottom of the leader board almost weekly, accompanied by their chosen song, a quiet wave of applause echoed throughout the pub. They chose to ignore the sarcastic element to the cheering, deciding instead to focus on the host, who always gave them a special shout out. One day they would win first prize. Thus far ‘Vminnie and the Jets’ had only managed to scrape third place by one point, and had celebrated for days. The victory of £10 bar tab they won paled in comparison to the pride they felt.

The addition of Hoseok had, from time to time, been a positive twist, however he was far too enthusiastic with the album cover questions, and tended to smash the wrong letter on the phone in his haste to be the first to answer. The last few weeks they had gone it alone, Taehyung insisting that they shouldn’t jinx their team name by adding more people into the mix.

Liar. Jimin almost felt like screaming across the table at him. He had walked in, five minutes late, and with Yoongi trailing behind him like a grumpy teenager. As Taehyung had bounded across the pub towards him, Jimin hissed in what was supposed to be a whisper. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Ah, I just wanted to hang out with hyung, haven’t seen him in a while,’ Taehyung replied, looking slightly suspicious at Jimin’s vicious reaction.

‘It’s not a problem right, I thought you guys made up?’

Jimin forced out a breezy sounding laugh. ‘Of course! … just don’t want to spoil our luck y’know,’

‘What luck,’ Yoongi grumbled as he lodged himself on the stool opposite Jimin, resting his chin on his fist. Jimin couldn’t help but roll his eyes, pissed at the unnecessary snark.

‘I’ll get some drinks’ Taehyung said, hopping off to the bar at top speed, leaving the two alone, Yoongi glaring at an empty fireplace across the pub, and Jimin wrinkling his nose as he stared at a spot directly behind Yoongi, attempting to envision a scenario where Yoongi was dragged up to a guillotine by a mass of people all enraged by his gloomy countenance.

The group had made their way through drinks at pace, particularly Jimin, who was struggling to avoid looking at Yoongi in the wake of his no-sex sex dream, drawn to him in an odd way, despite the annoyance the other provoked. Yoongi didn’t exactly seem to be shying away from drinks either, downing a couple of pints at a spectacular pace that Jimin couldn’t help but observe. Taehyung remained bubbly as always, fighting his way through the awkward silence admirably by discussing university work, a topic that usually resulted in rather dry conversation, but Taehyung somehow made it engaging.

Jimin's phone sat on the sticky table, buzzing with texts from Wonho that made him blush and giggle more and more as he consumed cocktail after cocktail. A couple of times he looked up to see Yoongi fixing his phone with a truly disgusted face, and pulled the phone up closer to his face to avoid unwanted observation. Yoongi rolled his eyes and looked away.

The numerous sex on the beaches he had consumed were making his speech significantly more slurred as the night went on, and by the time the quiz began he could barely form coherent sentences, his grammar slipping. Jimin was always proud of his sense of humour, and he was on fire tonight. Joke after joke came out, until Taehyung was practically rolling on the floor with laughter. He felt an odd sting when he looked over at Yoongi to see a sour face, and not even a slight indication that Yoongi had been enjoying his jokes.

‘First up is the musical round!’ the host announced cheerfully, snapping the group out of their discussion, and leading to a groan from both Yoongi and Jimin. Not again. They turned to look at each other, Jimin with an annoyed expression and Yoongi with a quizzical, if not amused, look.

‘Why do you have a problem with this round, isn’t it like ‘your most amazing round’’ Yoongi groused, parroting Jimin’s words the first night they met.

‘Whatever,’ Jimin spat back, quick to anger in his (almost) drunken state, and ready to do anything he could to prove Yoongi wrong. The round went almost swimmingly, to the surprise of both Yoongi and Jimin. Jimin’s rage towards the older boy had somehow spurred a Wikipedia-style knowledge, answering questions correctly that he didn’t have even the slightest clue where he got the answer from. Every correct answer, he shot Yoongi a smug smile, with the intention of rubbing it in his face that Jimin was in fact, highly intelligent. Or at least, extremely knowledgeable about musicals. A couple of times he looked up, he could’ve sworn Yoongi was already looking at him, with a soft smile that looked almost fond. He looked away quickly, shaking his head to rid himself of such nonsensical thoughts, and convinced himself they were just some horrifying leftover from his dream last night.

‘Madame Morrible’ he whisper-shouted at his teammates as he grabbed the phone for the eighth time, not looking for agreement as much as he was hoping to avoid contention. Taehyung whined, face now planted firmly on the table.

‘Isn’t it the other one…Dila-something,’

‘No, Tae, that’s the goat professor,’ Jimin corrected, patting Taehyung on the head in a suitably patronising fashion. Yoongi huffed in the corner, and Jimin whipped around to face him. Through the rest of the round, Yoongi had been rolling his eyes in silence at Jimin’s overenthusiastic answers. This was the first time he had dared to make any actual noise of dissent.

‘Do you have something to say?’ Jimin questioned, looking Yoongi dead in the eyes for the first time that day. He winced back slightly as flashes of his dream came back to him, but he decided to hold firm and stare him down.

‘Nothing at all,’ Yoongi hummed, in a way that indicated he certainly did have something to say.

Jimin narrowed his eyes at him again, the couple of cocktails he had chugged giving him the bravado to face off against Yoongi. ‘Spit it out,’ he hissed at him. ‘No point in biting your tongue.’

Yoongi chuckled, seemingly amused by Jimin’s outraged reaction. ‘Nothing whatsoever.’

Jimin felt his fists clenching involuntarily as he stared at Yoongi, irritation building, and lip curling in a sneer.

‘Liar’

He reached across the table to once again pounce on the phone situated in the middle, swiftly answering the next question.

‘I just feel,’ Yoongi eventually answered, after a long pause (made considerably more irritating by the way he was checking his nails in an awfully showy way like someone who had just got a manicure) and many faux-anguished expressions.

‘I just think that you’re a tad patronising,’ he answered, still inspecting his nails. ‘For someone that always accuses me of being patronising,’

Jimin felt his carefully curated expression of distaste drop into shock, and then rage, as he watched Yoongi tilt his head and grin. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears, and all he could think was that he’d like to smash Yoongi in his annoying, condescending face.

‘Fuck you, I’m the farthest fucking thing from patronising’ he said, so wrapped up in his rage he managed to miss the last question of the round, a neon red zero taunting him on the phone. ‘How dare you’ he ground out, lurching to grasp hold of Taehyung, who, in his drunken state had begun to slide off the table and was heading rather quickly towards the floor.

‘I think we’d better leave’ he said eventually, after a few minutes of trying and failing dismally to wrangle Taehyung back into a suitably stable position on his chair.

‘Maybe I should get him home’ Yoongi interrupted, grabbing hold of Taehyung’s other arm. ‘Wouldn’t want to disturb your night with Prince Charming,’

Jimin bristled. Fuck Yoongi. He obviously wasn’t going to leave Taehyung abandoned to go and hook up with Wonho. Prick. Yoongi was just trying to get a rise. There’s no way he actually thought that low of Jimin, that he would just dump his drunken friend and head out to get some dick. Not that there was ever any dick involved. But Yoongi didn’t need to know that.

He lugged Taehyung’s arm over his shoulders, cursing the other’s ability to go from excitably tipsy to completely blackout in just a few drinks, and dragged him out to the smoking area, appreciating the slight spit of rain cooling him down both physically and also soothing the rage he felt for Yoongi.

By the time the taxi showed up he had completely banned any thoughts of Yoongi from his mind. Angry or otherwise.

Chapter Text

To celebrate the end of the first term, and the impending arrival of Christmas, Hoseok had demanded a group trip to the club.

The dance club had already participated in multiple themed club nights - sexy santa, the twelve days of christmas, and rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Jimin’s wardrobe was slowly but surely gaining an inordinate amount of flimsy red and green polyester, something that made him wince every time he dared to look at his bank balance.

He would have to get horrendously drunk at pre drinks, hopefully avoiding any unnecessary expenditure in the club. A Hoseok-imposed theme of Santa’s elves led to even more purchases, frantically scouring charity shops before admitting defeat and turning to amazon.

Hoseok’s insistence on hanging out as a group was quite admirable, considering the five of them had not spent time all together since the tension ridden movie night. Yoongi required some dedicated persuasion to agree to attend, including the reluctant inclusion of his two other friends, who Hoseok had declared ‘mustn’t spoil the vibe of the evening’.

After a firm outline of suitable dress code, including a link to a carefully curated pinterest board, Hoseok was finally satisfied. Everyone would be arriving at Jimin’s house within the next hour and a half - a further gesture of just how okay things were between him and Yoongi. They hadn’t spoken since the pub quiz, but no one else needed to know that. Jimin had scurried out whenever they had managed to end up in the kitchen at the same time, and had worked hard to memorise Yoongi’s time to such an extent that he practically never saw him anyway. But there was no need for anyone else to know that.

Having dressed far too early, Jimin sat on the bed scrolling endlessly on his phone. The fishnets Taehyung had begged him to wear were slightly uncomfortable, not to mention difficult. He’d spent about 10 minutes getting them on, poking each of his toes through the holes on more than one occasion. He was nearly on the brink of giving up when Taehyung sent him a smiling mirror selfie flaunting his own pair, providing him a fresh wave of motivation. The rest of their matching outfit - green tank top and red booty shorts - made him feel slightly comical, especially sitting there alone on the bed.

He hopped up and headed to the bathroom, once again cursing his tiny room and the lack of a mirror. He mussed his hair, mulling over attempting a hairstyle of some kind. His roots had started to grow out a bit, but were significantly less visible through the brown hair. Plus they would be entirely covered by his elf hat. A pot of glittery eyeshadow sat on the windowsill, awaiting Hoseok’s ‘makeup prowess’, which would consist of smearing it liberally over all of them. Jimin hoped he would look good.

Whilst this was first and foremost a group club night, he had confirmed that Wonho would be showing up at some point. He fought back a smile, imagining them catching eyes across the club and finding their way towards each other.

Perhaps a slightly romanticised version of whatever would actually happen, most likely a drunken make out session with Jimin pressed against one of the sticky walls of the club. In the past, these had never been particularly enjoyable, Jimin struggling to ignore the smell of sweat and hundreds of generously applied colognes. This time however, he and Wonho had more of an emotional connection, one that would soon turn into a full-blown relationship, Jimin was sure.

Jeongguk’s squeaking door broke him out of his daydream.

‘Tae-hyung’s on his way. He’ll just be a few minutes’ he announced, hurriedly edging past Jimin and grabbing his toothbrush. Jimin scoffed, lips turning up in a fond smile. He was so smitten.

‘Is everything set up?’ Jeongguk’s voice trailed after him down the stairs, slightly frantic.

‘You’ve only checked everything about five times’ Jimin shouted back, laughing as he saw the spirit bottles lined up carefully in height order. He grabbed the speaker, carefully selecting Taehyung’s pre-made party mix on spotify. He was always nervous to play his own music at parties, getting too worried that everyone was enjoying it, and probably annoying people with his repeated reassurances that someone else could take over the music. Taehyung was not afflicted with this same concern, happily playing Cotton Eyed Joe or anything by ABBA on repeat until someone, usually Hoseok, wrenched his phone from him.

Jeongguk skidded down the stairs, his wide panicked eyes looking more than a bit comical amidst his sparkling green and red ensemble, complete with jingle bell hat.

‘How does my hair look?’ he demanded. Any lingering shyness Jeongguk exhibited around Jimin always disappeared in the face of Taehyung, the intensity of his crush overwhelming his usual reserved nature.

‘Looks good!’ Jimin replied instinctively before turning to look at him, his brows furrowing as he took in the dubious amount of product Jeongguk had slathered in his hair.

‘On second thought, maybe try and scrub some of that stuff out. Christ, I’ve never seen so much hair gel’

‘Oh God’ Jeongguk groaned, planting his blushing face in his hands ‘I knew it was too much. He’s going to think I’m so rude if I’m not here when he arrives’

‘He’ll just think you’re mysterious’ Jimin half-sang, wiggling his hands at Jeongguk. ‘He’s my friend as well, I’m sure I can keep him occupied while you sort it out’

A knock on the door spurred them into action.

‘Get upstairs’ Jimin hissed at him, prompting a rather ungainly leap towards the stairs. Thank goodness the hallway lights were off for ‘mood lighting’, or Taehyung would’ve gotten a clear shot of Jeongguk sprinting away.

Opening the door, Jimin was greeted with the hefty thwack of Taehyung flinging himself towards him, and the heavy scent of alcohol, so strong it made his nose wrinkle. ‘Jesus, Tae, this is pre drinks’

Giggling, Taehyung kicked his shoes off ‘thought I’d get a bit of a head start’ he announced, raising a milk bottle half full with some kind of drink.

At Jimin’s curious expression, he explained ‘White Russian. Thought the milk bottle would be a bit less conspicuous on the bus’

‘Ahhh. Smart’ Jimin followed him down the hallway into the kitchen, which had been sparsely decorated with a disco ball and some tinsel. Jimin would’ve preferred a full blown Christmas tree but didn’t want to push his still strained relationship with Yoongi even further by scattering pine needles everywhere.

‘Where’s Jeonggukie?’ Taehyung questioned, peering around the kitchen as though he was waiting to pop out.

‘Still getting ready I think. He’ll just be a few minutes probably’ Jimin made a noncommittal shrug as though to suggest Jeongguk was just getting ready casually, as opposed to the frenzied display he’d witnessed just a minute before. Taehyung’s face wrinkled in confusion for a second, before quickly smoothing out as he spied the row of liquor bottles.

‘Time to get drunk, Jiminie. Have some of mine and then we can start working our way through these. We can have matching drinks like our outfits! Which by the way, looks amazing on both of us. We’ll be the talk of the town’ he gestured dramatically at himself, as if to indicate just how irresistible he was.

‘Wait until you see the hats. I’ve never seen so much glitter’

Taehyung squealed, clasping his hands ‘Excellent!’

A good 35 minutes, and three disgusting and Christmas-themed cocktails later, Jeongguk emerged from upstairs, hair looking freshly blow-dried. He gave Jimin a sheepish grin, mouthing ‘thanks’ as he entered the kitchen. Taehyung sprung to life, proffering a Bailey’s, Malibu and grenadine monstrosity, something he had christened ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ after one sip.

Jeongguk somehow managed to resist the urge to gag upon drinking, restricting himself only to a small wince before stuttering out ‘nice’.

Jimin and Taehyung fell about laughing, Taehyung patting Jeongguk’s back through gasping breaths. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make you something tasty,’

Jeongguk trotted after him towards the table crowded with alcohol, quickly reddening face luckily disguised by the flashing lights of the disco ball.

Hoseok arrived about 20 minutes later, at the same time as Yoongi’s friends. The three boys sat at the kitchen table jumped as a screech came echoing down the hallway. ‘Jin-hyung! How do you know Yoongi-hyung?’

‘Ahh, you know how Yoongi is, I woke him up when he was snoring in the library a couple of years ago’

As the voices drew nearer to the entrance of the kitchen, Jimin spun around to catch a glimpse of the newcomers.

‘Sorry we let ourselves in, I knocked a ton but I guess the music was too loud’ Hoseok said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. ‘I nearly froze out there before I decided to break in’

Rolling his eyes, Taehyung advanced towards the newly arrived trio, swaddling Hoseok in a bear hug before moving onto the two others, the alcohol emphasising his natural extroversion.

‘Nice to meet you, I’m Kim Seokjin and this is Kim Namjoon. Thanks for hosting’, the model-pretty man announced, brandishing a bottle of nice gin, far nicer than the usual Gordon’s they gulped down with a wince.

Surprisingly for people that Yoongi was friends with, they seemed nice and normal, Jimin thought to himself. The conversation flowed easily from initial introductions, (apart from a rather odd smirky look from Seokjin when he gave his name) and a game of Ring of Fire had resulted in the quieter one, Namjoon, having to down a concoction of ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’, some lukewarm fruity cider, and coconut rum. Most of it ended up tipped down his gaudy elf outfit, leading Jimin to where he was now, delving through his wardrobe to find something suitably Christmas-y that would fit the much broader-chested man. A faux fur lined red tank top would have to be sufficient.

Seokjin, who’d insisted on being called Jin-hyung within about two seconds, let out a guffaw as Jimin rounded the corner with the top, clapping excitedly as he shoved Namjoon towards his fate. Many photos later, and a fashion show was being begrudgingly elicited from a rather embarrassed looking Namjoon.

‘Shouldn’t we be off soon?’ he queried, attempting to halt the photography, which had cumulated in Taehyung lying on his front claiming that it provided the ‘best angle’.

‘Not that I’m not loving this but isn’t Yoongi-hyung showing up at some point?’ he continued, prompting the others to look at each other questioningly. Jimin checked his phone ‘oh shit, it’s nearly eleven. Yeah we do need to get a move on. One of you guys text him’

‘Why not you?’ Jin said, leaning forward as though he’d sensed a bit of drama he could uncover.

‘Ahh, no reason, I just know how much Hoseok loves to annoy him,’ Jimin replied, waving off Jin’s implication that there must be a good reason for him to avoid texting Yoongi. Most likely Jin had been privy to Yoongi’s numerous complaining sessions about Jimin, something he’d become aware of after needling a drunken Jeongguk a month ago.

He guessed it was only to be expected, what with him having similar conversations about Yoongi to anyone that would listen to his complaints.

As he thought about Yoongi, he began to feel that familiar annoyance. How rude that he wasn’t there, after requesting that his friends be included. Of course his friends were nice, but it was more the principle of the matter. Opening his mouth to announce this to the group, he quickly snapped it shut.

Half the point of this evening was to celebrate the group’s newfound friendship, particularly Jimin and Yoongi’s.

He’d have to cut himself off.

The alcohol was making him bold, and annoyed with Yoongi, something that would be quick to turn into a shouting match, potentially one-sided and embarrassing since Yoongi would be sober.

Half an hour later Yoongi arrived to a chorus of ‘finally!’ from everyone present.

‘Hurry, hurry, hurry’ Hoseok chided, drunkenly ushering Yoongi into his bedroom. ‘Make sure you’re nice and sparkly’

Everyone else had been smeared with silvery glitter eyeshadow, and Hoseok stood poised at Yoongi’s bedroom door, ready to attack.

‘The last bus leaves in 13 minutes’ shouted Namjoon, having become progressively louder over the evening.

Jimin ran upstairs to grab his and Taehyung’s elf hats, nearly tripping over the stairs in his haste. He patted his pockets, checking for his driver's licence and debit card. A final glance in the mirror told him that he was looking good, cheeks flushed from alcohol and hair messed up, but in a nice way. Wonho wouldn’t know what hit him, Jimin thought smugly, pulling on his hat and venturing downstairs.

Yoongi had appeared, looking decidedly less festive than everyone else. Black jeans and a red top were met with loud booing from the onlookers. Handing Taehyung his hat, Jimin startled when he screeched.

‘You can have my hat Yoongi-hyung. At least you’ll look a bit less morbid. And now you’re matching with Jimin, you’re technically on theme’

He shoved the hat on roughly, Yoongi pushing him away with a grumble. Jimin felt similar, huffing as he imagined that Wonho’s response to this wouldn’t be entirely positive.

