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Sometimes, Yoongi forgets how in love he is with Taehyung. Not that he ever forgets that he’s in love with him, rather he just forgets the overwhelming, knee-weakening feelings he harbours for the younger. How Yoongi is rarely speechless but there are moments of intimacy where Taehyung says something, and the world flips its axis and Yoongi can’t do anything but stare. He forgets because it’s so natural, but maybe sometimes he needs reminding.
___________
“Hyung,” Taehyung said (more like whined if you asked Yoongi), dragging out the ending of the word.
“Yes?” Yoongi replied, not even looking up from his book.
Taehyung adopted a fake whimsical look and giggled, “You know, I had this really cute dream.”
“Mmhm,” Yoongi said, still stationary, “and what was it about?”
“Ahhh,” Taehyung hesitated, surprised his hyung had entertained him this far when he was busy. The fact that they were sharing the same swing bench when Yoongi was concentrating on something was already way closer than he normally lets any of them be. Taehyung knows he has some special intimacy rights that the other members do not, but it still makes him feel special nonetheless when Yoongi so openly doesn’t care that they’re practically on top of each other.
Taehyung felt Yoongi shift beside him, so he took it as encouragement to keep going, “I don’t remember clearly, but it was a dream of an otter playing with this small stone and—”
“Wait, really?”
Taehyung was surprised by Yoongi’s sudden interest in his story; he had even put his book down in his lap. Enraptured by the somewhat curious look behind Yoongi’s eyes he continued, just a little more excited to share.
“Yes! It was so, so cute and—”
“Did the stone have a doodle of a cat on it?”
“Ye—HUH?” Taehyung gasped. Normally, he’d be a little pissed off that someone kept interrupting him as he was speaking but he was too blown away by the fact that Yoongi has read his mind.
“How did you know?”
“Oh, I think I had the same dream.” Yoongi smiled at him, almost knowingly. It took Taehyung about six seconds to make the connection as to why his hyung was smiling at him, why he had looked so interested in Tae’s story all of a sudden, and what exactly having the same dream meant.
“What?!?” Taehyung got close right into Yoongi’s face, never one to shy away from dramatics, and a bit of happiness and satisfaction flickered deep down in him when the elder didn’t flinch away. Yoongi was still feeling safe, soft, and comfortable.
“Hyung! Do you know what this means?!”
“Umm, that we had the same dream…?” Yoongi didn’t exactly look impressed, simply moving one of Tae’s longer curls away from his eye.
“Yes!! Which means we are telepathically linked! We have the same mind!”
Yoongi sighed, the smile on his face replaced with a soft smirk, “Right.”
Taehyung pulled away and looked forward, motioning with his hands, as if he could magic up the answer to his own question, “Oh my God, what do you think this dream means?”
“Tae…” Yoongi mumbled, while picking his book back up, the excitement from entertaining Taehyung sapping some of his energy.
“No, no. Hyung, it definitely means something. I’ve been having intermittent dreams about otters a lot recently.” Taehyung took up a false thinking pose, hand under his chin while he tapped his cheek.
Yoongi, hidden behind his book, glanced over at the beautiful man to his right, smiling a little. Okay maybe he secretly really, really enjoyed joining Taehyung’s flights of fancy.
“Did you know,” Yoongi mused, “that in literature, otters symbolize friendship, kindness, and peace?”
Taehyung’s head whipped towards him; Yoongi feigned indifference as if he hadn’t just helped Tae jumpstart his new career in dream analysis.
“And I think I read somewhere that cats symbolize elegance, curiosity, and protection.”
Taehyung gasped again.
“Hyung!!”
At this outburst, Yoongi had no choice but to look back at Taehyung, who had grabbed his shoulders and pulled them both to a standing position.
His book slipped to the ground, but that didn’t really matter. What mattered was how shiny and bright Taehyung’s eyes were as he said, “What if I’m the otter and you’re the cat?! Because you have an attitude and you’re pretty reserved but also my hyung so you’re safe and I’m super duper nice and have only good vibes, don’t you dare disagree, and I can make friends with anyone.”
Yoongi felt his brain break a little and he knew he was definitely not going to be able to give Taehyung a distinguished response. So, he just stuck with blinking back at him, yeah, that was a really good way of communication.
At Yoongi’s lack of response, Tae went back to sitting down, looking a little downcast. “Hmm. Maybe not.”
No wait, Yoongi didn’t want that. Yoongi liked that theory, even if he knew dream analysis was pseudoscience at best and a warped interpretation of untold hidden desires (fuck Freud by the way) at worst. He liked thinking that maybe he and Taehyung would meet even if they weren’t Min Yoongi and Kim Taehyung, SUGA and V, a rapper and a singer in the biggest boy band on the planet. If they were animals that probably couldn’t meet outside a Studio Ghibli movie (or their dreamscapes) but met, nonetheless. He’d like to think that he’d be able to interact with Taehyung’s special soul no matter what universe or life they were on.
So, instead of saying any of that out loud, he sat back on the swing and dignified Taehyung with a simple (strangled) answer, “Hmm. Maybe.”
Taehyung froze and looked up at Yoongi with those eyes and whispered, like it was their secret, like he hadn’t been yelling thirty seconds earlier, “Really? You think so?”
