Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hear, hear the noise that moves so soft and slow.
That's the sound of freshly fallen snow.
Your love is gold, your love is gold.

— James Vincent McMorrow, “Hear The Noise That Moves So Soft And Low”

*

The house is dark when Jungkook arrives. It’s past midnight and he’s exhausted, dead on his feet after pulling an all-nighter the night before to finish his mid-semester portfolio and then piling into a van with five other grad students to drive to Massachusetts. His heart is beating too fast from the eight cups of coffee he drank during the day, his eyeballs feel like they’re going to vibrate out of his skull, and the text messages he’s knowingly left unanswered feel like a physical weight in his pocket.

“Top of the stairs,” says the director of the photography program, who’s been waiting up for the late-night arrivals. “Turn right.”

The director of the photography program and the director of the painting program are married, and it had been their idea to host an artists’ retreat for their students at their vacation home in Provincetown. But when Jungkook had imagined the retreat in his head, it never involved whispering to his professor in her living room in the middle of the night. Or seeing her in her Wonder Woman pajamas.

He nods and slings his bag over his shoulder before creeping up the staircase like some sort of cartoon character, taking exaggerated steps in an effort not to step on any squeaky floorboards. If it were earlier in the evening, he’d ask who his roommate was going to be, but it’s late and he feels guilty. He’ll figure it out in the morning.

When he’d agreed, five weeks ago, to come on this trip with the rest of his MFA cohort, he had assumed, shortsightedly, that he would spend his fall break mostly alone, with his camera, enjoying the beauty of Cape Cod. Instead, here he is, fumbling his way down an unfamiliar hallway in search of the room he’s either going to share with a stranger or with one of the students in his cohort, who might as well be strangers for all the talent Jungkook has at making friends. In the three months he’s been in the U.S., he’s been on one date, a guy called Yugyeom he met on Tinder, and made one friend, his roommate from the digital media program who’s gone to Hawaii for break.

The door to the room opens with a rasp of hinges. There’s no light inside except moonlight streaming through a gap in the curtains and Jungkook can’t make out much beyond two twin-sized beds and a dresser hulking in the far corner. He steps over the threshold, as carefully as he can, and promptly trips over something large and solid directly between him and the first bed. He manages to stop himself from sprawling face-first onto the floor by lunging forward, but he does not manage to be quiet about it, and his hands shoot forward instinctively to break his fall.

“No, told you, don’t have any more blue paint,” says the bed, when Jungkook catches himself on it. “Ask Van Gogh if I can borrow his.”

Jungkook registers, after a second, that the bed is speaking Korean, and wonders if maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he never got into the van to come to Massachusetts at all — maybe he’s actually passed out in his apartment in an over-caffeinated haze.

“Sorry!” Jungkook scrambles to get his feet under him and steps more gracefully around what appears to be a suitcase. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” He switches from English to Korean and back again so quickly that he’s not sure he’s speaking either one.

“Mmk. I can use red.” The lump under the covers that Jungkook assumes is his roommate rolls over and gives a muffled, sleepy sort of sigh.

Jungkook picks his way across the room to the unoccupied bed and sets his bag and camera beside it. His roommate seems to have fallen back asleep and he considers, briefly, attempting to shower and change, but sitting down seems to have drained him of what little energy he had left. The prospect of standing up and taking off his clothes and trying not to make noise in the bathroom is distinctly unappealing.

I’ll just lay down for a little bit, he tells himself. Then I’ll change. And get all the way under the covers. And things. He kicks off his shoes and takes off his glasses and curls up on top of the blankets, too exhausted to move.

He wakes up to the sound of a squeaky faucet and, somewhere else in the house, a door slamming. He rolls over, forcing his eyes open, and then a deep voice says, “Roommate! You’re awake! Were you the one who grabbed my ass last night?”

Jungkook sits up and fumbles around for his glasses in a room now full of golden morning light. He feels disgusting — his hair greasy and sticking up on end, his clothes from the day before twisted up and tangled around his waist and legs, his eyes gummy with sleep — and is not at all mentally prepared for the sight of a very gorgeous, very shirtless boy standing next to his bed.

The boy, who’s wearing basketball shorts and nothing else and who smells of eucalyptus from the shower, is smiling at Jungkook, a big boxy smile that makes his eyes crinkle up. He’s also waggling his eyebrows up and down, which seems an unfair thing to do at this point, and Jungkook recognizes him as Kim Taehyung.

Kim Taehyung, as far as Jungkook knows, is the only other Korean MFA student at RISD, although he’s in a different program than Jungkook and one year ahead, and Jungkook has passed him on campus countless times without speaking to him. Taehyung has always struck him as somehow effortless — cool in a way Jungkook is not, social and self-assured and boisterous in a way Jungkook will never be.

Taehyung stares at Jungkook, who has not stopped staring at Taehyung, and his smile falters a little bit.

“You okay?” Taehyung asks. “I was joking. I know I left my crap all over the place.”

Jungkook shakes his head to clear it. “It’s okay. I’m just — sorry. Not awake.”

Taehyung nods and wanders back into the bathroom to root around in his toiletry bag.

“I’m Taehyung,” Taehyung says, over his shoulder.

“I know,” says Jungkook, rubbing his eyes and rolling out his extraordinarily stiff neck. “Sorry. Was that creepy?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” says Taehyung. “I already know you’re Jungkook, so we have that out of the way then. You’re photography, right?”

Jungkook nods. “And you’re painting?”

“Yep! I’ll do my best not to get paint on your stuff, but I swear it just appears. Everything I own is covered in paint.”

Jungkook nods again, although Taehyung is in another room with his back turned. It’s easier than speaking.

Taehyung reemerges with towel-dried hair and a t-shirt. Jungkook tries to remember if Taehyung has always been this good-looking and gets distracted mid-thought by the slope of Taehyung’s shoulders as he sits down cross-legged on his bed. Taehyung, Jungkook thinks, looks like art.  

“What time did you get in last night?” Taehyung asks. “I remember you coming in and then I remember you shamelessly palming my ass, but I didn’t look at the time.”

Jungkook feels himself flush. “Sometime after midnight,” he says. “But I was already pretty wiped out. Midterms, and portfolios, and trying to keep up. Sorry about, um — your ass.”

“I’m offended,” says Taehyung, in a playful tone that suggests he is absolutely not offended. “My ass does not need to be apologized for.” After realizing Jungkook is entirely too exhausted to come up with a good retort, Taehyung takes pity on him and adds, “You can probably go back to sleep, if you want. The schedule’s really free-form.”

Taehyung’s talking like he’s known Jungkook for years. His face is dynamic, always in motion, and something about him is welcoming. Something about him makes Jungkook feel like he could show Taehyung the darkest, most shameful parts of himself and Taehyung would just nod, thoughtfully, and accept it. A little of the crippling shyness Jungkook usually feels around strangers fades away, like ice thawing with the first breath of spring, the tight bud of a flower unfurling its petals in the sun.

“No, I’ll get up” says Jungkook. “If I go back to sleep now there’s no hope.”

He stands, feeling a little shaky, and shuffles into the bathroom with a yawn so big his jaw pops. He stays under the hot water for a long time, letting the sweat and dirt and grease wash away until he’s pink and properly parboiled. He puts on clean clothes and brushes his hair and feels a good deal closer to human.

He expects Taehyung to be gone, given how long he took, but Taehyung’s still sitting on the bed, apparently lost in thought. Jungkook smoothes his hair reflexively.

“Can I ask a potentially rude question?” asks Taehyung, when Jungkook drops back down on his bed.

“Sure,” says Jungkook. Taehyung looks up at him and it’s disarming, the depth of his eyes, the directness of his gaze and the planes of his face, which are somehow neither masculine nor feminine but a kind of beautiful Jungkook’s never seen before.