‘Let’s get going’ Yoongi muttered, holding up his house keys.

‘Grumpy, grumpy’ Jin commented in a sing-songy tone, barreling out of the house with the others hot on his heels. Jimin linked arms with Taehyung, watching his milk bottle swill around, having been topped up with a new White Russian for the journey.

The bus driver sighed as they hopped on one by one, probably sick to death of drunk university students attempting to disguise alcohol. There was something decidedly gross about seven people swigging from a milk bottle, so Jimin chose to refrain, both due to the grossness and also his decision to cut himself off before Yoongi-induced rage began in earnest.

Surprisingly Yoongi had also waved off the drink, slumping a bit in his seat and looking out the window, not really engaging. Whilst this didn’t seem to bother everyone else, it was making Jimin incensed. How rude! He had barely entertained Hoseok with the eyeshadow at the bus stop either, only allowing him to apply a small amount before looking away.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t let this put a dampener on his evening, his final night out before the Christmas break.

The group of them swayed slightly as they approached the queue for The Warehouse, the ‘best’ club in the city. Although that couldn’t be taken as glowing praise, it really just meant the cheapest drinks and entry fee.

Taehyung turned to him. ‘This outfit was a much better idea in the warm. I’ve never been this cold before,’ Jimin had to agree. The skimpy shorts and sleeveless top were doing little to provide any kind of warmth, and he’d started to shiver after only a couple of minutes. The body heat of everyone else in the queue was having a slight effect, and he rubbed his arms vigorously, hoping the queue would move quickly.

Ten whole minutes later, although it felt like much longer, the group finally reached the front of the line. The cheerful mood had somewhat sobered in the cold, reduced to quiet conversation as they huddled, wrapping their arms around themselves. Despite Yoongi’s refusal to join in the conversation, a smug smirk grew on his face as he watched them all shiver dramatically. Jimin wanted to hit him. Prick. He should’ve joined in with the theme properly, then he would’ve been just as cold as the rest of them.

Although Jimin was very clearly over 18, the bouncers ummed and aahed over his driver’s licence for a solid two minutes, seemingly enjoying the power of watching him freeze as the rest of his friends filed in. When he finally made his way in he was given a hand stamp straight away, with his debit card being waved off.

‘Your friend already paid for you’ the attendant said, ushering him towards Jeongguk, who was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.

‘Thank you! You didn’t have to’ Jimin threw his arm around Jeongguk, pulling him towards the spiral staircase heading to the basement floor.

‘I didn’t, it was Yoongi-hyung’ Jeongguk shouted in his ear as the volume of the music increased to a deafening level.

Jimin stilled for a second before continuing down. That was weird. Actually no, he supposed Yoongi owed him for his drink at the coffee shop a few weeks ago. Still. It made him feel a bit weird. Like almost guilty for being so annoyed with Yoongi. He shook his head, trying to locate the rest of them in the throng of people, eventually finding them against the bar. Holding hands, he and Jeongguk weaved their way through the crowd, making their way over.

‘£4 for a double! Can you believe it! What a bargain!’ Taehyung screamed at him, double parked already, with a straw in each drink. Jimin laughed, enjoying the warmth of the club as he began to feel his toes again. The heavy bass vibrated through him as the group made their way onto the dance floor, forming a circle and beginning to dance.

Yoongi and Namjoon’s dancing skills seemed somewhat stilted, subdued shuffling from foot to foot. Jin was enthusiastic, but what he was doing could be more accurately described as flailing. Taehyung matched Jin’s enthusiasm, although this was quickly halted by both of his drinks tipping as he danced, swilling on the floor. He froze and downed his drinks, utilising both straws. To anyone else this would have been a slightly off putting display, however Jeongguk was staring at him as though he was a literal God.

Jimin rolled his eyes at the smitten boy once again, twisting around in an attempt to locate Wonho. No luck. He was probably on another floor. He would have to stay with the group for at least quarter of an hour to show willing before he headed off. After a very passionate performance to ‘212’ by Hoseok and Taehyung, complete with an unnecessary amount of grinding, Jimin decided he was probably safe to explore. Just as he turned his head to the left to try and catch a glimpse of Wonho, he felt warm hands around his waist. He froze, twisting his head to locate the creep. Gazing up, he caught eyes with Wonho, face immediately splitting into a grin.

‘Hey, you look amazing’ Wonho whisper-shouted into his ear. Jimin felt himself blushing, turning around to give him a hug in greeting.

‘I forgot you were coming!’ Jimin lied, feeling the urge to play coy, although he was certain Wonho knew he was waiting for him.

Upon turning around he was met with sour expressions from Yoongi, as expected, but also Jin and Namjoon. He’d forgotten that Namjoon was the one of Yoongi’s friends that Wonho had dated. Shit.

He gave a sheepish smile before grabbing Wonho’s hand and dragging him away, not wanting to spoil a potential friendship with Jin and Namjoon by flaunting his burgeoning relationship.

They made their way up to the first floor, where the music was less club classics and a bit more ABBA. Jimin felt his stomach fluttering as Wonho flashed him a grin, spinning him around with their conjoined hands, and settling into an easy rhythm. After half an hour of dancing, Jimin gestured towards the bathroom, setting off alone.

He caught Jin leaving the toilets, and gave him a smile, which was met with a steely look, a far cry from the fun times they’d all been having together earlier. Enjoyment of the moment quashed slightly, he went to the toilet quickly and headed back out. Wonho was waiting for him with an easy smile, and words of reassurance about just how amazing Jimin looked.

He was certain that whatever he’d done couldn’t have been that bad, and anyway, that was in the past. As they continued to dance, Jimin felt at ease again. As they had done so many times before, they started to make out, Jimin wrapping his hands around Wonho’s neck as his hands found Jimin’s waist. They broke apart for a few seconds, Wonho leaning down to Jimin’s ear.

‘Would you like to get dinner next week? Like a date’

Jimin tried to collect his composure, resisting the urge to let out a screech, and enthusiastically nodded the affirmative. This is what he’d been waiting for this whole time. An official date. No longer just a situationship-style relationship. Real. Before he could properly enjoy the realisation of everything he’d been hoping for, he felt Wonho pressing kisses down his neck, and his fingers slipping under his top. Fighting the impulse to push him away, Jimin reasoned with himself.

This is part of what he’d wanted. A relationship would mean sex eventually, and touching all the time. They continued to make out, Jimin feeling more than a little uncomfortable as Wonho reached down to grab at his ass. He felt like he was moaning on cue, forcing noises out when he felt he should. The butterflies in his stomach were gone, and were replaced with a heavy feeling. All of a sudden it felt like Wonho was using way too much tongue, and grabbing him far too harshly. Jimin needed a breath of fresh air.

‘I’ve got to go check on my friends. I’ll be back in a second!’ he shouted, gesturing downstairs. Wonho nodded ‘I’ll be right by the bar’

Practically running, Jimin looked back as he reached the stairs, ensuring Wonho wasn’t looking at him, before turning up the stairs instead of down. He burst out into the smoking area, heaving a sigh of relief at the cold air. He gazed out at the city lights, trying to gather his thoughts.

This was fine. And normal. And what people in relationships did all the time. And he wanted to do it with Wonho. The sick feeling of wrongness weighed heavy in his stomach as he heard a familiar scoff behind him. He rolled his eyes. The last person he wanted to see. He turned on Yoongi, eyes narrowing in annoyance.

‘What do you want?’ he hissed at Yoongi’s smug face, noting that Hoseok had obviously had another go with the eyeshadow and Yoongi’s eyelids were thoroughly coated.

‘Aren’t you going to say thank you?’ he replied, flicking open an old-fashioned lighter for his cigarette. Jimin raised an eyebrow. How pretentious. Just use a bic lighter like everyone else, he thought.

‘Pff, you owed me that money,’

Yoongi let out a short laugh, staring down at Jimin as though talking to a toddler.

‘It’s always nice to say thank you’

God he was so condescending. Jimin couldn’t stand it.

‘Good to see you’re in a better mood. Thought you were on track to ruin the whole evening’ Jimin snapped, watching a slightly guilty look pass over Yoongi’s face before it was quickly replaced with a smirk once again.

‘Oh yeah, cause you look like you’re having such a great time. Really enjoying yourself, that’s why you had to run out here’

Jimin rubbed at the marks slowly darkening on his neck, mollified slightly with the shame that Yoongi knew he had run away. But then the knowledge that Yoongi had obviously been watching him with Wonho reignited his anger. Yoongi had such a punchable face.

‘Didn’t realise you were so obsessed with me, did you follow me out here as well as staring at me like a creep?’

Yoongi opened his mouth to reply, but Jimin cut him off before he could get any words out.

‘And for your information, I am having a great time,’

It sounded weak even to Jimin’s ears, and he puffed his chest slightly to make up for the feeble attempt at proving Yoongi wrong.

‘You sure look comfortable. He’s practically eating you and you’re completely frozen’

Jimin stepped forward, stabbing Yoongi in the chest with his finger,

‘What do you know about anything? Who are you to tell me I’m not having a good time? Wonho’s a great kisser, and I obviously must be because he just asked me on a date’

Yoongi’s smoke blew in his face, riling him up further.

‘Not sure that a date means a whole lot to someone like Wonho, and from what I’ve heard I’ve got a sneaking suspicion you’re lying about the other bit as well’

Yoongi met Jimin’s eyes, staring him down. Jimin noticed the pronounced shadows under his eyes, and the dark roots poking out from under the sparkly elf hat. Ugh. They were still matching. Rage was bubbling in his stomach, leaving no room for any feelings he was currently having about Wonho.

‘So full of yourself. What are you, the fucking kiss police, jesus. ’

Yoongi’s smug look ignited something in him, feeling the sudden urge to grab him and prove to him that he was in fact a good kisser.

He shook his head, ridding himself of that bizarre thought.

Obviously he was just drunk. Although he was feeling shockingly sober, and hadn’t had a drink in about two hours.

‘Well I have it on good authority that I’m highly talented in that field of expertise, so perhaps’

Jimin scoffed, lip curling in disbelief at Yoongi’s cocky statement. His mind kept racing, judgement clouded by rage and his worry about Wonho.

Maybe he should just kiss Yoongi, figure out if Wonho was the issue, or if he just wasn’t that into kissing, or sex in general.

Yoongi was suddenly way too close, stepping forwards and leaving Jimin desperate to scamper back, but he couldn’t show weakness now.

‘Ha, as if, more like they’re just trying to placate you before running out’ Jimin snarled, snatching Yoongi’s hat off in a display of victory.

Yoongi’s eyes darkened before they flicked to his lips. Jimin could smell his sweat under the smoke, slightly musky and suddenly enticing. He licked his lips, nervous, and feeling like this situation was barrelling towards a dangerous conclusion.

‘You’d like to know,’ Yoongi replied, sounding all too pleased with himself at the hitch of Jimin’s breath. Almost as if he was coaxing him into something. For some reason the patronising tone wasn’t having the same effect as usual, driving Jimin towards Yoongi instead of pushing him away.

He squinted slightly, tilting his head as he mulled the situation over. Was this the worst idea he’d ever had? Would their almost-friendship survive something like this? And more importantly, what would Wonho think? Before he could make a decision, Yoongi moved to leave, turning towards the stairway.

Jimin reached out on instinct, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him closer until their lips were a breath apart. Yoongi made a questioning kind of noise, a hum, something Jimin took as a challenge, taking a shaky breath before smashing their lips together, channeling his anger into the kiss.

Yoongi didn’t hesitate in reacting, crowding Jimin back against the cold brick wall and tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Sighing into Yoongi’s open mouth, Jimin twisted his hands into the back of Yoongi’s shirt, shivering as Yoongi licked into his mouth. Yoongi’s hands quickly found his waist, eliciting a whine from Jimin at the gentle grip. Yoongi’s hands felt white hot against his cold skin, as did his kisses, which quickly trailed down his jaw to his neck, lightly sucking under his jawbone.

It quickly became evident that Yoongi was far more experienced than Jimin, however it didn’t seem to matter. Yoongi seemed just as affected as Jimin, groaning when Jimin responded in kind, his grip on Jimin’s waist tightening as though he was restraining himself from touching elsewhere.

For the first time, Jimin found himself wishing it could go further than just kissing. He ran his hand up through Yoongi’s hair, tugging slightly to expose his throat more.

‘Fuck, Jimin’ came a low murmur, breaking him out of his reverie. He blinked owlishly, jerking his head back, astonished with what he’d just done. He met Yoongi’s gaze, eyes half closed with a lazy smile on his lips, which were looking slick and slightly red with the force of their kiss.

‘Shit, shit, shit. Oh my God. I shouldn’t have done that,’ he stuttered, breaking free of Yoongi’s embrace and racing towards the stairs, heart pounding.

He felt shaky all over, chest tight and flush high on his cheeks. It had been absolutely nothing like kissing Wonho. He’d never had that kind of passion or desire with Wonho. Annoyingly enough, Yoongi really was a good kisser, just as promised. Jimin hadn’t wanted to run, had almost wanted to keep going forever, something he’d never felt with anyone else, usually wanting to extract himself the second things got heated.

But God, what a stupid idea. How could he face Wonho now? He’d obviously just been making out with someone. Although in all fairness he probably looked just as dishevelled as when he’d left Wonho. Only now with the addition of Yoongi’s elf hat. He dropped it like it was burning hot, glaring at it on the floor as though it had personally offended him.

After a few deep breaths at the bottom of the stairs, Jimin became aware of Wonho’s voice shouting at him over the music.

‘Jiminie, hey, over here’

He plastered a fake smile on his face and ventured over, the thumping music and mass of sweaty bodies feeling just as cloying as when he left.

‘I thought you were heading downstairs?’

‘Oh, yeah. Um, I couldn’t find anyone down there, thought I’d try the smoking area. But no luck!’

He let out a laugh that sounded pitchy and forced. Wonho didn’t seem to notice and appeared pretty eager to get back to business. One hand immediately found Jimin’s ass, squeezing as he advanced upon him. Jimin kissed back, the sick feeling returning instantly, especially once Wonho’s hand snuck up his top, aiming towards his nipple. The wrongness of it all was overwhelming, particularly in contrast with just how much he’d enjoyed kissing Yoongi. He felt no desire to make any kind of noise, voluntary or otherwise, and instead shook his hands, firmly pushing back on Wonho’s chest.

‘I feel sick, maybe tomorrow’ he offered in an attempt to appease Wonho, not wanting to be on the receiving end of a sullen expression as he had been many times before.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll feel better soon’ Wonho assuaged, pressing forward once again, hands groping frantically as Jimin tried to shove him off.

‘No, I said no! Get off!’

Wonho’s eyes narrowed immediately, expression turning cold as he glared down at Jimin. He sighed heavily, extracting his hands from Jimin entirely and taking a step back.

‘For fucks sake Jimin, I’ve put so much work in here, it’s the least you could do. I’ve been practically courting you for months. You’re like some kind of Victorian prude’

Jimin recoiled, not expecting such vitriol over something like this. In the past Wonho had been like this, but not recently. He’d been so kind and doting Jimin was feeling hopeful. The only problem was his lack of interest in actually doing something sexual with Wonho, despite Jimin finding the elder very physically attractive. Jimin had always assured himself that would grow over time, but right now he wasn’t so sure.

‘Everyone told me this was a waste of time, and they were fucking right. Just wanted to prove a point I guess. What an idiot. Some virgins just want to stay that way I guess’ he gestured wildly, pointing an accusatory finger at Jimin as though he’d committed some hideous misgiving.

Jimin felt tears welling up at the harsh words, chasing after Wonho as he stormed off down the stairs. He was cut off by a gaggle of drunk girls, and by the time he made it down Wonho was nowhere to be seen. He wiped his eyes harshly.

A drunk Jeongguk appeared in his periphery, swaying slightly as he approached.
‘Taetae-hyung kissed someone Jiminie. I think I need to go home’

Jimin wrapped his arm around Jeongguk’s shoulder, tugging him out and into the cold air. He settled the drunk boy on the pavement before grabbing his phone to call a taxi. Everyone else could find their own way home as usual.

He thought briefly about Yoongi, and how it would make sense for them to share a taxi, but quickly pushed that thought out of his mind.

Chapter Text

Christmas break had been a blessing. Only two days after that fateful night, Jimin had emerged from a train to cheerful greetings from his family. Over the next fortnight he ate, drank, and watched more Christmas films than he dared to count. Most importantly, he didn’t think about Wonho (or Yoongi) at all.

Things with Wonho had ended pretty abruptly, with no attempts at contact from either side. There was no use trying to talk about things, given Wonho’s pretty clear disregard for Jimin if he wasn’t willing to jump into bed with him.

He still wasn’t sure what Wonho had meant, ‘just wanted to prove a point’. What point? Jimin wasn’t even sure how Wonho knew he was a virgin. Although shying away every time his hands advanced past the boundaries of his clothes was probably indicative. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about what Wonho had said, feeling embarrassed after talking him up to Taehyung and Hoseok, and dancing with him all evening.

After all, if Yoongi had seen, he could assume some of the others had too. Hopefully a friendship with Jin and Namjoon was still salvageable, although judging by the looks they gave him at the club, and the fact neither of them had followed him back on Instagram, he wasn’t entirely sure.

The group chat had remained blissfully silent over the entire fortnight, save for a flurry of blurry photos sent over the morning after their night out, as proof of life from a Taehyung who was looking significantly worse for wear. Poor Jeongguk. He was one person Jimin had remained in constant contact with, commiserating at first, although it quickly morphed into general discussion of Christmassy activities and grades being returned.

He wondered if Wonho had his grades back yet.

Alright, maybe Jimin had been kind of obsessing over Wonho.

But in all fairness, watching A Muppets Christmas Carol for the fifth time in a week wasn’t really engaging. Of course his mind was wandering. Although he had remained firmly not thinking about Yoongi. Every time his mind (and heart) began to race with flashes of what happened that night, and thoughts of ‘what the hell am I going to do’, he stamped them down.

Maybe it was one of those situations where if you just pretended nothing happened, it would just cease to be a problem.

The loud voice of the train announcement startled him awake, rushing to stuff his headphones and various snacks into his bag. The dim orange lights of the train station against the dark sky looked comforting, welcoming him back. Jimin huffed as he made his way towards the luggage rack, spotting his suitcase jammed behind various duffel bags. The train doors opened, Jimin panicking and unceremoniously shoving bags on the floor in a desperate hunt for his suitcase. He heard disapproving comments around him, feeling his face get hot with embarrassment.

‘Sorry, I’m really sorry’ he murmured, hoping to appease the scornful onlookers, as he finally yanked his bag free, stumbling through the doors mere seconds before they snapped closed.

People rushed around him, heading out of the station or jogging to their next train. He frantically patted his pockets, checking he had managed to actually gather all of his things. He’d located almost everything, save for a charging cord, when he heard a loud, and all too familiar, tutting behind him. Jimin whipped around to see Yoongi standing there, holding his charger up. Jimin felt himself freeze.

