Chapter Text
It starts as a joke on the night Jimin gets dumped by Choi Jinhwan.
It’s the kind of joke between friends who’ve known each other so long that the line between friendship and family is blurred beyond recognition. The kind of joke borne from self-deprecation and a hint of recklessness.
It starts as a joke.
“We should just date each other.”
Jimin is the one to voice the proposal. The words sit in the air between them, teetering as drunkenly as Jimin himself does over the side of Yoongi’s couch.
Flopped boneless in the armchair a foot away with an empty beer perched on his stomach, Yoongi snorts. The beer bottle topples over from the force of it, landing on the rug with a clink. Neither of them bothers to pick it up.
“No, I’m serious,” Jimin insists, though his case isn’t exactly helped by the way the words slur together on their way off his tongue. “We should.”
“Why the hell would I date you?” Yoongi asks. He tilts his head and Jimin tilts with him like a puppy, nearly falling off the couch as he does. “I used to change your diaper, in case you forgot. There’s no coming back from that.”
“That was one time!”
“One time was enough, thanks.”
“Well, jeez, asshole,” Jimin grouses, “never mind, then.”
Yoongi studies him for a moment before asking, “What makes you so sure we’d even be compatible?”
This makes Jimin pause for a moment, sobriety leaking into his brain as he considers the question seriously.
The thing is, he’s known Yoongi his entire life—since before he was born, when tiny Yoongi and his eomma would visit Jimin’s pregnant mother every Sunday to drop off snacks and have lunch together. He knows every last detail about Yoongi’s life, knows all his likes and dislikes, knows about every person Yoongi has slept with and about every time he’s fallen in love. He knows how angry Yoongi’s father makes him sometimes, and that he always regrets fighting with him, even when he knows he has a right to stick up for himself.
Jimin knows all the good things and all the bad things, all the ups and downs and in-betweens. He knows all that there is to know about Min Yoongi, perhaps knows more about Yoongi than Yoongi knows about himself.
But even then—
“I’m not… I just know that we wouldn’t hurt each other, at least,” Jimin murmurs. “You wouldn’t hurt me the way—” He sucks in a sharp breath, cutting off his words before they have a chance to slip past his defenses.
Yoongi doesn’t reply but the answer is clear in his expression.
Jimin sniffles, adding, “We’d be good to each other, hyung. Don’t you think so?”
Yoongi sighs and slips off the armchair to kneel on the floor beside Jimin. He takes his hand, holding it delicately as he looks up into Jimin’s eyes.
The sudden shift in the atmosphere between them makes Jimin squirm.
“I know it hurts,” Yoongi says softly, “but putting a bandaid on it won’t fix it, Jimin-ah. You just need some time, yeah?”
Jimin’s eyes blur with tears but he blinks them back resolutely. This isn’t about Jinhwan, not really, because Jinhwan was just some jerk he spent a few months with. This hurt he feels now is an accumulation of all the hurt of those who came before Jinhwan and those who will probably come after him.
Jimin would like to think he deserves better.
And that maybe ‘better’ has been right under his nose all along.
“I don’t want you to fix it, hyung,” he tells Yoongi. He bites his lip, considering his words carefully before he continues. “I’m just tired of going through this over and over. Dating really shouldn’t suck so fucking much. But maybe if it was you, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Yoongi looks down at their clasped hands and heaves a sigh. He’s not great at talking things out, Jimin knows. He prefers to let his actions speak for themselves. But after a moment, he looks up again and says, “I just—You mean too much to me, Jimin-ah.”
Which is Yoongi for, Thanks, but no thanks.
And it’s not often Yoongi takes that tone. So, Jimin drops the issue. For now.
—
Jimin was twelve when Yoongi’s parents got divorced. They’d given Yoongi the news on the first day of Chuseok, of all days, compounding the hurt by tearing their family apart during a holiday meant to be spent with loved ones.
Jimin surmises that Yoongi never really forgave them for that. He’s never mentioned it, but in his quiet way, after that year, he simply started spending Chuseok at Jimin’s house instead.
“Pass me the wrench.”
Jimin dutifully hands over a tool that looks like it would be called a ‘wrench’ and sits back on his heels. Yoongi’s laying on Jimin’s parents’ kitchen floor, trying to fix a leak in the faucet as Jimin provides moral support nearby.
“This is a hammer, Mimi-yah,” Yoongi says flatly.
Jimin takes it back from him and digs through Yoongi’s toolbox once more. “Is it because you think I’m not pretty enough?”
“It’s not because you’re not pretty enough,” Yoongi replies with a sigh.
Jimin hands over another tool. “Yeah, couldn’t be that.” He pauses, tilts his head, and finds himself looking south of Yoongi’s stomach. “Is it because of that one time? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, y’know, hyung. It’s natural.”
Yoongi takes a moment to answer. “It’s not because of that one time,” he grits out. “I can feel you staring, stop it.”
Jimin huffs out a sigh, redirecting his gaze to Yoongi’s pink elbows as he examines the sink pipe. “I dunno why you won’t give it a chance, then. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’d be an outstanding boyf—”
“Yoongi, honey, leave it. Jimin’s father will take care of that tomorrow after he gets back. I can get by until then.” Jimin turns at the sound of his mother’s voice and finds her leaning against the kitchen doorway with her arms folded over her chest.
“I’ve almost got it, eomeoni,” Yoongi says from halfway under the sink. “If your son knew the difference between a screwdriver and a wrench, we’d have been done already.”
Jimin punches him in the leg and sticks his tongue out when Yoongi shoots him a glare.
His mother sighs in the way only the weary mother of a grown man can sigh. “And who do you think is to blame for that? You and his appa spoiled him so much when you were kids. Always told him his hyung would take care of everything so he never bothered to figure anything out for himself. Now look at him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jimin whines.