“Are you Korean, or Korean-American?”

“I’m Korean. I’m from Busan, originally.”

“That’s — wow. I couldn’t really tell from your accent.”

“I listened to a lot of music in English in Korea,” says Jungkook. “And took a lot of English classes at university before I came.”

“So did I,” says Taehyung ruefully, “but the accent won’t go away. I’m from Daegu,” he adds, when Jungkook looks curious. “I came here after undergrad.”

“You can just speak Korean, if you want,” Jungkook says. “I mean. Not that your English isn’t good! Just — if you want to. I keep worrying I’m going to just, like — forget how to speak it. I only ever use it Skyping with my family. I went to a Korean restaurant near campus and everyone only spoke English.”

Taehyung laughs and it’s deep and smooth, reminds Jungkook of a pebble being skipped over water. “I somehow found five other Koreans,” he says. “Not sure how.”

It somehow doesn’t surprise Jungkook that Taehyung, charismatic as he is, attracted every Korean in the state like some sort of Asian magnet. It does surprise him, though, that there were apparently all these other Koreans on campus that he just never noticed.

“Did you meet them all at RISD?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “Nope. Everyone but me is at Brown, and I met most of them through Jimin.” When Jungkook tips his head sideways, Taehyung clarifies, “Jimin’s my best friend — we came to America together. He’s always been in my life. And he’s a dancer, so he met Hoseok through dance, and Hoseok’s dating Yoongi, and Yoongi’s best friends with Namjoon, and Namjoon and Seokjin are definitely in love and definitely not aware of it yet. So. You know. Friend dominoes.”

Jungkook’s head is spinning.

“You’re all artists?”

“Of some variety, yup.”

“And do you all — live together?”

“Kind of,” says Taehyung. “Hoseok and Yoongi and Namjoon live together. And Seokjin is an actual adult and has his own place. And me and Jimin live together.”

Taehyung talks about his friends with the kind of certainty most people use to talk about their families — people who come into your life and stay there, solid and dependable and real. It makes Jungkook miss his parents and his older brother in a sharp, insistent way, the kind of loneliness that settles in your gut and hurts like a stomachache. It makes him consider texting Yugyeom back, addressing the weight of the phone in his pocket, but he knows that’s not a good idea.

“That’s so cool,” Jungkook says, lamely, rather than giving voice to any of this. “I’ve only been in the U.S. for a few months. I haven’t really — ah. I dunno how to put it.”

“Found your people?” suggests Taehyung.

“Yeah,” says Jungkook, finally. “That.”

Taehyung seems to know not to push it. “Did they give you a rundown of the weekend last night?”

“Nope. Too late. Too dark. Too many superhero pajamas.”

“...what?”

“Nothing.”

Taehyung accepts this. “I think it’s pretty simple,” he says. “We basically cook for ourselves, wander around, do our thing. There’s a fancy dinner the last night, and there’s maps downstairs with restaurants and good places to paint or take photos marked. The ocean, and stuff.”

“And everything we make goes in the showcase?”

“The one in December? Yeah, if you want it to. I think the idea is that we want to have a bunch of photographs and paintings that, ah — how’d they put it — ‘capture the same locations through different emotional lenses.’”

Jungkook can hear the quotation marks in Taehyung’s voice but he doesn’t sound like he’s mocking anyone. Jungkook is suddenly struck with the powerful desire to see one of Taehyung’s paintings — he wants to know how Taehyung sees the world, what colors look like filtered through his fingers.

“Cool,” says Jungkook again, and internally kicks himself. This is why you have no friends, his brain reminds him. Because this is how good you are at holding conversations.

Taehyung, as they’ve spoken, has leaned dangerously far off his bed and dug a folding easel and a box of oil paints out of his suitcase, which looks more or less how Jungkook would expect a closet to look after a hurricane. The easel is now resting in his lap and Taehyung absentmindedly traces its clasp with his fingers, like he’s not aware he’s doing it. His fingers are long and elegant.

“We should get started,” says Taehyung. “Four days doesn’t seem like enough time to do all the art I want to do.”

“It’s really not,” agrees Jungkook. He reaches over for his camera and film, which are still on the floor by his bed.

“You want to come with me?” asks Taehyung. “Come exploring? I don’t know what I want to paint yet. I don’t really know what anything looks like outside the house.”

Jungkook thinks about the fall break he’d planned on having, alone with a camera, speaking as little as possible. He thinks about it, and decides against it, and nods.

“You know what? Yes. Let’s explore.”

He follows Taehyung, still in basketball shorts and t-shirt and no shoes, down the stairs, and his stomach gives a traitorous flip. He knows that feeling — the fluttering feeling, almost indistinguishable from nervousness, that means he wants to hold a boy’s hand. Take him on a date. Kiss him goodnight. He’s always known that feeling, has known it since he was thirteen and wanted to kiss the boy who sat behind him in school. Jungkook falls for people and falls for them hard.

Don’t do it, he tells himself. Don’t go there.

He’s always known he was gay, has always been able to tell the difference between wanting to be someone’s friend and wanting to be someone’s boyfriend, and he remembers waiting for the moment when wanting to hold hands and kiss would turn into wanting sex. When wanting to stare at a beautiful boy would turn into wanting to see him naked. The moment never came.

Jungkook met Taehyung an hour ago, they’ve only had one conversation, and Jungkook knows it’s not worth it. Jungkook knows better than to fall for pretty boys he’s just met. He knows he’s not what they’re looking for, if they’re looking for boys at all, and he’s too scared of what they might do if he were to look them in the eye and say I’m asexual. It’s better, he thinks, not to start down this path with Taehyung — not to meet a boy and want him, when what he wants isn’t what’s wanted in return.

*

But as Jungkook and Taehyung explore the house and the neighborhood, Jungkook begins to realize precisely how fucked he actually is. Precisely how hard it’s going to be to try not to want Taehyung.

The house they’re staying at is white with blue trim, sprawling and colonial, and the overgrown yard is verdant, the maple in the back a shock of red and orange. The street is narrow, the driveways are gravel, the houses on either side of them look lived-in and mismatched. The air smells of the sea and when they step outside, the wind catches in their hair and makes Jungkook feel alive. He loves it. It’s blissful.

What’s less blissful and more stressful is the way his heart thumps and stutters every time he looks at Taehyung, every time he catches Taehyung looking at him. Jungkook follows Taehyung back upstairs so Taehyung can look for his missing charcoal, and the way Taehyung talks quietly to himself as he searches makes Jungkook feel a strong swell of affection. He and Taehyung sit beneath the red maple and Taehyung leans over to pluck a fallen leaf from Jungkook’s shoulder.

“Make a wish,” he says, holding it up, and Jungkook thinks he might die.

Jungkook takes some good photos, both of the maple and the slow-paced world around them, and occasionally he gets a shot of Taehyung, the furrow of his forehead when he concentrates, the way he sticks his tongue between his lips. He looks so solemn, so lost in thought, and Jungkook feels his heart skip a beat.

Taehyung’s also an unfairly good artist. He does a couple of warm-up sketches with the charcoal, just the broad shapes of things, and in a few quick strokes he captures movement, he captures the way the tree leans forward into the wind, he captures the way the world spins around itself. His work is abstract and dynamic, always in motion, and when he gets out his paints, the colors are bright and impressionistic. Jungkook remembers Taehyung talking to Van Gogh in his sleep the night before and thinks the affinity makes a lot of sense.

