Archive of Our Own

infinitesimal // in·fin·i·tes·i·mal 

adj .  immeasurably or incalculably small.

an infinitesimal difference

Hoseok comes home in the summer. 

Summer exists for a lot of reasons. Jimin writes summer in his journal and then underlines it twice. Beneath it, he makes a list:

• Beaches
• Ice cream
• Swimming
• Driving

There’s lots of things he doesn’t write on the list. A hundred other reasons for summer to exist, like new sheets in a stale cot; yellow sweat stains appearing in white hospital robes; quiet dread baking through the nights between semesters; fruit juice making his fingers stick together; lips made for smiling closing around the sweetened skin and grinning like he knows things Jimin doesn’t. There are even sub-bullets that he leaves out, because he can’t write beaches and follow that up with loving, leaving, loving you and leaving you, everyone leaving me. Seizure, blank space. 

He doesn’t write coming home on the list, but Hoseok does. 

He calls Jimin in the middle of June, like they haven’t spent months not calling. Jimin answers after a reasonable five seconds, like he’s not still waiting every day to hear the phone ring. 

Hoseok says I’ll be back in a week. It’s still my apartment, right?

Of course, Jimin laughs, coughing it out like a fishbone stuck in his throat. 

I’ll be back.

You’re coming back?

I’ll see you soon, Jiminie.

Jimin supposes he should clean the place up. That’s what most people would do. But truth be told, there’s not much to clean up. His routine changes little from day to day. He wakes up, eats, takes his meds, brushes his teeth. Goes to work, doesn’t get back until late. Showers, eats, meds again, sleeps. Sometimes, on the weekends, he sees Yoongi. Even rarer, he sees Jungkook, still hovering behind Yoongi like a shadow, glaring at Jimin with dark circles under his darting eyes. Jimin is polite, both in his warmth and in his distance. They all have things they’re ready for, and things they have to wait until they can bear facing them. 

He’s not a messy person. At first, it was because he couldn’t bear to be, because anything on his hands made his vision tunnel and his ears ring with a child’s shrieking sobs. Then, it was because there was nothing else to be; hospitals don’t encourage clutter, nor do they leave much room for anything other than locked windows and white walls. Now, it’s just habit. The only thing he can really do to make the place look any nicer is clean some of the dust off windowsills, maybe vacuum the carpet of their room. He’s not even sure Hoseok would notice, or care, but he does it anyway. Changes the sheets on their bed. Finally fixes the tangled cords of the window blinds. Things he doesn’t think twice about usually. 

Jimin sees Hoseok again for the first time in summer; in the last days of June, the sun glaring down on the tired city; in the final heaving pangs of the afternoon before the heat succumbs to evening chill. The city glows golden only at that hour, but Hoseok always does. He wears a worn yellow tank top and a pair of loose athletic shorts when Jimin sees Hoseok again for the first time. He smiles.

The weather is too warm for their embrace to last, but Jimin closes his eyes when Hoseok hugs him anyway. He leans into it, squeezes, hopes Hoseok knows. 

~~~

Hoseok sets into the place like he never left. Clothes become strewn carelessly across their bedroom floor, Hoseok shedding outfits and stepping into new ones ten times a day on a whim. The windows that Jimin kept shuttered are suddenly wide open and allowing sunlight to stream into the old place, highlighting flecks of dust floating morosely through the air. Most importantly, his stereo is back and set on the floor of their living area. Hoseok shows him the new CDs he’s collected during his absence, and they make it their unofficial mission to listen to all of them. Jimin missed Hoseok’s music. Not just songs, but the music of his lilting, scratchy voice, the music of his nonstop body, the music of his very presence. 

Hoseok doesn’t ask Jimin about his own music, or what happened to it. There’s still an old Polaroid inside Hoseok’s wallet from their school days. Jimin’s fiery orange hair and toothy grin stick out like a shout in a monastery. Even Yoongi’s fluffy, dyed locks seem to fade to the background in comparison to Jimin’s blaze of color. He stares at it until the sun from their opened window starts to make his head ache and eyes water. Several hours, maybe. 

“Jimin-ah,” Hoseok says his name importantly as he walks into the room, balancing a basket of laundry on his hip, “help me with this?”

Jimin blinks a couple times and looks up. Hoseok has changed too, though not as visibly. He never dyed his hair in the first place. Its natural warm black is as familiar to Jimin as his heart-shaped smile or the spirals of ink on the back of his neck. 

“Whatcha got there?” Hoseok prompts as he sets the basket on the threadbare carpet. He peers closer at the picture in Jimin’s hand as he comes closer, then grins. “Going through my stuff, huh?”

Jimin shakes his head. “You left your wallet open. I was just…”

Hoseok takes it from his hands, more curious than possessive. “Damn. Almost forgot I still had this.”

“Did you?”

Hoseok gazes at the boys, inked smiles faded and yet still brilliantly fierce. “No.”

“It was almost over,” Jimin remarks quietly. “The day that picture was taken. It was almost over, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Hoseok sits down beside Jimin on the couch. The cushions wilt pathetically and the springs groan. “Suppose it was. That day was good, though. We didn’t know then that it would end.”

Jimin pulls his feet to the back of his thighs, wraps arms around shins, tucks face to knees. “Aren’t we happier now?”

Hoseok finally tucks the Polaroid away, dragging his gaze from it to look at Jimin instead. “Of course we are.”

“I’m not.” Jimin rubs his nose against the rough denim of his jeans. “I’m tired. All the time. I miss you.”

“I’m back now.”

“I missed you. I miss the others, too.”

“You missed what we had.” Hoseok plucks a shirt from the basket and starts folding it into a neat square. “Everyone’s changed now.”

Jimin doesn’t move to help like he promised. “We were miserable, but at least we were happy.”

Hoseok sighs. It’s a quiet, sad noise. Almost exhausted. “We weren’t happy, Jimin-ah.”

“I was happy.” Jimin shuts his eyes tight, like if he tries hard enough he can open them and see the bonfire again, Jungkook curled in Yoongi’s lap, Seokjin watching with smiling eyes through his video camera. “I’d never been that happy before.”

Hoseok doesn’t have anything to say to that. He just sighs again, the same way. Jimin opens his eyes and lets himself look at this instead; Hoseok’s shadowed eyes, almost as tired as his own; the mottled gray fabric of the couch; a basket of their laundry, theirs because Hoseok has never drawn any sort of boundaries where he should have. 

“Fold the laundry,” Hoseok says, not unkindly. “You said you would help.”

Jimin takes a sock from the top of the pile and stares at it blankly. 

“Here’s the match,” Hoseok says. Briefly, Jimin thinks Hoseok is holding his hand out to him, extended in some sort of offer. But then he sees the sock in his palm, soft white and gray on the sole.

It’s not the match. Jimin takes it and compares the two. One is definitively longer than the other, and the brands sewed near the ankles boast different names. 

But Jimin folds them together anyways.