His mother walks into the room and reaches down to pull out a metal tool that looks like a lobster claw from Yoongi’s toolbox. She pinches Jimin’s cheek as she hands it over to his hyung. “Nothing, baby. You’re perfect.”
Jimin pouts, pulling away. “Just because I’m not McGyver you all think I don’t know anything. I know plenty of things. A wrench isn’t the end of the world.”
Yoongi grunts with the effort of tightening whatever he’s tightening and then sits up and looks between the Parks. “Done.”
“Thanks, Yoon.” Jimin’s mother pats Yoongi on the back as they get to their feet. “So, when are you boys leaving for the airport?”
Jimin looks at his watch and shrugs. “Soon as hyung gets cleaned up. Don’t wanna run the risk of appa calling a taxi if he has to wait too long.”
Yoongi washes his hands off in the sink and replaces his toolbox in the hall closet before reaching for his and Jimin’s jackets. “Do you need us to pick up anything on the way back?” he asks Jimin’s mother.
She looks around the kitchen, probably trying to imagine her Chuseok meal plans for the next few days. Without Jimin’s younger brother who lives overseas, it’ll just be the four of them this year. “I think we still need apples and rice wine. Beer if you two want it.”
With a promise to stop by the market, Jimin and Yoongi put on their coats and make their way out of the house. Yoongi tosses Jimin his car keys, slipping into the passenger side of his own car before Jimin has a chance to protest. He hates driving during rush hour.
They’re quiet as Jimin winds through narrow neighborhood streets and then onto the main road. It’s twilight by now, so the sun’s weakening rays reach like delicate spider webs across the darkening sky. Yoongi’s gaze traces over the forms of the looming skyscrapers outside.
“When did you tell your eomma we’d come by?” Jimin asks after a while.
Yoongi looks away from the window to face him, his expression stoic but gaze heavy as he fixes it on Jimin’s profile. “Day after tomorrow. Eomma’s for lunch and abeoji’s house for dinner. Hyung’s new girlfriend is coming so he said I can’t skip.”
“Geumjae hyung is dating someone?” Jimin asks, surprised.
Yoongi hums an affirmative.
“Is it serious?”
“Must be.”
“Wonder what that’s like,” Jimin muses.
Yoongi throws him a wary side-eyed glance as he asks, “What?”
“Being in a committed relationship where you actually, you know, like each other.”
“Jimin-ah…”
“No, really. I’ve never experienced it. Must be nice,” Jimin says. He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice but he can’t quite manage it. “I mean, I can’t even get my best friend to date me, so…”
“Jimin, c’mon, drop it already.”
It’s that damn tone again. The one he knows not to argue with because it means Yoongi doesn’t want to deal with Jimin’s shit for once.
Jimin’s grip on the steering wheel tightens until his knuckles turn white. “Fine.”
—
In the end, Geumjae’s relationship turns out to be much more serious than expected as he announces his engagement during lunch at their mother’s house.
His fiance, Kwon Jieun, is a perfectly lovely woman who is perfectly suited to Yoongi’s perfectly mild-mannered brother. Less perfect is her younger sister Naeun—tagging along for moral support—and the way she eyes Yoongi as if he’s her next meal. It’s like watching catastrophe play out in excruciating slow motion—her hand on Yoongi’s arm, her delicate giggles at Yoongi’s signature dry humor, how Jimin might as well be a fly on the wall for all the attention she pays him.
It’s no surprise, then, when Kwon Naeun exchanges phone numbers with Yoongi under the guise of “wedding planning.”
Even less of a surprise is Yoongi sneaking out the next day to meet her for coffee.
—
Thus begins the worst kind of pain watching Yoongi get taken apart by this woman who, Jimin is sure, must have been a demon in a past life. She’s terrible in a hundred different ways and a master of hiding each of them from Yoongi. Only Jimin sees right through her.
He watches the disaster unfold, unable to do anything because, even if he’s known Yoongi his entire life, even if they’re closer than family, they don’t butt into each other’s romantic relationships. It’s just the way things are.
Then, eight months in, Yoongi finally catches on to her awfulness.
Expert gaslighter that she is, though, Naeun somehow manages to make their breakup Yoongi’s fault and it’s Jimin who’s left to pick up the pieces after she’s gone.
They’ve each had their share of shitty breakups, some worse than others. Naeun is what Jimin would consider a Level 7 on the Min Yoongi Got Dumped scale. Not the worst ever, but the kind of breakup that leaves Yoongi eating a bucket of ice cream every night for two weeks and ordering stupidly expensive things from Amazon that Jimin makes him return as soon as he receives them. Yoongi calls it “Controlled Catharsis.” Jimin just thinks he’ll regret it later.
It’s bad enough that Yoongi falls into a pretty bad slump for a while. Eventually, Jimin feels like he’s nagging him too much and decides to take a step back. Maybe he just needs time.
The theory proves to be correct because, two weeks after this self-imposed moratorium on babysitting him, and three months to the day after The Breakup, Yoongi finally texts Jimin.
“I thought I ‘meant too much’ to you. Now I’m only worth a rebound? Hyung, you’re making it really hard not to want to kick your ass.”
Jimin had put off replying to Yoongi’s texts until he got home from work, going so far as to leave later than normal from the office so he wouldn’t run into Yoongi in the hallway of their apartment building.
Now, he’s curled up in bed with his phone pressed to his ear, trying to make sense of Yoongi’s sudden turnaround.
“Didn’t you ask me out literally the night you got dumped?” Yoongi replies dryly. Jimin lets out a protest that gets drowned out by Yoongi’s next words, “You wouldn’t be a rebound, Jimin.”
“Did you throw out her things?”
“Yeah, I did. I gave whatever I couldn’t throw away to Geumjae hyung to get it back to her. I even unfollowed her on Instagram,” Yoongi says calmly. After a pause, he repeats in a softer tone, “You wouldn’t be a rebound, Jimin-ah. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Jimin knows he wouldn’t. And in truth, Yoongi doesn’t sound miserable like he did the last time Jimin talked to him. But even for Yoongi, who approaches relationships more cavalierly than Jimin does, eight months is a long time.
