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When Jungkook was a junior, he made a mess of things with his boyfriend of two years.
He wasn’t sure how, but he was sure he made a mess of things because he was the way he was, and Yoongi was the way Yoongi was.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t totally head over heels in love with Yoongi. He was. He knew that Yoongi was amazing and wonderful, and he knew that despite his somewhat infrequent and gruff words that the older man cared about him.
It was just that they were two introverts with two different modes of operation. Yoongi was always stuck in his head, keeping silent even when something was bothering him, whereas Jungkook was a bit too spontaneous to a fault, always involved in some new project or another that took up all of his time. Both of them didn’t really expect much in the romance department, to the point where their friends actually wondered – loudly – if they were just bros or actually boyfriends.
They had a quiet and happy relationship, or at least, that was what Jungkook thought.
He didn’t quite know when things went pear shaped with Min Yoongi, but there was one day when Jungkook woke up and realized that he hadn’t seen or heard from his boyfriend in a week.
Then it was two weeks. And then it was three.
When a month had passed and he hadn’t heard from Yoongi, Jungkook knew that he was being ignored.
When two months had passed and the messages came back as undeliverable, he knew that Yoongi didn’t want him in his life anymore.
It had hurt, and it had stung, but Yoongi had always been a bit more private about things and Jungkook himself wasn’t fantastic about discussion emotions. It was such a sharp contrast with how Taehyung and Hoseok were. The two of them functioned well together, despite Taehyung’s tendency to go with the flow too much and Hoseok’s nagging, mothering personality that belied his status as the Big Man on Campus. They talked, communicated, the whole nine yards.
So, when Jungkook and Yoongi ended things without officially ending things, the others didn’t know what to say.
It had hurt even more when their friend group was quietly divided itself back to how it was before Yoongi asked Jungkook out on a date. Jimin and Taehyung were his, Namjoon and Seokjin were Yoongi’s, whereas Hoseok was caught in between a roc and a hard place because he was dating Taehyung, but was originally Yoongi’s friend.
It had caused Hoseok so much visible distress that Jungkook said that it was okay if Hoseok went back to Yoongi, and only hung out with him when Taehyung was around.
They had tried to hang out together after Yoongi completely disappeared – apparently he had disappeared from everyone’s lives without so much as a word, only his Instagram giving some sort of indication that he was still alive – but it was too tense and it was too weird. Namjoon and Seokjin clearly knew more of what was going on than they were willing to say, but they kept quiet. Either they didn’t want to talk about it because Jungkook was being an immature ass about it, or it was because Yoongi asked them not to. Either way, they didn’t talk about it.
Junior year was a mess of exams, bad TV and spending too much time in his bed. He hadn’t allowed himself to completely waste away or gain too much weight. He was still too active for that but really, really, he wished that he could function like a normal person and just cry for once.
Senior year was almost worse in a way, because he felt numb and cold inside.
Because they hadn’t talked, Jungkook didn’t know how he made a mess of things with his ex-boyfriend and didn’t know why Yoongi left the way he did.
So, when he got a phone call in the middle of the night two years later, he had been surprised.
He was sharing an apartment with Jimin to save money. The dancer was hardly home, working the multiple gigs here and there and gaining a name for himself as a dancer in the community. Jungkook had been restless until he chanced upon an artist who needed an assistant. The job had enough of a novelty to it that Jungkook was never bored, and the artist liked the fact that the young man was excellent with his hands. It was nice, to have something to throw himself into, to forget the numbness that was on the inside.
The phone rang shrilly, interrupting his much needed sleep. His boss had been working on an installation and he had just gotten home less than an hour prior, collapsing in his bed almost immediately.
“Hello?” he mumbled, not checking the screen. “’s that you, Jimin-hyung? Did you forget your keys again?”
There was silence on the other line before the other cleared his throat. The sleep got knocked out of Jungkook’s brain. He remembered that throat clear.
“Hi, Jungkook, I, uh…” the voice stammered inelegantly. It was such a sharp contrast to the well spoken, well read and well versed man Jungkook knew like the back of his hand. “Hi. It’s me.”
“Oh,” he replied. “Hi, Yoongi-hyung.”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it.” the gravelly baritone tinged with a hint of Daegu gyeongsang made Jungkook’s heart ache for the first time in years.
“Yeah. It has.”
“I… I’m back in town, for a while. Can we talk? Over coffee or something?”
Jungkook hesitated briefly. He knew, he knew, that if Yoongi had called him during the day time, Jungkook would have told him to fuck the right off and go to hell for thinking that he could just come back out of nowhere and ask to meet over coffee. His defenses were down, vulnerable with sleep, and Yoongi fucking knew that. Jungkook tried to think of a very good reason why he should say no, but something stopped the words in his mouth.