~~~

They’ve only ever had enough room–and money–for one bed. Jimin doesn’t know if Hoseok considered this the day he brightly offered to take Jimin home. Probably not. Even now, he probably doesn’t even think about it. Hoseok has never known the definition of personal space, constantly leaning over Jimin’s shoulder when he tried to make sense of their homework, or throwing himself onto the nearest body when he laughed. It’s even more noticeable through this domestic lens; Hoseok letting their bodies press close together when they sleep, reaching into Jimin’s space to pile food onto his plate, getting undressed without so much as blinking at Jimin, who sits less than six feet away. Jimin never says anything. He thinks, if he did, maybe Hoseok would be ashamed, as much as Hoseok can be ashamed about anything. He’d mentioned something, once– life at the orphanage. Bodies everywhere you turn, grubby hands, sniffling children and snapping teenagers and staff overworked half to death. Hoseok says that he learned to tune it all out at a very early age. Jimin supposes that any space feels like infinity to Hoseok now, freeing and unending. Or maybe any space feels like an abyss, spiraling and suffocating. Maybe that’s why he never hesitated to invite Jimin in. 

Maybe Jimin is overthinking everything. 

The point is this: they share a bed, and it is tiny. Jimin has never had a problem about this until he does. 

He doesn’t know why he can’t sleep. Maybe he’s too warm, maybe it’s too tight of a fit. They used to share this same bed before Hoseok left, but perhaps in Jimin’s solitude he grew too accustomed to rooming alone. He feels like he’s dipped his toes in each available corner of the sheets until every square inch of fabric has been fouled with his body heat.  He lies on his side, and then his stomach, then his other side, then his back– He twists his spine until it pops, and then the other way too– For good measure, he rolls his neck as well. 

Hoseok is a dark presence beside him, asleep on his side and blissfully unaware of Jimin’s discomfort. Above them, the ceiling fan turns lazy circles in the summer air, doing little to dispel the heat. Their air conditioning has never worked quite how it is supposed to. 

Jimin squirms.

“Go to sleep,” Hoseok’s voice tells him, somewhat muffled and slurred with sleep. 

“I’m trying to,” he whispers back. He feels like a child at a sleepover, afraid to raise his voice and invoke the wrath of the host’s parents. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Just hot,” Jimin mumbles. Sweat gathers in the wells behind his knees and other awkward places. 

Hoseok shifts, and his bony legs dip between Jimin’s. A near-silent yawn. “We really need to file a complaint about the AC, huh?”

“I already have.”

“Thought so.”

Hoseok stretches slightly, and in the same graceful movement that lifts his torso from the mattress, he tucks his fingers underneath his shirt, and slips it off. 

Jimin does not think this helps with the heat.

“Take your clothes off, dummy,” Hoseok says when he catches Jimin frowning at him. 

“Oh,” Jimin says. He doesn’t move.

Seeing Hoseok’s naked form is not really a revelation or anything like that. He’s skinny. His ribs poke out, somewhat less dramatically than his wrists and clavicle. The pale, soft skin of his torso fades unevenly into the golden tan of his arms. He’s not delicate like a fair princess, not slim in a pretty, muscled way. He looks like his bones would crack if Jimin tried to take a bite. He’s always looked like this. Maybe he’s even put on some weight while he was gone. Jimin doesn’t need to stare, so he doesn’t. Hoseok without a shirt doesn’t change anything. 

“You said you were hot,” Hoseok reiterates.