And it’s easy to talk to Taehyung. It’s easy to tell him about his classes and his passions, the pictures he’s struggling with and the angles he can’t find. It’s easy to talk about his parents and his brother, to broach the subject of homesickness that Jungkook’s never brave enough to talk about. In return, Taehyung tells him about Jimin, and Yoongi and Hoseok and Namjoon and Seokjin, talks about them like Jungkook knows them too. Shows Jungkook pictures of his dog on his phone, a tiny fluffy pomeranian, and insists that someday Jungkook should meet him. Opens up to Jungkook in a way few people do, allows Jungkook to open up to him in a way Jungkook never feels safe enough to do.

Normally, eye contact and constant interaction with people he doesn’t know well makes Jungkook’s insides curl up in discomfort. Normally, he stutters a little bit when he tries to talk, looks at the ground, tries harder to be alone. But something about Taehyung is easy and relaxed. Jungkook feels himself drifting into Taehyung’s orbit.

They part ways in the early afternoon, so Jungkook can go get some shots of the dirt road behind the house and Taehyung can continue to wrestle with the exact shade of red of the maple tree, and they don’t see each other again until Jungkook’s stomach is rumbling and the best of the daytime light has faded.

Jungkook wanders into the kitchen for a snack and finds Taehyung by himself, apparently in search of something to eat. When he hears Jungkook’s footsteps, he turns around and smiles, like he’s genuinely delighted by something as simple as Jungkook entering the room.

“Hungry?” asks Taehyung.

Jungkook nods fervently. Taehyung hands him half a brioche roll covered in jam and proceeds to take a bite of the other half himself. He chews with his mouth slightly open and his lips in a pout and Jungkook finds it endearing rather than annoying.

“Eat this,” says Taehyung, through his mouthful, “or you’re stuck with Wonder Bread.”

He’s kneeling precariously on the counter, rummaging around in one of the upper cabinets, and Jungkook has the sudden urge to go over to him and steady him with a hand on his back.

“What’s the selection like?” asks Jungkook instead.

“Well,” says Taehyung, swallowing his roll, “what are your thoughts on, um — mayonnaise and saltine crackers?”

“Not particularly positive.”

Taehyung stares contemplatively at the box of crackers before hopping down.

“Come on,” he says. “We’re going for dinner.”

Jungkook blinks. “Okay,” he says, trying to sound cooler than he feels. “I mean — are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” says Taehyung. It seems to Jungkook as though Taehyung is always sure.

They go upstairs to put on proper shoes and clothes and then they head out into the crisp evening air. Jungkook, as much as he misses Korea, can’t deny that fall in New England is stunning — the trees that line the road are bursting with color, their last gasp of life before winter, and the air is clean and fresh in his lungs. The sky is an inky shade of blue, saturated and rich, and Jungkook watches Taehyung take it in, the wide-eyed wonder with which he looks at each new beautiful thing.

Eventually, Taehyung switches his focus from the sky to Jungkook. He links their arms together like they’re girls in an old-timey movie and grins when Jungkook looks flustered.

“Is this okay?” asks Taehyung, looking at Jungkook through his eyelashes. “I probably should’ve asked first — my parents always used to tell me I got too physical with people too fast. I just like the closeness, I think.”

Jungkook clears his throat and nods. “Yeah. It’s okay.” He distracts himself from his burning face by staring at his shoelaces.

Jungkook is not a touchy person, as a general rule. He’s affectionate with his family, and with very close friends, but even then, he’s never liked holding hands with people on the street, never been one to drape himself over his family members or cuddle constantly with his friends. He’s never liked being touched by people he’s just met. But he finds, to his surprise, that he doesn’t mind it with Taehyung. It’s easy, somehow — he’s not worrying about how to respond or how to react to Taehyung’s touch, he’s not stressed about whether or not he’s doing it right. He’s just enjoying the warmth of Taehyung’s body against his own, the reassuring solidity of him.

“Tell me about yourself,” says Taehyung, after a minute. He doesn’t unlink their arms and seems content like that, holding onto Jungkook like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Anything. How’d you decide to be a photographer?”

“I always liked it. In Korea, when I went to university in Seoul — I’d take pictures and bring them home to show my family. It made my life real, when I was apart from them. And I could bring them with me, wherever I was. I never had to forget the good times, or the things that made me happy, or the beautiful things. I got to keep all of it. And if something made me sad, it was real — I wasn’t just imagining what I was feeling.”

Taehyung sighs and tugs Jungkook closer into his side. “I love that,” he says, with the same sincerity that some people use for I love you.

Jungkook surprises himself by continuing to talk. “And then when I learned you could actually, like, study photography in school — I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do when I’m done with all this school, though, cause I have no idea.”

“I wouldn’t ask that,” says Taehyung, turning onto a new road that leads towards the ocean. “You can just do things because you love them. They don’t have to be practical.”

“What about you?” asks Jungkook. “How’d you learn you liked painting?”

“Well, originally I was going to be a farmer. And then I decided I wanted to play the saxophone. And then in high school I took a painting class to avoid taking extra math, and that was that.”

“And how’d you end up here? In the U.S.?”

“Curiosity, I think. I’d never been here before, and I wasn’t getting along with my family very well, and I just — wanted to try.”

There’s a heavier note in Taehyung’s voice when he mentions his family and Jungkook suddenly feels guilty for talking about his own. He must tense up, because Taehyung traces the index finger of his free hand between the moles on Jungkook’s forearm, like he’s trying to calm Jungkook down. Draws an invisible line between each one.

“You have constellations,” he says. “Stars on your skin.” He reaches across their linked bodies, presses his thumb to the mole just below Jungkook’s lip. The angle’s awkward, because they’re side by side, but Jungkook’s stomach still swoops like he’s missed a step on a staircase. “A star there, too.”

Part of Jungkook wants to stop walking, right there — to let Taehyung’s thumb linger, to watch the shadows Taehyung’s eyelashes cast against his cheekbones grow longer in the dying light. He feels his heart beginning to race, feels the warm, wonderful dizziness that always comes from liking a boy. He takes a breath, head spinning slightly, and then they’re turning left onto Commercial Street and the moment’s gone.

Taehyung, as though he hadn’t just sent Jungkook’s pulse through the roof, says, “Hm. I think our options are Italian or seafood.”

“We’re in Cape Cod,” Jungkook points out. “I think it’s illegal not to try the seafood.”

Taehyung laughs his skipping stone laugh and nods. “I agree. A very wise point. And I don’t want to get arrested.”

The street in front of them is lined with restaurants and shops, none of them matching and all of them local, and the whole thing is bathed a warm, golden glow from the streetlamps and storefronts. It’s the busiest place Jungkook’s seen in Provincetown so far, full of locals and tourists alike, and he and Taehyung wander for a while, pointing and talking as they go.

They pass a café painted lilac with a sign reading The Purple Feather, which Taehyung loves instantly because he loves the color purple; they pass a public library that Taehyung says looks straight out of a Hitchcock movie. Jungkook is forced to admit, after the fourth restaurant with a sign in Old English font, that he can’t read Old English font.

“Is that even a thing?” Taehyung muses, as they stop and watch the ocean through a gap between buildings. Its surface is dark and still, glittering with the lights of the town. “Old English font. They didn’t have fonts in old England.”

“What defines Old England?”

“…Shakespeare? Whenever they spoke Old English?”

“What’s Old English, though?”

“I don’t know!” Taehyung says, laughing. “I’m Korean!”

It’s the happiest Jungkook’s been in months. He wonders, listening to the rhythm of the waves, if life with Taehyung is always like this: everything always worth looking at, nothing too trivial for wonder.

They eventually settle on a place called The Lobster Pot, small and homey in a white brick building with an enormous neon lobster over the entrance. It’s crowded and noisy in the best kind of way, full of the slosh of a bartender pouring drinks and the clatter of knives against plates, and a waiter leads them to a two-person table in the corner. Taehyung makes a production of tying his lobster bib around his neck, and then getting up and tying Jungkook’s as well.