“Yeah, fine,” he said, “fine. Coffee is fine.”
“Our old place, okay?”
Jungkook was about to say yes when he remembered that he had moved across the city, opposite of where the university was situated. It would take him an hour to get there alone. “I moved,” he replied quickly. “I live closer to downtown.”
“Oh, okay, right. Seok-ah mentioned that you and Jimin live together now. I’ll meet you at the Starbucks near the BigHit Entertainment building?”
He was surprised that Yoongi was so specific about which building. Jimin was working for BigHit as a backup dancer for some of their bigger acts and his job was two subway stops away. They had picked the apartment based on that location and it made commuting easy for the both of them. He was even more surprised that Yoongi knew that Jungkook was living with Jimin.
“Yeah. That sounds fine.”
“I’ll see you at eleven.”
When Jungkook woke up in the morning, he thought that he had dreamt the conversation until he got a text message from an unknown phone number.
Unknown Number: Don’t forget
Unknown Number: sbux near BHE at eleven.
It took him longer than he wanted to admit to pick out an outfit to wear. What did one wear when they went to go see an ex-boyfriend at his invitation, especially when said ex-boyfriend just disappeared on him?
He didn’t want to ask Jimin’s advice on things. Jimin hadn’t been too happy with the fact that things ended the way they did between the two, as he was the one who set the two of them up. They all missed Yoongi, but Jimin was a little bit more than mad at the fact that he broke Jungkook’s heart like that. He ended up texting Hoseok.
The older dancer was still dating Taehyung, the two of them sharing an apartment with two dogs and a two cats. They still met for dinner once a week and they were still disgustingly cute together. Taehyung had been discovered as a model and Hoseok owned a small but prestigious dance studio not too far away from where they lived. They made a comfortable living and lived an even more comfortable life with each other.
Jungkook was envious.
Hoseok didn’t seem surprised when he heard that Yoongi called Jungkook.
“Just wear what you normally wear,” Hoseok said very unhelpfully over the cacophony of animals. “Shit, hold on, Moonie just attacked Luffy.”
He settled on a loose button down shirt and his less disreputable jeans. There was only one hole on each knee for comfort and ease of movement. The beanie over his hair was a last minute addition. It was warm enough that he didn’t really need the beanie, but the beanie made him feel more secure for some reason.
Yoongi was early.
Annoyingly enough, even after two years of not seeing his ex-boyfriend, he still recognized the gestures and movements that were so unique to the musician. He was wearing a hat over his close cropped hair and a loose hoodie of some sort, and jeans that were more holes than jeans.
He seemed to have recognized Jungkook, and remembered Jungkook’s order, because he waved him over as soon as Jungkook stepped into the store.
The older man took off his hat, raking his hair through his blond hair. Yoongi had been blond when they first met at a party someone was hosting on campus and then every color of the rainbow the next two years they were dating. His blond hair wasn’t as bright or white as it was when they first met, and it was shorter, but it brought back a pang of nostalgia.
He liked blond Yoongi best, because that was how he remembered him.
He looked good. He looked healthy, if not a little haggard. There were dark circles under his eyes but he wasn’t overly skinny and he wasn’t too pale from the lack of sunlight.
“Hi, Jungkookie,” Yoongi said with that same half smile he remembered.
His throat tightened, his heart ached painfully. “Hi, hyung.”
“I got you some coffee,” he offered, pushing the second coffee cup towards him.
Jungkook accepted and took a sip. It was his regular order of an Americano with a single pump of sugar syrup. “It’s perfect,” he whispered.
They sat in silence, sipping their coffee quietly. Yoongi finally sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“What are we doing here?”
Jungkook looked up from where he had been staring a hole into the table in an effort to not look at Yoongi. “You’re the one who called me at two in the damn morning.”
Yoongi scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, sorry about that. I was a little drunk.”
Jungkook blinked. “But, hyung, you don’t drink.”
He was silent for several moments, the bow shaped mouth pursed. “Do you remember what yesterday was?”
How could he forget? Jungkook leaned back, schooling his face into an impassive expression. “I remember. I’d be a pretty shitty boyfriend if I didn’t remember our anniversary date,” Jungkook said quietly, his fingers tracing the top of his cup.
Yoongi only blinked at the comment. He sighed heavily. “Jungkookie…”
“Hyung, what did I do wrong?”
Jungkook hated how vulnerable his voice sounded. He hated how he was ready to break down in front of Yoongi in such a public place.
But it as the question he had been asking himself the same question for the last two years.