Jimin withdraws his arms into his nightshirt, wiggling out of his clothes much more awkwardly than Hoseok had. They’d both gone to sleep in their boxers, and Jimin is relieved when Hoseok doesn’t go so far as to remove those, too. 

Hoseok stretches. His flat stomach seems to pull backward, hollowing even further and making his ribs protrude. Jimin follows the stark lines where they melt into his side, and then up to where his arms reach above his head. 

“Goodnight, Jiminie,” Hoseok manages through another yawn. He slips down the mattress again, his legs shifting away from Jimin’s. 

“‘Night.”

He doesn’t fall asleep until hours later, not until he pulls his journal out from his nightstand. In the orange light from the streetlamp outside the window, he adds sleepless nights under the section “ Summer .” And then, on a separate line:

Animals bite. Humans kiss. 

He doesn’t bother connecting the thoughts for a less sleep-deprived conscious. He shoves the journal back in the drawer and goes to bed.

~~~

Yoongi visits a couple weeks into Hoseok’s reinstatement. He brings Jungkook with him.

Hoseok beams and sweeps Yoongi into a hug as soon as he steps through the door. Jimin still isn’t sure if Hoseok is just that good at pretending things haven’t changed, or if he really thinks they haven’t. He must know, because he doesn’t try to hug Jungkook at all. Jungkook still stiffens when Hoseok tousels his hair.

“So?” Yoongi asks later, tone dry as they sit on the floor and eat instant ramyeon for late lunch. “Was it everything you dreamed?”

Hoseok hums, eyes on his noodles. “It was fun. A lot of fun. Different from anything I’ve ever done, too.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. “But?”

“I dunno. Everyone was so…” Hoseok exhales a cooling breath over his ramyeon. “Clean.”

Yoongi snorts. “You don’t know what’s good.”

“I know exactly what’s good,” Hoseok replies, and Jimin doesn’t miss the tight note to his voice. “It was good. It just wasn’t where I belonged.”

“And you belong here?”

“Why not?” Hoseok looks at Jimin, Jimin looks away.

Yoongi follows his gaze. “Hm. Well, whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”

“Sure,” Hoseok scoffs, but his tone has softened. “And you? Found where you belong?” His eyes drift to Jungkook, who sits hunched over his own cup of noodles and scarfs them down like they’re going to be slapped out of his hands at any moment.

“Found it a while ago,” Yoongi says simply. “Just… realized, now.”

“And you’re going to stay, now?” Hoseok’s voice sharpens again. Something unspoken hangs in the air, but whatever words need to be said are clearly being communicated between Yoongi’s dropping gaze and Hoseok’s pursed mouth.

“I will,” Yoongi says quietly.

“Good.” Hoseok nudges his noodles with one chopstick. “If that’s the case, then I’d like to speak with Jungkook-ah. Is that okay?”

Jungkook tenses at the sound of his name. His gaze darts up, first to Hoseok, then to Yoongi, but neither of them say anything. They wait.

Jungkook hunches his shoulders further and looks back down. After a long, silent moment, he nods. 

“Thank you,” Hoseok says kindly. 

Jungkook makes no acknowledgement, nor movement of any kind. Yoongi rises to his feet, and Jimin hurries to follow him. Yoongi’s fingers dip to Jungkook’s shoulder as he leaves, but that movement is not one that Jimin copies. 

“Did Hoseok-hyung and you have a fight?” Jimin asks when they’ve left. The apartment consists only of the living-kitchen space and the cramped bedroom, so they retreat to the only place they can. The roof is too hot for bare feet to stand on for long, but Jimin still takes care to pause and slide the window shut behind them. He doesn’t want Hoseok or Jungkook to think they’re eavesdropping. He quickly drops to his butt and sits with his back pressed to the wall, shuffling his feet to his thighs so that his whole body can stay in the shadow of the overhang above. 

“I guess,” Yoongi says, taking a seat on the other side of the window sill. A beat. “Yes.”

“When?”

“A while ago. Before he left.”

“Oh.”

“Pretty much told me to get my shit together.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

“Did you?”

“Get my shit together?”

“Yeah.”

Yoongi barks a laugh. “Fucking tried. Not sure if it worked, but.” He gives a small shrug. 

A light breeze sweeps by, too weak to be of any relief in the oppressive heat. The city moves sluggishly in the distance, skyscrapers covered in brown fog. The acrid taste of melted tar rises from the cracked road below them. Yoongi shifts a little bit so that he can reach into his back pocket and pulls something out. 

“Thought you quit,” Jimin says, until he realizes that Yoongi holds a lollipop between his fingers, not a cigarette. 

Yoongi makes quick work of the wrapper before popping the candy in his mouth. “I did,” he drawls, words muffled somewhat.

“I see that.”

“You should pass the word along to Hoseokie.” Yoongi lets the bright, sugary dome slide past his lips. 

“That you don’t smoke anymore?”

“Nah, he knows that. I meant that suckers like these are good for quitting. They’re supposed to help.”

“Hoseok-hyung doesn’t smoke.”

Yoongi gives him a look, but doesn’t correct him. 

“Do they really help?” Jimin asks.

Yoongi shrugs. Another silence stretches out. Jimin narrows his eyes against the yellow day.

“How is Jungkook doing?” he asks at last. 

Yoongi less sighs than he does exhale much too heavily. “Better,” he says. 

Jimin nods. “Does he still…” He pauses. “Does he still think–”

“That we tried to kill him? Yoongi asks. His voice is suddenly knife-sharp, and when Jimin looks up, he’s startled to see a fierce sort of fire burning in his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Jimin says.

“Don’t talk about him like he’s crazy,” Yoongi growls. “He’s not.”

“I know,” Jimin assures him quickly. “I know, I didn’t–”

“He’s not crazy, and neither am I. Just like Hoseok isn’t crazy. Or you.”

Jimin almost laughs at that, and Yoongi glares at him like he knows.

“Just like Seokjin-hyung wasn’t crazy?” Jimin mocks. He sounds mean and he knows it.

“That’s not funny,” Yoongi says quietly. 