When Jimin doesn’t reply, Yoongi goes on, “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure, you know?”
Jimin stares across the room at his desk, where a photo of the two of them at Yoongi’s high school graduation reflects the dim glow of his bedside lamp.
He suddenly understands Yoongi’s hesitance all those months ago when Jimin had proposed this the first time. The desire to protect memories like the ones strewn about Jimin’s room is all-consuming. The memories they’ve made together are worth protecting.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” Jimin asks eventually. He leans back against his headboard, pinching his sheets between his fingers.
“I realized you were right. We both deserve better,” Yoongi says. His deep voice is low and gravelly from tiredness. “It took me a while to get here. Sorry I kept you waiting.”
“S’fine,” Jimin murmurs. “You’re here now.”
“So, where do you wanna go for our date?” Yoongi asks, practically smiling through the phone.
Jimin lets out a snort. “That sounds so fucking weird.”
Yoongi must hear something in Jimin’s voice, because he’s quieter when he asks, “Jimin-ah?”
Jimin blows out a sigh. Ironic how their roles have suddenly reversed.
“I’m scared,” Jimin admits eventually. He’s still staring at the picture on his desk, at the bright smiles on his and Yoongi’s faces. He wouldn’t be able to survive losing that.
“Me too,” Yoongi replies. “But we owe it to ourselves to give it a shot.”
That’s what Jimin has wanted from the beginning, isn’t it? To try. Because he knows Yoongi. Because Yoongi won’t add to Jimin’s ever-growing collection of heartbreaks. Because Yoongi loves him already.
“You’re really over her?”
Yoongi hums an affirmative. “I can’t say I wouldn’t have a visceral urge to puke if I saw her tomorrow, but yeah. She’s kind of a jerk.”
“Yeah, she is,” Jimin snickers.
“So, what do you think?”
Jimin considers it for a moment longer, and then—
“Yeah, okay, let’s go on a date.”
—
Predictably, their first date starts out a little awkward.
It’s just that they’re not used to thinking of each other like this.
Romantically.
Jimin’s brain short circuits at the word.
Romantic.
And to make matters worse, they couldn’t have chosen a more cliche restaurant, with its candlelit tables and fancy upholstered chairs. There’s even a sommelier to help with wine pairings.
Jimin peers at Yoongi across the expanse of the table and it feels like looking at a stranger. He’s dressed up all nice in a button down and slacks like the kind he wears on the dates where he actually cares to impress his partner, only this time he’s made the effort for Jimin.
“What?” Yoongi asks, running his finger along the lip of his whiskey glass.
“I’m thinking about how you wore your nice pants,” Jimin observes.
Yoongi squints at him.
“You wore your nice pants but not your Rolex.”
“So?”
“So,” Jimin says, “on the spectrum of Min Yoongi conquests, I reckon I fall somewhere between Jeon Jiwoong from undergrad and first love Kim Seokjin.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “I knew you’d be like this.”
“Have to say, I thought I’d be worth at least the watch.”
“Yah,” Yoongi whines, dragging a weary hand through his dark hair.
“Oh, but you’re wearing your Sandro shirt,” Jimin notes. “That puts me a cut above Im Wooshik, at least.”
“I’m leaving you with the bill if you don’t stop,” Yoongi warns him.
“Fine, fine. All I’m saying is, you look nice, hyung.” Jimin holds his hands up placatingly, reveling in the way the tips of Yoongi’s ears turn pink at the compliment.
“Thanks,” Yoongi mutters.
Jimin gives him a minute to compose himself and then leans forward, folding his arms over the table as a roguish smile curls over his lips. “So, tell me, Min Yoongi-ssi. Do you come here often?”
Yoongi heaves a long-suffering sigh and downs his whiskey in one shot.
—
Jimin goes on dates with practiced ease. He prides himself on knowing all the best lines to make his partners smitten with him, carries an arsenal of requisite first date questions to help him weed out the keepers from the flops. The high of getting to know someone for the first time is second nature to him.
What’s not second nature is this—navigating a first date conversation with someone who’s been around his entire life. Someone who already knows all the important things, like what side of the bed Jimin prefers to sleep on and how he takes his coffee.
Fortunately, Yoongi seems to realize their mistake too.
“We could have probably skipped the restaurant,” Yoongi says, just as the waiter has cleared away their salads. He glances at the wall of windows that look over the Han River outside. It’s twilight, so the sun’s reds and oranges have begun to bleed into a canvas of navy dotted with diamond-like stars. “Neither of us even likes Western food.”
Jimin hums in agreement. “Where else could we go?” he asks.
Yoongi meets his eye across the table and his lips curve up into a mischievous grin. “I might know a place.”
—
At the ripe age of nine, Jimin’s dad brought Jimin, Yoongi, and Jihyun to Tongin Market for the first time. He’d given each of the boys their own stack of coins and helped them walk around from stall to stall, filling up their lunchboxes with food.
Jimin, toddling around with full cheeks and the brightest, toothiest smile, was a big hit among the stall ahjummas and halmeonis who snuck him extra servings of every dish when his appa wasn’t looking. It’s one of Jimin’s fondest memories of his childhood and of spending time with Yoongi and Jihyun and his father.
The Tongin Market of today is just as bustling as it was almost twenty years ago. Colored by nostalgia and against a backdrop of fading sunlight that peeks through the glass ceiling overhead, it exudes a feeling of home.
“Is the first date too early to profess my love for you?” Jimin breathes, staring up at the dilapidated sign marking the entrance to the market.
Beside him, Yoongi snorts. “C’mon, let’s get our coins,” he says, taking Jimin by the hand to drag him inside.