He had thought about It, running the last few weeks leading up to Yoongi’s Great Disappearing Act in his head over and over until he was sure that he had exhausted everything. He blamed himself for not being a good or supportive enough boyfriend, but Yoongi just… left.
No explanation, no reason, no anything. One day they were fine, studying together in Yoongi’s favorite production studio, joking about something quietly and planning for dinner. The next, there was nothing. Yoongi always at least sent one text message to Jungkook in a day, even though Jungkook sometimes was terrible about responding.
Yoongi knew that, though.
The blond man closed his eyes. “Can we go somewhere else? A little more private? I promise I’ll explain.”
Jungkook chewed on the inside of his cheek. “My apartment isn’t too far away from here.”
He was kicking himself a few minutes later when he punched in the code to the small apartment he shared with Jimin. It was small and cozy, the two of them a little cluttered and Hoseok coming by once a week with Taehyung to hang out and clean up.
Yoongi gave the apartment a silent look over, half smile on his face when he recognized a mountain scenery that Jungkook had taken when the seven of them had taken a trip together during happier times.
They sat down on the couch. The space between them was awkward and stiff, tense with unspoken words and a turmoil of emotions.
Jimin’s cat broke the tension, sauntering up and sniffing Yoongi’s jeans with curiosity. She looked up at him with huge, blue eyes before hopping up onto the older man’s lap. He looked mildly chagrined as she curled up and purred quietly.
“Oh man, Jimin is going to be annoyed about that,” Jungkook said with a chuckle. Miyu was like her owner: shy initially but loyal to a fault once she got familiar with someone. It had taken months before she reluctantly started going to Jungkook for affection once her owner started keeping odd hours.
Yoongi stroked the fur between her ears, face pensive. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jungkookie,” he said softly as his eye stayed trained on the cat.
“Then why did you leave, hyung?”
“My mom died.”
Jungkook was shocked. Yoongi was close with his mother, who had raised him and his older brother on her own while Yoongi’s dad worked two jobs to support the family. When Yoongi came out, she supported him in her quiet way while his father nearly disowned him. Jungkook never met Yoongi’s father, but he remembered his mother as a quiet, warm woman who only wanted her younger son to be happy.
“Hyung…”
“I had to go home and help out with the arrangements,” Yoongi continued as his voice cracked with emotion, eyes going distant. “Yoonho was still in the military and couldn’t leave and my dad… dad was useless. He was so heartbroken.”
Everything came pouring out, how he stayed to take care of his father and before he knew it, three months had passed. His phone had been disconnected because he forgot to pay the bills and the number had been given away by the time he thought about it. He felt shame at himself for not telling anyone what was happening, and didn’t want to burden anyone else with what was happening. Seokjin and Namjoon were emailing him and had told him how angry the others were for just leaving like that, and how Jungkook didn’t seem like he cared.
But Jungkook did care, he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Yoongi that he cared and that his leaving was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, but he couldn’t tell anyone because he didn’t know how to.
Jungkook had never seen Yoongi so broken before. Yoongi was always the stable, stoic rock of the group while Seokjin was the warm, comforting blanket of emotional support. When Namjoon was beating himself up about something, Yoongi was the practical one who was trying to find a solution to make things work. When Hoseok was upset and blaming himself for not being good enough, Yoongi was the one to assure the dancer that he was better than he thought.
When Taehyung or Jimin had a life crisis or an issue, Yoongi was the one they ran to for the practical advice after they had gone to Seokjin for the emotional comfort. Yoongi was the one Jungkook found balance with, evening out his near manic periods and the dark, depressive slumps when his anxiety kicked into overdrive.
Yoongi never cried in front of Jungkook before, and he was crying on the couch of the apartment Jungkook shared with Jimin.
Before he knew what was happening, Jungkook’s arms were around Yoongi, hugging him tightly. That was when he felt how skinny Yoongi had gotten, the hoodie hiding the weight loss. Yoongi had always been a little bit more bird boned than the rest of them because he either forgot to eat or didn’t eat enough. Jungkook ate like there was no tomorrow every day but only gained muscle. Yoongi could eat and lose weight, as far as Jungkook was concerned.
The wet patch on Jungkook’s shoulder got bigger as Yoongi cried himself dry. It was as though he had been storing up the tears of the last two years and unleashing them only now, only in front of Jungkook. Miyu had gotten annoyed moved to the sofa arm, where she perched and watched with her judging eyes.
He didn’t know who instigated it, but it happened.
Yoongi’s mouth was hot on his, lips dry and chapped because his lips were always chapped. Jungkook kissed back automatically. It had been so long since he had any physical comfort like this with anyone. There had been that one night where he hooked up with Jimin, but they agreed that it would be for the best if it didn’t happen again.