He’s right. It’s not. But Jimin hadn’t really meant for it to be, either. 

“Jungkook-ah knows what he knows, okay?” Yoongi sounds less sharp, but that doesn’t mean that bluntness can’t sting. “And just because you don’t understand him doesn’t mean he belongs in a psych ward.”

Jimin stares passively out at the skyline and hopes it doesn’t show on his face, the way Yoongi’s words rock into his stomach like a flying punch. He’s not so weak anymore that the words send him back. But just like he thinks red when he hears apple, just like thinks light when he hears feather, just like he thinks beach when he hears summer– He thinks empty nightstand, pale blue sheets, garish contemporary art on the opposite wall. 

Yoongi seems to realize anyway, though. And remember. 

“Sorry,” he says gruffly. “I didn’t mean–”

“Neither of us meant anything,” Jimin says. “Let’s just forget it, hyung.”

Yoongi nods silently. 

“Have you heard from Namjoon-hyung lately?” Jimin asks, uncaring how obvious the change in subject is. “Or Taehyungie?”

“Namjoon’s doing okay,” Yoongi tells him softly. “Still working his ass off, but better jobs now. He sees Taehyung sometimes, I think.”

“We should all get together,” Jimin says boldly. He’s not brave enough to add Just like old times. 

Yoongi smiles, and it’s so sad that Jimin can’t bear to look at him. He doesn’t even bother to reply.

By the time Hoseok lets them back in, Jimin’s tailbone has gone completely numb and the sun has started to set. He accepts Hoseok’s hand as they clamber in over the window sill again. Hoseok has put another one of his CDs on. Jimin thinks it’s familiar.

“The hell were you doing in there?” Yoongi grumbles, ignoring Hoseok’s offer to help him in. “Presenting an entire oral history of Korea?”

Hoseok chuckles but doesn’t give a reply. Yoongi doesn’t seem to truly be looking for one; instead, he makes his way to Jungkook’s side at once, reaching down to help Jungkook to his feet. Jimin’s gaze drops to their interlaced fingers. They stay together even after Jungkook is standing. If Jimin weren’t watching so closely, he’d miss the way Jungkook tightens his grip until his knuckles go white from the pressure, or the way Yoongi runs his thumb back and forth over the rough skin. 

“We should get going,” Jungkook says, so quietly Jimin almost misses it.

His voice hits something so deep in Jimin’s gut that he nearly physically winces. When was the last time he heard it? The memories always come unbidden; roaring laughter struggling to be known above the crash of the ocean’s waves, hiccuping snarks much too late at night, optimistic chirps as they walk home from school– Yoongi-hyung said this, Yoongi-hyung taught me that, do you think Yoongi-hyung likes me? He’s not that much older, right?

Jimin had shoved Jungkook hard enough that he stumbled. “Yah, you better watch yourself. Yoongi-hyung doesn’t grade your papers, does he? Worry more about school, brat.”

Jungkook stuck his tongue out. “Were you worrying about school last night with Hoseokie-hyung? Huh? Is that why you two wouldn’t take your hands off each other?”

Jimin charged at him, and Jungkook took off down the sidewalk, high-pitched snickers echoing into the evening.

Yoongi and Jungkook leave. Hoseok seems to slump somewhat, his face dimming and his eyes dropping.

“What did you say to Jungkook?” Jimin prompts at once, clearing their ramyeon from the floor. 

“Same thing I’d say to you if your no-good ex if he tried to bust back into your life after screwing about forever,” Hoseok says. He’s teasing, Jimin can tell. 

“What would you say?” Jimin plays along, sticking chopsticks down the kitchen sink to push down noodle scraps and rehydrated mushrooms. 

“I would tell you to be careful.” Hoseok joins him, slowly and silently but somehow still abrupt, and Jimin goes tense everywhere when lanky limbs gather around his waist. “And to not give him anything he doesn’t deserve.”

“What does Yoongi-hyung deserve?”

Outside, a car starts up with a cough. The summer smell of the city permeates their room through the open window. Lukewarm water laves over Jimin’s fingers as he reaches to turn the garbage disposal on. 

“That’s for Jungkook to decide,” Hoseok says at last, after the vicious gargling has died down. 

“What about you?”

Hoseok stills.

“What do you think about Yoongi-hyung?” Jimin hastens to clarify, resulting in a soft Ah.  

“I think hyung’s heart is in the right place.” Hoseok adds a mutter that sounds like finally. 

“They’ll figure it out,” Jimin decides, shaking his hands over the sink and looking for a towel. It’s a little awkward to reach down and grab it from the kitchen cabinet with Hoseok still clinging, but his hyung doesn’t make a move to let go. 

“Get off.”

“Why?” Hoseok sounds like he’s pouting. 

“I need to dry my hands.”

Hoseok takes his wrists, turns him around, and then presses both hands straight onto his white t-shirt.

“Hyung.” In moments of fear, Jimin finds it easy to default to scolding. 

“All dry,” Hoseok sings, smearing the palms up and down the fabric. 

“You’re so weird.” Jimin can feel the warmth of skin separated from his fingers by just a millimeter of a barrier. 

“Nah, we used to do this all the time,” Hoseok says. “What’s so different now?”

Jimin pulls back at once. 

Everything is different now, for starters. Write that down. Jimin will write that down in his journal. 

And besides that—

It was the cool blue of a hospital gown, not warm pale cotton. Hoseok would sneak in after lights out, when they were supposed to stay in their rooms. Hoseok wouldn’t come every night, just some, the ones where Jimin couldn’t sleep on his pillow because the dampness had grown stifling and unavoidable. Hoseok would slip into bed beside him, and he’d take the edge of his shirt and dab, dab, dab the sadness away. Clear it all right up. 

“All dry,” he’d tell Jimin. Like he’d just mopped up everything wrong with him and they could let it go and dry out now, as easy as hanging a shirt on a line. 

“I need to get changed for work,” Jimin says now. “I’ll be home late. Don’t stay up.”

Hoseok lets him flee.

