Chapter Text
Jimin thinks, at first, things couldn't get any worse.
Like, sure. There's finals in a couple of weeks and there's deadlines and there's trying to beat those deadlines and trying to ace his finals and there’s also his steadily dwindling social life—and there's work, but, he thinks, it's not so bad. Like it could totally be worse. He could be completely broke (debatable, but he needs to let it slide right now for where he wants his train of thoughts to go) and he could be starving all the time and his grade point average could dip into the ones, but he's not and it's not and he has Taehyung and Jeongguk who are both more than enough.
So he's good.
He’s great.
He should be okay, right?
Wrong.
He's going into his solid second month working at Sleepless in Seoul (a less than creative homage to the American movie, but the owner of the place had loved it so much he'd decided to use it and Jimin, mere serf that he is, is in no position to question that).
Anyway, it's been two whole months now and that's saying a lot considering he's held on to jobs for a full week tops before something incredibly shitty happens (from terrible run-ins with less than savory coworkers and or customers to testing the limits of his capacity as a human being and miscalculating by a long shot – in a spectrum of sorts) and he's forced to quit before they notice he isn't being the well-oiled Capitalism Machine that he normally is (Namjoon’s words) and, well, fire him.
Two whole months, which could easily go on to three, maybe half a year and he could save up for a new pair of sneakers, maybe treat Taehyung and Jeongguk out to a nice dinner, maybe actually pay for the water bill on time—but of course things finally decide to take a deep dive straight into trenches without him even trying.
And it's all because of that one guy.
Jimin has no idea who That One Guy is. Not yet anyway—but he decides it ought to be soon.
Jimin will admit to being a little extra about it, the way he goes about these things.
It feels like some sort of mini-puzzle he has to solve, like if he picks apart the situation enough he’ll get the answers he needs. It’s also in part because he does have his suspicions – and because the last thing he’d do is bother anyone about this until he’s sure of it himself.
(He’s told Taehyung though, but he insists that doesn’t count.)
So he’s careful about pinpointing some key timeframes and people to match.
They get a lunchtime crowd and he works efficiently through it with Jinyoung (one half of team 2-Park, because they share the same last name); it dies down sometime after 1:30pm and then they take turns having lunch in the back room.
At 3:45pm, Jinyoung has to leave for class and he's alone for the hour equivalent of three subjects until somebody takes over for the first half of the night shift.
There are five regulars who come in (at varying intervals and times throughout the week), but they're usually the ones who stay the longest and have an edge in table-next-to-socket claiming should they need it (three out of five usually do – but he can’t say much for the morning crowd).
Two of them always arrive together, at approximately, 3:00pm, just forty-five minutes before Jinyoung has to go.
The reason why Jimin zones in on these two are mainly because 1) they're both really cute, 2) one of them - the one who usually orders - is incredibly nice to Jimin, and 3) he just, felt really weird around that other guy. Not that the other guy’s been around him a lot because it’s always straight to the table with him and when he orders it’s usually Jinyoung up front by the register – though that could easily be why.
Jinyoung sometimes says it's because he can't decide if he's intimidated or attracted, other times he’ll nudge Jimin a little to take it down instead, but Jimin thinks, no, shakes his head to say as much, and finds something productive to do while he waits for Jinyoung to ring it up and tell him what to make.
"Hey," Jinyoung calls out from behind him, he's cleaning out the blenders and prepping them for a fresh order.
Jimin looks at him with what he hopes gets across properly as what and Jinyoung just nods towards the door as if to clarify.
Regulars two out of five are coming in.
The blonde-haired guy (the one Jimin isn't too fond of) doesn't have his laptop with him today, which possibly means that they aren't staying long to crowd around it and share earphones, nodding along to beats Jimin can't hear but kind of wishes he could. His curiosity peaked that time he'd looked over just in time to catch the really nice one's eyes go wide and then his face break into a grin.
As usual, blondie takes a seat in one of the couch areas against a wall (even if he doesn't need a plug, that jerk) and Nice Guy - Hoseok - as Jimin has come to know because he's always the one at the counter - makes his way to him, all friendly smiles.
"What can I get for you today?" Jimin says by way of greeting and Hoseok makes a show of looking at the overhead menu when they always get the same thing anyway. Though, Jimin supposes, he'd asked like he didn't know either.
"I'll have a green tea latte and an americano over ice for my friend."
Or not so different. It’s a curious shift, but nothing too drastic a change. He punches in their orders.
"Over ice? Really? Does he know how many degrees it is outside?" From behind him Jinyoung snickers, Hoseok only shoots him a smile that's even wider.
"Not in its exact digits, but I'm sure he does. He's a—" Hoseok mulls over his word choice as he pulls a couple of won from his wallet to hand over to Jimin, "—a warm guy, is all?"
Jimin tries to mask the bubbling noise of derision with a cough, because he doesn't know the guy and that would be mean and judgey and he isn't mean or judgey.
He notes receiving the exact amount and goes through the motions of telling Hoseok to wait for their drinks to be called out. Instead of going back to his shared table with the blonde haired guy, Hoseok stays right by the counter, observing the pastry display.
His eyes rove over the desserts for a bit, going through their names probably (terrible puns, none of them Jimin's idea), and then he pulls out his phone, snapping a few pictures of the line of cakes and cookies. A small smile tugs at the corner of Jimin's lips as he watches him from where he stands.
"Nothing you wanna get to eat?" Jimin asks, leaning on the counter and resting his elbow on it, chin in his hand.
"Are you sales talking me, Jimin?" Hoseok laughs. It's a nice sound when it's not Jimin hearing it from across the store, wondering if he has to usher them out to appease the other customers who suddenly look up from what they're doing to figure out where the noise had come from.
It takes him by surprise too, when he says his name.
"My sister likes pretty things. Tell the person who makes these that they look real great."
"All in a day's work," Jimin shrugs. "And they taste real great too. I bet your sister would love ‘em." Jimin smiles, gesturing to the general direction of the pastry display.
Hoseok just shakes his head, walking back closer to the front of the counter.
"I'll take your word for it then, Jimin. One very blue cheesecake to go."
If there's one thing that really gets Jimin, it's that when people trust him with things. Literally, anything. Even as simple as this. Being super nice to him and smiling (Hoseok’s right cheek dimples every time) a certain way is a plus too. Sometimes he wonders if Hoseok is single, the thought coming up after his valiant attempt at trying not to laugh over desserts with terrible puns for names.
Jinyoung comes up from behind him, dragging him out of his musings and Jimin punches in the new order.
"Here you go." Jinyoung says, setting it down on the counter and sliding it over carefully to Hoseok.
He moves quickly over to the back of the dessert rack to take the cake out and box a slice for Hoseok to go. There’s a momentary lapse in silence by all parties as they wait, but suddenly Hoseok’s phone starts blasting Liar Liar and he’s scrambling to pick it up.
"Babe?" Well, so much for being single.
Jimin tries very hard not to watch or so much as listen to the exchange. There's some nodding in Hoseok's part even if the person on the other line can't see him. Jimin would think it cute if he hadn't just gotten his non-existent chances crushed right before his eyes (and ears).
The call is cut and Hoseok pockets his phone not long after.
"Hey!" Hoseok calls out. He's turned his back on the counter, trying to call attention to the blonde sitting in the back of the store. He's got a large textbook open now and a highlighter in one hand.
His earbuds are in, but he looks up when he hears Hoseok’s voice. "Drink's here! I'll catch you later!"
Blondie is a little slack-jawed as he tries to process this information. Then his features settle into the brand of neutrality that Jimin is familiar with when he nods and pulls his earbuds off. He stands up, not bothering to cap the highlighter as he makes his way to the counter.
By the time he gets there, Hoseok is gone with his drink and the boxed slice of cake, and Jimin is still lingering around the register even if all his senses had told him to amble on over to Jinyoung and start a conversation neither of them want to have just so it seems like he's distracted.
He's almost glad that he hadn't.
Almost because when blondie approaches the counter and Jimin catches a faint whiff of tobacco on him as he grabs the drink, the gears in his head begin to turn.
Almost because he could be the reason why Jimin might lose his job.
But Jimin doesn't want to make loose assumptions.
There are tons of people who walk in and out by the counter or who walk out from the bathroom that smell relatively the same way (relatively because Jimin can catch a hint of cologne on him too, that he’d maybe want to ask about - maybe in another life). It makes his head spin for all of five seconds.
The guy walks away without bothering with small talk, doesn’t even so much as look at Jimin or say hi. Not that Jimin had been expecting him to.