They’re overdressed for the market in their fancy dinner clothes but Jimin could care less. He accepts the stack of coins that Yoongi hands over after paying, along with an empty tray to fill up at the stalls, and then practically runs back out to the market.
“I’m so happy I sacrificed my steak for this,” Jimin says. He skitters over to an ahjumma selling glass noodles and offers two coins, bowing happily as she fills up a compartment on his tray. “It’s been years since we came here.”
Yoongi makes a sound of agreement behind him, holding out his own tray for glass noodles. “Last time was college, I think. After your econ final in second year.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jimin says, making a face. “That exam was brutal.”
“You cried all over your dosirak.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jimin repeats with a scrunch of his nose. “I was totally convinced I failed it, especially after comparing my answers with Tae.”
They meander further into the crowded market, stopping twice more for fried ddeokbokki and rolls of gimbap before turning their focus on getting something to drink. Jimin finds he’s still as popular with the stall ahjummas now as he was as a nine-year-old, and they load up his tray with extra helpings of food at each stop.
Walking around with Yoongi, teasing each other and chatting about their day feels easy, normal, but maybe that’s the beauty of dating your best friend—everything comes naturally. With one hand clasped in Yoongi’s larger one, the other holding his lunch tray as the Tongin Market coins clink around in his pocket, Jimin forgets that this is supposed to be weird.
By the time their trays are full and their stacks of coins spent, they’re both famished. They quickly claim an empty table at the center of the market to eat at, amidst a few stalls of non-food items, like bags and accessories.
“I’ll go get rice,” Yoongi tells him.
Jimin nods, already halfway through a roll of gimbap.
The market’s crowds have begun to wane by now, as it gets closer to closing time. They won’t have much of a chance after they’re done eating, so, despite his hunger, Jimin wanders over to one of the clothing sellers.
There’s not much that catches his eye apart from a denim jacket tucked into a corner rack. With permission from the ahjusshi in charge, Jimin slips off his dinner jacket to try it on.
“How much is this, ahjusshi?” he asks, turning side to side to check the fit in the small mirror beside the sales counter.
It’s not a bad price, so Jimin buys the jacket on a whim. He’s just walking back to his and Yoongi’s table when Yoongi reappears carrying two bowls of steaming rice.
“I see you were busy while I was gone,” he says, eyeing Jimin as he takes a seat.
“What do you think?” Jimin asks.
He turns around to show Yoongi the back of the jacket, on which there’s a hand painted sunrise of golds and oranges with embroidered daffodils forming the sun’s rays.
Yoongi gives him two thumbs-up to show his approval. Satisfied with the response and knowing that’s the most he’ll get out of him, Jimin turns back to the table and sheds his new jacket.
As he takes a seat, he finds Yoongi’s gaze dipping to his chest to stare at the shirt he’s been wearing all night, seeing it properly for the first time. “What? Did I spill something?” he asks, looking down at himself all over.
“It’s see-through,” Yoongi replies, voice a little faint. He can’t seem to drag his eyes up to Jimin’s face.
Jimin looks down at himself. “Oh. Huh.”
Yoongi swallows and then clears his throat, turning away from Jimin to face the emptying market. “Well, uh, so what do you wanna do after we eat?”
Jimin shrugs and flops down into a chair to finally eat. “Hmm… Eat more?” he muses. At Yoongi’s look, he quickly continues, “Dessert, I mean. Coffee, ice cream, bungeoppang, patbingsu, the world is our oyster, hyung.”
Yoongi gives in at the mention of dessert. “Alright, alright. We’ll see what’s open around here after we’re done eating.”
Maybe it’s the magic of the market, or maybe it’s the food, but Jimin finds it’s much easier to make conversation here than it had been at the restaurant. He and Yoongi revert back to their comfortable back-and-forth that is equal parts quick-witted banter and harmless bickering. As they chat, they share their food, feeding each other ddeokbokki and chicken wings amid recollections of their visits to the market as kids. It’s nice, Jimin thinks, not to have the pressure that a regular first date would put on him. After all, there’s a good chance Yoongi will still like him even after he spills kimchi on his see-through white shirt.
They make quick work of their dinner, rushing out of the market just as the stalls are closing, and find themselves back on the sidewalk under a new night of stars.
It’s mid-summer but the evening has cooled down quite a bit, causing Jimin to shiver as they stroll along aimlessly.
“Two jackets in his bag and he won’t wear either,” Yoongi gripes, staring up at the sky as if asking a higher power to save him. “If this is a ploy to get me to give you my jacket, it won’t work.”
Jimin rolls his eyes and pulls his blazer from where he’d stuffed it into a shopping bag with his new denim jacket. “You’re a terrible date, did you know that?”
“Sure, sure. So, was it an imposter who was professing his love to me earlier or…?”
Jimin ignores him as he slips on his coat. They’ve walked a ways from the market by now and this new street is littered with little hole-in-the-wall cafes and bars. Before long, his attention is drawn to a walk-up window in front of which people are seated at tables drinking wine and eating pastries.
He points at it wordlessly, turning the full force of his puppy dog eyes on Yoongi.
Yoongi tamps down a smile and holds out his hand. “Well, c’mon, then.”
—
In the end, they stay out much too late and drink much more than they should. By the time they arrive back at their apartment building, holding hands in the elevator and smiling like they have a hundred secrets between them, it’s past two in the morning.
Still, Jimin feels giddy, as though he’s a teenager on his first date ever, and it could be all the wine he had or it could just be because it’s Yoongi. He can’t really tell.
“Just for the record,” Yoongi says as he walks Jimin to his apartment down the hall from his own. He waits until Jimin, a little more sober after a nap in the taxi, meets his eye. “You’re not a conquest.”