~~~

That night, when Jimin slips into bed, Hoseok is still awake. The blinds are drawn and the lights are out, and his eyes are closed, but he’s awake. Jimin can tell. 

“I told you not to stay up,” he mumbles as he drops his work bag on the floor by the door and rolls his shoulders out. 

For a moment, there’s no reply. Then, “Can’t sleep.”

Jimin murmurs out a warning before flicking the lamp on. “I have melatonin, if you need some.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jimin gives him the bottle before getting in the shower. When he comes back, fresh-faced and smelling less like greasy chicken, Hoseok is still awake. 

“Is it the heat?” Jimin asks once the lights are out again. 

“Don’t think so.” Hoseok has taken to shirtlessness every night, now. Jimin has adjusted. 

“Did you eat dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Something on the mind?”

“No. I don’t know.”

Jimin rolls onto his side, barely able to pick out the slope Hoseok’s nose, the open whites of his eyes. “What is it?”

“Dunno.”

“Hyung.”

“I don’t know, Jimin-ah. I’ll slip off, just go to sleep.”

Jimin doesn’t know what possesses him to reach out and slip three fingers over Hoseok’s hipbone. “I can’t sleep unless you sleep.”

“Don’t put that sort of pressure on me,” Hoseok jokes weakly. “You know I get performance anxiety.”

Jimin massages. “Says the man who joined the dance troupe.”

“I was backstage, Jiminie. Lights and shit.”

“Still part of the performance.” He runs his palm, still a little damp and warm from the steamy shower, up Hoseok’s bare side. Down again. Up, down, up, down. Like calming a spooked horse.

Hoseok is tense at first, but as the minutes drag on, he relaxes into Jimin’s touch. It’s just as soothing for Jimin; the soft skin beneath his fingertips is mesmerizing. 

“Hoseok-hyung,” he murmurs. 

“Hm?”

“Sleepy now?”

“A bit.”

“We can watch a movie or something. If you wanted, we could.”

“Just—” Hoseok is quiet for a moment before Jimin’s ears catch an unsteady exhale. “Keep touching me?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says. He can do that. “Alright.”