On second thought, maybe this wasn’t one of those things you could just ignore.

He stared at Yoongi, taking him in. His hair was no longer blonde at all, having changed to a more natural black, and he seemed to have gained a couple of new piercings. Jimin felt his mouth go dry as he gaped like a fish, absentmindedly thinking this wasn’t the most attractive look he could’ve mustered up. Yoongi was adjusting a hefty duffel bag on his shoulder, probably one of the ones Jimin had tossed aside in his haste.

‘Forgot this?’ he asked, eyes sparkling as he watched Jimin flounder, mouth finally snapping shut.

Jimin mentally cursed himself for acting so awkward, something Yoongi was clearly enjoying. He needed to seriously chill out. It was just kissing. They were university students. Everyone did it all the time, including Jimin.

He flailed for the charging cord when Yoongi flicked it in his direction, barely catching it, and quickly stuffing it in his pocket.

‘Should we get a taxi then?’ Jimin eventually croaked out after perhaps twenty seconds of uncomfortable silence.

‘I don’t really like to waste money, probably makes more sense to take the bus,’ Yoongi replied, face turning serious as though he was actually considering it.

Jimin felt his eyes rolling involuntarily. Once they’d both paid for the bus there was about 50p in it. Plus the taxi would be much faster. Whatever. He wasn’t really in a mood to argue, still feeling awkward, fidgeting with his sleeves as his breath blew clouds in the cold air.

He waved his hands in a kind of ‘whatever’ motion, grabbing the handle of his suitcase and beginning to trundle it along the cobbles, wincing at the loud bumping noise as the wheels rattled over the uneven surface. Yoongi quickly matched his pace, coming to walk beside him as they headed towards the stairs in silence.

They made it the rest of the way to the bus stop with no further conversation besides a quiet snort from Yoongi as Jimin struggled to lug his heavy suitcase up the stairs to the bridge.

Jimin wanted to say something to ease the tension, make some kind of biting comment that would return them to normalcy, but nothing was coming to him, despite the usual annoyance that Yoongi’s presence brought.

‘How’s Wonho’ Yoongi ventured as they stood leaning against the dirty plastic of the bus shelter. Jimin looked over, expecting to see mirth dancing on Yoongi’s face, but was instead met with a serious expression, albeit quizzical.

Regardless, Jimin was pissed off. It was none of Yoongi’s business. Especially after what he’d done. Fine, he may have actually kissed Yoongi first, but Yoongi was definitely an equal participant. He wanted it to happen. Unless he didn’t. Oh God, what if Jimin had misread everything and Yoongi was actually freaked out by him. He’d launched at him like some kind of repressed teenager. He felt frozen midway between anger and embarrassment, awkward energy culminating in a spectacularly immature response.

‘Awful, no thanks to you’ he huffed, crossing his arms and staring resolutely in the opposite direction. Obviously what happened between him and Wonho wasn’t really anything to do with Yoongi. Besides showing Jimin that he could actually enjoy making out with people, Yoongi was innocent. Maybe he could’ve dealt with it though, gone home with Wonho and lived happily ever after, but the contrast was too extreme after the bizarre, and strangely enjoyable tryst with Yoongi.

He should be channeling his anger towards Wonho anyway. Prick.

He heard Yoongi scoff bitterly, refusing to turn his head for fear of further embarrassment. By the time the bus finally arrived Jimin had gone through all his contacts twice, shielding the phone screen from Yoongi’s potentially prying eyes, attempting to effuse the image of a busy person with many friends.

They sat awkwardly across the aisle from each other, Jimin feeling slightly queasy at the situation. He had wanted to run up to the second floor of the bus, but decided that would be too childish even for him.

Days had passed since the uncomfortable encounter, with nothing said between the two. Jimin had enthusiastically welcomed Jeongguk back a day after they arrived, sure that this would reduce the likelihood of him winding up alone in a room with Yoongi.

Jeongguk required a significant amount of comforting. He said he always knew that Taehyung was hooking up with people ‘of course he is, he’s so pretty, everyone wants him’, but it was different actually witnessing it. Jimin’s suggestions of perhaps asking Taehyung out, or even attempting to flirt with him a bit more explicitly were quickly overridden by a frantic Jeongguk, overwhelmed by the mere possibility.

‘The only solution is to go for the sociology guy’ Jeongguk said sagely, rubbing his chin in thought, eyes still slightly rimmed with red.

Jimin wasn’t entirely sure about that. His earlier opinion that it could do no harm to flirt with other people didn’t feel quite as accurate in the face of an emotionally unstable Jeongguk.

Jimin shot Hoseok a message asking him to check up on Jeongguk.

Half way through their pre drinks before Christmas Hoseok had shouted in his ear that Jeongguk was clearly obsessed with Tae, and Jimin had gripped his arms tightly.

‘You can’t tell anyone, Kookie would be so upset!’ he yelled back, eyeing Taehyung to make sure he was out of earshot.

‘I think everyone can already tell, but I won’t say anything,’ Hoseok replied, looking pointedly at Taehyung and Jeongguk, who were completely wrapped up in each other.

Jeongguk was staring at Taehyung as though he hung the stars, and Taehyung stared back as though he could eat Jeongguk.

Jimin had been hopeful that night that the two may actually end up getting together. Taehyung had unfortunately run into a one night stand from last year and evidently decided to rekindle.

A choice he had seemingly since regretted, if the unsubtle questions about Jeongguk were any clue.

Jimin’s complaint that this was perhaps not the best way to feel better fell on deaf ears. A movie date was scheduled for next week, Jeongguk looking a bit perturbed by the man’s suggestion that they go for dinner afterwards.

When the day finally came, Jimin came across Jeongguk staring himself down in the bathroom mirror with the haunted look of a man steeling himself for battle.

‘You know, you really don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Just say you got food poisoning or something’

Jeongguk silenced him with a frantic wave of his hands. ‘I want to do this. He’s nice and I’ll have a great time’

At the sound of Jeongguk’s phone ringing he sprang into action, hurtling down the stairs as though he would stop himself from going at all if he didn’t move at great speed.

The slam of the door echoed up the stairs and Jimin sighed. It was just too bad. Poor Jeongguk. And for that matter poor Taehyung.

He was significantly more subdued than usual when Jimin met him for drinks the other night. Additionally he was extremely quizzical about Jeongguk, something that Jimin was coming to realise wasn’t actually new. Taehyung had been interested in Jeongguk since the first time they met, always asking Jimin some kind of throwaway question that would inevitably incorporate Jeongguk into the answer. What idiots.

A couple of hours later Jimin scoured the fridge, hoping for some food to magically appear. He was completely starving, and had neglected his planned weekly shop due to an urgent need to nap. Some chinese food sat in the back of the fridge.

Jimin was almost 100% certain Jeongguk had ordered chinese last night in a fit of depression, whittling his already dwindling funds down to practically nothing. He grabbed the char siu chow mein, eyeing it up for the presence of mould, and praying it was actually from last night. He would pay Jeongguk back when he wasn’t starving to death.

He was halfway through shovelling the noodles down in a rather ungainly fashion when the garden door swung open, revealing Yoongi. Clad in his scruffy jacket and several other layers, he stamped his boots on the doormat to shake off the dirt. Jimin froze.

He hadn’t been alone in a room with Yoongi since they arrived back, having carefully maneuvered his schedule to avoid him at all costs. According to his spying, Yoongi should still be at work for the next two hours.

They stared at each other in awkward silence for a second before Yoongi shrugged off his jacket and slung it over the kitchen chair. Jimin huffed, eyebrows drawing together in a frown as he resisted the urge to make a catty comment about respecting the shared space.

‘What’s wrong Jimin? You obviously have something to say’ Yoongi’s voice lacked the usual vitriol or patronising provocation, instead sounding tired.

‘Nothing much, just thought we were supposed to be keeping the communal areas clean’ Jimin retorted, not feeling as though Yoongi deserved to be let off the hook just because he was looking a bit mopey.

Yoongi let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘Well, I would appreciate it if you didn’t eat my food, so looks like we’re even tonight’.

Jimin startled, pushing the noodles away and withholding the numerous apologies that threatened to spill out. All that came out was a hum that was supposed to indicate he was somewhat sorry. He couldn’t let Yoongi win. Over the past week Jimin had attempted to convince himself that Yoongi had manipulated him into kissing him (and Jimin wasn’t some creep going after him) and therefore it was Yoongi’s fault entirely that Jimin and Wonho didn’t work out.

He was helped along in this conclusion by a rather explicit dream in which they were doing an awful lot more than just kissing. He awoke in a rage, frustrated that his unconscious mind was refusing to reconcile with his conscious wishes to ignore Yoongi completely. He had thought about the dream at least twice every day since. (Maybe that was a bit of an underestimate)

Jimin opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted before he could get a single word out.

‘Look Jimin, I’m really not in the mood for this tonight,’

Jimin felt his blood boiling. How did he have the nerve to fuck everything up and then turn around and act like Jimin was the one annoying him?

‘I wasn’t in the mood for you to fuck up my relationship with Wonho but here we are’ he spat at Yoongi, who was looking increasingly pissed off in a way Jimin hadn’t seen since long before Christmas. His brow was furrowed and he ran his hand aggressively through his hair.

‘You know what Jimin, believe what you want. I don’t know what kind of alternate universe you’ve stumbled into, but from what I recall it wasn’t me that acted on anything. You weren’t exactly shying away’

Jimin felt his face heating up, the embarrassment of Yoongi directly addressing the kiss melding with his anger. He pushed the pot of noodles further away, staring down at the table instead of at Yoongi.

‘You can’t go out with a guy like Wonho and get annoyed when it doesn’t work out. You know who he’s friends with and what he’s part of. Unless you’re an idiot I don’t know what you were expecting’

‘What are you on about ‘what he’s part of’?’ Jimin said quietly, eyes flicking back up. Yoongi paused his tirade and directed an incredulous look towards him, nostrils flaring.

‘The rugby boys. The initiation they do. You know, the stupid virginity thing. The bet -’ Yoongi trailed off as Jimin froze.

He felt like his world was crumbling around him. It all made sense.

Just wanted to prove a point.

Some virgins just want to stay that way I guess.

It explained everything. Why Wonho was so insistent last year, always trying to push things a step further than Jimin was ready for. Always coming back to Jimin after he was obviously pissed off. It had been an initiation. Wonho was trying to take his virginity as part of a bet.

Jimin had always wondered why Wonho had suddenly shown interest again after he was obviously annoyed Jimin had refused to put out the year before.

Just wanted to prove a point.

The words rang in his head. The delusion of romance he’d been convincing himself of for the past three months was complete nonsense. He’d ignored so many signs.

Yoongi staring Wonho down at the coffee shop as though he’d killed someone. Jin and Namjoon giving him nasty looks and ignoring him after they saw him with Wonho at the club. The sick feeling in his stomach every time Wonho tried to get physical.

He’d been such an idiot.

‘Always trust your gut’ Hoseok had warned. Why had none of them told him? His friends surely would’ve told him if they knew. Even Yoongi, who obviously hated him, couldn’t be that spiteful. It was just cruel.

He curled in on himself, pulling his legs up and wrapping his arms around himself. He stared resolutely back down at the table. He could feel tears welling up and he blinked furiously, trying to fight the wave of emotion that had suddenly overcome him.

‘Oh shit’ he heard, almost quiet enough to be a whisper. He didn’t want to look up. Maybe Yoongi would get the hint and leave him alone.

After nearly a full minute of silence, the sound of a kitchen chair scraping along the floor pulled Jimin out of his trance. Yoongi sat down gingerly, bags under his eyes exaggerating the stricken expression on his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something a couple of times.

‘I assumed you knew’ he ground out eventually, jaw clenched tight.

Jimin gaped at him before he mustered up his most patronising look, something rather difficult considering the news that had just been broken, and the tears still threatening to streak down his face.

‘Why on earth would you think I knew’

Yoongi shrugged wildly, ‘I thought everyone knew’. His tone was softer than Jimin had ever heard it, but his face was frozen somewhere between rage and confusion.

They sat quietly, both mulling over the situation at hand. Jimin’s mind was still racing.

‘Did he do the same thing to Namjoon?’ he said at last, unfurling his legs and attempting to steady his tone.

‘First term of last year’ Yoongi confirmed ‘He was hounding him for weeks, following him everywhere and flirting with him non stop. But then as soon as Namjoon slept with him he acted as if he didn’t even know him anymore. Namjoon was crushed’

Jimin watched as Yoongi clenched his fists, fuming at the memory. He felt a pang of guilt over kissing and dancing around with Wonho where Namjoon could have easily seen, and a fresh wave of hurt hit him as he wondered just how many people he’d tried to do this to.

‘I guess that’s why he never stopped trying with me’ he let out a melancholy chuckle, dragging his hand roughly across his face to halt the tears, but it was too late. The dam had broken. Yoongi reached across the table with a pained expression, but stopped just short of Jimin, looking a bit awkward.

Jimin eyed his hand cautiously before gently taking it. His chest still felt painfully tight, and the tears weren’t in any danger of stopping soon, but the physical comfort was doing wonders for his clarity of the situation. Yoongi laced their fingers together, rubbing his thumb over Jimin’s in an attempt at reassurance. ‘He’s such a dick’ Jimin hiccuped out, rubbing aggressively at his eyes again. Yoongi gripped his hand tighter, pained face slowly becoming determined as he let go of Jimin’s hand and headed around the table towards him.

‘Come here’ he said gently, pulling at Jimin’s sleeve slightly as he tugged him up into a hug. Jimin was still for a moment, unsure as to such a comforting gesture coming from someone like Yoongi, before he relaxed in Yoongi’s grip. He hugged back tightly, hands clutching at the back of Yoongi’s jumper as he cried into his shoulder. It felt so good for someone to know what happened with Wonho, after hiding his dismal mood from his family for a fortnight, and then his friends for almost a week and a half since he’d returned to university.

Obviously he hadn’t shared all, or really any of the details, but he felt that Yoongi could probably assume pretty accurately what had happened. He hadn’t spoken to anyone else about it, feeling embarrassed that the reason it didn’t work out was because he didn’t want to have sex with Wonho. Not that the others would’ve laughed at him or thought he was uptight, they would have been enraged, but he just felt too self-conscious.

As the tears finally began to dry up, Jimin became more aware of just how close the two were. His face was buried in Yoongi’s shoulder, and Yoongi was resting his forehead on Jimin’s head, pulling him close with his arms around Jimin’s shoulders. Yoongi felt incredibly warm, and the slight smell of his deodorant was comforting. He didn’t show any signs of wanting to let go, only shifting the two slightly so that Jimin could stand more comfortably, his foot previously at an awkward angle to avoid the chair leg.

Jimin pulled back slightly, moving his head back to stare at Yoongi. His face was unreadable, and his eyes were dark, meeting Jimin’s without hesitation. His stare was inscrutable, and Jimin felt himself feeling all of a sudden too warm and too close. He bit his lip, watching as Yoongi’s gaze flickered down to watch. He felt the sudden urge to either extricate himself completely or hold Yoongi tightly and never let go.

The front door swung open, Jeongguk’s loud thuds heading down the hallway as the two sprang apart. Jimin felt slightly hurt. Yoongi had moved away first. He shook his head. It was just a comforting hug because Jimin was upset, nothing to read into.

Jeongguk stomped into the kitchen, giving the two a brief glance before grabbing a beer from the fridge.

‘How did it go?’ Jimin asked quietly, fearing he already knew the answer.

‘Don’t want to talk about it’ Jeongguk replied, exiting the room at speed and booking it up the stairs. The resounding slam of his bedroom door shook the house.

They stared at each other. ‘Well, I’d better go to bed’ Jimin announced, feeling awkward after the uncharacteristic display of goodwill between the two of them. He turned to head down the corridor, interrupted by Yoongi’s quick steps behind him and the sound of his name being called. Yoongi stood rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.

‘You can always talk to me about stuff like that if you want to,’ Jimin felt his stomach flip as he stared at Yoongi, still looking surprisingly soft and huggable.

He gave a small smile, ‘thanks, hyung,’

Yoongi’s ears turned slightly pink as he entered his room, the door shutting swiftly. Jimin headed upstairs, still feeling dismal and embarrassed about how Wonho had treated him, but with a slight nervous fluttering in his stomach. He’d never called Yoongi ‘hyung’ before.

Chapter Text

Jimin rued the day he made such painfully observant friends. Taehyung and Hoseok were usually completely useless at noticing and remembering things when it came to university work, arriving on time and even (on one incredibly drunk night) crossing the road without injury. For some unknown reason they both seemed to gain incredible reasoning skills and Sherlock-level deductive prowess when it came to Jimin’s love life.

Last year with Wonho they had both been incredibly in tune with what was going on just based on Jimin’s mood, and he was hoping to avoid reliving that particular instance again. He was also still hurt and confused, having chosen to believe that they must’ve both been oblivious to the rumours swirling around Wonho, as opposed to hiding it from him. The last couple of days since Wonho’s true intentions had been revealed were painful, and Jimin couldn’t help but feel resentful that no one had let him in on the situation sooner.

Jimin avoided seeing them both together for the first two weeks after Christmas break to avoid them finding out about what happened with Wonho. They were nowhere near as clued in individually. Now he knew the truth he had finally relented with the hope of getting their take on the situation by relaying the tale, albeit highly sanitised to remove the embarrassing bits. He had begrudgingly accepted an offer of drinks. A choice he currently regretted as he shivered by the bus stop, pulling his phone out for the fourth time in a minute and tutting loudly. Late.

To be fair, he shouldn’t have been expecting anything else. This bus was notoriously off schedule. The phone vibrated in his hand, warning him that Taehyung and Hoseok would ‘string him up’ if he bailed on them. He had vowed to stay sober-adjacent tonight, fearing a complete lack of control and a full word-vomit style description of what happened between both him and Yoongi and him and Wonho.

When the bus finally arrived Jimin recognised the bus driver from their night out before Christmas. He felt slightly sheepish for the brash way they had all behaved, however there was not a single spark of recognition on the driver’s face, merely an expression that indicated he couldn’t care less. He steeled himself as the bus drew nearer, foot tapping anxiously as he envisaged Hoseok and Taehyung interrogating him relentlessly, or (the far more terrifying option) that they would both smile pityingly at him, already informed about the situation. If he was going to be grilled he was at least going to control the narrative goddammit!

The freezing air bit at his cheeks as he trudged down the cobbled streets towards their bar of choice. He was astonished that none of them had been banned yet. The £4.50 student special that consisted of triple vodka with a variety of neon, and completely tasteless mixers, had resulted in some rather unflattering nights out. A notable mention would have to be Taehyung wailing on the floor of the smoking area with a sparkly cowgirl hat and purple wig that he ‘couldn’t find a cowboy to ride’. He’d been quickly escorted from the premises by a giggling Jimin and Hoseok, half collapsed with laughter under the watchful eye of the bouncers.