“Okay,” says Taehyung, once their lobsters have arrived. “Explain the muscles.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You have a lot of muscles,” he says. “Like, a lot. And photography’s not really an athletically demanding profession, you know?

Jungkook, halfway through taking a drink of a strawberry daiquiri Taehyung insisted on sharing, almost chokes.

“Dance,” he manages. “I love to dance.”

“Oh no,” says Taehyung, almost under his breath. “Of course you do.”

“What does that mean?”

Taehyung smiles again, and repeated exposure does not seem to lessen the impact. “Nothing,” he says. “That’s — that’s cool. We should go dancing before we go back to school.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot of dancing in Provincetown.”

“Maybe not. But I’m determined to find some. I want to see you dance.”

Jungkook, sucking meat out of a lobster leg, watches Taehyung take another bite. Before he can stop himself, he hears himself ask, “Why are you so nice to me?”

Taehyung pauses, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Do you want me to be mean to you?”

“No! No. I just mean — you have friends. In your cohort, on this retreat. I’ve seen you around campus, everyone loves you. But you’re here. Having dinner with me.”

Taehyung stares at him for a long moment. “I like you,” he says eventually. “I’ve seen your photography, and I like how you think. How you see things. And you’re shy, and quiet, and I like that too — it makes me want to find out what you’re like when you’re comfortable with someone.”

Jungkook bites back the rush of warmth that’s flooding his chest and picks at his thumbnail under the table. He doesn’t mean it like that, he tells himself, thinking about all the reasons he can’t fall for Taehyung. He likes you like a friend. But he can’t quite make himself believe it.

“Oh,” he manages. “Okay.”

Taehyung reaches across the table and tickles under Jungkook’s chin. “And you’re a muscle pig.”

“A muscle — what?”

Before Taehyung can answer, they’re interrupted by the aggressive buzzing of Jungkook’s phone. It’s resting face-up between them and it’s loud against the wood of the table. Jungkook flips it over instinctively, but he still sees the text. It’s not Yugyeom this time — it’s just his roommate, asking about his date, for what must be at least the third time.

Jason, 7:35 p.m.

bro! jungkook! jk!! how’d it go??? i need details. also please confirm you’re alive.

How d’you think it went? Jungkook wants to text back. I’m asexual. It didn’t go great.

But he can’t, because his roommate doesn’t know he’s asexual. No one knows. Yugyeom hadn’t know, when they’d fucked after their date — hadn’t known that Jungkook was testing a theory, or that Jungkook’s theory had been proven. Hadn’t known he was being used, or that Jungkook wouldn’t text him back, or that their date had sent Jungkook into a multi-day spiral about never finding a boyfriend who wouldn’t mind not having sex. Jungkook’s pretty sure there aren’t that many twenty-something guys who’d be fine with their partner not wanting to touch or be touched below the waist. He imagines, sometime in the future, telling Taehyung I want to date you but I never want to have sex, imagines how much the rejection would hurt. It’s safer to keep it all to himself.

“Jungkook?” comes Tae’s voice, through the buzz of anxiety filling Jungkook’s brain. “Hey. You okay?”

“Huh?”

“You checked out for a minute. Didn’t hear me explaining about muscle pigs.”

“Shit, sorry. I’m fine. Just had kind of a…a bad week, I guess? Nothing disastrous. Just not good.”  

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jungkook looks up at Taehyung, half expecting him to be joking — they’ve just met, they’ve just met — but Taehyung’s face is solemn and sincere and Jungkook feels something deep in his chest responding, fluttering against his ribs like a bird between a set of cupped palms.   

Yes, Jungkook does want to talk about it. He wants someone to know him, to see all the parts of himself that he’s scared will turn people away, and then to tell him it’s okay, he’s okay, it’s all going to be okay. But he also knows he can’t talk about it, not properly — maybe he’s just met Taehyung, but he likes him, likes how frank and open he is, and he doesn’t want to give that up. Doesn’t want to let go of the fluttering, winged thing that flares to life when Taehyung smiles, doesn’t want to give up on the hope that maybe Taehyung feels it too.

So he shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I appreciate it, though.”

Taehyung reaches across the table again and cups Jungkook’s chin in his hand. He hums in the back of his throat.

“There’s this empty strip of beach I want to paint at,” he says. “I was going to go super early in the morning tomorrow, before the sunrise. You wanna come with me?”

The thing in his chest flutters faster, feels like a quickening pulse. Like a racing heart.

“Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”

*

The next morning, Taehyung wakes Jungkook up at a truly ungodly hour by climbing onto Jungkook’s bed and stretching out on top of Jungkook’s body until Jungkook, half-asleep, is fairly certain he’s being crushed by a small elephant. He nuzzles his nose against the back of Jungkook’s head.

“Up!” he says, entirely too enthusiastic. “Art time.”

“Mmph,” says Jungkook.

“I want to paint the ocean! And I don’t want to go by myself. Up.”

“Mmph,” says Jungkook again.

Taehyung reaches over to the shared bedside table and grabs his phone.

“A true sleeping beauty,” he says, and takes a picture of Jungkook’s face squished into the pillow. Jungkook flaps his hand ineffectually behind his head and Taehyung laughs, climbs off him, pulls him to his feet.

It’s not quite dawn when they go downstairs. Jungkook wraps his hands around a mug of coffee and drinks half of it in one go, wrinkling his nose at the bitterness. Taehyung, for his part, doesn’t drink coffee, which strikes Jungkook as both unsurprising and unfair. Taehyung uncaffeinated is more awake that Jungkook’s been in year.

Taehyung, munching on a banana, is practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, which are still bare. Taehyung seems allergic to socks.  

“How are you this excited,” mutters Jungkook.

“I’ve never painted an ocean,” says Taehyung. “Not from real life. I’ve always wanted to. Once I went to France, and I saw all these paintings Monet did of the ocean, and I’ve always loved paintings of water best — the way the light hits the surface, it’s so hard to capture, you know? It’s like trying to paint someone’s face when you love them — you always miss the thing that makes it what it is.”

Jungkook thinks he follows. He imagines trying to take a picture of Taehyung when he’s like this, excited and all over the place, and thinks it would be almost impossible to do it right — to get the kineticism of Taehyung’s face, his easy physicality, the boundless delight in his eyes.  

He’s so much, Jungkook finds himself thinking. He’s so beautiful.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jungkook says finally, once Taehyung has started grabbing at his wrists and swinging their joined arms back and forth. “Let’s go.”

They dress and make it outside before sunrise, as planned. It’s cold out — the heavy fog hasn’t burned off and the early morning chill cuts deep. Jungkook tugs his coat tighter around himself and looks at Taehyung, who’s wearing an oversized cable-knit cardigan that sets off several elaborate daydreams in Jungkook’s traitorous brain about sharing a house by the seaside with Taehyung the handsome fisherman.

Jungkook lets Taehyung lead the way. It’s relaxing, not having to worry about where they’re going, and it’s been a long time since he had someone around he was comfortable tagging along after. Most of his time in America thus far has been spent frantically clawing at independence — finding his way around a city he doesn’t know, navigating classes in a language he still struggles with sometimes, searching for a rhythm in a world that feels chaotic and unpredictable most of the time.

Taehyung, meanwhile, looks enraptured. He takes deep breaths of the morning air and shivers when the cold fills his lungs. A flock of terns passes overhead, flying south for the winter, and Taehyung grabs Jungkook’s wrist.

“Look,” he whispers, as though he might disturb them. “Like a cloud of wings.”

A little farther on, they pass a baby rabbit eating dandelions by the side of the road and Taehyung sits down on the ground as close as the rabbit will let him, watches it with the same earnest focus he gives his art.