They fall asleep like that, hands on bare skin, and it’s not something Jimin should want to get used to, but he can’t help that, can he?

~~~

The next day is a bad day. Jimin knows it is because Hoseok hands him a plastic grocery bag as he sits on the couch eating breakfast and tells him with strange eyes to keep it. 

Jimin looks inside after Hoseok flees. 

He keeps it.

He has to dig through it later that morning when he goes to take his meds and finds them missing from their usual spot in the cabinet behind their bathroom mirror. He checks in every drawer, inspects every countertop, but it’s all gone. Everything from ibuprofen to antidepressants to an unlabelled plastic baggie Hoseok hid under the sink his first day back. Everything tossed into one place that Jimin now holds in his hands. 

Jimin sort of wants him to talk about it, sort of hopes he doesn’t. Would it bring back too many memories? Officially, Hoseok wasn’t in the hospital for addiction, but Jimin knew about his deal with one of the nurses, knew about the hushed scoldings he’d get after blood tests. Knew why Hoseok stayed long after should have. 

He doesn’t know what to say about it, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He takes the bag to work with him and prays to every god out there that nobody tries to peek into his backpack. In terms of quickest ways to make things worse, a criminal record is pretty high on the list. 

But when he gets home, Hoseok is laid out on the couch, not as jittery as he  was this morning, and he takes Jimin’s hand and thanks him, so. It’s all worth it, Jimin supposes. 

They do watch a movie that night, because Hoseok insists it’s been too long since he’s seen Ponyo and that needs to be rectified immediately. Jimin doesn’t put up much of a fight. He rarely does, with Hoseok.

“I’m sorry about all that,” Hoseok says about halfway through the movie. On screen, Ponyo and Sosuke steer their boat through the floodwaters. Their summer is beautiful with its lush green and cerulean blue. The protagonists’ days stretch out in front of them, teeming with adventure and magic and life.  

“It’s okay,” Jimin replies. 

“I didn’t— I mean, it probably wasn’t necessary that you— I just freaked out. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I said.”

“I’m better,” Hoseok goes on, eyes still fixed on the movie. “Sort of. I am. Sometimes, I just—” he frowns. “I mean, it could have been worse.”

“Doesn’t have to be worse,” Jimin says at length. “You know, for you to get scared. And need help.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to make it your problem, though.”

“Wasn’t a problem.”

Hoseok makes a discontented sound but doesn’t argue again, leaning over and bracing his elbows on his thighs. He sits like that through the rest of the movie, eyes a little spacey every time Jimin dares sneak a glance over. 

He wants to touch again, like the way he did last night. Wants to run fingers over tanned skin and maybe more, maybe grab, maybe hold. Does Hoseok want him to? It’s impossible to tell anything with him. 

Jimin slips one hand across Hoseok’s shoulders. Stiffens when they stiffen, relaxes when they relax. The pose is awkward and he retreats after a minute, shifting to place his hand on the back of Hoseok’s neck. The familiar tattoo disappears and reappears behind his palm as he massages. Jimin lets himself study the design. His fingernails graze each line of black ink as he gazes at the tattoo, tracing out a shape his eyes can follow. It’s not an overly large or complex design, but by the time Jimin is satisfied with his scrutiny, he realizes the room is quiet, the television long turned off. Hoseok sits perfectly still beneath his hand. 

“Sorry,” Jimin says automatically.

“S’fine,” Hoseok breathes. 

“Never told me why you got this,” Jimin murmurs. Now that he’s mustered up the courage to touch, he doesn’t want to stop, as addicted to it as he was in bed the night before. “Or when.”

“Um.” Hoseok is looking down at his hands, clasped loosely in front of his knees. “I don’t know. Some of my coworkers went out after our shift so I went with them.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Lame.” Jimin drags Hoseok’s collar down with one finger so he can see the entire tattoo. A rose in full bloom, thin brambles curling outward into new buds. “Why this design?”

“I thought it looked pretty.”

“Looks pretty on you,” Jimin notes.

“Thanks,” Hoseok says quietly. 

Jimin runs his thumb over the entire patch of skin, feeling out the pattern of bones and muscle beneath. That urge to bite, almost forgotten, stirs within him once more, and he moves away as quickly as he can without seeming suspicious. 

“Guess it reminded me of myself,” Hoseok adds haltingly. He rubs the back of his neck self consciously, covering most of the design. “I don’t know.” A beat. “Doesn’t really matter.”

Jimin hums. 

Hoseok stands up a little abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets as he walks away. “Thanks for the movie.”

“You don’t have to—” Jimin starts, bemused, but Hoseok has already disappeared into their room. He doesn’t shut the door, but Jimin knows better than to follow him. 

~~~

Jimin makes another list in his journal. He erases the title a few times, tries to reword it, frowns, erases it again. In the end he settles with times hoseok hyung wanted to kiss me probably (underlined twice).

• That time in namjoon-hyung’s container when we weren’t supposed to be there
• My last day in the hospital
• My first day back in the hospital
• The day he came back
• Today?

It’s one of his stupider lists. It makes his stomach seize up when he thinks about Hoseok finding it, so he rips it out and balls it up and throws it in the trash can under the kitchen sink. 

He would have made a times i wanted to kiss hoseok hyung list, but he’s not sure he has enough space in his journal. 

~~~

That night, they’re both quiet. Usually Hoseok fills the minimal space between them with inane chatter, sharing bits about his day or inviting Jimin to share, but not tonight. Jimin can tell he’s still awake, his breathing too fast and audible. 

“Hyung?” he whispers eventually. 

Hoseok doesn’t reply. 

“Is it a bad night, too?” Jimin asks, still quiet and breathy. “We can watch another movie.” He wants to hit himself. Why is the best thing he can suggest always watch a movie?

There’s a strange noise from Hoseok’s side of the bed. Something like a sniffle. 

“I could touch you again. If you wanted. I don’t know if it helped, but…”

He’s not expecting any answer at this point, but he still keeps his movements slow and timid in case Hoseok wants to pull away. He breathes out carefully as he turns on his side to face Hoseok’s back, reaching bit by bit across the scant foot of mattress space between them. 

The moment his fingers brush skin, Hoseok rears. Jimin snatches his hand back at once, heart jumping to his throat, but he doesn’t even have time to apologize before Hoseok plunges into Jimin’s chest, hands scrabbling at his thin night clothes and gasping unevenly against his shirt collar. Jimin allows himself two seconds of terror before he moves, gathering Hoseok closer and wrapping his arms around his painfully skinny body. 

“It’s alright hyung, hey,” Jimin tries to soothe, voice shaky. He rubs his hands up and down Hoseok’s back. “Take a deep breath.”

Hoseok inhales shudderingly, ribcage pressing against Jimin’s as it expands. 

“You’re okay,” Jimin murmurs. He tangles his fingers in Hoseok’s hair, the long bits starting to reach down the back of his neck. Just like how Hoseok used to do for him. He hopes it’s as comforting to Hoseok. “Just keep breathing and it’ll be just fine.”

“Do you know what—” Hoseok croaks, words muffled as they get caught against Jimin’s chest. “I forget about that tattoo, you know. Most— most of the time.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin says automatically. “Shit, hyung, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, it’s—” Hoseok laughs, watery and humorless. “It’s so fucking stupid. Jesus Christ. It’s actually the, just the, the dumbest thing ever.”

“Okay.” Jimin brushes his lip’s over Hoseok’s hair and wonders if he can even feel it. “You can tell me, though.”

Hoseok doesn’t, not for a couple minutes. His breathing takes some time to even out. Jimin slides one hand up and down his back, and Hoseok follows each stroke with an inhale and exhale.  

“I should be over it by now, you know,” Hoseok says dully. 

Jimin waits.

“My mom’s name,” Hoseok starts, and Jimin’s heart is already breaking. “Jangmi. My mom’s name was Jangmi.”

Jimin can’t say anything to that, and Hoseok knows. Hoseok knows everything Jimin could say, about fitting her beneath his skin, carrying her with him, branding himself, like maybe she would recognize it one day. He knows that Jimin is sorry. Jimin knows he knows. So Jimin doesn’t say anything at all, only holds Hoseok tighter.