When he settles back in his seat, with his uncapped highlighter (Jimin hopes he picks it up soon and uses it before he's tempted to walk over and put the cap on himself), he looks up, sees Jimin, whose eyes had followed him to his seat - staring at his general direction.
He smiles.
It's not a smile-smile.
Not like, Hoseok's broad grin or cute little lip quirks when he's pretending to think over his order when he already knows what it is, not the kind that dimples at the side. There's something more sardonic about it that prickles Jimin's skin. He doesn't re-cap his highlighter, just leans over his open book and holds on to his iced coffee with one hand, sipping.
Jimin snaps his gaze away. He tries not to think too hard about how, though it hasn’t happened often, it has happened more than once and this isn’t the first time.
"You should do something about that." Jinyoung tells him. He's shouldering his backpack already and he's hung his apron up in the backroom.
"Huh?" He thinks it's about idling about around the counter at first, and then Jinyoung opens his mouth again to speak.
"That." Jimin knows these pauses are for dramatic flair, but he waits with bated breath anyway, "that weird eye-fucking thing you sometimes do with the other regular. I hope you don't do it with everyone because that could be why we literally only get the same people around this time."
"Hyung, I do not!" Jimin protests. The rest of his sentence dies in his throat.
"Sure, Jimin. And you don't smoke in the restroom before your solo shift ends."
"Who told you that?" Jimin makes the mistake of blurting out first.
"I mean, fuck," he amends, "I don't- I don't do that either."
Jinyoung just shrugs. "Heeyeon-noona told me to ask about it, didn't really know how to segue it into the conversation."
Jimin doesn't say a word, afraid his mouth will betray him.
"I don't hold smoking against you, hey, cope how you wanna cope and you have Jeongguk on your back about that already, probably" Jinyoung goes on, making gestures with his hands as he speaks. It's a bit like watching one of his professors rattle off about labor law.
"All I'm saying is you need to take it somewhere else before you get reported or caught by someone who isn’t Heeyeon-noona. Or maybe, I don’t know, wait until after work? You're a good kid-" (he's only a year younger than Jinyoung, but whatever, right?) "and I like working lunch time rush with you. Just take care, yeah?"
Jinyoung gives him what he thinks Jinyoung probably considers a comforting pat on the shoulder.
Jimin has no choice but to nod and watch him round the counter and exit the store. He tries not to deflate in his spot although he did wish the ground would open up and swallow him whole right about now. He looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes.
The door chimes again to signal customers coming in, either that or Jinyoung's returned because he'd realized he'd been completely wrong in the last half minute and he's come back to apologize to Jimin.
Hah.
Jimin takes a deep breath, exhales, opens his eyes.
It is not, in fact, Jinyoung. And he needs to get back to work.
His shift is nearing its end.
There were a lot more customers today than he's used to having, which is good for business, Jimin thinks happily as he eyes the tip jar at half full. A couple of professors had come in with guests from overseas and these guests had been fairly generous.
He's glad to be clocking out on a good note. There's just a couple of more things he has to take care of now that Heeyeon is around to take charge of the register.
He's holding a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other. There's no line to the bathroom, which means this should be quick and fairly easy. He smiles a little to himself when he finds that the door is unlocked too.
Pushing at it with his arm, he hauls everything inside and let's the door swing shut behind him, locking it after he’s in so that he can scrub floors and de-clog the toilet if he has to in peace. He's distracted by straightening up for a bit until there’s smoke clouding in front of him. The strong scent of tobacco almost sends him reeling.
"Fuck," he curses and bats at the air in front of him.
It’s not that he hates it. He’s just not used to it in close quarters that aren’t pubs, so he’s a little more than surprised. He finally has the culprit.
"Oh, hey."
Jimin looks up through the slightest of tears in his eyes to see the blonde Hoseok is always with.
He's sitting on the toilet with the lid closed, elbows on his knees with a cigarette caught between his fingers. Jimin spies half a packet still full poking out of the guy's front pockets and he narrows his eyes at them before turning to him.
“I knew it was you!” Jimin blurts out suddenly. The guy’s eyebrows just shoot up a little at the sudden outburst.
But nobody says anything more for a long moment and it's precisely for that reason Jimin finds it high time he open his mouth to talk.
"Sir," Jimin tries, the initial shock has made way for more pressing matters, which is mostly him just trying to keep his job and he's schooled his expression into something more neutral, a little pouty, but old habits die hard.
This guy would probably know.
"You're not allowed to smoke in the restroom." He tries to stand up a little straighter too. It helps that he looks taller than him because of the way the guy's seated.
"Says who?" The guy's lips quirk up, and he turns away to blow the smoke at the wall in front of him instead of Jimin's general direction like it'll make up for all the ways he's being incredibly rude and insufferable right now.
Though, he isn’t really.
"Says the sign right next to you." He'd jab a hand at it if he could but the guy easily spots it when he turns his head and cranes it a bit so the sign isn't all up in his face. Although it should be, Jimin thinks.
"Oh." Is all he says, then. He takes one last long drag of the cigarette and Jimin tries not to watch too closely, too carefully. But it's hard not to.
Jimin's been out to parties before and he's seen a lot of people do it. He knows his own hands still get jittery when he strikes the lighter into life and holds the flame close to the cigarette. This guy is all languid grace, from the way it rests in between his fingers, to the way he inhales, heavy, but doesn't look like he'd ingested lungfuls at all. When he exhales it's through his nose and through his mouth, quiet, wisps of smoke in front of him. Jimin is a little mesmerized.
The guy puts out the rest of it against the heel of a boot clad foot. When the embers have all died down to dull ash, he folds it in a piece of paper and stuffs it into one of his pockets.
"You're staring." He points out, and Jimin thinks, rude. Even though he's arguably the only one making eyes at a person in this tiny crawlspace of a restroom.
He's about to protest when the guy speaks again.
"You gonna come over here and confiscate these from me?" But he’s standing up from his seat and walking on over to where Jimin is standing in front of the sink.
He has to face the door now that the guy is next to it.
He crosses his arms over his chest, glaring.
"I should," Jimin counters, sounding much like a petulant child, it’s a bit of a stretch from what he’d been going for - which was authoritative and to the point.
The guy just takes it all in stride though, has the audacity to smirk even. He reaches into his pocket and then slips the whole packet and his lighter into Jimin's front pocket.
"There." Blondie says, pats his jeans too for good measure, "we good now?"
No, Jimin thinks. The reality of the situation finally sinking in properly. He makes a mental note to tell Jinyoung that he is definitely wrong on both accounts about intimidation and attraction.
"No," Jimin says, he's glaring, he's sure of that, but he can't help the way his lower lip juts out the tiniest bit.
The guy just laughs.
"I could make it up to you then?" He offers.
Jimin could literally be looking at anywhere else, but what he ends up catching is the guy licking his lips. He watches the movement, doesn’t realize he’s still staring and that he’d been caught a long time ago. The guy is about the same height as him, but he’s looking down at him because Jimin is too.
Jimin knows, he shouldn't ask. He really shouldn’t. He knows that it's better to get this guy out of here now and get him in front of Heeyeon stat to vouch for him and save face before his shift ends.
But he doesn't. And it feels a lot like relenting when he asks, "how?"
"You were staring." The guy says again; it’s a painful reminder. He tilts his head to Jimin's jeans like he's saying, hey look there!, instead. Jimin does look down again (makes the mistake of doing so really), this time at himself, finds a visible tent in his jeans, otherwise hidden by the apron he's wearing.
And he hadn't realized it himself too, what the fuck.
Jimin swallows thickly. Mostly because, okay, maybe Jinyoung had been right about one thing. Less so about the other.
He's been propositioned before, sure, and he's gone along with a them a couple of times, yeah, definitely - but it's never taken place in a bathroom, at work, and by one of his regulars too.
He's not entirely sure yet if this is a dream or a nightmare.
Could be both.
The guy takes a glance at his name tag.
"So what do you say, Jimin-sshi?"
A part of Jimin wants to tell the guy to get out and leave him to it.
He wants to say that he can fix this by himself because he's still a little upset over being wrongly accused about smoking in the bathroom when blondie has been sitting here week after week with Jimin thinking the best of him still (or at least, something close to it). But the other part, the part where his impulse control is conveniently still defunct and his mind is being particular about solving more pressing matters (Jimin, you are hard, and somebody is willing to take care of it for you), says,
“Okay.”
The blonde smiles. It’s his first real show of teeth, like he's truly pleased, but he catches the shift in his emotions. Doesn’t miss the way he’d been looking at Jimin with a curious expression beforehand.