“It reminds me of you,” he says, when the rabbit has hopped off, and looks at Jungkook over his shoulder with such a radiant smile that Jungkook can’t even resent the rabbit comparison.

They take the same path they took the restaurant the night before and then keep going, walking along the sidewalk until the sidewalk turns to sand. Taehyung bends over to take off his shoes and waits for Jungkook to do the same.

“Cold,” says Jungkook, wrinkling his nose at the sand, but it’s a halfhearted protest at best. He follows Taehyung along a path through the dunes, lined on either side with a slatted wooden fence, and then out onto the beach.

Taehyung sighs in happiness. “There it is,” he says. “Look at it.”

“I’m looking,” says Jungkook, and means it. The sand, in the early morning light, looks like a black and white photograph, while the sky that stretches across the sea is streaked with the pastels of sunrise — pale peach, robin’s egg blue, dove gray. The beach is empty and the waves are gentle, the sound of their crashing nothing but a low hush of water. It’s perfect, and in the most secret, most romantic part of himself, Jungkook thinks that the beach reminds him of them — the photographic sand pressed against the painted sky.

Taehyung wiggles his toes until his feet are almost entirely buried in sand, and looks back over his shoulder at Jungkook. Before Jungkook can stop himself, he pulls out his camera, and takes a picture. It’s a little blurry, a little bit rushed, but he loves it instantly anyway.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just — you looked — sorry.”

Taehyung smiles, almost shy. “You can take all the pictures you want,” he says, and leads the way to the place where the wet sand meets the dry. He spreads out a blanket on the last bit of dry sand and starts setting up his easel.

They work in companionable silence for a while, Taehyung humming as he paints and Jungkook wriggling around on his stomach in the sand to get good angles. Sometimes he just stops and watches Taehyung, marvels at how he manages to get paint on his hands and face and shirt and somehow look even more beautiful as a result.

“You said you went to France, earlier,” says Jungkook, after an hour, blowing on his fingers to warm them up. “Was it just for the art?”

Taehyung pauses and chews on his lip. “The art was a part of the appeal of France, for sure,” he says. “But I would’ve gone anywhere. I just wanted to travel. I love French art, but I love art from everywhere, really — it’s all worth looking at. I think every piece of art you learn to understand makes you a better artist, you know?”

“I think I do,” says Jungkook. “And you learn something about yourself, too — I think artists leave something of themselves in every piece they make, and what you take away from that teaches you about yourself just as much as the artist.”

Taehyung looks at him, head tipped sideways, like Jungkook is something wonderful. “Yes,” he says. “Exactly. You can know who you are by how you look at art, I think.”

Jungkook’s chest is very full. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted to touch someone as badly as he wants to reach out and touch Taehyung’s face right now.  

“Who’d you go to France with?” he asks eventually, to stop himself doing something he’ll regret. “Jimin?”

“You remembered Jimin!” says Taehyung, his face lighting up. “But no. I’ve known Jimin since we were kids, and we’ve traveled all over the place together, but I was in Paris with an ex.”

“Oh,” says Jungkook. “I hope that didn’t ruin the memories? Of Paris, I mean.”

“Not at all. It wasn’t a bad breakup.” Taehyung squints at the ocean and tilts his head sideways before dipping his paintbrush in a different color. “I just wanted to leave Korea, and he didn’t.”

Taehyung doesn’t flinch or pause on the pronoun, and Jungkook’s stomach suddenly feels the way it does at the top of a roller coaster.

“It was just me and Jimin, after that,” Taehyung continues. “We came to Rhode Island together, after our enlistment. He’s basically my platonic soulmate, you know?”

Jungkook doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. He snaps another photograph of Taehyung, this time of Taehyung’s wrist as he holds his brush, the way the angle of it mirrors the angle of his neck, and then takes a steadying breath.

“You’re gay?” he asks. “Or bi?”

“I’m gay,” says Taehyung, amenably. “Very, very gay.”

“Were you out in Korea?”

Taehyung pauses and chews on his lip. “I came out to my brother and sister,” he says, finally. “It didn’t go well.”

“Fuck,” says Jungkook. “That’s — fuck.” After a pause during which neither of them speak, he adds, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, that’s okay. It sucked, at the time. Still does. My sister won’t call me oppa anymore, and my brother doesn’t really talk to me. But I have Jimin and all our friends now, and they take care of me. They’re my family too.”

Jungkook nods, although Taehyung’s not looking at him directly.

“I’m gay too,” he says, quietly.

Personally, he’s never felt uncomfortable about being gay or about being ace — he’s never hated himself for it — but even being gay isn’t something he talks about very often. He remembers Yugyeom, looking at him over a bowl of pasta and telling him about hearing the word gay for the first time; remembers Yugyeom explaining how he’d heard the word himself and felt complete. It had never been like that for Jungkook. He’d known he was gay, but there had always been something missing. He’d always known there was something about his experience that was somehow totally different.

“I wondered,” says Taehyung, honestly. “Does your family know?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“It sounds like they were good about it?”

Jungkook feels the pulse of loneliness in his gut. “They were. Really good.” He doesn’t look at Taehyung, feels guilty, again, for talking about family after what Taehyung had just said about his.

“That’s so good, Jungkookie. I’m so happy for you.”

Jungkook looks up, a little startled, at the nickname, and sees something dark flicker across Taehyung’s face. But Taehyung’s voice is earnest and gentle, and Jungkook wants to lean into it like a physical thing.

“Jungkookie?” he says instead, hoping it’s clear that he’s teasing.

Taehyung, for the first time that Jungkook’s noticed, blushes.

“Sorry,” he says. “Just kinda slipped out. I don’t have to, if you don’t like it — ”

“No,” Jungkook interrupts. “I like it.” He pauses, a grin spreading inexorably across his face, and adds, “Taehyung-ah. Tae. Taetae.”  

“I’m your hyung,” Taehyung says, laughing, and reaches over to smack Jungkook on the shoulder. Instead, he accidentally flicks paint onto Jungkook’s face, and a decent amount splatters across Jungkook’s mercifully unparted lips.

“Oh, fuck. Don’t open your mouth. Hang on.”

Taehyung pulls the sleeve of his sweater down over his fingers and leans over again, setting his paintbrush down on the blanket between them. He cups Jungkook’s face in his uncovered hand and begins to wipe the paint away with the other.

Jungkook has always been a romantic sort of person. He loves the swelling wonder of falling in love, the way he can feel his heart unfurling and blossoming like a cherry tree in the warmth of someone’s affection. He likes kissing, too, as long as tongues stay out of the picture — likes learning the pattern of another person’s breath, the texture of their skin, the taste of their lips. As Taehyung’s fingers curl around his jaw, all he wants to do is let his eyes fall closed, let himself lean forward, let their lips come together. He aches for that holy feeling.

“Got it,” says Taehyung, sounding a little bit breathless, pulling his blue-tinged sleeve away from Jungkook’s mouth. “Now you just look like you’re wearing a very unique shade of lipstick.”

“If you wanted to put makeup on me,” says Jungkook, as dryly as he can, trying with all his might not to sound as far gone as he feels, “you could’ve just asked.”

Taehyung looks at him, eyes bright, and then tips his head back and laughs. The sound of it, weaving its way between the hush of the waves and the distant cries of a seagull, is music. When he stops, he keeps his head tipped back and lets his eyes fall shut.

“I want to paint this,” he says. “Just this. Right here. You and me.”

“So paint it,” says Jungkook.

“There aren’t any colors for this,” says Taehyung. The sun, peeking out from behind a cloud, makes Taehyung’s skin glow like gold.

“You can find them. If anyone can, you can.” Jungkook surprises himself by saying it — it comes out fast and abrupt, as though his heart is speaking without consulting his brain, and the weight of it hangs in the air between them, unclaimed.