~~~

The days go slowly. Jimin finds for once that he doesn’t mind that so much. Summer refuses to fade, hanging over the city in a yellowish haze. Jimin doesn’t mind that so much either, somehow. He’s started taking earlier shifts at his job and comes back before night falls. Most evenings he’ll comes home to find Hoseok has made dinner for both of them, usually something low effort and low cost, but it’s better than coming home to nothing at all. They’ll eat on the roof together, leaning against the outside wall and watching the sunset while listening to Hoseok’s music collection. Jimin starts filling the pantry with the spiciest ramyeons because Hoseok’s lips get all slick and red and when the summer light hits it just right, it’s—

Or maybe Jimin just likes spicy ramyeon. 

He stays a little later at work today to help fill some no-shows, and when he comes home, Hoseok is already out on the roof, sitting with hunched shoulders and legs tucked to his chest. A lit cigarette is trapped between his fingers.

“I thought you didn’t smoke,” Jimin accuses, leaning his arms on the open window sill.

“I don’t,” Hoseok answers without looking. The twilight breeze tousles his dark hair, blowing it off his forehead momentarily. Jimin can’t see his face from this angle. A shame.

“You nag Yoongi-hyung about it,” Jimin says. Carefully, he raises his legs to the window and lifts himself out and over. He pads over to Hoseok’s side, soles of his feet prickling at the rough heat of the rooftop.

“I nag Yoongi-hyung about drinking,” Hoseok corrects. 

Jimin sets himself down as lightly as he can, squatting until he sits, gathering knees to chest. Hoseok’s face turns ever so slightly, just so he can follow Jimin’s movements with his eyes. 

“What’s the difference?” Jimin sighs. “You smoke, he drinks…”

“I don’t smoke,” Hoseok reiterates before taking another drag. 

His exhale bursts into the golden air, whitening the surroundings for a moment. Haziness envelops them. Jimin holds his breath. 

“Besides,” Hoseok continues. “Smoking is better than drinking anyways.”

“How’s that?”

Hoseok hums slightly. “Smoking only hurts me. Drinking hurts the people around you.”

Jimin nods. Shakes his head. “Not true.”

“True.”

“Smoke pollutes the environment,” Jimin says knowledgeably. 

Hoseok snorts. “I was already going to hell. Don’t think adding my weekly iota to the fuckin’ smog is gonna do too much.”

“Smoke is dangerous to the people you’re with,” Jimin tries again. “I’m breathing in your smoke right now.”

“Leave, then.”

“And smoking makes mouths taste bad.”

Hoseok glances at him, lips quirking. “What does that matter?”

“Makes for bad kissing.” 

He doesn’t know why he says it, really. Doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t. Except for now Hoseok is looking at him, not just that side eye shit he’s been doing. Really turned his head to gaze evenly at him. Jimin doesn’t look, though. He never looks if he can’t help it.

“That matter a lot to you?” Hoseok asks.

Jimin shrugs.

Hoseok lifts the cigarette to his lips and inhales. He holds it there for a moment, and briefly Jimin thinks he’ll reach over and exhale right into his mouth, but then the rooftop is bathed in fumes again. After extinguishing the cigarette onto the tiles beside him, Hoseok leans back on his hands, making his collar bones jut out in his low cut shirt while his legs stretch out in front of him.

“So, you gonna kiss me?” he asks.

Jimin glances his way. “No. You’ve been smoking.”

“Come here,” Hoseok says. Jimin does.

Hoseok’s mouth tastes ash gray, dead and burning. An arsonist’s gravestone. Jimin kisses him like he wants to be buried, like suffocation is the only way out. He touches those collarbones, just briefly, because he’s wanted to since he came out onto the roof, since Hoseok came home, since they walked into the classroom together. Hoseok nips at his bottom lip and Jimin suddenly realizes he doesn’t want to know where Hoseok learned to kiss. His own mouth seems stiff and scared, unprepared but so very desperate.