‘Jiminieeee’ came a cry from inside, faint through the glass, as Jimin turned to catch an eyeful of Hoseok bowing dramatically in his direction, before unceremoniously lurching towards the window, presumably shoved by Taehyung. He hurried towards the entrance, putting his most normal and smiley face on. He didn’t want to draw any unnecessarily negative attention from the two with a frown. He rubbed his hands together as he hunted for them, skin prickling as he adjusted to the heat. After a few minutes of squeezing himself between tables of students - honestly, there were way too many chairs in this place, you’d have to be about 5cm wide to comfortably traverse the place - he finally squashed himself into a sticky armchair at the corner table they always sat at.

Damn these hipster bars, who on earth thought that fully upholstered chairs and drunk students with neon drinks were a good idea? Two drinks were thrust in his direction as Hoseok and Taehyung grinned across the table at him.

‘How was your Christmas?’ Taehyung asked with a cheeky tone that made Jimin slightly suspicious.

‘It was good, y'know, lots of films, lots of food etcetera,’ Jimin replied, raising his voice slightly over the music.

Hoseok nodded ‘I heard from Jin-hyung you were quite wrapped up with Wonho, how did you manage without for a fortnight’ he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as Taehyung broke out into laughter.

Jimin groaned. That had come sooner than expected. Time to trot out his rehearsed excuse. ‘Don’t remind me. Had to break it off, there just wasn’t any spark’ not a complete lie. Although it didn’t exactly sound like him. Hopefully the loud music would disguise any wavering in his voice.

Taehyung and Hoseok looked at each other meaningfully ‘Jin-hyung said he thought it would be over between you two that night’ Taehyung mused.

‘He actually said ‘one way or the other’. Not really sure what he meant but y’know, maybe he just has a sixth sense for those kinds of things’

Jimin pursed his lips, pleased his friends obviously weren’t aware of Wonho’s true reputation, but upset that Jin obviously had so much spite towards him. Not that it was unwarranted. In Jin’s situation he would hate himself as well.

‘Fascinating’ Jimin offered, sounding slightly stilted. ‘How’s your solo going hyung?’ he directed at Hoseok, preparing himself for the tirade coming his way about how it was just the best one yet and how Jimin just had to listen to the music. He skillfully prevented the conversation from returning to Wonho as the evening progressed. His resolve to only have a couple of drinks was, however, waning, and he could feel himself getting flushed and speaking at a greater volume as time went on.

The conversation somehow ended up on the subject of Yoongi on their night out, how silly he looked in the sparkly hat, not joining in properly with the group costume. Jimin laughed shallowly, struggling to push the thought of that night out of his head.

‘How’s it going with Yoongi-hyung anyway?’ Hoseok pestered.

‘Is there a lifelong friendship on the horizon?’ Taehyung followed up with a cheeky grin as Jimin rolled his eyes.

‘Pftt, as if. He’s far too cocky,’ Jimin blustered.

Jimin found himself knocking on Yoongi’s door. Again. Over the past couple of days he had been interacting with the older boy more than he had in the last 4 months. Tonight he had been hit with another particularly extreme bout of sorrow about his and Wonho’s relationship, more specifically how he’d been lied to, and felt as though he had no one else to turn to. Of course any of his friends would’ve understood. But Yoongi didn’t express any kind of judgement. Just listened. Didn’t even give any advice. Occasionally he looked as though he wanted to say something, but would quickly shut his mouth, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away.

Whilst Jimin didn’t like to drink alone, he had fallen into the trap of ‘trialing’ some fancy cocktail cans he’d been given over Christmas, and had ended up slumped on Yoongi’s floor, crying about how mean and inconsiderate Wonho was. Horribly uncharacteristic of him. But there was something about Yoongi that made him feel like he could be open and honest. At least when he wasn’t being terribly annoying and intentionally pissing Jimin off to no end.

After their bonding experience the other night Jimin couldn’t find it in himself to be anywhere as annoyed by Yoongi’s jacket on the back of the chair as he would usually have been. He even caught himself absentmindedly smoothing the collar out as he waited for the microwave before recoiling and shaking his head in disgust. Yoongi was awful. And awfully annoying. And unattractive. He drilled this mantra into his head as he had proceeded back upstairs, passing the collar-touching off as a Wonho-induced moment of madness.

But yet again he found himself in front of Yoongi’s bedroom door for the third time in as many days. The alcohol certainly pushed him down there. But he had been terribly upset the last couple of days, regardless of alcohol. He supposed it was because he had an older brother he would usually go to when he was upset. That explained it. Yoongi was merely taking the place of his older brother.

‘How the hell did he even know I’m a virgin, I’m so good at kissing and all that,’

Yoongi scoffed a bit, although it sounded rather strangled. He nodded sagely. ‘Of course Jimin-ah,’

‘He’s such a dick. Poor Namjoon-hyung. I hope he forgives me. Thank God I didn’t sleep with him. I so would’ve done it though, if we hadn’t -’ he trailed off. Even this level of drunkenness couldn't motivate him to actually bring up the kiss. He’d been avoiding it staunchly despite their newfound closeness. He rolled over on the floor, missing the way Yoongi’s ears turned slightly red and he fixed his gaze intently on the ceiling.

‘What a bastard. I was just a freshman last year, barely out of sixth form, what a creep, honestly, just a creepy old man trying to get with innocent me!’

Yoongi started slightly at this. ‘Yah, he’s the same age as me!’ he insisted, nose scrunching in an outraged look. Jimin made a ‘pftt’ kind of noise, waving his arms around as if to waft the idea away.

‘Hate to break it to you Yoongi-hyung, but we’re the same height, so that cancels out any kind of age superiority you might’ve had’

Yoongi tried and failed to keep his outraged expression, jaw twisting slightly as though he was containing a smile. Jimin was amazed he was being so nice to him.

On the night when Yoongi had broken the news that Wonho was just playing a game with him, Jimin had ventured deep into a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gifted by his parents, and had ended up sobbing on Yoongi’s floor. The man seemed to have endless patience. When Jimin ran into him in the kitchen the next day he had the grace to appear as though nothing had happened, saving Jimin from a slow but certain case of death by embarrassment. And, alright, maybe the way he was being so kind and understanding to Jimin was doing something.

Jimin had also unfortunately been privy to a reprise of a certain explicit dream, one that made him stare pointedly away from Yoongi when they crossed paths in the hallway the next day.

Every time Yoongi would step aside and welcome a weeping Jimin into his room, Jimin would push aside thoughts of how kind and nice he was, attempting to conjure up images of Yoongi’s shoes strewn through the corridor, and all the times Jimin had been kept up by completely unnecessary and dramatic moaning coming from Yoongi’s room.

Jimin laughed at his own poke at Yoongi’s minimal height, throwing his head back as he noticed Yoongi’s sulky position on the bed, arms crossed. His mirth didn’t last for long as he felt the sudden urge to throw up. He stumbled across the hallway to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet. After a few painful minutes of emptying his stomach, he rested his head on the toilet seat, wincing as he thought about how gross it was, but too drunk to really do anything about it. The door opened, and Yoongi appeared holding a glass of water. He set it down beside Jimin, crouching down to rub his back soothingly.

‘You’ve got to stop doing this Jimin-ah’ he said gently, causing Jimin to frown and sputter a bit in his drunken state.

‘You said I could talk to you about stuff whenever I wanted’ he whined, feeling slightly dejected.

Yoongi breathed a long-suffering sigh ‘That’s not what I meant…all this drinking, especially alone, it’s not good for you’

Jimin wasn’t really in the mood to be questioned, stomach still cramping to indicate that he was in fact not done throwing up. ‘Just go away then’ he slurred out, gagging slightly over the last word. ‘You don’t even like me’ he muttered sourly, face still smushing against the toilet seat. ‘What do you care?’

Yoongi let out another one of his surprised, and slightly bitter sounding laughs.

‘I’m not sure’ he murmured, so quiet Jimin couldn’t even be sure he heard him right.

‘You should probably get to bed. Sleep it off’

‘You’ll regret leaving me if I die here in this bathroom’

‘I’m sure you’ll be fine’ Yoongi said with an air of finality, heading out of the room again. Jimin heard his bedroom door shutting, and slumped further against the toilet. He felt a slight pang as he cursed himself silently. He could’ve just been nice to Yoongi for once. Especially since he was being so kind. Never mind. Too late now.

‘I just feel so baaad’ Jimin wailed, clutching onto Taehyung’s jacket as the taller boy stumbled down the street with him, Hoseok skipping along ahead.

‘So do I,’ Taehyung replied, turning to face Jimin and shaking him slightly.

‘We’re both fuck ups. Could’ve been such nice friends, but we’ve ruined it’

‘Dramatic’ Hoseok’s voice called back to them, echoing through the alleyway. The streets were empty. It was only 10pm. ‘You’re both sorry excuses for university students. We should be out for at least another 4 hours’

‘I’m so tired’ they groaned in sync, before they fell about laughing. ‘Jinx!’ They shouted, again in sync, leading to another bout of laughter.

It quickly turned somber as Taehyung returned to the original topic of conversation. ‘I was getting close to Kookie and now I feel like he’s cutting me out. I don’t know what I’ve done’

‘Yoongi-hyung is actually really nice. I think. I want to be friends with him, but he’s so annoying. But I don’t want him to be annoyed at me’

‘Why don’t you just talk to them’ came sage advice from a slightly-less drunk Hoseok, met with twin glares as they scoffed at his ridiculous suggestion.

As they progressed on their walk, both contemplating their potential friendships, the idea began to sound less and less ridiculous to Jimin. He could just call Yoongi and let him know that he wanted to be friends. And that he was appreciative, and didn’t mean to be mean to him.

As Taehyung and Hoseok left him at his bus stop, heading 10 minutes down the road to the bus stop that serviced their house, he whipped his phone out before he could overthink it.

He wrapped his jacket tightly around him to fight back the cold as he listened to the ringing. Voicemail. No worries. He launched into his tirade.

‘Hi Yoongi-hyung. It’s Jimin. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being so mean to you. Not all of the time, cause you can be really annoying. But you’ve been very nice to me so I’m sorry for being mean more recently. I think we could be pretty good friends if you wanted to be as well. Like if you stop trying to irritate me I’ll stop trying to irritate you and then we can hang out as a group, or like just the two of us if it happens that way. I guess we already kind of had this discussion ages ago, but like properly being friends not just civil. Thanks for being so nice about Wonho. You’re just so nice. Apart from when you kissed me. That messed everything up. I guess I can’t say it wasn’t nice though -’ the beep sliced through his words. Horror dawned on his face as he registered the words he’d been saying. They’d just kind of slurred out of him.

‘Idiot’ he hissed, whacking himself on the forehead with his palm. Where on earth had that come from? It’s not like he hadn’t been thinking about it. Dreaming about it. But there was absolutely no reason to mention it to Yoongi. There was no attraction past physical there. Yoongi was objectively hot, he could admit that. And kind. But there wasn’t any spark there. Yoongi was too short for him, and grumpy, and lazy, and didn’t seem like the kind of person to dance or have fun in a nightclub, which is what Jimin wanted.

He zoned out practically the whole journey home, feeling as though he’d awoken from a daydream as he unlocked the front door, racing upstairs in a thinly veiled attempt at avoiding Yoongi. Hopefully he hadn’t heard Jimin’s message, and would just assume he was running for the fun of it. As he brushed his teeth at the speed of light and shut himself firmly in his room, he began to hear muffled moaning noises coming from downstairs. Yoongi hadn’t had anyone over since they’d returned from Christmas break. Actually no one since they all went clubbing together.

He froze, midway through undressing, and tried to hear better. Yep, it was definitely what he thought it was.

Jimin felt a sudden tight sensation across his chest. He was embarrassed about the voicemail, that was for sure. But there was something else making him feel this way. He supposed Yoongi hadn’t had people around the last few days because of Jimin wailing on his doorstep like a kicked puppy. He felt horribly self conscious.

Yoongi probably saw him as some tragic annoying kid, pitiful enough to dole out some sympathy. Jimin wasn’t sure why this thought made him feel so upset, almost on the verge of tears, although the alcohol probably played quite a large part. Yoongi was obviously sleeping with lots of very attractive people, while Jimin was leaving him pathetic voicemails whining about how nice it was to kiss him. Jimin pulled his pillow over his head, trying to ignore the moans, which were growing in volume. He lay on his side in the dark, fruitlessly pretending he wasn’t feeling bitter, only annoyed and embarrassed, as nervous butterflies fluttered in his stomach.

Chapter Text

Jimin lay in his bed staring at the ceiling for a solid 10 minutes after he woke up. Had Yoongi listened to his voicemail? Probably not. He must’ve gone to sleep with his ‘houseguest’, as Jimin didn’t hear any doors opening overnight despite keenly listening out until the early hours. He brainstormed ways to delete the message before Yoongi could hear it. Make a joke about it and just ask him to delete it because it was embarrassing? If he could accost Yoongi and ask him in person it would be a seriously dick move to turn him down since they weren’t really friends. He could somehow snatch the phone and attempt to navigate it himself. Of course Yoongi had an Android. Fucking impossible to figure out. The best solution would simply be accidentally destroying the phone, in such a way that Yoongi would only be temporarily mad at him. He mulled it over. He wasn’t sure his acting skills were quite good enough to stage a phone-breaking accident.

A quiet thought in his head told him he was being somewhat dramatic, and he attempted to push it aside. Realistically, the kiss had been at least somewhat enjoyable for both of them, and just acknowledging that shouldn’t be that embarrassing. Especially since he was very obviously drunk in the voicemail, probably slurring to the point where Yoongi wouldn’t even be able to tell what he was saying.

He shook his head, ridding himself of any sensible reasoning. He would just have to get to Yoongi before he could listen. No phone-breaking required. Hopefully. Tragically, Yoongi’s overnight guest was still in the house, and Jimin couldn’t quite bring himself to barge into Yoongi’s room with someone else in there. Jimin set up camp in his window, preparing to race downstairs as soon as he heard the crunch of gravel. He started scrolling aimlessly, startling slightly when he saw that both Namjoon and Jin had finally followed him back. He checked he hadn’t sent them any messages in a drunken stupor, and was pleasantly surprised to find he hadn’t said anything. What on earth could’ve persuaded them to change their minds? In their minds he was surely a morally barren idiot. Regardless, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth. One can never have too many friends. Especially when one is currently in possession of only three friends.

Jimin’s thumb faltered on the screen as he swiped, forehead bashing slightly against the window as he tried to force himself to stay awake. He’d barely gotten any sleep the night before, and was being plagued by the beginnings of a headache. He fought valiantly as his eyelids fluttered drowsily, chin resting comfortably on his fist as he slumped against the windowsill.

He jolted awake to the loud slam of the front door, wildly rubbing at his eyes to clear the sleep that had collected during his nap. His eyes finally focused on a figure retreating down the driveway, and he squinted to figure out if it was Jeongguk or not. Certainly the same height and build. Looked about right - except - the dark hair had a slight blue-ish tint to it. Jimin hurtled down the stairs, haste kickstarting a bout of nausea. Yoongi was standing in the kitchen with the kettle boiling, absentmindedly scrolling on his phone. Or at least, that’s what Jimin hoped he was doing.

‘Morning, hyung’ he rushed out, voice shaking slightly as he tried to think of a way to subtly get to the point. Yoongi nodded mutely, clad only in a ratty t shirt and some boxer shorts. Jimin felt his cheeks flush slightly as he looked at his wild bed hair. Cute. Ugh, no. He shook his head, freeing himself from the unwarranted thoughts, and stared pointedly in the other direction, stumbling over his words slightly.

‘M so hungover, y’know, just got so drunk last night, don’t even really remember what I was up to, haha,’ Perfect. He closed his eyes and winced. That was so painfully unsubtle he had to resist the urge to slap himself around the face.

Yoongi’s quiet scoff felt incredibly loud even over the noise of the kettle. ‘Is that so,’ Jimin forced himself to look back towards Yoongi, just in time to catch the corner of a smirk disappearing back into his carefully expressionless face.

Jimin felt his stomach drop. Yoongi had obviously already heard it. Or - he tried to reason - maybe he was just being annoying as per. ‘I think I might’ve left you a stupid voicemail, sorry, you can just delete it, don’t even remember what I was doing’ he ventured, voice sounding weak and stuttery even to his own ears.

‘You already said that,’ Yoongi replied, leaning back against the countertop to look squarely at Jimin. He was no longer trying to school his expression, eyes glittering with mirth and mouth twisted in a smug smile. Jimin thought part of him was dying, his stomach tightening in uncomfortable knots as his gaze flickered away and then back to Yoongi. There’s no way he hadn’t heard it. He was never this annoying on a regular basis. He crossed his arms and sighed, face flushing as his mind raced. Unsure what to say, he scuffed his socked foot on the grimy kitchen floor.

He felt the bitterness from last night rise up again. Yoongi was laughing at him. He obviously thought Jimin was pathetic, crying at his doorstep and then sending him ridiculous voice messages whilst he had sex with handsome and tall (just to rub salt in the wound) men.

‘Whatever’ he ground out eventually, in a tone that was supposed to be poisonous, but came across incredibly petulant in a way that made him cringe. He turned to leave, before being stopped by a tug on his sleeve.

‘C’mon, don’t be like that,’ Yoongi said softly, not letting go even when Jimin whipped around. ‘I’m just kidding, we’ve all sent stupid messages when we’re drunk,’

Jimin huffed, studying the serious expression on Yoongi’s face. He felt a slight amount of relief as he realised that Yoongi was being genuine, and not actually taking the piss out of him for once. Of course it didn’t matter. Why had he been getting so worked up anyway? It was just a stupid kiss.

After a minute of awkward silence, Yoongi’s hand slowly released his sleeve, and he forced out a laugh. ‘I guess I’m just hungover,’ he replied, making a show of rubbing at his temples as if to indicate he was suffering from a horrible headache.

Yoongi seemed to go along with his desire to segue the conversation to something more light-hearted. ‘Hoseok always goes way overboard, I can’t count the number of times he’s dragged me to some stupid club and pestered me to get shit-faced with him’ Jimin laughed, this time for real. ‘Taehyung’s the same, he’d already bought me two drinks before I even arrived’.

Yoongi chuckled, turning around to face the counter where the kettle had finally boiled.

‘Do you want anything?’ he asked, still facing the kettle.

‘Coffee please,’ Jimin replied, expecting Yoongi to reach for another mug. Instead he merely poured himself a cup of coffee and headed to the kitchen table. Jimin looked at him, expectant expression curling into distaste and disbelief. Dick.

Yoongi turned, flashing him a smirk ‘help yourself’ he said pleasantly, gesturing to the kettle. Jimin narrowed his eyes, once again feeling the prickle of annoyance he so often felt around Yoongi. He opened the cupboard, grabbing Yoongi’s favourite mug and chucking in some of Yoongi’s instant coffee. It was far too much and he would definitely regret it later when he was bouncing off the walls, but he felt victorious in the moment. He turned midway to glare pointedly at Yoongi, only to be taken slightly aback when he saw Yoongi’s smirk had softened into a small, but genuine, smile. He quickly swivelled back around, stomach fluttering. He hurriedly poured the water and a splash of milk in before exiting the kitchen.