He’ll admit that it was kind of cute.
There's nothing so graceful about hook-ups, Jimin knows that.
Most of the time both parties are piss drunk and teeth clack and there’s too much tongue and hands are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Jimin thinks that it should be even more awkward now that he's 100% sober this time around, because there’s no excuse for terrible kissing and rushed handjobs, but the guy, apparently, moves the same way he smokes.
He closes the short distance between them, a tentative step forward. He cups the side of Jimin's face like he's ready to kiss him.
It’s when their lips are close to touching that Jimin realizes something fairly important and he blurts out, “I don’t even know your name!”
The guy chuckles. The sound is nice. Jimin refuses to say this out loud.
The guy doesn’t pull away; just says, "Yoongi," a little under his breath and then his mouth is against Jimin's.
There is no system to this, but Jimin's glad for the way Yoongi kisses. Soft and unsure when Jimin is standing stock still and then with a little more pressure, when it feels like Jimin is starting to run on instinct now, to reciprocate. Yoongi's hands come up around his waist, settles for the skin beneath his shirt.
Yoongi pulls away briefly with the barest hint of a smile when he tugs at Jimin's apron and says, "you should maybe take this off."
Jimin nods at the suggestion and Yoongi makes quick work of untying the back. Jimin pulls it over his head, letting it rest on the sink behind him.
When Yoongi's close again, he kisses a line down Jimin's neck and Jimin groans at the way the sensation of being licked at where he's sensitive tightens his jeans.
"Why does it feel like," their lips meet again briefly and Yoongi speaks between kisses, "I could get you off by just that?"
Jimin is sorely tempted to step on his foot for that, but he thinks better of it and decides instead to nip at his lower lip and smile against it.
"You'd be surprised." He says cryptically. “But is that how you really want to do this?”
Yoongi shakes his head. His hands have moved from under Jimin’s shirt, to his belt buckle. Jimin helps him get it undone.
The exhilaration is almost blinding. It's not luck per se, Jimin knows there are pros and cons to these things, like it could be terrible and he could regret it later. But he's thoroughly not...complaining about it right now and that's enough for him. His school counselor once told him "less think, more do" - then again he supposes he probably meant it in reference to his indecisiveness about the general layout of his future and not, well, this.
Yoongi doesn’t waste time though, palming Jimin through his briefs as he kisses a line down his neck again. Jimin reaches back to grip at the sink behind him, hopes it’ll help keep him still.
His breath hitches when Yoongi squeezes and he barely manages to quell the loud groan from the back of his throat threatening to spill.
“Jesus,” he breathes, settling his head in the crook of Yoongi’s neck because he’s going to need to keep it down and it gets more difficult to do so the longer this drags on.
“Sorry,” Yoongi pulls away, and Jimin looks up at him confused, like he’s about to be left hanging all of a sudden because Yoongi’d just made a split second decision he was probably regretting now.
“Not like that.” Yoongi just says before lowering himself down onto his knees.
Jimin’s eyes go wide, looking down between his legs.
“May I?” Yoongi’s got that smile tugged up the corner of his lips again when he looks up at Jimin for permission and Jimin spends a good few seconds just staring, just because. It's cute. Strangely endearing. When he gets some semblance of clarity back, he nods.
Yoongi pulls at his clothes, doesn’t linger around his movements. He half wishes he’d take it slower, a little like the kissing, but he supposes he can only be cleaning the bathroom for so long and it’s really more than enough.
When Yoongi licks at the slit of his cock, something tentative and quick before he takes as much as he can of Jimin in and Jimin’s grip over the sink nearly slips. Yoongi has to hold his hip down because it’s getting increasingly harder not to buck up into his mouth or fall backwards and crack his head open on the granite.
It’s good, it's really good, Jimin wants to say, but his voice might come out too loud and he’s not sure if the sound is going to carry outside or if anybody’s waiting to use the bathroom for that matter. He’s worrying about getting caught for a moment before Yoongi wraps a hand around the part of his dick his mouth can’t reach and Jimin has to suck in a breath at the feeling.
Jimin’s close to the edge when his breathing comes in and out shallow, and he’s unable to keep himself from reaching out to Yoongi, who lets him clutch at his hair anyway. Jimin wills himself to keep it light.
“God—just,” Jimin stutters, releasing a bruised lower lip from between his teeth.
The sounds of his ragged breathing fill the small bathroom, but Jimin can’t find it in himself anymore to care so much about how loud it must be. Yoongi licks down the underside of his cock and then takes him all in again, sucking hard.
He only has to it for an embarrassing couple of more minutes before Jimin is shaking and whimpering as he comes.
Yoongi pulls away when he’s done, now with Jimin’s once discarded apron in his hand. He spits into the sink behind Jimin.
He tries to regain his composure, evening out his breathing. Yoongi tucks him back into his jeans and zips it up for him.
Jimin exhales.
“Do you offer blow jobs as compensation to everyone?” He asks with a little laugh trailing after it.
Maybe it’s because he’s still drunk off the feeling of having just gotten off, but Jimin suddenly finds all this to be really funny. It’s been awhile since he’d gotten any too, which is maybe, he thinks, what he’d needed to momentarily forget about all the other shit taking place in his life.
(Which isn’t shit at all, Jimin will remind himself later on, because he’s in school, and his grades are doing fine, and he has good friends, and he’s well on his way to graduation day, really, nothing more he can possibly ask for.)
Yoongi slips his jacket off to tie around his waist and turns to unlock the door behind him.
“Only the cute ones.”
And then he’s gone.
When Jimin exits the bathroom it’s some fifteen minutes later, after doing a half-assed job of scrubbing at things - thankfully the toilet doesn’t have to be de-clogged. Weeknights are usually pretty slow so when he gets back to Heeyeon up front, she’s busy tapping at her phone.
The crowd has waned significantly with just three people inside the shop, all traces of Yoongi gone. No backpack, no thick textbook, no uncapped highlighter, just a half-finished iced americano watered down and neglected.
Jimin can’t say he isn’t even a little bit disappointed, but so it goes, right?
Or well, not really.
He’s still coming down from the high of having just gotten off, and he hopes it’s not something his co-worker has a sixth sense for.
Heeyeon scrunches her nose up when Jimin moves closer to take a muffin from the dessert case and he stills when he hears her calling out to him.
“Jimin,” she says, her voice is careful, measured, concern clear in her eyes.
“Jinyoung… he hasn’t spoken to you, has he?”
Jimin frowns, for a split second, without any idea about what she could be talking about, and then it just kind of clicks, when his eyes wander on over to the vacated table at the back of the room. He snaps to attention again, shaking his head at Heeyeon.
“Oh! No…I mean, yeah, yeah. We talked, noona. It’s uhm, it’s cool? It’s alright now, I guess.”
Jimin doesn’t really understand why he’d found it in himself to not out Yoongi instead, though it’s in some parts because Heeyeon probably wouldn’t believe him without the evidence to back it up.
Heeyeon eyes him critically, eyes narrowing. It’s a little belated when Jimin realizes she’d been staring at the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and then at the apron thrown over his shoulder.
“I hope this is the last time, Jimin.” There’s nothing harsh about the way she says it, but she does use the disappointed senior voice on him, which is just as bad.
He closes the dessert case, deciding to forego the muffin.
“Yeah, noona. I uh—I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Taehyung isn’t home when he arrives after his shift, but it’s no big surprise. Jimin knows he chose late afternoon classes this semester because he couldn't be bothered to wake up for anything before noon. There’s also one meeting or the other for one of his many extra-curricular activities, Jimin isn’t sure which one it is on Thursdays.
He dumps his bag on the bed when he reaches his room and closes the door behind him. His hand touches the cigarette pack and the lighter in his pants and he’s about to set it down somewhere and look for some clothes so he can take a shower and get started on answering his problem sets, maybe try and make note cards for his civil law class. Anything remotely productive.
Instead, he ends up picking a stick up and leaving the box on the bed as he makes his way to the small balcony.
It’s not so cold out on nights like these, especially since it’s still pretty early into evening. Jimin settles himself against the railing, licks his lips before letting the cigarette rest between them.
His hand shakes when he tries to flick and light, but the feel of sucking in materialized air is familiar. He tries to replicate what Yoongi had been doing in the bathroom, the quiet of it all - pace himself a little better, but the smoke fills his lungs too quick and he exhales through his mouth.
It’s still not so bad.
He closes his eyes.
There’s a loud crash some ways away but he knows that it’s probably just Taehyung, finally home.