And Yoongi, ever the master of words said, “Uh, yeah. Why not? If you think we have telepathy…”
“Oh hyung! See! I knew you’d believe me. Okay, so what I was thinking was, well why was the cat a drawing on the rock? How did the picture get there? I think the real cat left it there as a message that he needed a friend.”
Yoongi blushed, okay, he knew he wasn’t the most extroverted person ever but like come on, he had friends when he met Taehyung.
Taehyung seemed to sense the shift in Yoongi, even without looking at him or breaking his train of thought. He quickly added, “Okay well maybe not a friend, he had other friends, but he needed someone that wasn’t like him but still much more similar than he thought. Someone who understood him without having to ask or to even look at him. Like when you don’t know you need glasses, and suddenly you put a pair on and you’re just like, ‘oh my god, that was a map this whole time and not just a colour blob??’”
Yoongi felt the blush spread down to his neck, thank god he'd worn this long-sleeve.
Again, Taehyung seemed to sense Yoongi’s emotions shift back to normal and continued his ramble, “So the otter found other stones and followed them all the way…”
Taehyung’s voice started to fade as Yoongi got lost in his thoughts. He normally didn’t like when people said his intimate feelings out loud, especially such deep ones like that that even he might not have been able to put into words. He didn’t want to think why Taehyung the Otter would follow Yoongi the Cat’s trail, or why he likened their realization of friendship to a map and spatial clarity, or why he just knows how desperate Yoongi was for a friend like Taehyung.
He looks over at the sunset behind them, at the pink-orange sky. At the sunkissed boy beside him, still rambling about how their animal selves would have met and travelled the forest together.
“….and Yoongi would always remember that Taehyung needs some kind of freshwater to play in – because he’s an otter duh – and Taehyung would always be careful to never get Yoongi wet. They’d both get strong enough to carry each other on their backs when the other was hurt and—”
Taehyung didn’t get to finish, there was suddenly a pair of soft, pink lips on his.
He sighed, Yoongi had understood exactly what he was trying to say, and he kissed back, slightly smiling all the while.
Taehyung pulled back first, “Hyung,” he teased, wiggling his fingers in front of Yoongi’s chest.
“Taehyung, I—well I,” Yoongi again, really was rarely lost for words. He’d like to think that his time as a rapper and lyricist gave him a much more intimate connection with language and speech than most. But when Taehyung was so…. Taehyung, especially when he was looking at him like that, what the hell was he supposed to say?
“It’s okay hyung, I know what you’re going to say. I’m the same,” Taehyung wrapped Yoongi’s pinky with his own and pulled their hands onto his lap.
“Tae, look at me, yeah?”
Tae’s round eyes met his and Yoongi instantly melted, yeah, he needed to tell this ball of sunshine and feelings that he loved him, no matter how many times he’d done so in the past.
“I think,” Yoongi swallowed, blushing again, jeez he was so lame, “I think that the cat did maybe need a friend. Not that he knew it, maybe the stones were just an unconscious trail that the otter picked up on all the way from home.”
He watched Taehyung smile; biting his bottom lip to suppress it. Yeah, he really did love playing into Taehyung’s stories.
“What else?”
“Well, I think that when they first met, the cat was a bit of a brat because the otter was still young and had an energy he didn’t quite understand, but then the cat realized that the otter was kind of another part of him. That they were congruent, the same just in different orientations. The two of them meeting was no coincidence, and they made each other better, they needed each other.”
Taehyung didn’t say anything, just looked into Yoongi’s dark eyes, swimming in them, absorbing all the meaning they help. He smiled a little.
“Hmmm, I don’t know. I’d have to ask the otter what he thinks about that.”
“Hey!”
Taehyung wrapped his arms around Yoongi’s neck, laughing, and whispered, “The otter thinks so too.”
Yoongi squeezed him tight, sighing into his hair and reaching up to play with Taehyung’s ear.
“I love you Tae, I truly do. I hope you know that.”
Taehyung sighed happily, “I know, hyung, I know.”
Yoongi hummed and Taehyung shifted, picking up Yoongi’s book from the dirt and brushing it off. He handed it to Yoongi with a small “here” and threw his legs over the armrest of the chair, gently placing his head in Yoongi’s lap.
Taehyung cleared his throat, “And now, hyung, is the time where I gossip to you about people who don’t matter to fulfill my daily word count, and you sit, nod along, and look gorgeous while doing smart people things.”
Yoongi started, but before he could say anything Taehyung interjected, “And don’t start feeling bad, this is one of my favourite parts of the day. It lets me work through my own problems all while gazing at you.”
Yoongi sighed in agreement, propping his book back open and resting his free arm around Taehyung’s chest, who instantly grabbed his fingers and started about the reality TV show he had caught Hoseok watching. And Yoongi had remembered in those moments, sitting there watching Taehyung create an entire plotline out of an otter and cat, listening to him talk about his passions and interests (which Yoongi took meticulous mental notes on, unbeknownst to Taehyung), and having Tae kiss him every so often when he saw Yoongi start to space out again, that Taehyung was undoubtedly the love of his life. No, definitely more than that; the love of his soul.