Dammit. He hadn’t even rubbed his theft of Yoongi’s cup in his face.

Nevermind. He had the sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t have provoked the kind of irritation he was hoping for anyway.

Yoongi seemed to have become immune to any of his attempts to annoy him at the moment. Not that they came out of the blue. Jimin was serious about trying to maintain civility, and perhaps even a proper friendship, after the night where Yoongi had revealed the horrible truth about Wonho. Before that night there had only been steely silence between the two since the kiss, save for a few pointed (read: unnecessary and spiteful) comments from Jimin about Yoongi’s lack of tidiness. Ever since that horrible uneasy silence had been broken, Yoongi had returned to his usual irritating self. Even when Jimin had been drunkenly crying to him about Wonho at night, Yoongi had continued making annoying, smirky comments when they ran into each other during the day, and moving Jimin’s favourite pasta bowl to a higher shelf where he had to practically climb on the counter to get it (which Jimin wasn’t even sure how he managed, there can’t have been more than 2cm difference in their height).

If he didn’t know any better he would’ve said that Yoongi was flirting with him. In a really dickish, emotionally unintelligent way.

But he did know better. From what he’d seen, and heard from the others, Yoongi had very different relationships with all of his friends. He was more playful with Hoseok and Taehyung, more like an older brother with Jeongguk, and from the looks of it more serious and reserved with Namjoon and Seokjin. All the teasing was just the kind of friendship he was probably trying to have with Jimin. He supposed it fitted into the ‘playful’ slot with Hoseok and Taehyung.

He mulled it over as he stared at the mug that featured a rather haughty looking black cat on an orange background. It was pretty ugly to be honest, he didn’t have a clue what Yoongi liked about it. He was even more confused that Yoongi just let him take it without any complaint. He would have practically clawed Yoongi’s eyes out had the roles been reversed. But Yoongi almost looked like he was enjoying Jimin’s petulance. Prick.

Jimin pressed his ear against the door. Around mid-afternoon, noise had started up from Yoongi’s room downstairs. Not consistent, and not that loud, but rather frantic. Almost as if someone was moving stuff around or stuffing things into plastic bags. It had been going on for half an hour when Jimin tried to get a clearer idea of what the sound was. He regretted it almost instantly, as footsteps began to storm up the stairs just as he got comfortable, crouching down with his hands cupped around his ear against the door. He jerked back, throwing himself on the bed in an overly nonchalant pose. Loud knocking began, and he watched the door vibrate in the frame as someone pounded on it. He opened it quickly, cursing himself for leaving his room so messy. How embarrassing.

Yoongi stood in front of his door, eyes wild and hair sticking up in all different directions. ‘Help me clean, please’ he panted out, looking more stressed than Jimin had ever seen him. Jimin fought back laughter at the dishevelled sight.

‘Is there an inspection or something?’ he queried, watching a slightly haunted expression appear on Yoongi’s face as he shook his head grimly.

‘My family,’ Yoongi said, rubbing a hand through his messy hair. Jimin let out a shout of laughter, almost doubling over as he continued to giggle at Yoongi’s unamused face. How the tables had turned. Yoongi was at Jimin’s mercy. Once he recovered from his fit of laughter he stroked his chin as though in deep thought, grinning as Yoongi’s eyes narrowed and he fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his arms, obviously impatient and pressed for time. He seemed to be barely restraining himself from making some kind of aggravating or biting remark, but was withholding himself with the knowledge that Jimin held all the cards. He sighed, staring pointedly at the ceiling as Jimin soaked it all in with mirth.

Finally he conceded, feeling that Yoongi was only seconds away from imploding as his brows had been furrowing deeper and deeper whilst the seconds ticked past.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked, letting out another giggle as Yoongi’s whole body slumped with relief.

‘Can you do the washing up? Please. I need to shower before they get here,’

Jimin nodded, reaching for the mug he had thieved earlier, and barely holding back a snort as Yoongi flew back down the stairs with all the grace of a rhinoceros. He’d barely made it to the bottom of the stairs himself before the downstairs bathroom door was slammed shut with enough force to make the windows rattle.

He busied himself with tackling the truly gigantic pile of dirty plates that had managed to accumulate seemingly overnight. Jeongguk, in a futile attempt at getting over Taehyung, had taken up several new hobbies, one of which being cooking. Whilst Jimin was very thankful for the nice food that was finally being produced, a far cry from his usual fish fingers and instant noodles, he wasn’t quite so pleased with the mountains of dirty dishes that were regularly piled on every available counter top.

Last night’s attempt, roast lamb with all the trimmings, had been very welcome, but had significantly impacted the utility of the kitchen, not to mention the metric ton of oil swishing around in a large frying pan. Jeongguk hadn’t quite got the hang of roast potatoes, and was apparently attempting to deep fry them before Jimin had corrected him. He didn’t have the heart to tell Jeongguk off, and evidently neither did Yoongi, a fact that slightly prickled at him seeing as Yoongi had absolutely no problem with bringing any of Jimin’s housekeeping errors to attention.

He’d made it about half way through the pile, only large saucepans and a couple of frying pans remaining, before Yoongi burst free from the bathroom, rushing into his bedroom with a shouted ‘thanks’ in Jimin’s direction. He grinned, recalling the dishevelled look Yoongi had been sporting earlier with a hum of amusement.

He turned back to the washing. They didn’t have anywhere near enough counter space to deal with this. He had already covered the kitchen side with teatowels and haphazardly placed kitchen utensils (where did Jeongguk even find four colanders?), and was on the brink of running out of space on the kitchen table. The pan of oil sat on the side, staring him down. To pour down the sink or not? Obviously Jimin knew you weren’t supposed to, but he’d never really learned what you were supposed to do with it. Fuck it.

His wrists felt like they were about to snap in half as he carried the pan from the hob to the sink. How on earth had Jeongguk been moving all this stuff around so easily? As he set the pan up at an angle he heard Yoongi’s door open, and a loud and sharp inhale as he strode towards the kitchen. Jimin turned to look, raising his eyebrows at the pained expression on Yoongi’s face as he watched Jimin. He was obviously once again resisting the urge to make some kind of remark about Jimin’s paltry cleaning knowledge.

‘You can tell me if I’m doing it wrong, I’m not going to chuck it in your face unless you’re a dick about it,’ Jimin joked, laughing when Yoongi practically barrelled over to stop him from tipping the frying pan out.

‘You can hardly blame me for thinking that,’ Yoongi responded as he grabbed the pan, prompting a loud tut from Jimin.

‘It’s really bad for the plumbing, we don’t want to lose our deposit if we fuck it up,’ he explained, grabbing an empty mayonnaise jar from the recycling pile and attempting to pour the oil in. Jimin watched him struggle for a good twenty seconds before helping, amusement turning the corners of his mouth up. He grabbed the jar to hold it steady, rolling his eyes at the huge puddle of oil Yoongi had managed to spill on the counter.

‘What a mess,’ he quipped, leading to a faux sullen look from Yoongi, who had almost finished with the task. After a few minutes of grumbling they fell into a comfortable silence, Jimin washing and Yoongi drying. Through sneaky glances, Jimin could tell that Yoongi was significantly more dressed up than he had ever seen him. He was wearing corduroy trousers and a checked button-up shirt, with his hair still slightly wet from the shower. Jimin continued to sneak glances until Yoongi’s gaze met his, slightly quizzical.

‘What’s up?’

Jimin felt his ears turning red, and quickly busied himself with washing again.

‘Didn’t you know your parents were coming? Why the mad rush?’ he asked, hoping to distract Yoongi from his staring.

‘Ahh, they’re so fucking disorganised, literally messaged me about an hour ago, idiots,’ he groused, looking up when Jimin giggled.

‘I’m glad my pain is amusing to you,’ he said, prompting Jimin to laugh more heartily.

‘I’m not sure what you even had to clean, apart from Jeongguk’s mess the whole place is pretty tidy, even your room,’ he replied, grinning at Yoongi’s noise of complaint.

‘You’d think so but my noona is a stickler for cleanliness. She still brings up a pair of dirty socks on the floor from the first time they came to visit,’

‘Wow, almost sounds like you guys could be related,’ Jimin teased, laughing at Yoongi’s disgruntled snort.

‘Just you wait, I’m nowhere near as bad as she is,’

‘I get why you looked so pale then. When are they getting here?’

‘In 10 minutes,’ Yoongi replied, just as the sound of the doorbell ringing startled them both.

‘Fuck’s sake!’

Jimin flapped him away ‘just go, I’ll do this quickly, keep them in the hallway for a couple of minutes I guess,’

Yoongi frantically dried the saucepan he was holding before heading down the hallway like a man to the gallows.

Jimin was prepared for the sounds of stiff discussion, and maybe some sardonic humour, but was not expecting the joyful screeching he heard. He whipped around, thinking someone else had perhaps come to the house, but was greeted with the sight of two black haired women embracing Yoongi, and a rather short man with a wide grin standing to the side. Not at all what he thought Yoongi’s family would be like.

He sped up with his drying, stuffing away a few more things and surveying the area. Only a couple of things were left, and that was pretty reasonable for a student kitchen. Although from the looks of the hearty greeting they were giving Yoongi, he hardly imagined any of them would actually take any issue with a mess. Clearly Yoongi had been exaggerating.

He heard footsteps advancing down the corridor and dove for a large cast iron pot Jeongguk had purchased from a charity shop in preparation for one of his dishes. Big mistake. The thing was fucking gigantic and weighed about as much as he did. There was absolutely no way he could get it to where Jeongguk stored it on top of the fridge. He paused, deciding to just put it back on the hob, but before he could move Yoongi’s Dad burst into the kitchen with a smile, and motioned to shake his hand.

Jimin instinctively let go of the pot, frantically scrabbling to try and regain a hold on it as it fell to the floor. The lid slid off, landing squarely on Jimin’s toes, and he doubled over in pain.

‘Oh my fuck- I mean ow, ow, ow!’ he exclaimed, clutching at his toes and biting back a string of curses that threatened to break free.

Through the blazing pain he just about registered someone pulling a chair towards him, and he collapsed into it. A stunned silence filled the room as he finally looked up to see Yoongi’s entire family staring at him, Yoongi’s Dad looking horrified.

One of the dark haired women, who looked to be in her early twenties as well, and who Jimin assumed to be Yoongi’s older sister, whacked Yoongi’s Dad on the arm.

‘For God’s sake, I told you not to try and kill Yoongi’s housemates,’ she said, voice wavering with laughter as she lightly elbowed her dad in the stomach. He spluttered, raising his arms in a show of surrender that reminded Jimin of Yoongi. ‘Sorry, he’s so clumsy, he’s always dropping stuff,’ Yoongi’s sister said, directed at Jimin, who was still sitting there nursing his foot, but quickly sprang to action.

‘No, no, not at all, it was completely my fault, I dropped it,’ he explained, attempting to stand up, but letting out a muffled cry of pain as soon as he put weight on his foot.

‘The car’s definitely locked,’ came Yoongi’s voice from outside ‘I don’t know why you always think you haven’t locked it,’ he followed up as he entered the kitchen, eyes quickly scanning over the scene, including the pot on the floor, before fixing on Jimin, who had opted to balance on his one healthy foot.

‘What happened, are you ok?’ he questioned, pushing past his family to get to Jimin’s side.

‘I’m fiiiine,’ Jimin said, dragging out the vowel to indicate he really was fine. ‘Just dropped something, no big deal, I’m sure it’ll feel fine in a few minutes’

Yoongi narrowed his eyes as if to say that he knew Jimin was lying, and indicated that he should sit down again. Jimin made a face before complying, gingerly moving his foot to ensure it didn’t bash against anything.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have startled you,’ Yoongi’s Dad said, still withering under the glare of Yoongi’s sister.

Jimin tried again to refute what he was saying, but was interrupted by Yoongi’s mum.

‘Come on Yoongi, introduce us!’

Yoongi’s gaze snapped up from where he was looking at Jimin’s injured foot.

‘Ah, yeah, forgot about that,’ he said sheepishly. ‘This is Jimin, my housemate, and Jimin these are my parents, Sungho and Eunchae, and this is my sister, Jihyo’

‘Nice to meet you!’ Jimin chimed in from the chair, making a move to stand up again before Yoongi turned to him with an ‘are you kidding’ kind of face.

‘Ahhh the famous Jimin, Yoongi’s told me so much about you,’ Jihyo said, winking at Yoongi. Jimin’s stomach sank. Oh God. Yoongi must’ve filled his sister in on how much he disliked Jimin at the start of the year.

‘Haha, only good things I hope,’ he forced out with a slightly panicked smile. He looked at Yoongi for a slight bit of reassurance that he hadn’t been bitching about him, or at least not that recently, but instead found Yoongi looking steadfastly in the opposite direction, the back of his neck slightly flushed. Weird.

Yoongi’s parents laughed, obviously finding humour in the panicked expression on Jimin’s face, probably imagining it was due to fear of various drunken shenanigans being exposed.

‘Once you can stand again you should join us for dinner,’ Jihyo said, smiling a bit too innocently. Yoongi’s parents leapt at the idea, particularly his Dad, who was clearly still feeling guilty. Jimin chanced a look at Yoongi to assess his reaction, only to find him glaring at Jihyo.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly, thank you so much for the invitation though,’ he trailed off, feeling slightly stung that the idea of having Jimin hang out with his family could produce such a venomous glare from Yoongi. They had been getting on much better. Well, particularly in the last half an hour. Although it had been generally better since Yoongi had told him about Wonho. So the last week.

He was bombarded with a flurry of ‘it would be no trouble at all,’ from Yoongi’s Mum, ‘we’d be more than happy to have you’ from Yoongi’s Dad, and ‘it would be rude to say no’ from a devilish looking Jihyo.

‘Yeah, you should come’ Yoongi eventually ground out through gritted teeth, still directing a stony stare towards Jihyo, who looked entirely too pleased with herself.

The meal was surprisingly nice. Once Jimin had regained full function of his toes he had had the sense to realise his clothes were not appropriate for family dinner, and were covered in hair dye stains. He had excused himself politely and spent a solid twenty minutes tossing the contents of his wardrobe on the floor before he settled on a pair of black jeans and a knitted jumper. He had been greeted by Jihyo proclaiming he was ‘so handsome’, and pinching his cheeks in a way that somehow made him feel emasculated, particularly under the glowering gaze of Yoongi, whose animosity towards his sister had seemingly remained.

By the time they made it out of the house, dusk had already come, and night had well and truly fallen by the time they made it into the restaurant, a small Italian place packed into a basement. The food was wonderful, and the conversation flowed easily once they got through the initial awkwardness. Jimin had wound up sitting in between Jihyo and Eunchae, and found out so many things about Yoongi he didn’t know.

‘Yeah, I’ve noticed he works a lot’

‘Yeah he’s an idiot. Mum and Dad would’ve given him money to live on whilst he was at uni, it wouldn’t have been an issue at all, but he wanted to pay for it himself, didn’t want to put a burden on them’

Jimin raised his eyebrows slightly. All the long shifts that Yoongi worked that seemed to make him incredibly pissed off weren’t even necessary. He was just doing it to make life easier for his parents.

‘I used to sing a lot when I was younger, like in choir and stuff, how about you?’

‘Ahh I’m no good at music, but Yoongi takes after his father with that, he was always playing piano when he lived at home, and he makes music I’m sure you know, I think it’s amazing,’

Jimin had nodded sagely, trying to prevent a quizzical expression from forming.

As the evening progressed, the group grew louder as bottles of wine were steadily drained. ‘I had to scare him straight, the first time we came to visit him I’ve never seen a room that dirty in my life!’ Jihyo exclaimed.

‘It definitely worked, he was white as a sheet when he asked for my help cleaning earlier,’ Jimin replied, slurring slightly as Yoongi’s family collapsed in laughter.

‘Ok, ok, that’s enough of that, what is this, gang up on Yoongi night,’ Yoongi complained, pointing his finger aggressively at his sister as if that could silence her.

The pointing only seemed to spur her on, and she reeled back, ready to launch into another funny Yoongi story when their parents shushed them both. ‘I think we’re ready to call it a night, we have quite a long drive tomorrow,’

Jihyo turned to them with a pout that had appeared within the blink of an eye, but was interrupted before she could even complain.

‘You know where the hotel is don’t you, just come to bed whenever you three are done,’

Jihyo’s pitiful expression switched again to joy at a speed that both impressed and terrified Jimin. He was in awe of her manipulation tactics.

After a final round of profuse apologies from Yoongi’s Dad, and plentiful thank yous from Jimin, Yoongi’s parents headed off down the street, leaving the trio to wander to a bar. Jihyo seemed to have an aversion to student bars, considering herself too ‘civilised’ for such places, which was an impressive feat for someone that was swaying as they walked.

‘There’s a cocktail bar I’ve wanted to try for aaages’ Jimin slurred out at Yoongi. ‘The fancy one, y’know which one,’ Yoongi just looked at him with a confused look.

‘It’s down one of the smaller streets, the logo’s like an eye I think,’

Yoongi’s face brightened with understanding, and he allowed the two of them to lean on his shoulders as he guided them down the streets.

‘How do you not know where things are yet Jimin-ah, you’ve been here for almost a year and a half,’ Yoongi queried with a slightly mocking tone.

‘Shhh, just lead the way,’

The cocktail bar was completely packed, despite it being midweek. There were about 100 options, and upon finally making their way upstairs they found a massive room full of sofas, and another smaller room with two huge wooden four-poster beds for people to sit on. Thankfully people were just leaving one as they arrived, and Jimin and Jihyo happily jumped on.

‘This is just as cool as I thought it would be,’ Jimin proclaimed, swishing his Pear and Cardamom Sidecar around in its fancy glass. He felt so posh. Jihyo had opted for a classic margarita and Yoongi had picked something with absinthe in, which you were supposedly only allowed one of a night. Yoongi groaned a bit as he clambered onto the bed, Jihyo hauling him up to squeeze in between her and Jimin.

The three conversed easily about university, bands they liked, and Jihyo’s horrifying love life until Jihyo had to head to the toilet. Yoongi and Jimin lapsed into silence for a short minute, although it wasn’t awkward, just a moment of peace.

‘You having a good time?’ Yoongi asked, mouth pulling up into a small smile as Jimin answered to the affirmative. ‘This place is so sick. And I love your sister. And your parents are lovely and the food was so good. I can’t believe you were so freaked out earlier, I was expecting them to be monsters,’

Yoongi laughed. ‘You wait until you see Jihyo come face to face with dirty clothes on the floor. She’s not even human anymore, I think she turns into a harpy,’

Jimin let out a giggle, inadvertently falling into Yoongi as he laughed. As he turned his head he realised their faces were incredibly close. He could feel the heat of Yoongi’s body as he leant into his side, their gazes catching.

‘They have karaoke!’ came Jihyo’s voice as she careened into them, flinging herself up on the bed. Jimin sprang back, stomach twisting. He quickly looked away and began shuffling over to create room in between them for Jihyo to sit.