“You think?” asks Taehyung. He opens his eyes and they lock with Jungkook’s. All they’re doing is looking at each other and it’s somehow more intimate than anything Jungkook’s ever felt.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s settled, then,” says Taehyung.

*

They set off back to the house a little bit after ten in the morning, the sunlight weak but beautiful, its whisper of warmth welcome against the cold tips of Jungkook’s ears. Taehyung’s nose has gone pink and he cups his hands over it to heat it up. Jungkook assumes they’re going directly home, but instead, Taehyung leads them out onto one of the piers that juts into the harbor.

“I just wanted to look at the boats,” he says, and leans his shoulder against Jungkook’s as they watch the lines of sailboats bobbing on the surface of the deep blue water.

After several minutes of contented, companionable silence, Taehyung nudges Jungkook, jostling him out of his thoughts.

“You keep worrying about your phone,” Taehyung says. “Yesterday too.”

Jungkook hadn’t even realized that he was holding onto his phone in his jacket pocket, and he’s struck by how observant Taehyung is — for all that he’s so frequently lost in thought, he notices things. Jungkook opens his mouth to say that he’s fine and is surprised when that’s not what comes out.

“Can I tell you something?” he hears himself ask, instead. “A private thing. Not something to tell anyone else.”

“Yes,” says Taehyung, without hesitation. “Of course.”

“I — had a date last weekend. My first date in America, pretty much. My first date in a really long time.”

Taehyung makes an encouraging noise in the back of his throat, neither interrupting Jungkook nor letting Jungkook think he’s not listening. Jungkook is suddenly and unexpectedly grateful.

“And we hooked up. The guy and me. And it was — I don’t even know how to describe how it was.”

Taehyung looks at him, wide-eyed and serious. “Was it bad? I mean, did anything happen that shouldn’t have?”

“No! No, nothing like that. The guy was really sweet. I liked him, actually. Not in a romantic way, but I liked him.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It wasn’t. But it was. Um. It was my first time.”

Taehyung makes a humming noise. “That’s okay,” he says. “Everyone does things at their own pace.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “I mean, I went on dates in college, in Korea. I knew I was gay, it didn’t really bother me, and I went to school in Seoul. It wasn’t easy to date, but it wasn’t impossible. I just never had sex.”

Because the thought of having sex made me feel sick, he doesn’t say. Because as soon as anyone touched me in a sexual way, I wanted to leave my body.

“That’s okay,” Taehyung says again. “You don’t have to have sex to be gay.”

Jungkook, through the buzz of nervousness, takes a moment to think about this. It’s not what he expected Taehyung to say, and it’s comforting, somehow. Taehyung didn’t ask him why he’d never had sex before. He doesn’t seem to think that Jungkook is broken. Jungkook pushes on.

“But I wanted to try,” he continues. “So I met this guy, Yugyeom, on Tinder, right before the retreat. He’s Korean, and he’s really sweet, and our date was really nice. We got Italian food at this corny restaurant — like, there was this old white guy wandering around and singing into a mic, it was ridiculous — and then when we left, he asked me to go home with him, and I said yes.”

Taehyung makes a soft, reassuring noise, as if to make it clear that he’s still listening and Jungkook should keep talking.

“So we got to his place, and had a glass of wine, and then we just — had sex. Handjobs, blowjobs, he bottomed for me, the whole thing.” Jungkook takes a deep breath, and finishes, “And I fucking hated it.”

I knew I would hate it, he doesn’t say. I found the word asexual when I got to America and I knew it was me. I knew instantly. I just needed to be sure of myself.

“Did you tell him?” asks Taehyung. “That you didn’t like it?”

“No,” says Jungkook, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. And he was texting me, for a while, trying to see how I was doing, and I basically ghosted him. I feel so bad.”

“Oh, Jungkookie,” says Taehyung. “I get that, I really do. Sometimes sex sucks. You can really like someone and the sex can still suck. But you should be able to tell someone if you don’t like something. You should be able to stop.”

“I didn’t want to stop,” says Jungkook. “I wanted — I wanted to go through with it. And now I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ve ghosted someone before,” Taehyung says. “It’s not necessarily the best way to do things, but, I mean…it’s Tinder. It happens. If you wanted to text him and tell him sorry, you had to think things through, I’m sure it’d be okay.”

“Yeah,” says Jungkook. “I know. I don’t think I want to, though. I don’t want to have sex with him again.”

With anyone, he doesn’t say. Ever again.

Taehyung reaches over and tugs at Jungkook’s hand, which is still in his pocket, wrapped around his phone. He takes it in his own.

“You don’t have to,” says Taehyung. “Ever. Not if you don’t want.”

Jungkook thinks he might cry. Taehyung’s so sincere, so non-judgemental, so willing to help. He’s letting Jungkook tell him all this, he’s listening, he’s doing everything right, and Jungkook’s still lying to him.

“I’m scared I’ll never find someone,” he says, through an embarrassing lump in his throat. “I’m scared I’ll never find the right boy, or I’ll find him and he won’t like me.”

This much, at least, is true. He’s not lying this time.

Taehyung turns Jungkook to face him and gets one hand on each of Jungkook’s shoulders. The now fully-risen sun catches the white of the nearest sailboat and it’s almost painfully bright, burning its afterimage into Jungkook’s retinas.

“Hey,” Taehyung says. “Look at me. If you love someone, and he doesn’t love you back, then he’s an idiot.” Taehyung looks down at the wood of the pier for a minute and then back up, his breathing a little uneven. “I mean, I know I just met you, but look at you. Look how kind you are. Look how sweet you are, and talented. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

There are so many things Jungkook wants to say to this — Are you sure? and Would you be lucky to have me? and But you don’t know the truth — and instead he just tries to swallow around the constriction in his throat. Taehyung’s eyes are dark and deep and he’s dizzy with it, dizzy with the intensity of the way Taehyung’s looking at him.

“Thanks,” he gets out. “I — thanks.”

Taehyung slides his hands up to cup Jungkook’s cheeks. He squishes them together, just a little bit, and leans in to brush the tips of their noses together.

“Anyone tells you different, you tell me, and I’ll — I don’t know. I’ll do something.” Taehyung pauses, and pulls away, and flashes Jungkook a teasing smile. “I don’t know how effective I’ll be, though, cause I’m not a muscle pig. Unlike some people I know.”

“Muscle pig? That’s really what you’re saying? I really didn’t mishear you the first time?”

“You did not.”

Taehyung takes Jungkook’s hand again, and twines their fingers together. They both look down at the place where their hands are touching, identical turns of their heads, and Taehyung laughs while Jungkook blushes.

“Come on,” Taehyung says, and tugs them back towards the main road. “I’m cold.”

Jungkook steals glances at Taehyung’s profile the rest of the way back to the house, his high straight nose and the curve of his lips, and wonders if Taehyung’s ever felt like this — if he’s ever looked at someone and in an impossible second, had his breath taken away.  

It takes them another ten minutes to get back and when they get inside, Taehyung kicks off his shoes immediately and goes to the kitchen.

“Hungry? I’ll make you breakfast.” He’s smiling that big, life-ruining smile, and Jungkook’s helpless. He nods, hoping he doesn’t look as smitten as he feels.

Taehyung is a messy cook — gets egg shell on the counter, gets butter on the stovetop, puts a hot frying pan in the sink and coughs when the steam from the water hitting its surface billows up into his face — but Jungkook loves watching him. He barely tastes the food Taehyung makes because all he can focus on is Taehyung, his eager face when Jungkook takes a bite, his long fingers drumming patterns on the table. For the first time, Jungkook’s guilt at not telling the truth morphs into something different.