Jimin hears a door cracking open a fraction and then wider, the padding of unsocked feet against the floor and the sliding door coming open.
“Oh, wow, I haven’t you seen you at that since that monster of a final from when you took Professor Lee for Business Law. You okay?”
He nods, managing a slow drag and equally slow exhale this time as he turns his head away from Taehyung.
“Picked it up at work.” He tries for nonchalance, but Taehyung doesn’t leave his side. Just takes up residence on a balcony chair.
“That’s it? You sure?”
Jimin frowns. “Yeah, why else?”
“If reverting back to shitty coping mechanisms isn’t enough of a huge red flag, Jimin, I don’t know what is. You know Gukkie’s not going to be happy about this, right?”
Jimin knows he’s just worried because Jimin has a tendency not to talk when push comes to shove. He also knows that Jeongguk is, in fact, not going to happy about this and he feels a pang of guilt when he thinks about it. He tries for a smile as he expels more smoke.
“You remember the bathroom smoker I told you about?”
“The one that isn’t you?”
“Stop—it really isn’t, Tae-”
“Yeah, yeah.” Taehyung shoots him a grin. “What about them?”
“Well,” Jimin smiles wryly, walking over to where Taehyung is sitting to put out the rest of the cigarette on the ashtray he hasn’t used since two semesters ago.
“I finally caught him in the act.”
Taehyung’s eyes go wide and Jimin cracks a smile at the expression.
“Yeah and?” Taehyung eggs on, literally on the edge of his seat.
“He’s uh, you remember when I told you about my favorite regulars?”
“Cute dimples guy you wanted in your pants for awhile?”
“The other one.”
“Grumpy devil-may-care blondie who won’t give you the time of day even though you’ve got, and I quote, “an ass the Romans would have fought wars for””
“That one.”
Taehyung just looks at him for a long moment like he isn’t sure if he wants to hear what else Jimin has to say, but Jimin knows he won’t be able to help himself.
“What about him?”
Jimin mulls over his next couple of words carefully, settles for, “he offered to uh, make it up to me. The whole situation.”
Taehyung nods, “and?”
Jimin swallows thickly.
“And for someone who’s probably chronic, he’s got great lung capacity.”
Taehyung lets out an inhuman noise as he lunges for Jimin’s face and squeezes his cheeks between his hands when the realization hits.
“Park Jimin! Tell me this is not what I think it is.”
“Gutter head.” Jimin snickers, although he had been hoping Taehyung would catch on quick. “Believe me when I say I kind of wish I was.”
There’s a sound that’s supposed to be some sort of pleased squeal and then Taehyung is laughing. Jimin hopes they aren’t disturbing the neighbors. Then again, after almost two years living here, they’re probably well adjusted to his roommate by now.
Jimin stands up to go back inside his room and fish another stick out of the box, returning to Taehyung to relay the rest of the story (sans a couple of details that Jimin’s perfectly happy to keep to himself).
He talks about when he’d first walked in with peach pink hair and Taehyung recalls him better when he informs him that he’s blonde now and he looks really nice in snapbacks despite the resting bitch face.
Taehyung lets out a low whistle when Jimin finishes his story, leaning back against the seat, trying to digest all the information. Which really isn’t much. Although Jimin had told him about Jinyoung’s eye fucking comment too because he’d needed the validation - “I don’t do that, do I?” “Sure” - which he hadn’t gotten anyway.
“Man, that’s some predicament.”
“It’s not a predicament,” Jimin counters, “it was a one time thing.”
“Yeah, well you did tell Heeyeon-noona that it wasn’t going to happen again. How are you dealing with that? Isn’t he like, some sort of regular?”
Jimin groans at the thought, running a hand through his hair and pulling at the ends. There’s a large part of him that wishes everything would just sort itself out.
“I’ll think of something.”
Taehyung nods at that, standing up from his seat to take his leave. When he’s by the threshold of the sliding door on the other side, he pops his head back out,
“Jimin,” he says, and Jimin looks up from where he was blanking out, a lit cigarette in hand.
“Yeah?”
“Pace yourself, alright? Try not to get addicted.”
Jimin doesn’t know if he’s talking about the smokes or something else entirely, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask, and doesn’t want to for that matter. Taehyung slides the door shut behind him and Jimin flicks ash off the cigarette between his fingers.
True to his word, there is no strange scent of tobacco when he enters the bathroom to clean it before his shift ends for eight days in a row. But this also means that there has been no sight of Yoongi for just about the same amount of time.
Hoseok would come in during Jimin’s shift, order two of the same drinks they’d usually get if Yoongi was there, but then he’d smile at Jimin this time, to bid him goodbye. Sometimes he gets a cake or a sandwich to go too, like it’s some sort of consolation for not sticking around like he usually does - or maybe even, not having Yoongi in tow.
But Jimin highly doubts that and kind of hopes that isn’t it because then that would mean he’d just been painfully obvious about staring. Or Yoongi had told Hoseok about that one episode in the bathroom, for that matter.
He cringes at the thought, fingers tightening around the drink in his hand.
The ground is thumping beneath him and Jimin can almost say he’s already used to the way he’s become partially hard of hearing because of the loud music.
“Hey!” Jeongguk calls out, snapping his fingers right in front of Jimin’s face.
Apparently, not loud of enough.
Jimin glares harshly at him in return.
“What?” he snaps, frowning when Jeongguk reaches for his drink and takes a long swig of it before putting it back in Jimin’s hand.
“We’re here to have fun, Jimin! Let up. You’re killing the mood with that sulky face you’ve been making all night.”
Jimin is about to protest because he is not, in fact, making a sulky face goddamn it - but Taehyung beats him to it, slinging an arm around Jeongguk who stiffens suddenly under the weight, but relaxes the moment Taehyung laughs.
“It’s a work thing, Gukkie. There’s some asshole who’s been smoking in the bathroom, getting the blame put on our poor Jiminie here—” he turns to Jimin this time, flashing a wide grin and Jimin regrets looking up from his drink just in time to catch it, “though it should be fine, right? He did fix it by—”
Jimin reaches over the table to cover Taeyhung’s mouth and Jeongguk looks a touch concerned about Taehyung for a minute until Taehyung himself is able to keep Jimin at bay. Jimin tries for his most pointed glare, but it does little to deter Taehyung.
Or Jeongguk.
“Wait, I want in on the drama. Fix it how? How’d he fix it—” Jeongguk goes on excited, turning to Jimin, “hyung?”
Jimin rolls his eyes at that. The little shit.
“None of your business.”
“If it’s Taehyung’s business then it is so my business too because we’re childhood friends! We’re practically brothers! Tell me. I can keep a secret. Is it a secret?” He directs the question to Taehyung as if Jimin isn’t the one who’s supposed to be answering it. Jeongguk isn’t usually so talkative, but when he’s around friends and alcohol at the same time, a switch flips in his head and the last thing he’ll do before his night forcibly ends (by him passing out) is shut up.
Taehyung just shrugs, pulling Jeongguk along with him as they lean back against their seat.
“Is it, Jimin?” Taehyung cocks his head to the side.
Jimin puts his head on the table, because Jeongguk is right, and he’ll find out one way or another anyway. Jimin won’t be able to keep his mouth shut about it for too long.
He mumbles a quick, “no.”
And because Jeongguk who probably has bionic hearing or something close to it, picks up on his begrudging assent. He pulls Jimin up from where he’s trying to melt himself into the table to look him in the eye.
“Spill, hyung.”
He’s called Jimin hyung twice tonight - sober - which is a record in and of itself, but he can’t call this a victory exactly, not when Jeongguk is using it to get Jimin to do something for him. Which is when he uses it on him half the time anyway.
Jimin shouldn’t be surprised at this point.
“Taehyung,” Jimin starts, prying Jeongguk’s hand off him and scooting to the side so he can’t reach him (although if he were trying, he probably still would).
“You tell him."
He can’t deal with talking about his sex life in front of Jeongguk, if only because they’d grown up together. But he knows Jeongguk’s the type not to bat an eyelash at these things for the most part. (When Taehyung talks about what he does in his down time, he always seems to listen with rapt attention, after all.)
“He hooked up with some guy from work.” Is Taehyung’s grand explanation. Jeongguk’s eyes go wide because he’s adopted over the top reactions from Taehyung after prolonged exposure.
“Who? Jinyoung-hyung?”
Jimin chokes. “No, god no.”
“One of his regulars,” Taehyung goes on to say.
Jeongguk’s face is a cross between surprised and mildly impressed. “Is it the cute one with the dimple?”