Jimin’s lips curl into a sly, sleepy smile. “Ohoho, so Min Yoongi can be romantic. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes and stuffs his hands into his pockets when they stop before Jimin’s apartment. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”
Jimin’s grin only widens and he reaches out to wind his arms around Yoongi’s lithe waist. Leaned up against his front door, he’s shorter than his hyung by a few inches. “So, is this the part where we kiss?”
Cheeks blooming pink, Yoongi clears his throat and replies primly, “I don’t kiss on the first date.”
Jimin pouts. “Since when? As I recall, it only took one date for Seokjin hyung to get your di—”
Yoongi slaps a hand over Jimin’s mouth to cut him off and leans down to kiss him on the forehead, first, then the apple of his cheek. Jimin closes his eyes, smiling under the warmth of Yoongi’s hand.
It’s not the first time he’s been kissed by Yoongi. Growing up, Yoongi had smooched his fair share of scraped knees and bruised elbows. But this is different. His lips are warmer, gentler. He lingers a bit before he pulls back, nosing at Jimin’s cheek.
“Goodnight, Jiminie,” Yoongi whispers.
At this, Jimin pulls his arms away and Yoongi takes a step back, stalling as if he doesn’t want to go just yet. They stare at each other for so long that it makes Jimin wonder what Yoongi’s thinking about.
“It’s gonna be weird,” he says eventually, “not to go inside and text you about the great date I just had. You’re always the first person I tell.”
Yoongi offers a crooked smile. “Yeah. Me too.”
“But maybe now I can tell you other things,” Jimin muses.
Yoongi tilts his head, quirking his eyebrow as if to ask, Like what?
Jimin feels the confidence of the wine seep out of him as he swallows around a sudden hornets’ nest of nerves in his chest. The newness of this is overwhelming.
Smiling bashfully, he whispers, “Like how hot your voice is and how much I like listening to you talk.”
“Oh?” Yoongi says. He closes the distance between them again, this time placing firm hands on Jimin’s hips. The newness of this is overwhelming. “You like my voice, Jiminie?”
Jimin groans as warmth darkens the tops of his cheeks and leans forward to bury his face against Yoongi’s shoulder. “Don’t tease me,” he pleads, voice muffled. “I’m trying to flirt.”
Yoongi breathes out a low, surprised laugh, pulling Jimin back from him so that he can look into his face. “Okay, okay. Go on then, flirt to your heart’s content. I’m ready.”
“No, you jerk. Now I’m shy. Go away.” Jimin pouts, looking at the stained hallway carpet.
But instead of doing as he’s told, Yoongi leans closer until Jimin can feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek. His heart stutters at their sudden proximity.
“Not so fast, Mimi-yah,” he murmurs. His mouth brushes against the shell of Jimin’s ear and Jimin shivers, clutching at the front of Yoongi’s shirt. “You wore a see-through shirt on our first date and now you wanna play coy?”
“H-Hyung,” Jimin stammers, “you’re playing dirty.”
Yoongi huffs out a low laugh that causes heat to trickle down Jimin’s spine. “Is it playing dirty if I’m giving you what you want?”
“Absolutely,” Jimin replies. “You’re a menace.”
Yoongi pulls back and his lips are curled up into a kind of sharp smirk that Jimin has never seen on him before. It makes the already rapid pounding of Jimin’s heart kick into overdrive.
“Don’t play games you can’t win, Jimin,” Yoongi drawls.
With a little more distance between them, Jimin finds his brazenness once more.
“Who says I haven’t won?” Jimin asks. He reaches down to open the front of his jacket, reveling in the way Yoongi’s gaze tracks the movement. “You like it that much? I’ve worn this before.”
Yoongi’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Yeah. But not for me.”
He’s right, Jimin realizes. Yoongi had dressed up for him, worn things he’d agonized about wearing for other people, but Jimin had dressed up for Yoongi, too.
He peeks at Yoongi from beneath his eyelashes. “Well, now it is. Now it’s for you.”
Yoongi’s gaze bores into Jimin for a moment that drags out so far it becomes something else entirely. Then, Jimin feels the minute pressure of lips against the crown of his head. Yoongi steps back once more and tells him, “It’s getting late. Go on in, Jimin-ah. Goodnight.”
He waits until Jimin straightens up and unlocks his front door before he turns to head down the hall to his own apartment.
Instead of heading inside, Jimin pauses with a hand on the door handle, biting his lip.
“Hey, hyung,” he calls out. Yoongi peers over his shoulder at him, brow quirked. “You said one date. Is that negotiable or…?”
Yoongi’s lips split into Jimin’s favorite gummy grin. “It was never gonna be just one date, was it, Jiminie? Not for us.”
The newness of this may be overwhelming now, but Jimin knows it won’t always be. Someday, this newness will soften around the edges, becoming well-worn, just like their friendship.
—
But the thing is, it’ll take time.
He’s changed into pajamas and tucked under his bedcovers before Jimin allows himself to think.
And then he does what comes the most naturally—he reaches for his phone.
“S’posed to be a joke and then you went and had to be perfect boyfriend material, what’s with that,” Jimin mumbles. He buries his face further into Yoongi’s neck, half asleep and talking the kind of nonsense he’ll probably regret in the morning. “Stop being so hot.”
“Sorry, no can do.” Jimin smacks him weakly on the stomach, garnering a low “oof” from Yoongi. “You’re one to talk, though.”
“S’right. Can’t let you one-up me,” Jimin replies. He smacks his lips together after letting out a mighty yawn. It’s getting harder to make sense of words, harder to keep his eyes open. “Hey, hyung?”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re gonna be my mister, there’s something you should know.”
A pause. Then, Yoongi says almost cautiously, “What’s that?”
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Jimin knows he’s really going to regret this in the morning but right now, the words that spill from his lips feel imperative.
“I really—” Jimin loses his train of thought for a moment before retrieving it from the depths of his half-asleep brain, “really like being called ‘baby.’”
A relieved huff of laughter. “Oh?”
“Mhm.”