“You taste disgusting,” Jimin tells him after he’s pulled back. His voice shakes.

“I’ll quit smoking,” Hoseok says, “if you kiss me again.”

So Jimin kisses him again.

~~~

The bed is tiny. It’s always worked for them before, of course, but tonight, it’s offensively small. They’re together in ways they have never dared to be before, and this thing bursting out between them cannot fit in the bed. It’s too shabby, too inglorious to hold them, and Jimin thinks he’d rather have Hoseok take him on the floor than this space in which he spent so much of his time not touching Hoseok. It feels perverse in a way Jimin struggles to explain. 

But he lets Hoseok guide him onto the mattress because he knows Hoseok is careful around his bad leg and he knows that he could never deny a single instruction now, be it from Hoseok’s mouth or his hands or his eyes. He can have him any way. He has him any way. 

They’re gentle, which is almost funny, almost hilarious, because nothing about this has ever been gentle. Everything has always been working to tear them down. But when Hoseok takes off his shirt, when he pulls loose his shorts’ drawstring, when he kneels to remove each sock— gentle is the only word Jimin can think of. Even when he takes Jimin into his mouth. Even when he holds him down atop the sheets and doesn’t let up. Even when he makes Jimin’s back arch as he comes with a cry down Hoseok’s throat. Gentle. 

And Jimin touches him the same way, though his hands shake and Hoseok has to guide them for him. He kisses him again because he can, because he can , and he keeps kissing him as he reaches down and makes Hoseok sigh and moan against his lips. He can’t be good, he knows he can’t be, but Hoseok doesn’t complain once. The only time they stop kissing is when Hoseok has to break off because he’s whimpering so much, hands clutching Jimin’s shoulders as he shudders and then slumps, boneless, into his arms.

Jimin touches him tenderly, carefully, lovingly, and he doesn’t say much (can’t say much) but he hopes Hoseok knows. 

~~~

They go to the beach. 

There’s no truck, no screeching boys, no music blaring from the radio. Everything is quiet and open. Hoseok never got his license, so Jimin drives his shitty sputtering SUV, and Hoseok lets him keep one hand on his thigh. 

“When was the last time you were here?” Hoseok asks as they come to a gradual halt on the sand. 

“Last time you were here. However long ago that was.”

“You never came back?”

Jimin shrugs. “Why would I?”

The stars are out, though just barely. This close to the city, it’s practically impossible to make them out, but Jimin still tries, nearly tripping on his way out of the car as he squints at the sky. 

“Looking for something?” Hoseok says later, when they’re spread out side by side just out of the waves’ reach. 

“I don’t know.” Jimin accepts Hoseok’s hand when it brushes questioningly against his. “Not really.”

“When I traveled, we went to some places where you could see them super clear, like,” Hoseok says. “Never seen them like that before. It’s crazy. Makes you think.”

“Think?”

“Yeah. Like about how everything is really big.” Hoseok’s voice does something towards the end of his sentence, something choked up and twisted. Jimin would tease him for it, except he thinks he gets it. 

“Everything is really big,” he echoes. With his free hand, he buries his fingers into the cool sand. “And we’re really small.”

“Yeah.” The waves rush towards them and brush their toes before sinking away. 

“Like—” Jimin sits up. “Like, it doesn’t matter. Ever think about that? About how it doesn’t matter?”

“Sometimes.”

“Look at the, the goddamn sand, hyung. It’s like— there’s this whole, stupid big ocean out there and this tiny fucking grain of sand, and it’s like—” He grips his hair. “And it doesn’t even matter!”

Hoseok is laughing now, and so is Jimin, and so is the ocean as it gathers around their ankles. “And the stars, and it’s just—” He flings his arms out, shoulders shaking with it now. “What the fuck am I doing here?”

“You’re being here,” Hoseok says, rising to his feet and tugging Jimin along with him. “You’re being here with me.”

“Isn’t that stupid too?” Jimin croaks.

“Is it?” Hoseok gazes at him, eyes wide in the darkness. 

“No.” Jimin looks at his feet. “It’s not. And that’s why it’s stupid, because when it’s just me, it’s nothing, and two of us— It’s still nothing, two grains of fucking sand, but it’s like, it’s like it’s the whole world.” He tries to breathe through it, the explosions of wonder and horror and love breaking through his entire body. “You came home, hyung, and things mattered again.”

Hoseok pulls him closer, holding both hands now. “You’re not nothing.”

Jimin chokes on his laugh. “I don’t know what I am.”

“You,” Hoseok says, “are a grain of sand that I love very much.”

Jimin lets his forehead fall to Hoseok’s shoulder, giggling and crying and loving him. And loving him and loving him. 

Hoseok gets his chin in one hand and guides him back so he can look at him, so he can smile softly at wet cheeks and trembling lips. “And I’m going to show you.”

“Show me?”

Hoseok kisses him. The water passes their feet again, and beneath them the sand shifts, pulled away by the tide, but Hoseok holds Jimin close, keeps him standing. So they’re there, together. So they’re two grains of sand and they mean nothing. So the waves try to wash them away.

So?

So Hoseok comes home in the summer, and so does Jimin.