Jimin reaches for his drink and poises it near his lips to take a swig. “I wish.”
Taehyung snorts. “You liked it though. What was his name—Yoongi?”
“I didn’t tell you what his name was how’d you—”
Jeongguk’s eyes widen and Jimin’s does too because this is a collective realization. This hive mind could be classified as almost intimate, but considering the subject matter, it mostly just serves to give him hell.
“You know Taehyung camps out on the couch way past midnight, right? Since the TV's in your living room? Oh my god, he probably heard you jacking off to the memory—”
He breaks off into a laugh, leaning against Taehyung for support.
Jimin would be slightly less mortified because this is Taehyung, but because Jeongguk is in on the revelation, he feels his cheeks heat up, unbidden.
“When Taehyungie runs off with someone tonight I am not sneaking you back into your dorm room and tucking you into bed. You hear me, Jeon Jeongguk?”
He doesn’t.
At two in the morning, Jimin is hauling a drunk Jeon Jeongguk down a street, one arm around his waist for support, the other holding on to his bicep to keep him from sliding off his shoulders. Their height gap doesn’t help but Jimin is almost thankful that Jeongguk is too smashed out of his mind to notice.
“Jesus, Jeonggukkie, what did you drink?” He breathes as they trudge along the cold early morning streets.
Taehyung had texted them both at twenty past midnight about having already left. Jimin wonders if it has anything to do with the timely suggestion of body shots and more soju. Jimin had politely declined his offer (“I can’t drink anymore if we both want to get home alive, Gukkie”), watching him do it off people instead, from his seat on the table.
So maybe that’s an answer to his question.
He takes a break on a bench next to a street lamp, sitting down and pillowing Jeongguk’s head with his shoulder.
He very nearly falls asleep himself when he feels a soft tap on his shoulder. “Jimin-sshi?”
When he looks up it’s a blonde haired guy in a dark blue beanie.
It takes awhile for Jimin to register who it really is because it’s kind of dark and though he has most of his wits still about him, his mind is still mostly swimming from pre-game.
He blinks.
“Ah! It’s you!” Jimin exclaims, he moves to regard him better but it’s nearly at the cost of Jeongguk falling off the bench and getting a concussion. He catches him just in time, arms coming up around his shoulders and his waist.
“Sorry—wait a minute,” Jimin says, trying to straighten Jeongguk up.
“Your, uh, friend? He okay?” Yoongi nods his head at Jeongguk who mumbles something incoherent in his sleep.
“Oh, yeah!” He’s not sure if he means both, but doesn’t really care to elaborate.
There’s tipsy word vomit at the tip of his tongue and Jimin manages to rein it, barely. His head isn’t spinning as much as it had been earlier, but it is now that he can feel the wave of nostalgia set as the light night breeze carries the scent of Yoongi’s cologne mixed in with the smell of tobacco.
He’d be damned to say he kind of missed it. So he doesn’t.
“I was just,” Jimin starts. He isn’t exactly sure about why he’s bothering with an explanation, but it’s probably because he has to get up and leave him so soon after not seeing him for so long. At least, post last (technically also their first) encounter.
“I need to sneak him into his dorm. So,” Jimin bites at his lower lip and manages to stand up. His legs don’t wobble. Small miracles. He sniffles at the cold.
There’s a pause before Yoongi speaks again and when he does, he’s walking on over to the other side of Jeon Jeongguk already, slinging his other arm over his shoulders.
“Need any help?” He asks, even though Jimin can pick-up, tipsy haze and all, the finality in Yoongi’s voice.
Jimin smiles despite himself.
“Yeah, it’s just straight ahead. Thanks, hyung.”
Yoongi doesn’t question the shift in familiarity. Jimin hopes he drops the ‘sshi’ the next time Yoongi says his name.
The dorm Jeongguk stays in doesn’t have the tightest security, but it ups itself on Friday nights because they know it’s when things usually happen and they can charge tenants (probably their parents) more for being little shits.
With a lot of maneuvering, they manage to get Jeongguk onto Jimin’s back so Yoongi can distract the front desk.
Jimin somehow manages to slip into Jeongguk’s dorm room with him in tow, thankful that he doesn’t live with anyone else and Jimin doesn’t have to deal with having to explain.
He sits him down on the couch first because he’s dead tired from hauling him on his back up three floors, but bustles over to the kitchenette not long after to grab the kid a glass of water before the dehydration gets to him.
Jimin kneels down in front of where Jeongguk's seated on the couch with his head less than gracefully lolled back against the backrest. Jimin doesn't bother stifling a chuckle at the sight, tempted to whip out is phone to take a photo.
"Jeonggukkie," Jimin calls out, "Jeonggukkie, drink some water."
He raises the glass up next to Jeongguk's lips and his mouth parts a little with what Jimin thinks is, for once, obedience, but alas. Jeongguk wretches instead and Jimin doesn't move fast enough to get out of the way.
"Oh," the door clicks shut from behind him, Yoongi's voice comes filtering into the room. "That's nasty."
Jimin is more than a little embarrassed at this point but there's also the overriding urge to get angry at his passed out dongsaeng setting in, which ends up being translated into a rather tragic form of resignation instead.
He sighs, setting the glass down on the table behind him, and closes his eyes momentarily, and then he gets up from where he's seated.
He's about to make his way to the bathroom and willfully ignore anything Yoongi has to say about his current state, but instead he's met with a wet t-shirt being scrubbed at his face and a hand on his forearm to hold him in place.
"It's your friend's," Yoongi explains with a small smile as he rubs Jimin's face clean of projectile vomit. He's a little rough when he does it, but Jimin is too confused to really care about that right now.
"His name is Jeongguk," Jimin says when Yoongi finishes, depositing the soiled and soaked shirt into Jimin's hands because he probably knows where to dispose of it better. "I'd introduce you guys sometime, like maybe when he's decidedly more sober but I don't think he's going to make it past Monday if I see him again."
Yoongi just laughs at the empty threat, looking for more of Jeongguk's shirts - mostly white - (of which number in the tens, probably) littered around the room to use as makeshift mops.
"Get something to change him in," He says suddenly, turning to Jimin. "The receptionist might wonder why it's taking forever for me to leave past curfew. He might come up to check."
Jimin rummages through Jeongguk's closet, finds a pair of sweats and a clean shirt. After Jimin wipes him down, they manage to get him into them, and pull him into bed.
Hands on his hips, Jimin surveys a passed out Jeongguk with a frown. "I should've just left him at the front step and walked away."
"Consider that next time," Yoongi tells him, tugging at his arm, "we should get going, remember?"
Jimin's eyes widen a little and he follows along.
"How'd you get past the front desk?" Jimin asks, as they take the elevator down.
"Little troublemaker managed to sneak out without having to log so he’s technically been in here the whole day.” Little probably isn't the word to describe Jeongguk, Jimin wants to say, especially since he and Yoongi appear to be of the same height. Instead he rolls his eyes at that, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The elevator dings open and they exit.
The receptionist looks over at them, eyeing Jimin critically, probably because he smells terrible and possibly looks that way too. His over-all presence at the moment is a little fishy too, he suddenly realizes, and he blanches and his mind goes blank, unsure of what to say.
“You weren’t with him and you’re not a resident.” The receptionist states plainly, instead of pointing the drying puke out. He has no time to be thankful for as much. Jimin almost winces at the accusation but Yoongi coolly steps in, throwing an arm over Jimin’s shoulder and pulling him closer as they make their way out.
“Just picked him up. He probably forgot to log in earlier, right?”
Jimin nods, offering the most convincing apologetic smile he can muster.
“Won’t happen again.” He tries weakly.
The receptionist seems to relent at the explanation and Jimin is more than a little awestruck and bewildered as they step back out into the street, Yoongi’s arm still around him.
"Picked him up?" Jimin echoes Yoongi's words and he laughs like it's a funny joke. Did they look like lovers? Siblings? Cousins? (Maybe, distantly.) Jimin doesn't know why he's trying to see implication in it when there's really nothing to it.
Yoongi just rolls his eyes at him. "He bought the excuse, no complaints."
It’s cold outside, with the early/late air breezing past, Jimin would've been glad to accept the contact if Jeongguk hadn't just given him a reason not to. It's a wonder how Yoongi manages to stay close even after they've made it down the street and a considerable distance away from the dorm complex.
"Uh, I smell kind of terrible right now you might wanna-"
"I know," Yoongi steps aside before he can finish, and though Jimin laments the loss, it's probably for the best. Even he doesn't want to be in his own skin right now.