“Okay.” Yoongi kisses the top of Jimin’s head. “‘Night, baby. Hope you had a good time tonight.”
“G’night,” Jimin murmurs. His eyes fall closed, brain going fuzzy as sleep overtakes him. “Meant what I said before. Stop being so perfect or I might hafta put a ring on it.”
He barely hears Yoongi’s reply, and in his sleep-addled mind, he can’t make sense of it. “I dunno. Would that really be so bad?”
When Jimin was 19 and decided he wanted to go to school for graphic design rather than medicine, Yoongi was the one to break the news to Jimin’s parents.
“They won’t yell at you,” Jimin had said. “They love you.”
“They love you, too, pabo,” Yoongi had argued, but in the end he’d done what Jimin wanted anyway.
And Jimin was right. His parents didn’t get angry at Yoongi because Yoongi could do no wrong. And if Yoongi supported Jimin’s dream to become a graphic designer instead of a neurosurgeon, then they would support it too.
“You went on a date with Yoongi? Min Yoongi?” A pause, and then his mother shrieks. “Yah, how could you keep that from me?”
Jimin pulls the phone away from his ear with a grimace. “Eomma, it’s only been a day.”
“I’ve waited almost 30 years for this moment, you brat. I should have been the first person you called.”
“You are—”
“So, how did it happen? What did you do? Did he kiss you?”
Jimin blows out a sigh. He knew she’d be like this. “Eomma, it was only the first date. We just wanted to try it out.”
“Try? Try what? You’re soulmates, what’s there to try?” Jimin’s mother grumbles. Jimin sticks his tongue out even though she can’t see him. He curls up against the armrest of his sofa where he’s been sitting and binging dramas all day and pouts. His mother takes a deep breath and asks, somewhat more calmly, “So, how was it?”
“It’s Yoongi hyung,” Jimin mumbles. “Of course it was perfect.”
He tells her about the restaurant and Tongin Market and the cafe and how Yoongi knew all the things that would make Jimin happiest.
“As he should,” his mother says at the end of it. “Who knows you better than he does?”
“Yeah,” Jimin admits. “It was nice.”
“Will you go out again?” Her tone is more reserved now, more “Jimin’s mother who loves him” and less “Yoongi-loves-Jimin fangirl.”
Jimin hums affirmatively. “That’s the plan.”
“I’m glad, Jimin-ah. You both deserve someone to love you as much as you already love each other.”
Jimin’s heart grows warm at his mother’s words, which mirror the sentiment he’d expressed to Yoongi all those months ago. It makes the weirdness he’s felt after their first date settle a little, assures him that this experiment will be a good thing for them.
“Thanks, ma,” Jimin whispers.
There’s a long pause before his mother voices her next question and it makes the pleasantness within him completely dissipate. “Will you be okay around Naeunie?”
Jimin appreciates his mother’s phrasing. Not “will Yoongi be okay?” but “will you be okay?”
“I think so,” Jimin says. “It’s her fault for leaving him, now she has to live with her choice.”
“Atta boy,” his mother replies. “You’ll be just fine.”
“Hope so.”
“So, when are you bringing Min seobang over to meet us?”
“Eomma…”
“Tell him I’d like him to come over for dinner sometime.”
“What do you mean ‘sometime’? He comes over to eat with you every weekend.”
“Yes, but this’ll be the first time as your boyfriend. It’s different.”
“He’s not my boyf—we’ve only been on one date!”
Jimin had his first kiss at fourteen. It happened by accident and his clearest recollection of the event was that he’d been entirely distraught afterward. As usual, Yoongi was the first person he confided in about it.
“How does it happen by accident?” Yoongi had asked him as they sat on Jimin’s back porch after school that day, sharing a bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream between them.
Anything is possible with Shin Taeri, hyung, believe me.” Jimin shuddered. “Anyway, so picture this—we’re sitting on the field during lunch and I’m showing her the Luffy picture I drew in math, right? And I go to ask her if she thinks it would look better colored with pencils or with markers and she just sits there, doesn’t say anything for like two whole minutes. She’s kinda spacey like that so I turn to ask her again and suddenly it’s like how it feels when Sangchu licks me, you know?”
“Wet?” Yoongi asked, tilting his head.
“Slimy!” Jimin corrected, grimacing. “It was so gross. I wish it never happened. She said she meant to get my cheek but I broke up with her right after that.”
Yoongi snorted. “Mimi-yah…”
“What?”
With a long, endeared look, Yoongi took another bite of ice cream and reached over to ruffle Jimin’s hair. “Nothing.”
“Hyung, not the hair!”
At halfway through 16, Yoongi was far beyond his own era of first kisses and had already had his fair share of liplocks by this time. It figured he wouldn’t understand Jimin’s predicament.
“So, do I get to see this Luffy masterpiece or do girlfriends have exclusives on things like that?”
Jimin wrinkled his nose. “After I dumped her, she told me she didn’t even know what ‘a Luffy’ is. Can you believe that? All this time I was dating a fraud.”
“It was only two weeks.”
“Two whole weeks wasted! No way that counts as my first kiss, I’m gonna rewrite my own history.”
“How’s that?”
“Find someone better to kiss, duh,” Jimin said.
“Right, of course.” Yoongi glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Got any potential candidates?”
With a sigh, Jimin flopped back to lie on the porch, staring at the purples and reds and oranges of the setting sun. “I tried to make a list earlier but unless you’re volunteering as tribute, I’ve got nothing promising lined up.”
“Nah, I’m good.” After a moment, Yoongi looked over at him and added, “Don’t do anything out of desperation, Jiminie. You’ll just end up with more regrets.”
Jimin pouted. “What’s so bad about wanting a redo?”
“Nothing, if you’re sure that’s what you want. But accidents happen for a reason, and I bet ten, fifteen years from now you’ll look back on this moment and laugh about it.”