He’s never told anyone he’s ace, and he’s not sure how to start. He doesn’t know how to open his mouth and get the words out. But he thinks about the way Taehyung accepted everything he said about Yugyeom, accepted all his fears and doubts and then cupped Jungkook’s face in his hands, made Jungkook eggs as though nothing in the world would make him happier, and Jungkook thinks it might be worth it to try.

*

Jungkook spends most of Saturday alternating between art and practicing telling Taehyung he’s ace and into him in the bathroom mirror. It’s the fastest he’s ever even considered moving with a guy he didn’t meet online, but if he doesn’t do something before the retreat ends, he’s worried he’ll have missed his chance.

“Taehyung,” he says to his reflection, over and over. “I like you. I have a big dumb crush on you. I also never ever want to have sex with you.” Then he bangs his forehead gently against the tile. At one point, Taehyung opens their bedroom door just as Jungkook finishes his speech and Jungkook startles so badly he smacks his head directly into the open medicine cabinet door.

But the art, he has to admit, is a good distraction. It turns out that he likes some of the other students in his cohort a lot — Meeram, cheerful and phenomenally talented at portraiture, a different color hijab for every day of the week; Scott, a bit of a bro on first impression but thoughtful and sweet underneath it, prone to talking about his favorite Star Trek episodes after a glass of wine; Jorge, clumsy and constantly losing his possessions but with an unbelievable eye for color — and Jungkook discovers that watching them work is surprisingly motivating.

Mid-afternoon finds Jungkook sprawled on his bed, flipping through the photos on his camera. He’s proud of them — he’s gotten some good shots, and the feeling of being happy with his own work is a new one. Most of the photographs he likes best are the ones that are zoomed out and the ones that are zoomed in: a panorama of the sea at dawn next to a disarming closeup of Taehyung’s wrist as he paints; a long, narrow shot of a gravel road and its vanishing point next to a shot of Taehyung leaning over to grab a new paintbrush, nothing visible but the side of his face and the blur of his arm. Jungkook thinks it’s as close as he’s going to get to capturing the feeling of being here, by this vast and beautiful ocean, with someone who’s gotten under his skin so deep and so fast.

Taehyung wanders out of the bathroom while Jungkook takes notes about which photographs he’d like to pair together for the December showcase. Taehyung’s hair is dripping but his hands are still glinting with jewelry, there’s still paint on his cheek, and Jungkook thinks there’s about a fifty percent chance his heart is about to stop beating on the spot. He’s torn between itching to grab his camera and itching to cup Taehyung’s face in his hand, to wipe at the paint with his thumb and learn the way Taehyung’s breathing feels against the inside of his wrist.

“Whatcha doing?” Taehyung asks, dropping down next to Jungkook on the bed, his hip pressing against Jungkook’s waist.

Jungkook switches his camera off a little too fast and looks at Taehyung over his shoulder. He’s sure that if Taehyung sees his work, it’ll be obvious how he feels. How much he feels.

“Just looking through what I’ve got so far,” he says, trying to sound casual. “How’d you do today?”

Taehyung is focusing primarily on color — all the work he’s done on the trip is unified by brilliant, abstract strokes. The red of the maple tree. The blue and orange of the sea at sunrise. The purple of the café on Commercial Street, the yellow of a house a few doors down.

“I’m still not happy with the one of the sea,” says Taehyung. “The one I did that morning we went to the beach. The colors aren’t quite right.”

“You’ll get them” says Jungkook. “I know it.”

Taehyung rests his hand on the small of Jungkook’s back in a wordless gesture of thanks and gets up to dry his hair off.

“So,” says Taehyung, toweling his hair, making it stick up in a mohawk and laughing at his own reflection in the mirror that hangs over the dresser. “After we get back, you’re coming to our Halloween party. Mine and Jimin’s. Everyone else will be there.”

“I am?”

“You are.”

“Your friends won’t mind me coming?”

“Not at all. And besides, I want them to meet you. I think — I think you’ll like them. I think they’ll like you .”

The way he says it sounds like I want you in my life and Jungkook almost says it right there, almost confesses on the spot. But Taehyung starts talking again just as Jungkook opens his mouth.

“Also,” Taehyung says. “Tonight. I found a gay club in Provincetown and we are going.”

Jungkook gives him a blank look, which matches the way his brain has just short-circuited.

“To do what?”

“To dance! We’ve only got two nights left. We’ve gotta get on it.”  

“Oh, god.” Jungkook buries his face in his hands. “When I said dance, I meant dance classes. In a studio. I’m useless in clubs.”

“You’ll be with me, though,” says Taehyung. “I’m not a stranger. And I bet you’re way better than you give yourself credit for.”

Jungkook peeks at Taehyung through his fingers. “Fine. But if it’s a disaster, you owe me noodles. And bibimbap. And possibly a steak.”

“It’s a deal.”

So Jungkook spends the rest of his Saturday worrying about what to wear to a club, and how to dance in a club, and basically everything having to do with going clubbing with Taehyung without looking like a total idiot and making it wildly clear he’s caught feelings. It’s a time-consuming activity.

By the time night has properly fallen and he and Mareem and Jorge have devoured the pizza they ordered, he’s decided on tight black jeans and a black t-shirt, because it’s better than sweats and a white t-shirt and those are his only two options. He washes his face, slathers on extra lip balm to make his lips shiny, and puts a little bit of gel in his hair. He figures it’s about as good as it’s going to get. He wishes he’d brought eyeliner, but he hadn’t anticipated needing it when he’d packed for this trip.

He’s just putting the finishing touches on his hair when Taehyung comes bounding into their room. He’d gotten dinner in town with his painting friends and the look he gives Jungkook when he sees him almost makes the anxiety Jungkook’s been sitting on for the past several hours worth it. He can’t tell if he’s imagining the way Taehyung’s eyes seem to linger on his lips and his shoulders, but he knows he’s not imagining the way Taehyung shakes his head before speaking, like he’s trying to bring himself back down to earth.

“Damn,” says Taehyung. “You clean up good, Jungkookie.”

“You’re one to talk,” says Jungkook. He looks Taehyung up and down and the nerves in his stomach are replaced by an entirely different swooping sensation.

Taehyung’s wearing loose black pants and a button-up shirt in an unidentifiable silk material, and everything clings in just the right places, drapes over his shoulders and grazes the planes of his chest. His hair is tousled, brushed back off his forehead, and Jungkook doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone so beautiful.

“Good?” asks Taehyung, smirking just a little bit, like he knows what the answer will be.

“Yup,” Jungkook manages. “Definitely good. Really, really good.”

Taehyung grins. “Well,” he says, “since we both look fantastic, wanna get going?”

Jungkook nods. “Just us? Did anyone in your group want to come?”

“Two of them,” says Taehyung. “You’ll like them — Gil and Max.”

Jungkook’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. There’s a lot less pressure if it’s not just them, and it’s less likely he’ll do something stupid if Taehyung’s attention isn’t on him the whole time. On the other hand, he’s selfish. He doesn’t want to share Taehyung with anyone else.

They find Gil and Max at the bottom of the stairs — Gil is tall and Brazilian, her hair a riot of curls and her smile as wide as her face, and Max is small and blonde and shy — and after they properly introduce themselves to Jungkook, who’s pretty sure he’s met them before but feels too awkward to correct them, the group heads out.

The club, when they get there, is in the basement of an old inn. The inn itself is stately, with a few tasteful rainbow flags over its entrance, but the club itself is loud and pulsing with house music, full of people dancing and drinking and laughing. It’s close quarters. Jungkook can feel bodies pressing against him from all sides.

“I really don’t think I’m the target demographic,” says Gil, looking around and laughing. “Why does gay bar always mean gay dude bar?”