There's a stretch of silence that he can't seem to find it in himself to fill and he goes over an itch to get some conversation going about themselves versus another one where he bows out as politely as humanly possible and say, well, thanks for all your help, I gotta go now bye! Neither of which end up happening.
They turn another corner in what is mostly aimless wandering and walking and Jimin is still following along.
"My place is near here," Yoongi tells him, and they both stop at that. Jimin looks up at him in a mixture of bemusement and surprise.
"It's pretty late now, so you can clean up there and crash on my couch for the night?" He offers. The look on his face makes Jimin think for a moment, that Yoongi's not used to extending this measure of kindness out to people and he's, maybe, unsure of whether or not he's doing the right thing.
Or maybe he's just trying to decide if Jimin's worth it.
Jimin worries at his lower lip, eyes cast off to the side. "I... are you sure?"
"Yeah, definitely. I mean, I owe you in more ways than one." Jimin can practically hear him shrug but he can't bring his eyes to so much as look at Yoongi right now.
It's the first time the Bathroom Incident™ has been alluded to between them tonight and it catches Jimin off-guard, much more than he'd like.
Jimin thinks he should say no. Not because Yoongi seems like a shady person, but because he'd be imposing enough as it is and mostly because the Bathroom Incident™ had happened in the first place. Like, it's already taking so much out of him just trying to will the memory away right now. How much more difficult is it going to be in a place that's just Yoongi all over?
Before Jimin can voice out any form of denial, Yoongi's already opened his mouth again to speak, completely and utterly oblivious to Jimin's internal melodrama.
"Hobi would've done the same thing."
At the puzzled look on Jimin's face, Yoongi adds to clarify, "Hobi as in Hoseok. Dimples The Cute Guy Number Two."
Jimin blinks. There's a Number One?
He wonders briefly about how that's supposed to help towards agreement, but ends up going back to the uncertainty on Yoongi's face when he'd first pitched the offer, which makes Jimin's principles on freeloading falter to a certain degree. Maybe it helps that he's a little curious, that he wants to know a little more.
"If it's really alright," he relents, not meeting Yoongi's eyes, his own trained on the ground this time.
When he looks up it's because Yoongi's hand is on his arm again, gently pulling him along down the street. Jimin doesn't say it, doesn't try to think much about it, but he swears he'd caught the hint of a small smile on his face.
He's glad that the walk there is mostly silent, because he doesn't need an excuse for how his mouth is slightly agape and absolutely nothing comes out after Yoongi unlocks the door and sees them both inside. He hadn't realized his breath had caught.
Yoongi's apartment is a lot bigger than his and Taehyung's, with much more carefully picked out pieces of furniture, at least compared to the mishmash of moving away gifts they'd received from their parents, installed all over the place. It's clean too, if Jimin blocks out the partially open and possibly recently consumed box of pizza still lying on the kitchen counter at the end of the room.
There's a couch to one side, in front of a flat screen television that's propped up on a wall. The wiring leads to a gaming console plugged into it and for a moment Jimin wonders if he'll ever gain enough friendship points to play with it one of these days.
"Bathroom's in my room," Yoongi informs him, only effective in dragging Jimin out of his internal marveling for the few seconds that he doesn't see Yoongi's bedroom.
He can't help the way his eyes go wide when he enters, because there's a shelf that takes up an entire wall with what Jimin assumes to be a neatly cataloged collection of records, CDs, even tapes. There's an actual turntable on his work desk too, plus a large computer screen and a bunch of equipment that Jimin wouldn't know the names of. It's a lot of buttons, a lot more wiring, all still neat though and Jimin can only think, how.
"This room is a hipster's wet dream," Jimin accidentally says out loud, and then as an afterthought that stays where it should, Tae ought to see this, and then he remembers that he's a guest and that his social graces have maybe completely gone to shit and he should maybe try and pick them up right about now.
"Thanks, I think?" Yoongi laughs despite that though as he beelines to the nearby closet. He pulls out a shirt and a pair of boxers and hands them to Jimin.
"I hope these are two sizes too big." Jimin says, eyeing them critically.
This time, he's (at least, privately) willing to admit (to some degree) that he's checked Yoongi out enough times to know that it's probably not likely that he's going to fit into his clothes without having to squeeze into them.
But Yoongi shakes his head, opening the bathroom door for him.
"I dress loose at home." He goes on to say. Jimin continues to eye the clothes, skeptical.
"I’m pretty sure they’d still fit just fine otherwise." He adds as an afterthought, exiting his bedroom to bustle about outside.
Yoongi had been right, at least, on the first part. Although he prefers dressing the same way to sleep himself, they’re alright on him and he's thankful it doesn't feel like he's going to rip a hole into the shirt if he so much as breathes the wrong way.
He'd helped himself to some of Yoongi's soap and shampoo, and it's a far cry from the smell of dried vomit on his old clothes (now tied in a plastic bag, sitting on one the chairs in Yoongi's room). Aside from stale cigarette smoke and whatever cologne it is that he uses sometimes, a fresh Yoongi out of the shower, Jimin notes, would smell like some combination of aloe vera and waterfall mist (whatever that is).
He's towel drying his hair while going through Yoongi's wide album collection, dauntingly sprawled before him. Jimin wonders after how he reaches that high, because even he can't.
Yoongi emerges from his living room, a lit cigarette dangling between his lips.
"Don't get any water on the records," he tells him and Jimin steps back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to!" Jimin apologizes, pausing in the middle of his hair drying to turn around and regard him.
Yoongi just smiles, walking up to him to take the towel. He scratches at Jimin's head lightly (or as light as he possibly thinks he's doing it, Jimin isn't sure if he's actually capable, but he's really, not complaining right now) through it and then throws it over one of the chairs when he deems Jimin's hair sufficiently dry.
"I meant, just be careful. If you see anything you like, you can borrow it."
Jimin mutters "thanks, maybe next time," after a soft laugh because he's a little bit afraid of the prospect of Yoongi being the touchy collector type and of Taehyung and or Jeongguk losing whatever it is he might borrow from him, therefore killing all his chances at some semblance of friendship between the two of them.
Yoongi dives into his bed and snuggles against his pillows, hand held out so that he doesn't accidentally set something on fire with his cigarette. Jimin doesn't know if it's cue to follow suit, but he stands around next to the door anyway, lingering awkwardly until Yoongi shifts in his position face down to sit up and raise an eyebrow at Jimin. He puts his cigarette out with the ashtray on his bedside table.
"Uh-" Jimin starts, articulate as ever. "Good night?"
He'd been hoping for at least a spare pillow for the couch. But was that asking for too much at this point? He was wearing Yoongi's clothes.
"You can take the other side, you know," Yoongi says, gesturing to the empty space between himself and the wall where the bed is pushed up against. It does look big enough for two people to fit with a good amount of leg room still in the middle if Jimin were to take it. That and his blankets and bed sheets look a lot like heaven in the form of tastefully patterned linen.
Jimin, who likely, doesn't look convinced even though he's already halfway mentally prepared to crawl into the space and get under the sheets (his legs are cold now, damn it), stays rooted in his spot.
"You let me blow you in your café's restroom," Yoongi deadpans.
The memory skitters across Jimin's mind and he tries to shake it off before it gets the better of him at such an inopportune moment.
"Fair point." Jimin concedes.
He gets under Yoongi's blankets which had just been as comfortable and fluffy as his mind had made them out to be. He lets out an audible sigh.
He's not sure if it's polite to suddenly just doze off because he's kind of super ready for it by now.
He's on the verge of falling asleep when he jolts awake at the tell-tale signs of a lighter flicking open and a cigarette being lit. Jimin shifts around in his position to get a better look at him, he sees a large textbook open on his lap too and recognizes it as the one he'd been reading at the shop some time ago.
Yoongi absentmindedly flips the cap of his zippo lighter back and sets it down next to his ashtray. Jimin watches him take long drags out of the cigarette, careful not to let the embers catch onto his book by tapping it off the side of the bed from time to time. At some point, he looks up to the ceiling, eyes closed like he’s savoring the smoke, and Jimin follows the line down his neck with his eyes, watching the bob of his adam's apple, his chest taut and caught in an inward breath.
It’s cold outside of the sheets, but it’s warm inside and Jimin can feel small beads of sweat prickling uncomfortably at the back of his neck.
Yoongi exhales, lip twitching up to the side. “Your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
Jimin’s burrows into the blankets further as he a squeaks out a, “yes” and a, “sorry.”