‘Oh my God, don’t just sit there, we have to go!’ Jihyo insisted, head swivelling as she looked at both of the boys in turn, growing increasingly annoyed at the lack of response.

‘Karaoke!’ Jimin eventually squeaked out ‘I love karaoke,’

‘So does Yoongi!’ Jihyo squealed, grabbing Jimin’s hand and pulling him down off the bed with her.

‘Excuse me?’ Yoongi’s disgruntled voice cut through Jihyo’s celebration. ‘Since when do I like karaoke?’ he grumbled, even as he scooted down off the bed himself.

‘Yoongi used to love karaoke, he’d always sing Jar of Hearts on repeat when he was a kid. I have no idea why he picked that song but it was so cute! So pitchy though!’ Jihyo said conspiratorially to Jimin, although in her drunken state it came out slightly louder than she anticipated, and Yoongi wrapped his hand over her mouth as his face went bright red. Jimin collapsed with laughter.

‘Whatever, whatever, lets just go,’ he insisted, freeing Jihyo as she licked his hand and he reared back in disgust.

‘I can so imagine it, tiny Yoongi screeching along,’ Jimin crowed, relishing the opportunity to annoy Yoongi. The image he’d conjured up in his head was undeniably cute though.

The concept of karaoke was always more fun than the reality. Both Jihyo and Jimin were slowly losing their gusto for the idea after 45 minutes of waiting for their turn, two back to back ABBA songs added to the list by Jihyo. They had all continued to plow through cocktails, Jimin especially so as the nerves grew. He’d made it through 3 more drinks in the short time span, and had nearly matched Jihyo in terms of drunkenness, stumbling slightly as he made his way back to his seat after yet another trip to the bar.

‘This was so not in my budget,’ he wailed, smacking a hand to his forehead. ‘I’m gonna have to eat ramen for the whole next week,’

Yoongi gave him a judgemental look, ‘as if you don’t already do that,’ he remarked, smug smile rising when Jimin let out an outraged sputter, lifting his finger to point at Yoongi and unleash a truly vicious tirade. Jihyo let out a scream of delight, interrupting the spat as she shot upright, nearly knocking Jimin’s drink to the floor.

‘Me, me, me!’ she rejoiced, forcing her way over to the microphone, where her name had just been announced. The opening notes of Dancing Queen played and she grabbed the microphone, twirling the stand around in what was probably supposed to be an elegant display of stage presence, but nearly toppled her. Jimin stood, bickering session forgotten as he raised his arms and let out a whoop, cheering her on. He wasn’t alone as the bar erupted in cheers. Jihyo’s voice wasn’t half bad, keeping to the notes a far sight better than most other attempts.

As her performance drew to an end Jimin felt butterflies swirling in his stomach. Damn his nerves. He danced in front of people all the time, this should be no different. Jihyo made her way back over to them through a crowd of raucous applause, clapping Jimin on the back with an encouraging grin.

‘Your turn, gimme your phone so I can film for your friends!’ Jimin groaned, handing over the unlocked phone before he turned to fight his way through the throng of people. He barely heard the announcement over the leftover applause from Jihyo’s rendition.

‘Park Jimin and Min Yoongi performing Voulez-Vous!’ the host said just as Jimin reached the microphone and the first notes began to play. He frantically looked around for Jihyo, who was sporting a devilish grin and shoving Yoongi in his direction, phone pointed directly at him as he no doubt looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Yoongi didn’t look like he was faring much better, eyes wide and horrified as he begrudgingly made his way over, shouting what was sure to be some kind of threat back to Jihyo.

Jimin felt frozen as he stumbled over the first sentence, the energy of the crowd encouraging him as he continued through the first verse, tracking Yoongi’s progress until he finally appeared beside Jimin, a microphone pressed into his hand by the host. For some reason his presence, and equal amount of fear, seemed to spur Jimin on, and he began to sing loudly, feeling the music and enjoying the applause. He could hear Yoongi’s lower voice under his, complementing him, despite how quietly he was singing in comparison. He started dancing, twirling around and moving to the music in a way he knew made him look good. The crowd went wild, and he turned to Yoongi, grabbing his hand in an effort to encourage him to dance. Yoongi shook his head frantically, a flush high on his cheeks, but appeased Jimin by spinning him around a couple of times, the least dancey-dance move he could muster, leading to cheers from the onlookers.

Jimin continued to perform, loving the praise and giving it his all, alcohol powering him through the rest of the song before he raised his hands up with a cheer, feeling giddy. He grabbed Yoongi’s hand again to drag him back to Jihyo after adequately lapping up the praise, the next performer in the queue looking sufficiently cowed as they waited nervously beside the stage.

‘Holy shit, Jimin, that was amazing!’ Jihyo screamed at him as they finally reached her, Jimin letting go of Yoongi to embrace her. He felt almost high with excitement, jumping up and down with Jihyo.

‘That was so fun!’ he exclaimed, turning to look at Yoongi, who was still flushed, and levelling a dirty look at Jihyo.

‘Ah, c’mon, you had funnn!’ Jihyo wheedled, ruffling Yoongi’s hair aggressively, and smiling as she pulled him into a three-way hug.

‘I did, I did,’ he conceded, struggling to be heard over the shouting of the other patrons as Super Bass started up in the background.

‘Let’s get another drink to celebrate!’ Jihyo announced, pulling the two towards the bar, Jimin swigging the remnants of his previous cocktail.

Chapter Text

Jimin felt like his head had been stamped on repeatedly as he woke to harsh streams of light filtering through his blinds. His phone was practically vibrating itself off the bed, and he groaned as the noise sent another pang through his already sore head. The world still spun slightly as he blinked furiously, trying to bring his phone into focus. After a few seconds of trying, and failing, to snap out of the dizziness, he grabbed wildly at the glass of water and ibuprofen perched on his bedside table, thanking his past self for the forethought.

His phone vibrated in his hand again. What the hell was going on? He didn’t have anywhere near enough friends to create this kind of cacophony. He squinted, finally managing to throw the world into focus. He had seemingly been added to a new group chat with everyone from the old one, plus Seokjin and Namjoon, and his chat with Taehyung and Hoseok was going crazy.

He scrolled back to get to the start of the extremely lengthy conversation occurring on the chat that consisted of the full group. To his horror, it appeared to begin with a video of him doing karaoke. Damn Jihyo! He completely forgot she recorded it. More importantly, how did Taehyung have the video in the first place? He switched chats, looking at his one with Taehyung to check. Yup. The offending message, sent at 2:34 am. A full five minute long video, accompanied with a text telling Taehyung to ‘watch itttttttyttt, in sucj a good singe r’

Jimin buried his face in his hands. How embarrassing. He didn’t mind Taehyung and Hoseok seeing it, he’d seen them in plenty of compromising positions doing things far more embarrassing, but Namjoon and Seokjin had obviously just decided to forgive him, and were already being bombarded with idiotic videos. Not exactly the way to make a good second impression. Although perhaps his good first impression would suffice. At least, it had been good until Wonho appeared.

He scrolled through the chat, hundreds of laughing cat emojis blurring together. Hoseok’s favourite. He was pleasantly surprised that most of the comments were aimed towards Yoongi’s participation, particularly from Seokjin and Namjoon.

Voulez-vous ;)

Joon [8:37]
I never thought I’d see the day tbh

Jinnie [8:37]
yoongi you bitch you always turn me down for karaoke

Hoe-seok [8:38]
Ikr I’ve been whacked on the head before for even suggesting it

Joon [8:42]
He’s killed people for less

Jinnie [8:43]
hes even dancing! im sickened!

TaeTae [8:46]
haha hyung i dont think u can really call that dancing

Jinnie [8:48]
its much more movement than ive ever seen before!! even when we go clubbing!!

Hoe-seok [8:49]
Its Jimin’s dancing creating an optical illusion I’m sure
Although I could’ve sworn
It almost looks like Yoongis twirling Jimin around

Jinnie [8:49]
i demand to be twirled!!!

TaeTae [8:50]
i volunteer

Joon [8:50]
I volunteer

Hoe-seok [8:51]
I volunteer

Jinnie [8:51]
ahh, u guys really know how to cheer someone up
and who could blame u, anyone would be lucky to dance with me

Joon [8:56]
If they want an elbow to the face

Jinnie [8:57]
>:(

TaeTae [8:59]
im willing to suffer
btw jiminieee ur dancing is amazing
and ur singing

Hoe-seok [9:07]
Can get you singing at the next showcase! Somehow
You’re crazy good

Jimin couldn’t fight his smile as he took in the positive words. Obviously it couldn’t have been that bad if there wasn’t any mocking. At least, none in his direction. He heaved a sigh of relief as he scrolled further, watching emojis from Namjoon and Seokjin blur past, indicating they also thought the performance was good. The conversation had quickly returned to making fun of Yoongi, particularly how stilted he looked.

Jimin flipped over to his chat with Taehyung and Hoseok, expecting much the same, and was shocked to find the conversation had taken a very different turn.

Two Hoes + Chim

TaeTae [10:22]
he looks lowkey highkey smitten
lovestruck
obsessed

Hoe-seok [10:31]
enchanted
adoring

Jimin felt his face flushing. Oh God. Had he been staring at Yoongi like an idiot. At least they were nice enough not to bring it up in the chat that had Yoongi in it.

JimJam [11:09] What r u guys on about Who looks smitten

TaeTae [11:10]
lol have u not watched the video

JimJam [11:10]
No I just woke up
Think im dying
Yoongis sister is evil she got me so drunk
Everythings still spinny

Hoe-seok [11:11]
I love Jihyo she’s so fun
Makes sense she could make Yoongi do karaoke
He does whatever she wants lol

TaeTae [11:11]
yh im sure shes great
watch the video jimjam

The pit in his stomach grew, head still throbbing as he opened his camera roll. He had the horrible feeling that he was about to witness himself staring at Yoongi in a way that probably made him feel incredibly uncomfortable. He felt sick.

A message from an unknown number caught his eye. Fine, perhaps he was doing anything in his power to avoid watching the video. He screwed his nose up in confusion as he struggled to make sense of the text riddled with spelling errors.

+447914784968 [2:17]
omds u too r so cuteeeeeee
yoongles is so into u
he loks so happpy
u needta b e nice to hum
he deserved happinesd
[video attachment]

The fucking video was following him everywhere. It was closing in on him from all angles. Even from a horrifically cryptic text that he would only assume was from Jihyo. Obviously deluded in her drunken state. He needed to see what kind of damage he was dealing with. Maybe he wasn’t being weird in the video at all. Maybe his friends were just being dicks. Perhaps Jihyo had interpreted his potentially weird staring at Yoongi in a strange way. Like he had a crush on Yoongi. How ridiculous.

Jimin reluctantly pressed play. He resisted the urge to screw his eyes shut as the incredibly shaky footage started to play.

Oh God. He’d been right. He looked absolutely frozen to the spot, staring resolutely at the crowd, presumably at Yoongi fighting his way through to the front. He winced slightly as the tiny Jimin on the screen forced out the first few notes, sounding tinny and uncertain, eyes still focused on Yoongi who was just appearing at the bottom of the screen. He breathed a sigh of relief at exactly the same time as the Jimin on screen when he finally tore his gaze away and began to sing in earnest. It was actually half decent. He wasn’t really looking at Yoongi at all, and seemed to be giving it his all singing and dancing wise. Whilst he was missing a couple of notes, it was an overall decent performance, and didn’t make him cringe the way he was expecting.

He was just kind of unsure what the hell Tae and Hoseok were talking about. He didn’t look smitten or anything else stupid at all, just like he was enjoying himself. At around the three minute mark he saw himself head over to Yoongi to try and coax him into dancing. He obliged by spinning Jimin around a couple of times. Jimin felt his face begin to flush and he winced a bit. Dancing was so obviously not Yoongi’s thing. Thank God he didn’t reject his attempt to dance in front of a massive crowd of people.

His gaze shifted to Yoongi, and his breath halted, heart rapidly speeding up.

Yoongi stood rooted to the spot, eyes completely fixed on Jimin. The blur of the video made it hard to tell, but it almost looked like Yoongi was open-mouthed, jaw slightly lax as he watched Jimin prance around. He could feel his pulse race as he watched in shock, butterflies twirling in his stomach.

He watched himself wave his hands around in the air as the song drew to a close, grinning widely as Yoongi shook his head as if to snap himself out of some kind of reverie. The video flipped to show Jihyo screaming excitedly before it cut to black. Jimin was left staring at his reflection in the dark phone screen as he tried to rationalise what he’d been watching. He fought back the excitement that threatened to overwhelm him.

Why did he even care? Yoongi was horribly annoying. And far too short for him. He liked it when guys practically towered over him, so he felt protected. He didn’t like Yoongi past the point of friendship, and even that was pushing it. He mashed his hands into his eyes, trying to rub away the sleep and maybe knock some sense into himself. It wasn’t working. He thought back to the kiss they’d shared with a thrill that made his breath stutter again.

It was possible (completely and utterly true) that if he thought about it, he had perhaps developed a slight crush on Yoongi. Perhaps a slight obsession.

If he was ever going to be honest with himself, now was the time. He liked Yoongi. Pretty seriously. Like he had a big time crush. And Yoongi (maybe) felt the same way. At least judging by the way he was staring at Jimin like he hung the moon.

Maybe that’s what Jihyo was getting at. Maybe it was actually reciprocated. Yoongi had a crush on him!

He hadn’t felt anywhere near this nervous and full of butterflies since he was like 17. And at that point he was just experiencing a strangely homo-erotic friendship that had been weirdly controlling. This was a legit crush on a man who was actually out, and could therefore be a viable option.

He cupped his face with his hands, feeling surprisingly giddy for the level of hungover-ness he was experiencing. He shot off a couple of quick texts to his chat with Taehyung and Hoseok, telling them they were just drunk and having fun, and Yoongi was probably frozen on the spot through fear. He hoped that wasn’t the truth.

He liked Yoongi. And judging by that video, Yoongi liked him back. Or had at least become temporarily spellbound by his aggressively mediocre performance. He squeaked slightly, burying his face in the duvet at the complaining throb his head unleashed at the noise. He could feel his face flush, and a small smile had been present for a good five minutes, almost to the point of his cheeks hurting.

Finally he schooled his face into something resembling a normal (not incredibly giddy) expression, and made to venture downstairs. He was almost certain that whilst Yoongi would be just as grumpy as usual, there was nothing he could do to hide his pretty clear feelings for Jimin, as per the video.

Jimin all but skipped towards the kitchen, trying his utmost to disregard the horrible pounding in his head. He was no longer some loser with a tiny crush on some guy that kissed him on a whim during a night out. He was someone with a wholly reciprocated crush. He rewatched the video, pouring himself a cup of coffee and blowing on the hot drink, trying to cool it down to a reasonable temperature. Perhaps the level of drunkenness he had reached last night was still having its effects on him, and he was feeling slightly woozy, but that was no reason to discount the pretty solid conclusion that Yoongi liked him back.

At least, until a girl emerged from Yoongi’s room down the corridor.

Jimin did a double take, thinking for a second that it must’ve been Jihyo, until he recalled that Jihyo’s hair wasn’t auburn. He felt his stomach sink for the second time that morning.

Yoongi followed her out a few seconds later, bedhead intact (just as cute as yesterday morning) and pointed her towards the kettle before retreating back into his bedroom. Jimin’s heart clenched and he stepped back out of view, not wanting to end up dragged into a conversation with Yoongi’s latest conquest. He hurried around the corner, thanking God for the first time for their strangely L-shaped kitchen, which provided the perfect hiding spot. He could hear Yoongi’s ‘friend’ rustling around with the kettle, pouring herself a cup of coffee, or tea, Jimin wasn’t particularly enthused by the idea of looking at the current moment.

He buried his face in his hands, mood a far cry from what it had been merely five minutes ago. He felt like he was the most idiotic person alive, somehow completely misreading the situation. He hadn’t misread someone’s feelings this badly since … ever. Now he’d stupidly accepted he actually did have a crush on Yoongi, it would be infinitely more difficult to act normal around him.

He snapped his head up at the sound of the kitchen door opening, praying it was the girl leaving him to wallow alone. Alas, Yoongi’s head appeared around the corner. Jimin quickly turned his head from where he’d been scoping out the situation, and grabbed for his phone with an impressive speed, giving the impression of someone incredibly busy, even as he fought back the hot sting of tears that threatened to break through his carefree persona. He rolled his shoulders back, trying to force himself into a laissez-faire character to prepare for the off-chance that Yoongi would spare him a glance.

Why would he, with this beautiful girl here that Yoongi had obviously taken home.

‘Do you want anything, Jimin-ah’ Yoongi offered in his low voice, head peeking around the corner. If Jimin hadn’t known any better, he would say there was an almost pleading look in Yoongi’s eyes. But he wasn’t an idiot. He silently lifted his cup to indicate he already had a drink, and turned his face to stare at the black television screen, pointedly avoiding the strangely uncomfortable face Yoongi was pulling.

What reason did he have to be uncomfortable? The longer he stared, the more tears he felt attempting to break through, and the more aggressively he had to fight them back. Thinking about one of the essays he had due eventually pulled him out of his depressed hole. Mulling over social welfare policy, regardless of how little interest he found in it, could stop even the most distraught man in their tracks, relegating them to a life of boring contemplation with no room for horribly confusing feelings about one's own housemate.

Princess Jinnie + subjects

Jinnie [9:32]
lol ice cold yoongi looking absolutely smitten over traitor boy

Joon [9:36]
It’s not really fair to call him traitor boy anymore
Especially since now we know he didn’t have a clue about Wonho’s behaviour
Regardless
Yoongi hyung does look pretty enthralled

Jinnie [9:39]
fine ill call him unobservant boy
he should really have noticed everyone giving wonho the evils but yknow gotta forgive the oblivious
everyone can’t be as stunningly observant as moi

Joon [9:41]
I think that’s a much fairer way to look at it. Yoongi-hyung doesn’t appear to have much to say on the topic.

Jinnie [9:42]
i prefer to focus on the awestruck expression yoongi’s sporting in that video
should i bring it up to taetae and hobi i’m sure they’d appreciate it
maybe they might actually get clued in on the fact poor yoongi’s been obsessed with traitor boy since like day 5
*unobservant boy

Yoon [9:42]
I’ve got some secrets of yours that I’m happy to share with the world.

Joon [9:44]
Crikey he really springs into action when he thinks he could be exposed

Jinnie [9:47]
ikr hes such a tsundere
so moody unless jimin’s mentioned then he just gets all quiet and cute
especially after the kiss ;)

Joon [10:03]
;) ;) ;)

Jinnie [11:28]
had a nice time last night yoongi?
i can sense u took someone home
bet ur regretting it now same as always
if u only listened to me…

Joon [11:29]
I don’t even know how you managed to figure that out, you should consider a career in the police, your detective skills are certainly above par

Jinnie [11:32]
you just have to look in the eyes and sniff out the slight whiff of betrayal and guilt

Yoon [11:37]
Fuck off.

Jinnie [11:38]
alright fine i got the deets from Jeongguk
hes so shy but spills everything at the promise of lamb skewers

Yoon [11:39]
I had a great time last night.