“No way,” Jimin scoffed, turning away from Yoongi’s grinning face.
Briefly, very briefly, Jimin considered what he might have done if Yoongi had reacted differently, if Yoongi had agreed to kiss him to erase the memory of Shin Taeri’s inexperienced lips devouring his own. Would it have changed anything for them? Was there any way to know?
Ultimately, he decided that Yoongi was right—accidents do happen for a reason. But that didn’t make him want a redo any less.
—
It’s apropos, then, that his first kiss with Yoongi, thirteen years later, ultimately happens by accident, too.
Well, kind of.
They haven’t quite adjusted to being more than friends just yet, even if, after two more dates, Jimin is starting to understand what Yoongi’s exes saw in him as a romantic partner.
It’s probably because a lot of the things that would be heart-fluttering for new couples, like holding hands and affectionate touches, are already normal for Jimin and Yoongi. It takes them a bit more effort to fluster each other and they turn it into a sort of game.
“I call foul.”
Jimin snorts. “On what? My S line?”
Yoongi doesn’t reply, curling an arm behind his head and staring up at Jimin’s ceiling with a sigh.
He’s been sleeping over more lately. It’s all been pretty innocent, but Jimin finds the sudden change interesting. He won’t jinx it by mentioning it though.
Instead, he leans over Yoongi with a smug grin on his lips. “Did it get you all hot and bothered?”
Yoongi sighs again, closing his eyes as if trying to gather strength from the universe.
“Am I that pretty, hyungie? Huh? Can’t resist me, eh?” Jimin pokes Yoongi in the cheek, then leans down to peck him in the same spot.
Yoongi scoffs, eyes still closed.
“It’s okay to admit it, you know. I won’t jud—”
Before Jimin can gird his loins, Yoongi growls and flips their positions, pinning Jimin to the bed. This is so far out of the norm for calm and collected Yoongi that Jimin finds himself fighting down a blush.
“I’ll show you hot and bothered,” he murmurs darkly. Jimin gulps. “What’d I tell you about playing games you can’t win?”
Despite the way his heart feels like it might pound right out of his chest from the surprise of the sudden shift, Jimin’s lips curl up into a slow smirk and he spreads his legs to accommodate Yoongi’s slim figure.
“Again, who says I’m not winning?” he replies in as sultry a voice as he can manage, wrapping a leg around Yoongi’s waist.
Yoongi’s gaze burns into him, his form heavy between Jimin’s thighs as he reaches out to curl a hand around the back of Jimin’s knee to hold him in place. Heat blooms between Jimin’s legs.
Yoongi leans down, so close, so close that Jimin can feel the flutter of his lips against his own and then—
“Who says you are?” he whispers before pulling back and flopping back down on the bed where’d been just a moment ago.
Disoriented, Jimin stares up at the ceiling of his bedroom with electricity still pulsing through his veins and lets out the most pathetic of whines. “So mean.”
—
Jimin refuses to let Yoongi win, so he comes up with a plan. It’s a matter of principle, after all, and his pride is on the line.
Never mind that this is a game neither of them can really lose.
“Hey, hyung, can you look at something for me?”
They’re curled up on Yoongi’s couch a few nights later, flipping through Netflix for something to watch. Holly’s on the floor nearby dozing, entirely unconcerned with the forthcoming shenanigans.
Yoongi hums an acknowledgement as he reads through a movie synopsis but doesn’t turn to look at Jimin.
At his lack of a reaction, Jimin tsks. “Yooooon.”
It’s the omission of a “hyung” at the end that ultimately catches Yoongi’s attention.
“What?” he asks.
It might be a little mean but Jimin is nothing if not petty and it’s worth it to see the way Yoongi’s eyes blow wide at the sight of him.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
And indeed, what is Jimin doing with his shorts rolled down on one side past his Apollo’s belt?
“Is this a good place for a tattoo, d’you think?” he asks, pointing at a place right at his waistline, three inches west of his dick.
“A-A tattoo?”
He relishes the way Yoongi’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down, the way he sits up a little straighter, the way he can’t stop staring at Jimin’s hip.
At least 27 years of friendship hasn’t desensitized them to each other’s attractiveness.
“Yeah,” Jimin goes on. “I was thinking right across here.”
He trails his finger over his own skin, tracing the edge of his Apollo’s belt all the way under the waistline of his shorts. A smirk curls over his lips when Yoongi tracks the movement.
“What do you want to get?” he asks faintly.
Yoongi prides himself on being able to keep his cool in most situations, Jimin knows. Unfortunately for him, he’s decided to date the only person in the world who is a Professional Yoongi Handler.
Jimin waits a breath, studying the way Yoongi’s gaze is trained on his hand, waits until Yoongi finally manages to look up at his face a long moment later.
“How about ‘I WIN’ in big black letters?”
It takes a beat for the words to register but when they do, Yoongi’s eyes narrow. He deflates against the couch. “Fucking hell.”
Jimin readjusts his shorts with a grin. “No? Don’t like it?”
“I hate you.”
—
It’s only a matter of time before Yoongi gets his revenge. Jimin should see it coming but the problem is, if he’s a Professional Yoongi Handler, then Yoongi is a Certified Jimin Whisperer. And he’s so subtle about it that Jimin doesn’t even realize what’s happened until after the fact.
“What happened to it?”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s why I called you. You’re the computer expert.”
Jimin glances over his shoulder with a flat expression on his face and then tugs on the arm of Yoongi’s chair to roll him close enough for Jimin to sit down in his lap.
“Yah.” Yoongi’s protest is weak as he winds protective arms around Jimin’s waist to ensure he doesn’t fall.
“Bet you were on some weird porn site or something, weren’t you?” Jimin mumbles. He clicks around on Yoongi’s malfunctioning computer, looking through files and running anti-virus software to clean up whatever might be causing the issue. “Dirty old man.”
Yoongi scoffs. “We both know I’m not the perv between the two of us.”