The older man groaned in his mouth, hands seeking skin almost urgently as Jungkook deepened the kiss. It felt like their old pattern. For as mad as Jungkook had been at Yoongi for leaving like that, he couldn’t deny to himself that he missed Yoongi, and that he loved him.
Still loved him.
What was he doing?
It took a lot of will power for Jungkook to pull away, but he pushed Yoongi away by the shoulders. It was gentle, but it was enough pressure for Yoongi to look at him with confusion and hurt in his lust and grief blurred eyes.
“Hyung, I ca- we can’t do this,” Jungkook stammered, avoiding the gaze. “This is a mistake.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Yoongi replied, rubbing his face as he stood up. “I shouldn’t have called, I’m sorry. You’ve probably moved on. I’ll go.”
He was leaving again. Jungkook felt panic jump up in his throat as Yoongi rushed to the door. He jumped up and caught Yoongi in a tight bear hug.
“Please don’t leave,” he whispered into the soft blond hair. “I just meant having sex, now, that would be a mistake. Please, stay, talk with me. Please.”
The tension in Yoongi’s shoulders eased slightly. “Okay, we can talk.”
They talked. Yoongi talked and Jungkook did as well. It had been difficult for Jungkook to admit how he felt when he thought maybe it was something that he did, or didn’t do. When Yoongi left, it had been their anniversary. Jungkook remembered a week later, which was when he realized that he hadn’t talked to Yoongi in a week.
That was the part he puzzled over. Yoongi was conscientious like that, but the first time Jungkook forgot about their anniversary, Yoongi just rolled his eyes and made a comment about how he should have expected that. Jungkook was notorious for remembering birthdays and forgetting to do anything about them until a day or two later because he had been so involved in something that he lost track of time.
He had learned though, to show affection when he needed to and talk when he needed to in the last two years. He learned and so did Yoongi.
They were only interrupted when Jimin came home. He gave Yoongi one look before rushing forward and hugging him tightly and then punching him as hard as he could in the arm.
He left them be after Jungkook asked if they could have privacy. It wasn’t often that Jungkook asked for privacy, so Jimin always respected his requests.
They kept talking, changing the topics with natural ease and catching up on the last few years. The anger and bitterness Jungkook held against Yoongi was mostly gone after Yoongi explained what happened, and it was so easy to fall back into their old patterns.
The silence that came between them was the easy and comfortable silence that was there when Jungkook was on Yoongi’s bed, sketching the musician as he worked. It was the same silence when Yoongi was on the couch of the painting studio when Jungkook was working frantically at a still life that was due the next day.
“Jungkookie, I have no right to ask of this but can we… can we try again?”
Jungkook looked down at Yoongi, who had flopped over and had his head in Jungkook’s lap. Miyu had curled up on his chest and flatly refused to move, so they had been in that position for the last hour or so. His thigh had gone numb, and he was pretty sure Yoongi had a crick in his neck from the angle he ended up in, but neither of them wanted to move.
“Is that why you came back?”
“I.. uh, kind of lied about that. I’ve been back for the last year or so.”
“Hyung!”
“I’m sorry. You were graduating and Jin said that you were busy and there was that thing with you and Jimin…”
“Jimin and I weren’t a thing.”
“But it still happened.”
“Jimin has a girlfriend, now. It was a one time thing, and we were drunk, and I was missing you.”
“How did that logic work?”
“You two are the same size,” he replied, his cheeks turning red.
“Him? That pint-sized pipsqueak?”
“He’s only a centimeter shorter than you, hyung.”
“I’m still taller than him!”
Yoongi sat up, the cat jumping down onto the ground as he pulled Jungkook down for a kiss. It was different from earlier, sweeter and quieter. Yoongi had sharp teeth and he wasn’t afraid to use them, but he kept them to himself as their tongues slid against the other’s lazily.
It was familiar, and sweet, and it made Jungkook realize how much he wanted Yoongi back.
“You’re going to have to start over, you know,” Jungkook said with a sniff after the kiss broke. “I’m not that easy.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I want cute dates and dinners and presents.”
“You sound like Taehyung and Hoseok.”
“Well, they’re relationship goals as far as I know.”
Yoongi laughed. “That’s pretty bad relationship goals as far as I’m concerned. I liked our relationship goals.”
“Hyung, we’re terrible relationship goals.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s us.”
Jungkook was quiet as he ran his fingers through Yoongi’s soft hair. He felt warm, and happy, for the first time in years. “Yeah. It is.”
Yoongi nuzzled his head against Jungkook’s thigh. “So, can we?”
He leaned down and kissed Yoongi again. “Yeah. We can.”