Jimin isn’t terribly shy, but it’s hard not to be around a Yoongi that’s more like the guy he remembers from the shop. Cheeky. It’s like being outdone in a game he knows he can play well – and Yoongi does it quietly – Jimin only ever realizes when it’s too late.
“It’s fine,” he says.
“Was this bothering you?” Yoongi asks, leaning over to his bedside like he’s about to put it out as he looks back at Jimin in question.
Jimin shakes his head furiously. “Nah, it’s cool. Your place. You can smoke wherever and whenever you like.”
Yoongi smiles at that, but puts the cigarette out anyway.
“I just couldn’t sleep all of a sudden, is all.” Jimin doesn’t know where he’s going with that sort of explanation, but he rolls over on his back to stare at the ceiling because he’s only registered the wide-necked white shirt Yoongi’s wearing and the bear print boxers underneath the large book on his lap.
“Yeah?” Yoongi asks.
Jimin can feel him shuffle around the bed. He inclines his head to the side a little, sees Yoongi with his back against the headboard now, eyes closed like he’s meditating. The look on his face is carefully blank. Not an inkling of emotion Jimin can identify, but his lips are parted slightly and Jimin watches his tongue dart out to lick his lips briefly before he opens his eyes again.
They catch Jimin’s.
“I don’t feel like studying much either.” The suggestion in his tone is muted, though Jimin is inclined to believe by now that most things about Yoongi are. A knot in his belly coils, and his heart rate kicks up – it figures that it’s his body to catch on first.
“Yeah?” Jimin echoes with a little laugh. Yoongi mirrors it, the look on his face a touch amused as he sets the book down on the floor.
Jimin sits up.
“Do you mind?” Yoongi asks, who stops just right beside Jimin. He doesn’t know what Yoongi’s asking permission for exactly but he nods anyway.
Yoongi fits himself between Jimin’s legs and it looks more like they’re just about to have a conversation up close and face to face than anything else. Maybe that’s why Jimin lets more tipsy word vomit spill forth from his mouth. He’s not actually tipsy anymore, but he likes to have an excuse.
“Do you do this often?”
“Do what often?”
“I don’t know, like, make out with your acquaintances? Your local barista? Blow people in café restrooms?”
Yoongi laughs like it’s funny, although Jimin supposes it kind of is.
“We could be friends.” Yoongi says. Jimin doesn’t realize there’s a hand on his hip until Yoongi shifts and accidentally digs his fingers into the fabric of the shirt Jimin’s wearing. Jimin draws in a breath.
“Almost friends.” Jimin amends, like this is a good time as any to keep the conversation going.
Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind, not even when Jimin reaches over the short distance to brush a thumb over Yoongi’s collarbone like a question. Yoongi answers by inching closer, by leaning forward to press his lips chaste against Jimin’s neck, once, twice, three times until it isn’t.
“But, no,” Yoongi starts to say and it feels a lot like déjà vu when Yoongi pulls back a little to speak and he sounds a lot like he’s suddenly not into this anymore. Jimin feels like he’s being set on fire, but manages to incline his head to the side instead and it’s back to business.
Yoongi speaks into his neck, “Not enough to be often. With a friend some time ago.” He shrugs around the statement.
Jimin’s a little curious but when Yoongi doesn’t elaborate, he doesn’t ask after it.
“I can’t imagine,” Jimin tells him.
Yoongi kisses up his neck, when he stops to speak, his breath ghosts over his cheek. “Can’t imagine what?”
“Me and either of my friends.” He has a wide pool of friends, but there’s only two he can think of right now and the thought only makes him cringe. Although admittedly, it wouldn’t have give or take two years ago when Jeongguk had followed him to Seoul and traded in some of his baggy shirts for button downs.
Taehyung is…Taehyung. They'd talked about it a couple of times before.
“So, no to friends or no to –" Yoongi, for the first time since he’d started peppering Jimin’s body with kisses, finally plants one on him full on the lips. It’s quick, but he smiles close to Jimin’s mouth when he says, “this?”
Jimin bristles with impatience at the teasing lilt in Yoongi’s tone, at Yoongi’s habit for contact and no contact at the same time like he enjoys being completely within reach and not at all simultaneously far too much. He catches the back of Yoongi’s neck, and pulls him closer for another kiss. There’s a little bit of teeth clacking in his haste, but Yoongi fits themselves together properly, better, and Jimin is drawn into his pace again, slow. At least this time he’s being pushed against a wall.
“Yes to friends and yes to this,” Jimin says a little breathlessly when they part. Yoongi chuckles and ruffles his hair affectionately.
When he kisses Jimin again, it’s still with one hand in his hair, and when he goes to deepen it, Yoongi tugs lightly, without warning. Jimin’s breath hitches. Yoongi pushes his hair back.
“How do you want to do this?” He asks – and it’s not that Jimin doesn’t know how he wants to do this. He can kind of picture it now because of the way his scalp still kind of tingles and how it feels like prompting. But he’s strangely acutely aware that this is the first time anyone’s ever asked.
“Uhm,” he says articulately. “Just – keep doing what you were doing and, I don’t know, maybe, keep going?”
“Okay,” Yoongi’s hand skirts down close to Jimin’s front, presses the heel of hand experimentally and Jimin bites his lip at the touch.
“Stop pausing!” He whines and Yoongi laughs, but he does palm Jimin through his boxers, enough until it’s wet through the fabric and Jimin is trying not to pant so much, so loudly.
Yoongi presses closer, almost impossibly so and he nips at Jimin’s ear before telling him, “You don’t have hold back here, there’s no line outside the door.”
Jimin can’t help the laughter that bubbles up from the remark, but it stops once Yoongi’s hand pulls at the waistband of his boxers. Jimin slips them off and it’s tossed to the floor – along with his (Yoongi’s, really) shirt. Yoongi isn’t moving again and Jimin doesn’t bother suppressing his glare.
“What?”
“Your—"
“My what?”
“That.” Yoongi just says, and Jimin looks down. It’s the hard line of his cock first and then when his gaze moves farther up to his torso, something clicks.
“Oh,” he says with a small chuckle, “that.”
Yoongi licks his lips.
“That looked a lot better a couple of months ago, actually. I don’t exactly have a lot of gym time now.” Jimin shrugs. “And I’m glad you're very appreciative of what little is left of it but uh, condoms and lube?”
“Right, right.” Yoongi snaps out of his abs-induced trance, unearths a bottle and a pack from the bedside table. Jimin kisses him as a silent ‘good job’.
He watches Yoongi move, watches his face and how it doesn’t break in expression, how he moves with practiced ease almost. His cheeks are dusted pink from all this, but otherwise, there’s really nothing and it leaves him unsettled.
Jimin stops him in the middle of uncapping the bottle, about to coat his hands with lube. He kisses Yoongi’s fingers first, who watches, unabashed, eyes blown wide. Jimin takes two fingers in his mouth, with all the intent of being a little shit. Yoongi’s breath catches for the first time and it makes Jimin feel inexplicably pleased.
He releases them from his mouth with an obscene pop and takes the bottle himself to coat Yoongi’s fingers with lube, guides Yoongi's hand down to his entrance all the way to the first push with one finger.
“A little help,” Jimin takes deep breaths to steady himself, he lets go of Yoongi’s hand.
“Sorry,” Yoongi apologizes. He can’t well make up for being excruciatingly slow right now but Jimin finds the amount of attention Yoongi’s putting into getting him open kind of endearing.
At three fingers, Jimin is sweating, head pressed against Yoongi’s shoulder as he tries not to collapse on himself, being fingered on his knees. It’s brief when it happens – Yoongi brushes against a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves and Jimin jolts against him, hands gripping at Yoongi’s arm like a lifeline.
"I don't wanna get off like this," Jimin whimpers. Yoongi tries for the same spot two more times and then he pulls his fingers out like he's telling Jimin, alright.
Jimin turns over, gets on all fours, because he’s not sure if it’s supposed to mean anything when people fuck facing each other.
Yoongi’s rolling the codom on, slicking himself up, when another thing occurs to him and he can’t get it out of his head no matter how hard he tries, so he asks.
“Is this…is this going to be a thing?”
“Depends on the kind of thing you’re looking for.” Yoongi responds. He spreads Jimin’s legs apart further and Jimin obliges him.
He'd shrug if he didn’t have to hold himself up.
“Nothing, really.” And Jimin means that. He really isn’t. Or hadn’t been. Probably won't?
He doesn’t really have a lot of good dating experiences to speak of during his stay in university and he’s not about to add Yoongi to that roster. Whatever Yoongi’s willing to offer – friendship, physical contact maybe – he’s willing to take. Jimin knows there’s a term for this but he also remembers Taehyung saying once, “what friendship doesn’t come with benefits though?” He'll sort all this out later when he can bother to be preoccupied with something else.