Jinnie [11:42]
sureeee u did
we all know it would be better with jimin cause u acc like him
but whatevs ignore ur feelings u emotionally constipated colander

Joon [11:45]
What would we do without you Jin-hyung?
I’d still be completely in the dark

Jinnie [11:46]
no one talks that much about someone they acc hate
especially yoon yoon
he barely talks at all

Jimin glared menacingly at Yoongi’s phone as it buzzed. Presumably from some other friends outside their big chat, as Jimin’s phone remained tragically quiet, preventing him from using it as a good distraction. He couldn’t help but flick his eyes up to observe Yoongi, who was now leaning against the counter, making small talk with the girl, who was giggling at his murmured words. He felt his heart screw itself into a horrible tight ball, and his chest felt oddly hollow, not just because of the brutal hangover he was nursing. He left the room, eyes firmly fixed on the floor as he weaved his way between the couple.

Yoongi paused mid-sentence as Jimin brushed past, before picking up again a couple of seconds later. Probably annoyed Jimin was barging through his discussion.

He had half a mind to toss himself on his bed and cry himself back to sleep. But that wasn’t healthy.

One person who could surely identify with his plight was Jeongguk. The boy had been pining since he was first introduced to Taehyung over a year ago, and was currently attempting to get over him. Jimin’s recently discovered (and very minor) crush, would pale in comparison to Jeongguk’s love-like obsession with Taehyung. As he knocked on Jeongguk’s door he felt slightly bad that he was only coming to him in a time of stress. He made a mental note to spend more time with Jeongguk when he wasn’t completely distraught.

The door creaked open, revealing Jeongguk looking slightly worse for wear, as was typical these days, ever since he’d witnessed Taehyung getting with someone at the club. He rubbed at his eyes, fixing Jimin with a quizzical expression as he took in Jimin’s slightly watery eyes, recognising the plight of a heartbroken soul.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked tentatively, wincing at himself as he recognised what a stupid question that was. Of course Jimin wasn’t ok.

Jimin winced with him, seeing no point in trying to shield his feelings. Jeongguk was uniquely positioned to understand the pain he was experiencing.

‘I think I like Yoongi-ssi,’ he stuttered out after a couple of minutes of silence, hushed in an attempt to prevent his voice travelling down to the offending object of his affection. Jeongguk’s face lifted in understanding, before wrapping his arm around Jimin in a way that wouldn’t have been out of place for a grandparent. He beckoned Jimin into his den of despair, a plate of half eaten roast dinner stacked on top of a textbook on his desk. Jimin shied away at the gargantuan pile of unwashed laundry that greeted him, and reeled back slightly. Jeongguk was way deeper in this than he was.

His feelings for Yoongi were incredibly minor - practically nonexistent - compared to Jeongguk’s feelings for Taehyung, and he didn’t think they could ever drive him to such depths as rewearing socks three times, something Jeongguk had tragically confessed to whilst under the influence of a lot of alcohol. Nonetheless, Jeongguk was the only one he could even half trust not to expose his problems.

‘I should’ve known,’ Jeongguk said, shaking his head.

He hissed slightly, making a disgusted face before he smoothed it out. ‘I can’t believe this is happening within the house. Well, each to their own, y’know, I’m not exactly in a position to judge’

Jimin sat down on his bed, carefully avoiding the stack of (hopefully) clean underwear.

‘Well, it’s not really a big deal, just a bit awkward,’ Jimin sputtered out, desperately trying to convey just how insignificant his crush was. Jeongguk nodded sagely, truly embodying his role as the master of unrequited love.

‘If I was you, I’d just try and get over it,’ Jeongguk said, huffing a bit as Jimin made a face as if to say ‘because that’s worked so well for you’.

‘I’m past the point of redemption. I’ve fully embraced how tragic this is. There’s still hope for you. Plus you’re my housemate and I don’t want your moping to infect the house,’ Jeongguk said, once again shockingly reasonable for someone in the throes of unreturned affection.

‘How do you suggest I do that, o wise sensei’ Jimin said, irritation colouring his tone. He’d come to Jeongguk for help, not to be patronised.

‘You need to date. Or at least go on a date. Maybe take up a hobby. Plus, we’re doing it together. Getting over people that don’t want us,’ Jeongguk’s face morphed into something slightly downtrodden, and Jimin once again felt horribly guilty for neglecting him the last few weeks.

‘Together,’ Jimin affirmed, fighting the urge to scrub at his still watering eyes. How was he this affected by a crush he’d only realised less than half an hour ago (if he was being honest with himself he’d been feeling like this since Yoongi had comforted him about Wonho (or, if he was being even more honest, it had been when Yoongi had started playing a game of hide-the-crockery with him)).

‘Pinky promise,’ Jeongguk said, holding his hand out whilst his other hand ran through his disheveled, and somewhat greasy, hair. Jeongguk was a great example of how Jimin did not want to end up. It was nice to be in cahoots with someone. It made the whole tragic situation feel slightly less lonely and depressing. Plus it trivialised his crush somewhat. Everyone has silly crushes on their friends. All the time. And they pass.

Jimin curled his pinky around Jeongguk’s, feeling content with the knowledge that Jeongguk would never betray his trust, or sneak around the pact to secretly seduce Taehyung. They nodded with a kind of solemnity that could only be shared by two people familiar with the pains of unrequited love, and Jimin headed back to his room, firmly resolving himself to a life of celibacy. Or at least, as far as Yoongi was concerned. If he actually managed to break his celibacy with anyone else, he stood a pretty high chance of defeating his crush, and therefore breaking though Yoongi’s tough exterior in a friendly fashion, and finally gaining the group of reliable and fun housemates he had always dreamed of.

Chapter Text

Yoongi felt his stomach turn as he stared after Jimin. He’d fucked everything up.

Jimin had looked so painfully uncomfortable as he sat curled up on the sofa, dashing furtive glances up at Yoongi. He’d lost count of how many times Jimin had roughly brushed his hand through his hair, the ruffled mousy brown strands with black peeking out at the roots making his heart clench in a way he wasn’t sure was even medically safe. Jimin hadn’t even made eye contact when Yoongi had asked if he wanted a drink.

No snarky remark or cheeky quip designed to irritate. No sidling up close, pointing a stubby finger in Yoongi’s face with a grumpy expression that made Yoongi want to grab him and kiss him forever. No twinkle in his eyes as sat slumped on the sofa, looking as though he was trying to bury himself between the cushions until he was no longer visible. Yoongi didn’t think he’d ever seen someone look so blatantly awkward.

He knew why, of course. The fucking video. Damn Jihyo. She was completely uncontrollable when drunk. Especially when an opportunity arose with the potential to embarrass Yoongi and/or completely ruin Yoongi’s life. She’d been present for Yoongi’s horribly tragic Bailey’s-induced wailing on New Year’s Eve, witnessing the truly awful sight of Yoongi rolling around on the floor, waxing poetic about how cute Jimin’s tiny hands and ‘perfect’ smile were.

And now she’d fucked everything up. Not that there was ever a chance that they could have ended up together, or that Jimin could have been interested in him. But at least they were developing a somewhat workable friendship, where he constantly taunted Jimin in some bizarre clunky attempt at flirting, and Jimin grew endlessly irritated, reacting in an adorable way that made Yoongi want to kiss the pout off his face. He’d winced with horror when he watched himself staring at Jimin with star-struck eyes and his jaw slightly open on the tiny screen. He looked like a lovesick idiot. There was no way Jimin hadn’t noticed. He was clearly horrified.

It was bad enough he’d launched himself at Jimin on the roof of that club, but at least Jimin had seemingly chosen to ignore it. Jimin had inadvertently brought it up a couple of times in passing, but quickly shut himself down, including that adorable drunk voicemail from two nights ago that had made his heart race. Jimin obviously felt awkward about it, probably worried Yoongi would get the wrong end of the stick and think that Jimin had a crush on him or something ridiculous.

Thank God he’d decided to go home with someone. If he hadn’t it would’ve really compounded the tragic wistfulness of the karaoke video. At least this way Jimin would (hopefully) think he was just gazing off in a drunken daze, and not hopelessly infatuated with him. Although the way Jimin had been sitting, crumpled in on himself and looking anywhere except Yoongi, would indicate that he had in fact reached the inevitable conclusion, that Yoongi was completely smitten with him. Maybe in a few days Yoongi could go on a date, or hook up with someone else, just to really give the impression that he wasn’t pining, and then their relationship could go back to normal. His phone buzzed violently as the girl opposite him drank her coffee quietly, making an occasional comment as she fiddled with her own phone.

satan spawn [11:57]
im never drinking again
ik ive said it in the past
but this time its foreal
also could u be any more obvious
u guys r so cute
ur such an idiot
he obvs likes u too

yoongles [12:02]
Don’t be stupid
There’s no way
He can’t even look at me he’s so uncomfortable
Do u not remember I kissed him
And he ran away
Like sprinted at full speed

satan spawn [12:03]
dont be an idiot

yoongles [12:04]
Whatever
Let’s talk about your love life

satan spawn [12:04]
shhhhh thats nothing to do with you

yoongles [12:04]
Exactly

satan spawn [12:05]
i just want u to be happy

yoongles [12:05]
Just drop it

satan spawn [12:06]
pff
fat chance of that ever happening

He forced out a laugh as the girl opposite him made some kind of quip about one of her lecturers. She sipped her coffee, twirling her hair in what was obviously supposed to be an alluring fashion. He couldn’t even remember her name. How the hell he’d managed to have sex with her he had no idea. He was so blackout he couldn’t remember anything past Jimin singing. Yoongi felt sick. He kept sleeping with these people in the hopes that he would finally get over Jimin, but he was having no such luck.

‘We could study together sometime?’ she asked, voice curling up into a hopeful question at the end. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepishly down at the floor.

‘Yeah maybe, I don’t really head into campus that often,’ he ventured, trying to let her down gently. He couldn’t stand looking at people’s faces the next morning when they realised he didn’t want to see them again. It felt almost like kicking a puppy. The best ones just ran out before he was even awake, leaving him alone to regret in peace.

Thank God she got the hint. She was out of the house within ten minutes, making a rather disgruntled face as she laced her shoes, but at least she was gone and he could cocoon himself in desperate sadness for the rest of the day.

He could hear a faint knocking sound through his noise-cancelling headphones. Adjusting them so one ear was free, he was assaulted with aggressive knocking and shouting coming from the front door. Fucking Namjoon. He quickly chucked his headphones off, making a bid for the door. Namjoon had been known to accidentally snap door handles in the past, and Yoongi wasn’t very keen on the idea of losing his rental deposit.

As he strode down the corridor, he heard gentle footsteps starting to head down the stairs to his left. Jimin. ‘It’s Namjoon, I’ll get it,’ he said, looking up with what was supposed to be a friendly smile, but felt more like a grimace. Jimin stood stock-still, hand gripping the banister hard enough to make the knuckles white as he looked over Yoongi’s shoulder, blatantly avoiding his gaze. He’d changed into a hugely oversized hoodie and checked pyjama pants. If Yoongi looked down he knew he’d see slippers with teddy bear ears on the top. It was all horribly cute. If only Jimin’s face wasn’t so carefully expressionless.

He didn’t hear Jimin’s footsteps retreating as he reached the door, and turned to see what was happening before he opened it. Namjoon, obviously pacified by the sight of a figure approaching behind the door, had finally stopped trying to break the poor door down. Jimin had screwed his face up in thought.

‘You good?’ Yoongi asked, once again trying to put on his best friendly smile. Just friends. Just like normal. No disgustingly large crush here!

‘I just think…I want to apologise to Namjoon-hyung y’know’ Jimin said quietly, lifting his hands from the banister to fiddle with the sleeves of his hoodie. ‘Just give me a minute’

‘Yeah, yeah, totally, whatever you want to do!’ Yoongi exclaimed, backing away into his room and pulling the door to. He slapped his hand against his forehead. Great way to be normal. He’d never been anywhere near that loud or enthusiastic before. Namjoon’s loud banging resumed as he noticed the lack of door-opening. Jimin’s soft footsteps padded down the rest of the stairs as Yoongi listened with bated breath.

If Namjoon said anything that indicated that Yoongi liked Jimin, Yoongi would have no choice but to race towards him and tackle him to the ground before Jimin reacted in some dramatic, but fair, way. Like dropping out of the tenancy agreement, or filing for a restraining order. Not that Yoongi would blame him. He was currently sitting with his ear pressed against the door, trying to breathe quietly, whilst he eavesdropped on Jimin. He had the presence of mind to feel embarrassed, but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

‘Hi Namjoon-ssi!’ he heard Jimin say, probably accompanied by the slightly awkward but determined face he made whenever he had to do something unpleasant, like when he had a Zoom meeting to try and change a mark on one of his essays.

‘Jimin! Ahh, you can call me hyung, I told you before’ Namjoon replied easily before they lapsed into silence.

Jimin cleared his throat. ‘I know you’re here for Yoongi-ssi, but I just wanted to speak to you quickly-’ he was cut off by Namjoon chuckling.

‘Yoongi-ssi!! What’s he done to piss you off this time? I thought he was your hyung as well,’

Jimin let out an awkward sounding laugh ‘ah, nothing, just forgot that’s all.’

‘Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for bringing Wonho around in front of you at the club. I really didn’t have any idea what he was like, and I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him if I’d known, let alone showed him off whilst you were there. That was really insensitive of me. I hope you can forgive me,’

Jimin was talking in that word-vomit way he had sometimes, when there was something he really needed to get out. Like when he’d stopped Yoongi at that coffee shop to make a truce. It was just so adorable. Yoongi tried to ignore the fact that Jimin had called him Yoongi-ssi, pretending he couldn’t feel a gaping pit opening up in his stomach.

Namjoon just laughed ‘Please, don’t worry about it at all. At least you realised before it was too late right? If only I’d been so lucky,’

Jimin let out a relieved-sounding laugh, and Yoongi could just imagine his face smoothing out into a genuine smile, tight lines of worry gone.

‘Thanks for being so understanding. And sorry again. I’ll leave you to go see… see you soon, bye Namjoon-hyung,’

By the time Namjoon’s ungainly feet had clomped to his bedroom door, Yoongi had sprung back, flinging himself on his bed, attempting to give the impression that he hadn’t just been eavesdropping. Unluckily for him, regardless of how clumsy Namjoon was, he wasn’t an idiot.

‘Interesting conversation?’ he asked, eyes sparkling with mirth as his face pulled into a smile and his dimples appeared. Yoongi just groaned, pressing his face into the pillow.

‘Fuck off’

‘That’s not a very nice way to talk to one of your oldest friends’ Namjoon said.

‘Why are you here?’

‘Jin-hyung thought you could use some support after the horrible way your obsession with Jimin was just revealed to the whole group’

‘Jin-hyung can go fuck himself,’

‘I’m just joking, no one else seemed to notice,’

Yoongi let out a disgruntled huff, ‘yeah, no one except Jimin. He hasn’t even looked at me all day,’

‘I’m sure he’s just embarrassed he got so drunk in front of your family. Jihyo can be very intimidating when she wants to be,’

Yoongi shivered, remembering when she caught him and Namjoon drinking as teenagers, and gave them a brutal talking-to. They only found out later she just wanted to steal their alcohol for herself.

‘Him and Jihyo got on great. He got on great with my whole family. Of course he did, he’s perfect’

He looked over just to see Namjoon’s eyes widen. ‘Christ, I think Jin-hyung was right, I’ve never seen you crushing this desperately on someone before,’

‘Once again-’

‘Yeah, yeah, Jin-hyung can go fuck himself, I’ll let him know. More importantly, why do you think sleeping with all these random people is going to make this go away? It’s not very healthy,’

‘Stop trying to do your psychology stuff on me, Joon-ah, it’s a tried and tested method that’s worked very well for me in the past,’

‘I don’t think your eighteen year-old, two-week long crush on Jisoo really counts. This has been going on for months,’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ muttered Yoongi darkly, haphazardly stuffing his pyjamas under the pillow.

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ Namjoon said, a confused squint on his face.

‘I think I love him,’ Yoongi mumbled into his pillow. Namjoon let out a rather unmanly shriek.

‘Jin’s going to hate that he missed this.’

Yoongi grunted in agreement.

‘Although I’m not sure whether or not to be offended. He was dating Dickhead until just a few weeks ago. Not sure how you looked past that. You didn’t tell us about it until we saw them together at the club. As Jin-hyung says, you should have been standing strong in support of your second best friend,’ Namjoon gestured to himself meaningfully.

Yoongi rolled over to stare at the ceiling. He had always prided himself on being a moral person. His attraction to Jimin, despite Jimin’s thing with Wonho, had been a shock. He was just so cute. And kind. He was always talking to Jeongguk, inviting him to things. He would always stay back late from dance practice to help Hoseok with anything that needed sorting, and offering to help anyone that was struggling with a new move (he’d very subtly asked Taehyung if Jimin was any good at dancing, and had been treated with an earful of sweet tidbits about how friendly Jimin was).

Yoongi could always hear him singing quietly to himself as he cooked dinner, and was always astonished by how lovely his voice was. Jimin was so witty as well, and Yoongi loved riling him up to be on the receiving end of his stroppy face. He could’ve sworn Jimin almost stomped his foot once. If anyone else had done that, Yoongi would have rolled his eyes in disgust, but with Jimin it was incredibly endearing.

Yoongi shook his head, tuning back into whatever the hell Namjoon was on about. He had to stop thinking about Jimin.

‘In all fairness, Jimin does seem incredibly apologetic. But you must’ve assumed that he already knew about Dickhead, or you would’ve told him, wouldn’t you?’

Yoongi groaned again. ‘Of course I thought he knew. I should’ve told you two about Dickhead. I don’t know, I guess I thought he was trying to fix Won- Dickhead or something, like redeem him,’

Namjoon snorted ‘It’s almost sweet, how infatuated you are. Making up stories to explain away reasons you shouldn’t be into him,’

A pillow sailed across the room, hitting Namjoon squarely in the face.

‘Once again, did you come here just to be a prick, or was there an actual reason?’

‘Am I not being supportive enough?’ Namjoon grinned, tossing the pillow back at Yoongi’s limp body.

‘There’s always the possibility that he’s being awkward because he likes you too. Or he’s not being weird at all, and you’re completely imagining it,’

Yoongi scoffed. ‘Fucking as if, Joon-ah, he didn’t even look at me,’

‘He never looks at me unless I do some childish crap to annoy him. Or he needs someone to console him. I feel like such an idiot. Like a small kid trying to get him to play with me,’

‘I think you should just tell him how you feel. Or at least hint at it. It might change things,’

Yoongi looked at him, face morphing into an expression of complete and utter disbelief. ‘Thanks for the worst advice I’ve ever heard, but you’re free to leave whenever you want,’

Namjoon just shrugged, walking over to plop himself on the bed beside Yoongi, and grabbed his laptop out of his rucksack.

‘Do you fancy watching something?’

Yoongi shrugged, and Namjoon opened up Netflix.