“Well, at least I know the websites to use that won’t make my computer crash.”
Yoongi doesn’t argue the point so Jimin works in silence for a few more moments. He hasn’t even changed out of his work clothes yet, dressed fancier than usual in actual slacks and a button down because he’d had a client presentation today. His nerves are a little strung out from it still, which is perhaps why he doesn’t recognize Yoongi’s actions for what they are right away.
“Hey,” Yoongi says eventually.
“Hmm?”
“You’re hot when you’re in geek mode, ’specially in this get-up.” He pinches the leg of Jimin’s slacks to make his point.
“Yeah?” Jimin replies with a faint smirk.
“Mhm.” Yoongi leans closer, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Jimin’s neck. “Hot when you come to my rescue.”
They can say things like this out loud now. It causes a tingle across Jimin’s skin, lifting goosebumps on his arms.
“Does that make you my damsel in distress?” he giggles.
His breath stutters as Yoongi slips a hand under the front of his shirt.
“Mm.”
He feels the flutter of Yoongi’s lips against his jugular. Bold. The press of Yoongi’s palm, fingers splayed wide, against the warm skin of his stomach. Bold.
Unbidden, a low whine slips out of Jimin’s mouth that causes Yoongi’s lips to tilt up into a smirk against his throat. “Hyung—”
“Hmm?”
Jimin glances over his shoulder at Yoongi, whose eyes have grown dark and sharp, and he feels a stir in his stomach at the sight of his heavy-lidded gaze. Jimin fights the urge to look down at his lips but finds himself unconsciously leaning in, like a bee lured in by the sweetness of flower petals. He reaches back to wind an arm around Yoongi’s neck and he’s close, he’s so close—
Only to jerk backward a moment later when the blaring sound of a moan cuts through the room. Yoongi’s hand slips out from under his shirt and Jimin spins back around to find Yoongi’s computer screen filled with dozens of porn pop-ups.
“I knew it!”
In the end, it happens when they’re both least expecting it.
For years, they’ll argue about whose fault it was, who leaned in first, who pulled away first. The story will get turned around and flipped upside down so much that the details will become hazy.
But it’s their first kiss and everything is different after that.
—
“Seokjin hyung wants to have dinner with everyone this weekend.”
“Oh? He’s back from Japan?”
Yoongi hums, handing Jimin an oversized shirt to wear to bed. “He’ll be back by Saturday.”
Jimin slips into the bathroom and leaves the door cracked as he changes. “Where does he want to go?” he asks.
Yoongi waits until he’s back in the room to answer. He’s already made himself comfortable on his side of the bed and watches Jimin putter around, from the vanity to the closet and back again as he absently applies skincare products.
“Joon’s parents’ place, I think.” Yoongi pulls out his phone to scroll through the group chat that Jimin hasn’t been paying attention to lately since he’s been so busy at work. “Yeah, the restaurant.”
“Saturday?”
Yoongi replies in the affirmative. “Will you be alright?”
Jimin wraps up his nighttime routine and slips under the covers on the other side of Yoongi’s bed. He has a pitch meeting for a big client that Saturday afternoon so his team has been working overtime to finish everything in time. “I’ll be exhausted but I’ll survive.”
They’re silent for a moment, both of them lost in their own thoughts as Yoongi turns off the bedside lamp, and then something occurs to Jimin.
“Hyung?”
“Hmm?”
“Are we going to tell them?”
He can’t see much more than the faint outline of Yoongi’s features in the sudden darkness of the room, so for once he’s left wondering at his hyung’s reaction.
“Do you want to?” Yoongi asks.
There are pros and cons to coming clean to their friends. If they do, there’s no going back afterward and they’ll face merciless teasing. If they don’t, they run the risk of one of them finding out from Geumjae hyung or Jimin’s mother and that’ll be even worse.
“I dunno,” Jimin replies, yawning. He scoots over to rest his head on Yoongi’s shoulder.
“Let’s just play it by ear,” Yoongi suggests. “If there’s a good moment for it, we’ll tell them.”
“Tae already knows something’s going on,” Jimin replies. “I made him promise not to mention it to anyone, though.”
“They’re going to be so loud,” Yoongi grumbles. “They’ll never let us live it down.”
“To be fair, I would give any of them a hard time if they started dating each other,” Jimin points out.
Yoongi hums. After a few minutes, half-asleep, he mumbles, “We’ll have to get hyung a gift.”
“Yeah, we will.”
During his trip to Japan, Seokjin closed on a building for the new branch of his restaurant. It’s a big achievement and he deserves a congratulatory present for it.
“I’ll go to the mall to pick out something tomorrow,” Yoongi says. “Let’s meet there for dinner.”
“Okay,” Jimin replies.
He snuggles closer as Yoongi wraps an arm around his waist and it’s domestic, it’s all so domestic, and it’s normal and yet it’s so far from normal all at once. Jimin feels a warm kind of contentment in his heart, a peace he hasn’t felt with any other partners. A tingle of quiet happiness runs down his spine.
“G’night, hyung.” He leans up to kiss Yoongi on the cheek just as Yoongi seems to have the same idea and instead of the peach fuzz of Yoongi’s jawline, Jimin makes contact with the rose petal softness of Yoongi’s lips instead.
Oh.
Oh.
They both freeze in the darkness, Jimin’s heart suddenly pounding against his rib cage like the wings of a bird taking flight. Inadvertently, he lets out a squeak as they both pull back.
“G-G’night,” he repeats, squeezing his eyes closed.
Yoongi turns away and lets out a choked sound. “Night.”
They don’t talk about it after the fact. As much fun as teasing each other has been so far, it seems actual kisses cross a line that, in practice, feels much more monumental than either of them was prepared for.
Because it’s true—no matter what 14-year-old Jimin thought about the matter, accidents may happen for a reason but kisses are irreversible; there are no redos.