“Then, sure.” Yoongi says as he lines himself up against Jimin. He kisses the back of his neck. “Sounds alright. You good?”
“I’m—"
Yoongi slides in an inch.
“Fuck.” Jimin breathes.
The movement is minuscule at best but it nearly knocks the wind out of him. Yoongi squeezes his thigh, hands skimming up to grip around his cock. He kisses the back of Jimin’s neck again.
He goes over breathing exercises in his head as he tries to get used to the stretch, tries to relax around Yoongi – who’s doing a great job of staying still even though it must be straining, the way he’s bent over Jimin like that and not moving an inch.
“You okay there?” Jimin smiles, tries to at least, still adjusting to Yoongi’s girth. It’s more gritting teeth until he licks his lips and bites at them as he lets a shaky exhale go.
“Yeah, just – give me a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” Yoongi murmurs into his skin, tracing lines down his hipbone with a free hand and pressing feather light kisses on his neck.
Jimin lets out another breath and grips Yoongi’s hand to get it to stop in its movements. He still for a bit, puzzled, as he waits for Jimin to speak.
“Try moving,” Jimin tells him, letting go.
“Alright. Tell me if it’s no good yet, I’ll stop. I promise.”
Jimin nods. Yoongi pulls out and thrusts back in, slow and tentative and then he’s trying to set some sort of pace until that’s out the window too. Jimin is glad to find that he’s doing okay, still, and that at some point, in between Yoongi’s thrusting going staccato and returning to some semblance of a rhythm, Jimin finds that he doesn’t want it to stop.
“Speed up a bit, gramps.” Jimin manages to breathe out a soft laugh this time. He misses the way he’d bucked into a particularly well-timed thrust and he grips at the sheets, breath caught as he clenches around Yoongi.
“Shit,” he curses, “that’s—again, please.”
He can feel the hint of a smile against the crook of his neck and Yoongi’s lips again, kissing over the spot.
“What was that? This old man might be hard of hearing, so you’re gonna have to run that by me again.”
Jimin groans because Yoongi isn’t moving and he can barely rein in the cant of his hips toward the friction and the urge to chase after the feeling once more.
“Again,” Jimin murmurs, “just—"
Yoongi thrusts, shallow, pulls all the way out and then doesn't move an inch. Jimin briefly considers kicking him or flipping them over to ride him but elects not to - at least not this time. He'll play nice for now. He'll--
“Fuck me, please, Yoongi."
He doesn't care that he sounds petulant.
Yoongi chuckles though, nosing at his cheek, before he plants a kiss over it, something chaste, when he tells Jimin, “You only had to ask.”
His grip around Jimin’s cock tightens in time with a deeper thrust in a different angle and the keening sound Jimin makes at the motion gets him to do it again and again until all pretenses of setting a pace falls away to the sound of their labored breathing and the slap of skin on skin, uneven, quick, and relentless.
It’s a high whine from him when he comes around Yoongi’s name. Yoongi doesn’t stop until he finds purchase himself, groaning into the skin of Jimin’s shoulder when he does, a softer noise, choked off, in the back of his throat more than anything.
They stay still for a moment, before Jimin’s knee threatens to collapse on him and Yoongi finally pulls out. He ties the condom and manages to get up and out of bed to throw it away.
Jimin flops back against the mattress, not caring much for the come stained sheets beneath it.
He hears the distant sound of cabinet doors being opened, the bathroom door maybe - because he hears a tap running after, and the soft padding of feet. He's about to get up and help, maybe ask for something to wear and offer to wash whatever he soiled, but instead, his breathing evens out, and he falls asleep.
Jimin is rudely awoken at sometime near eight in the morning by his phone. He crawls over to the end of the bed where the culprit is sitting and charging, flashing Jeongguk's name on the screen. He pulls it out gently, swipes the screen to accept it.
"Hello?" He calls into the receiver groggily. He reels when Jeongguk practically yells into his ear.
"Where the fuck are you?"
Jimin blinks, pulls the phone away despite the ongoing tirade as he gets answers to Jeongguk's questions himself. It takes awhile for it all to sink in - mostly it's that he is not, in fact, in his own bedroom and that his lethargy is a little less from a hangover than it is from being tired and fucked out.
"Uh-"
"Don't 'uh', me. You didn't text me or Taehyung something could have happened-"
For somebody two years younger, Jeongguk has an awful habit of sounding like his own mother. It's probably because they grew up neighbors and Jeongguk had always conveniently been around to sit through Jimin being scolded for one reason or the other. Mostly because he's always 'careless' and 'being a brat'.
"And don't yell at me either," Jimin bites back, finally. He stands up from the bed, thankful that he's still standing steady. He's wearing another pair of boxers and a different shirt. He doesn't remember when he'd put them on after falling asleep.
"Look, I'm fine. It's whatever." He doesn't really know how to explain hot chain smoking customer turns fuck buddy to Jeongguk of all people - while he's in Yoongi's room for that matter. He's nowhere to be found right now but Jimin isn't about to take his chances.
"Don't you-" Jimin cuts the call and sets his phone on silent. He throws it back down on the bed and heaves a long sigh.
He's sorely tempted to follow suit but doesn't, choosing instead to venture into his living room. When Jimin finds him, he's sitting on the breakfast counter with a book open. His chin is propped on a hand resting on the tabletop but his eyes are closed and his breathing is even.
Jimin smiles a little - he doesn't know why.
"Hey," he says gently, coming up closer to nudge him awake.
Yoongi jolts anyway, nearly toppling back over on his chair. Jimin manages to catch him before an untimely concussion.
"Oh, you're awake."
"Yeah, and apparently so are you. I didn't kick in my sleep, did I?"
Yoongi sniffles a little, craning his neck side to side to ease the knots on his shoulders.
"No," Yoongi yawns.
"Your phone wouldn't stop ringing after six-thirty and when it finally did at seven I couldn't sleep anyway, so I just," he gestures to the book and a cup of coffee that's half finished and probably cold by now.
Something else clicks in Jimin's head instead though and his eyes widen a fraction, a sudden panic setting in.
"Shit, I just remembered--" Jimin rushes back into the room for his phone, going through old message threads and finally landing on his last exchange with his boss.
"Oh god, I have to work the nine o'clock shift today." He groans.
Yoongi's standing by the door, a touch less concerned than he'd initially looked before Jimin had dashed off back into his bedroom.
"Get going then," he tells him. There's no bite to his tone, no nothing. Just Yoongi pointing him toward the general direction of the most practical course of action at the moment. That's fair.
Jimin eyes his vomit-soaked clothes in the plastic bag still on Yoongi's desk chair.
"I can get those washed." Yoongi moves to open his closet, pulls out a pair of jeans and a black hoodie.
"Here," he says, setting them down on the bed next to Jimin.
Jimin blinks down at the clean clothes, dubious. But Yoongi doesn't say any more, just exits out of the room calling out a, "you can take another shower if you want, underwear's in the bottom most drawer, don't take from the right side," as he goes. Jimin assumes it's back to whatever it is he's been reading - or trying to read - he never seems to make much progress with it whenever Jimin sees him.
It doesn't take long for Jimin to get ready. He's about to thank Yoongi in the politest way he knows how to when Yoongi stops him mid bow, and then flicks his forehead.
"Hey! What was that for?" He frowns, clutching at where he'd just been assaulted.
"You're going to be late," is what Yoongi says instead, pointing to a clock on the wall. Jimin whips around to look at it, eyes widening when he sees it for himself.
Yoongi walks him to the door and despite having less than thirty minutes to get to work on time, he lingers by it hands stuffed inside the sweater's pockets.
"So—"
"You'll be late, Jimin." The use of his name catches him by surprise - and now that he really thinks about it, it's the first time Yoongi's ever really said it. At least he'd dropped the sshi, all things considered. He smiles at the thought. Maybe a little at how nice it sounds when Yoongi says it and maybe because he wants to hear him say it again.
"We'll talk later," he tells him, "come on, shoo." Yoongi gestures to punctuate his words but the look on his face as he speaks has Jimin laughing.
He tips forward a bit to press a kiss to Yoongi's cheek, unable to help himself, and then he makes a mad dash for the staircase.
"See you!" Jimin calls out, as he rushes down as many steps as he can without tripping.
He hears the door click shut softly when he reaches the landing and tries not to think too much about when 'later' is exactly, and what 'talk' is supposed to mean.