‘You and Jimin-ah would actually be pretty cute together Yoonie,’ Jin shouted at the two of them, the trio pressed together tightly in the packed kitchen. Yoongi’s brow furrowed in what he hoped was a very menacing way, threatening Jin to ‘please-shut-the-fuck-up’.

The last week had gone by shockingly ok. Jimin could actually bear to look at him again, and had even had a go at him once for leaving his jacket on the kitchen chair (Yoongi had obviously not left it there on purpose, that would’ve been ridiculous), although it wasn’t with as much ferocity and finger-pointing as normal.

When Jimin had swanned into the kitchen, all dangly earrings and soft eyeshadow, Yoongi made sure to keep his gaze focused on Jeongguk, who had seemingly completely forgotten about Taehyung, and was now on a new path of finding as many dates as humanly possible. He was swiping through Tinder at a superhuman pace, and Yoongi was slightly concerned. Of course he had taken a small glimpse at Jimin, and had felt his heart skip a beat. He looked even better than usual. If that was possible.

The jacket he had on was the same one he’d taken out when he went for dinner with Yoongi’s parents. He couldn’t help but remember Jimin’s smiling, laughing face looking at him as he danced around on the stage, reaching for Yoongi’s hand so he could be twirled around.

Jimin, staring back at him on the roof of the club, eyes dark, right before he pressed close and grabbed a handful of Yoongi’s shirt. The way he threaded his fingers through Yoongi’s hair, pulling slightly. It had been the best kiss of his life. Not necessarily technique wise, but the sparks he had felt darting across his lips more than made up. Yoongi had been replaying the soft breathy noises in his head ever since it happened, in the most inopportune moments. Such as this one.

He felt the tips of his ears burning, and ducked further into his jumper, pretending to be somewhat interested in the new pickup line Jeongguk was practicing on him. ‘For later, hyung!’ he proclaimed, swaying slightly.

The bus ride there had been quiet. Jimin had bickered with him slightly about how he paid for the bus ticket.

‘You’re like an old man, who pays in cash anymore?’

‘People who don’t want their every decision tracked by the government’

‘You’re ridiculous’

Jimin flounced off towards the back seats, leaving Yoongi to grin as the bus driver counted out his change. Things were finally going back to normal.

Until this. Fucking Jin. Once again. Just in time to ruin things.

‘What do you think, Yoongi-ah, do you think Jimin’s cute?’

He stared Namjoon down. Where the fuck had he come from? He’d popped out of nowhere just in time to make an absolute menace of himself.

Namjoon looked back at him with a pleading expression, as though willing him to say something that could finally move things forward. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His head was swimming slightly from the numerous drinks he’d consumed, and he was feeling oddly brave. Jin was also giving him a slightly sickening wheedling kind of face. He took a deep breath. It’s not like he’d be confessing or anything. Just saying ‘yeah’. Jimin’s objectively cute, it wouldn't be a big deal at all. He steeled himself, opening his mouth.

‘As if,’ he scoffed, mentally cursing himself for being such a wimp.

Chapter Text

‘As if,’

The words themselves weren’t really that cutting. If it had sounded like a joke, Jimin might’ve even laughed, and poked fun at Namjoon for asking such stupid questions. But Yoongi’s tone, dripping with vitriol and disdain, now that was slightly cutting. He got the message. Yoongi wasn’t interested. Loud and clear. He didn’t realise he was quite as disgusting as Yoongi apparently thought he was, but it would be helpful in his quest to Get Over Yoongi.

The weird faces Namjoon and Jin were making weren’t exactly helping matters. They were looking at Yoongi strangely, almost as if they were begging him to go along with something. Some kind of horrible practical joke where Yoongi would pretend to be interested in Jimin? At least Yoongi had been kind enough not to go along with it.

He winced, hand flying to his heart to ease the tightness that began tugging across his chest., before ever-so-subtly transforming his motion into an adjustment of his collar. He pulled back a bit from the tight squish of all their bodies together as he felt his eyes start to prickle.

Jimin choked out a laugh. ‘The feeling’s mutual,’ he joked, turning to force his way through the crowd towards some other friends.

‘I’ll catch you guys later,’ he shouted back, waving his hand as he vanished through the mass of sweaty bodies.

He needed to find Jeongguk. Over the last week he’d been making an active effort to spend more time with him, and they’d been working to get Jeongguk a date (as well as the occasional mopey commiseration session). Something he could channel his energy into. He wiped his eyes roughly with the sleeve of his jacket. After several minutes of searching, he located Jeongguk hunched over his phone in a corner, swiping across the screen at an almost inhuman speed.

‘There’s no way you have a clue what any of those guys look like,’ he commented, sidling up next to him.

Jeongguk wrinkled his nose up at him.

‘I can see enough to know it’s a no. What brings you over here anyway?’

Jimin rolled his eyes.

‘You know, same old, same old, lots of upset and heartbreak. Let’s focus on you’

‘Let’s not,’

‘Don’t be like that,’ Jimin elbowed him. ‘I’m in need of a distraction, and you’re contractually obligated to provide one,’

His gaze wandered around the room, drawn to Yoongi magnetically. He looked like he was talking rather aggressively, pointing a finger at Jin with a manic look in his eyes. What were they talking about? Jimin slumped against the wall.

Jeongguk sighed, handing over the phone.

Jimin’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

‘How many people are you talking to?? You’ve got over a hundred messages on here!’

‘Just trying to move on, y’know, as promised,’

The heart-shaped sticker at the top of Jeongguk’s phone glittered under the flashing lights. Jimin scoffed.

‘Maybe you could start by taking off the sticker he gave you,’

‘Maybe you could start by not staring at him for the rest of the evening,’

Jimin elbowed him again with considerably more force.

Long story short, the pact wasn’t working.

The two of them would spiral between heart-wrenching obsession and steely determination, which would only last until they next caught a glimpse of the object of their unrequited affection.

If Jeongguk so much as caught a glimpse of Taehyung when he saw Jimin after dance practice, he was jittery and gloomy for the rest of the day. Whenever Jimin would head downstairs to see Yoongi’s shoes neatly lined up by the wall, or his jacket hanging from the allotted coat hook, he would feel an overwhelming fondness that he would try and quash by reminding himself of the look on Yoongi’s face when Jin dared to suggest that Jimin was even remotely attractive. Even that didn’t really work. Mostly because Yoongi was being so nice to him.

Uncharacteristically nice. Weird. The morning after the party, he’d fumbled out an apology, stumbling over his words and blushing, something about ‘Jin-hyung sticking his nose in,’ and promises of ‘certain death if he ever tries something like that again’.

Then he’d been showing up places. The coffee shop where they initially decided to have a truce, the dance studio to bring Hoseok a snack, hovering around outside one of Jimin’s classes with the headphones he’d left on the kitchen table, ‘I thought you’d want them and I was coming to campus anyway’

That had been the second time they’d spoken after the party, a week after Yoongi’s stuttered apology.

It was finally getting warmer, the first green shoots of spring beginning to poke up through the earth. Jimin had however been slightly too optimistic when he dressed that morning. He’d foregone a jacket, preferring to feel the first warm rays of the sun dance over his bare arms. He shivered as he sat by the window, glaring at the clouds which had now made their way across the sky.

By the time his class finished, he was thoroughly pissed off. This lecturer had a special talent at taking what should have been an interesting topic and morphing it into a 56-slide long exercise in trying to keep your eyes open. He had intended to do at least a couple of hours work in the library after his class, but at this point it would be a miracle if he could even stay awake. To make matters worse, he was so preoccupied texting Taehyung about his potential solo in the spring showcase on his walk into university that he didn’t even notice he’d forgotten his headphones.

He didn’t see Yoongi at first, too focused on weaving his way past his incredibly slow-moving course mates. The faster he could get out, the faster he could get back home and into the warmth. Thankfully they were only clogging up the corridor. Once he broke free into the open space of the courtyard there was much more room to move. He wrinkled his nose at a waft of cigarette smoke drifting through the air, and looked around to spot the offender. Far too early in the morning to smoke. He nearly tripped over his feet. Yoongi.

He could’ve rolled his eyes if not for the sudden pounding of his heart. Yoongi was slouched in an oversized jacket, headphones on, smoking with one hand and playing with his lighter in the other. He looked like he was auditioning for an even more pretentious The Smiths tribute act. And Jimin would’ve scoffed at him if Yoongi hadn’t been looking directly at him, watching the clumsy stumble to keep his balance. As it stood, he had to resist the urge to press his hands to his burning face. Good going, nearly tripping to the floor, excellent way to seem cool and suave.

What the fuck was he doing here? He certainly didn’t have any classes here, and it was a good ten minutes to the library.

When Yoongi lazily beckoned him over with one finger he stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms, raising his eyebrows. He may be a blushing mess but he still had some self respect. As if he was just going to come when called like some kind of pet. Yoongi just shrugged at his refusal, a smile tugging at his lips, and got up.

‘Always so difficult,’

Prick.

‘Only for you,’ Jimin replied, smiling sickly sweet and batting his eyelashes.

Yoongi seemed to freeze slightly, movements faltering as he looked at Jimin for a moment before he swung his bag around and dug out some headphones.

Jimin’s headphones. That Yoongi had come to give him. How did he even know where Jimin was going to be?

‘Holy shit, thanks!’

Awkward silence hung in the air for a second before Yoongi shrugged again, tucking his face down into the collar of his jacket and breaking eye contact, turning away to stare at something in the distance. Almost…shy. If Jimin didn’t know any better he would say that Yoongi was feeling bashful.

‘I was coming in anyway, y’know, thought you might want them,’

Then he was gone, leaving Jimin to stand alone in the courtyard, clutching his headphones and staring after Yoongi with a look of abject confusion on his face. That was some seriously weird behaviour, even for Yoongi.

After that, he was everywhere.

At first it was hot and cold. Yoongi would show up, do something nice for him, and then vanish in the blink of an eye. Obviously he’d realised that his truly horrified ‘as if,’ was a bit too intense, and was scrambling to correct it. He hadn’t stopped there. He’d taken it upon himself to become friends with Jimin. Proper friends. Gradually he started to chat to Jimin in the kitchen, asking him all about his course and his work. All about his dancing, his hobbies, his parents. Jimin had initially resisted. He could handle the quick, awkward encounters, or a bit of teasing in front of friends, but he didn’t think he could cope with actually being friends with Yoongi. The closeness. The knowledge of Yoongi’s life.

The first time Yoongi let Jimin listen to his music he had to hold back a squeal (extremely masculine, of course).

Jimin was practically vibrating with excitement. He was perched on the edge of Yoongi’s bed, headphones around his neck, with a laptop balanced on his knees. Yoongi was lying on the bed with his face wedged into the duvet.

‘You have to promise not to say anything,’ Yoongi grumbled. ‘Nothing bad, nothing good. I don’t even want to see an eyebrow twitch. Pretend you’ve had too much botox,’

Jimin hit him on the arm. Not even Yoongi’s gloomy mood could kill his anticipation. He had been bugging Yoongi about this for weeks now, past the point of being reasonable. Several times he thought he was annoying Yoongi so much that he was jeopardising their friendship, but then, for some unknown reason, Yoongi relented. He had barely slept the night before, partially in disbelief that Yoongi was actually going to let him listen, and wouldn’t just pull the plug at the last minute. The idea of listening to Yoongi’s music, actually hearing what he’d created, was keeping him up. He’d explained some of it to Jimin, the process of making the songs, let Jimin mess around a bit with the software, but he’d never let Jimin so much as hear a second of anything he’d created.

Jimin was mostly sure that it would be amazing, but there was also a slight fear that it was going to be awful and he would have to pretend he liked it, especially after he’d built it up in his head so much.

‘I promise, no reaction of any kind, I’ll even leave the room if you want,’

Yoongi narrowed his eyes ‘for some reason I don’t think I believe you,’

‘Too late to back out now anyway,’ Jimin grinned, slipping the headphones on and starting the song. The first thing he noticed was how much nicer the headphones were than his own. Then the music. He certainly wouldn’t have to pretend to like it.

It took his breath away. It was harsh, painful, all consuming. Angry and loud, but honest and heart-wrenching, with a few double-entendres thrown in for good measure. He was so completely absorbed he didn’t even notice Yoongi’s body slowly stiffening the longer he listened to the music, lying rigid next to him on the bed. He found himself laughing at one moment, on the verge of tears the next, and extremely attracted to Yoongi throughout. The brilliance of the lyrics and depth of his voice, not to mention the way he almost growled some words, which wasn’t exactly doing wonders for Jimin’s quest to view Yoongi as just a friend. He was in awe that Yoongi created it from scratch, made it in its entirety.

By the time the final song drew to a close, he was so overwhelmed he didn’t really know what to do with himself. All he could think to do was throw himself on Yoongi in a massive display of unwanted affection, which of course he couldn’t do. He still felt like he was vibrating, although this time with pure happiness and awe.

When he finally took the headphones off, he noticed how stiff Yoongi was. He prodded him in the leg, and Yoongi jumped, turning over in a far-too-relaxed way for how stressed he obviously was, face white as a sheet and a tight set around his eyes.

Jimin rolled his eyes. Even when he was at his most vulnerable, Yoongi still put on a front of being blasé.

‘So, what should we get up to?’ he asked, barely stifling a laugh when Yoongi’s face twisted into confusion. Silence stretched between them.

‘Uh, we could watch a movie or something?’ Yoongi eventually said, face still frozen in uncomfortable confusion.

Jimin grinned. It was too easy.

‘Oh my God, I loved it, it was incredible,’ Jimin said, laughing at the blush that immediately wove its way up Yoongi’s cheeks.

Yoongi turned back around, burying his head back into the bed.

‘Dick,’

‘Hey, you told me you didn’t want my opinion, I was just doing what you wanted,’

‘Pshh, you can’t shut up for two minutes, I knew you would run your mouth as soon as you finished listening,’

‘Ha, but I didn’t, did I? I knew you wanted my opinion really, I’m just too important,’ Jimin teased, watching the blush spread down Yoongi’s neck, still face down.

Eventually Yoongi sat up, continuously running his hands through his hair as if that would somehow hide how red-faced he was. Jimin decided he should take pity. He took hold of Yoongi’s arm, pausing his movements.

‘Seriously though, I love it. It’s so…you, y’know. Like it’s kind of brash, but it’s so honest and vulnerable at the same time. It’s amazing,’

Yoongi looked up at him, eyes flickering over Jimin’s face. Quiet filled the room, stretching out between them. Jimin’s face grew hot under his gaze. He was suddenly all too aware that he was holding on to Yoongi’s arm, and it was burning under his touch. His heart was thundering in his ears. They were so close together, just staring at each other. He could just lean forward, just a bit, and they would be kissing. He looked at Yoongi. Yoongi wasn’t exactly moving away. In fact, he kept looking down, almost as if he were looking at Jimin’s lips.

The front door slammed and they jumped apart. Jimin shook his head. Stupid. He needed to stop getting carried away. Yoongi leant back against the bedframe, rubbing the back of his neck, looking anywhere but Jimin.

‘Well, I’m glad you like it. Wanna watch something?’

A few weeks later he found out inadvertently from Namjoon that Yoongi had only let two other people listen to his music. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.

‘Tell the rest of us what it’s like, stingy bastard won’t let anyone else listen,’ Taehyung whined.

‘It was good, I really liked it,’ Jimin said, looking at Yoongi to try and judge the situation, unsure of how much to say.

‘No, really, what do you really think of it, tell us, what’s the best bit, what don’t you like, tell us all,’ Taehyung was shaking Jimin by the shoulders now, eyes wild. Jimin just laughed.

‘You know,’ Jimin said eventually, pointing a finger at Yoongi and breaking Taehyung’s hold with a chuckle.

‘I know,’ came Yoongi’s quiet reply from the other side of the room. The air between them seemed to fizzle for a moment, before Yoongi left the room and took Jimin’s heart with him.

He was falling harder than ever. Every time Yoongi would appear in the kitchen, running off to work with wet hair, or slumped down on one of the library tables, eyes half closed, all Jimin would want to do was run his hands through Yoongi’s hair.

He made Jimin coffee, covered him with a blanket when he fell asleep on the sofa, and washed some of his dishes. From time to time, he could almost convince himself that something might happen, that Yoongi might one day wake up and realise that Jimin was the man for him all along. They still argued of course, especially when Jimin would fumble in too loudly after a night out, or Yoongi would use up the last of the milk and forget to buy more. But it didn’t feel the same. It felt more like bickering. Like an old married couple, as Namjoon and Jin would constantly point out. Whenever they would say anything, Yoongi would always fix them with a truly deadly glare, but didn’t make any more cutting comments.

It was killing him.

The whole experience was disconcertingly boyfriend-like. Or at least what Jimin had imagined having a boyfriend would be like. It wasn’t helping one bit. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stay away. He was spending so much time with Yoongi his university work was in danger of being neglected.

Months went by.

He found himself regularly screaming into a pillow after Yoongi would do something all-too sweet, or tease him in a way that made his blood run hot.

Worst of all, Jeongguk had betrayed him.

He’d gone and ended up with Taehyung.

Taehyung, who insisted he needed a year of freedom, and couldn’t be pinned down. Taehyung, who just couldn’t commit at the moment, and thought Jeongguk was sweet, but not much more. That same Taehyung was now completely wrapped up in Jeongguk. Jimin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them apart, and it was sickening (obviously he was incredibly happy for them) and he wanted to gouge his eyes out every time he caught them cuddling on the sofa. In all fairness, he probably should’ve seen it coming.

Taehyung would always sneakily ask about Jeongguk, dropping a sly comment here or there, baiting Jimin into giving him updates. After a while, Jimin realised that Taehyung was looking at Jeongguk with the same wistful puppy eyes he had so often seen from Jeongguk. It didn’t take Taehyung long in the end. Once he’d decided what he wanted it only took him a couple of weeks to make it official. They were the sweetest, most abhorrent couple Jimin had ever met. Lucky bastards.

It didn’t work that way for everyone. Not that Jimin was bitter or anything.

He was more than happy to settle for waking up on the sofa, bleary eyed, to Yoongi carefully draping a blanket over him. It filled him with an indescribable warmth, accompanied with a harsh tugging feeling around his heart.

Yoongi’s overnight visitors didn’t stop. If anything it got worse. The timing was atrocious. It always happened as soon as Jimin started to allow himself to hope. Whenever they had an overly deep conversation, staying up late into the night to talk, or Yoongi did anything particularly sweet, the next day there would be a shockingly attractive man or woman sauntering their way down the driveway. He made jokes about it, couldn’t help himself. It was the only way to ignore

On Yoongi’s birthday, Jimin had burned him a CD of songs he thought Yoongi would like (Jeongguk rolled his eyes so intensely that he complained that he strained them). Yoongi had made a strange face, caught somewhere between appreciation, and something stifled. He almost looked constipated. That evening, he’d gone out with some friends and had sex with perhaps the loudest woman in the world. Jimin had cried into his pillow.

Maybe it was time to move on. Properly. As he should’ve done months ago.

He sighed as he watched the little Tinder icon slowly download on his phone. Better late than never.