Taehyung, leading them through the crowd towards the bar in a convoluted snake-like pattern, wrinkles his nose.

“I don’t know,” he says, “but it really always does.”

“At least Max will do fine,” Gil says. “He always kills it at clubs.”

Jungkook tries not to look surprised — Max seems so shy, and so quiet — but before he can do much to martial his features, a barrel-chested man with a beard has already approached and offered to buy Max a drink. Max winks at Gil over his shoulder, and disappears into the crowd.

“Twinks, man,” says Taehyung. “How does he pull that off every time?”

“Oh, like you’re not a twink,” says Gil, as Taehyung orders a drink.

“I’m not!” says Taehyung. “My ability to attract men transcends categories.”

Gil snorts, and places her order as well. Taehyung looks at Jungkook.

“Jungkookie? What do you want? It’s on me.”

Jungkook doesn’t miss the look Gil gives them, back and forth like watching a tennis match, and Jungkook inches closer to Taehyung for comfort.

“Gin and tonic,” he tells the bartender, who cups his hand to his ear to indicate he didn’t hear.

Taehyung snakes an arm around Jungkook’s waist so they’re pressed together hip to shoulder. “He’ll have a gin and tonic,” Taehyung says, more loudly. The bartender nods and Jungkook feels an involuntary shiver run up his spine.

Taehyung doesn’t let go of Jungkook’s waist when they get their drinks, or when they finish them, or when they start on their second round. He rubs his thumb in circles over Jungkook’s belt loop, swaying to the music as he works on his Long Island Iced Tea, and Jungkook has to admit that two strong gin and tonics do a lot to make him more comfortable with the entire situation.

“Okay,” he says, tossing back the remainder of his second drink. “Let’s dance.”

Gil, who’s been smiling at her phone and texting someone, looks up. She waves them towards the dance floor.

“Go!” she says. “I’m all set.” She raises her glass to them, and returns to her phone.

“Pretty sure she’s sexting,” says Taehyung thoughtfully, watching Gil’s fingers flying across her phone screen, and then seems to realize what Jungkook said. “Wait. Really? You wanna dance?”

Taehyung’s cheeks are flushed and his skin against Jungkook’s feels warm. In this moment, Jungkook can’t think of anything he’d rather do than dance with Taehyung.

“Isn’t that why we came?” He slips his hand into Taehyung’s, and Taehyung takes a final sip of his drink and follows him out into the sea of bodies.

They start with several inches between them, face to face but not touching, and Jungkook lets the beat swell and pulse around him, lets himself sink into it. House music isn’t usually his thing, but when he’s tipsy like this, when he’s relaxed and uninhibited, he loves it. He loves moving his hips, loves closing his eyes and tipping his head back and letting go. There’s something about dancing that makes Jungkook feel comfortable enjoying the sensuality of his body in a way he so rarely does — makes him feel comfortable moving it in all the ways that feel good but that are usually code for sex. Dancing is something Jungkook does for himself, because he loves it.

And, he discovers, he also loves watching Taehyung dance. Taehyung’s shirt clings to his chest and the light from the bar clings to his cheekbones and he looks like art, he is art, Jungkook wants to paint him, draw him, photograph him. Wants Taehyung’s face, tan and smiling and tipped towards the ceiling, to be printed on the insides of his eyelids.

“Can I?” asks Taehyung, after a little while, stepping closer, looping an arm around Jungkook’s waist again and pulling Jungkook against his chest.

“Yes,” says Jungkook. He doesn’t think he’s audible over the music, but Taehyung seems to be reading his lips. “Yes. God, this was a good idea. This feels so good.”

And it does. Taehyung’s warmth against him, the places their bodies are touching — it’s electric, it makes Jungkook’s heart pound in his chest. Taehyung smells like sweat and eucalyptus, Jungkook can feel Taehyung’s pulse at every point of contact and it feels good. It feels easy. Jungkook lets his hips roll and the motion feels good. He’s not worried about a stranger hitting him up for sex, or touching him when he doesn’t want to be touched — it’s just him and Taehyung, their bodies slotting together to a rhythm so strong that the floor shakes with it. He’s not thinking about what it means, or if they’re going to go home together, or if they’re going to kiss — he’s just learning how Taehyung’s body feels when he moves.

He’s lost track of how long they’ve been dancing like that, Taehyung’s arm around his waist and his arm around Taehyung’s neck, when Taehyung pulls back and whispers in his ear, “Gonna get another drink. Want one?”

Jungkook nods and lets Taehyung slip from his arms. He keeps dancing, keeps following the flow of the people around him, but for the first time, he has a chance to properly look around. It’s mostly couples on the dance floor, mostly pairs of men pressed tight together and grinding. A couple beside him is dancing back to chest and the man in front has his arm draped behind him to pull his partner down for a kiss. It occurs to Jungkook that this must be what he and Taehyung look like.

Taehyung returns just as the song changes to something fast and frantic. He has Gil with him, this time, and he hands Jungkook a third drink. Jungkook takes an enormous swallow and they stand in a group, Taehyung practically bouncing up and down to the beat. He looks flushed and tipsy, undeniably happy. Gil shuts her eyes and puts her arms over her head for a minute, lost in the music.

“I felt bad leaving Gil by herself at the bar,” Taehyung half-yells to Jungkook. “I didn’t realize how, ah — dude-centric this place would be.”

“It’s fine,” says Gil. “But I’m definitely not getting laid tonight.”

“Poor Gil,” says Taehyung. “Deprived of pretty girls for an entire evening.”

“Shut up,” says Gil, although she’s laughing. She licks salt from her hand and tosses back a shot of tequila, follows it up with a wedge of lime. “I just like girls, okay? I like sex. And you’re one to talk! You fucking love sex.”

Jungkook sees Taehyung’s eyes flicker in his direction, almost nervous, before shrugging.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” Taehyung says.

“There’s not,” says Gil. “Just, you know — pot and kettle? Whatever the phrase is. I’ve seen you go home with like ten different guys in the time I’ve known you. And they’ve all been pretty as fuck.”

Jungkook loses track of what they’re saying at this point, still standing between them with a cold damp glass in his hand. Any thought he might have had about telling Taehyung about his feelings is gone — even in the ideal scenario, where Jungkook gets up the courage to come out and it goes well, Jungkook will never be what Taehyung wants, because Taehyung clearly likes sex. Clearly needs sex. He won’t want a boyfriend who hates having hands on his cock.  

And as he stands there, in the middle of the roiling dance floor, Jungkook wonders if maybe Taehyung thought that was where tonight was headed — if he was dancing with Jungkook to get him in bed, if he thought Jungkook would go back to their room and fuck him. Jungkook feels sick, although if it’s from the conversation or the alcohol, he’s not sure.

He finishes his third drink in one long swallow, which does nothing to help the growing nausea, and starts moving towards the edge of the dance floor. He’s not sure if he’s heading for the bathroom, or for the exit, or for something else entirely, but he’s stopped by an arm around his waist.

“Sorry,” says Taehyung, “I didn’t mean to ignore you. Come here. Dance some more?”

The song the DJ’s chosen is slow. Slow and pulsing, slow and oozing with sex. Taehyung pulls Jungkook towards him again, so close that Taehyung’s lips are almost touching Jungkook’s neck, and nothing’s different, they’re dancing the same as before, but before it had felt good, had felt safe, and it doesn’t feel like that anymore. Jungkook’s out of his depth, scared and overwhelmed. If Taehyung thinks this is leading to sex, and Jungkook doesn’t want to give him sex, then Taehyung won’t want Jungkook anymore. Won’t like Jungkook anymore. Panic rises in Jungkook’s chest, a combination of alcohol and something else, and it reminds him of the time he smoked too much weed and got so high that everything felt like a threat.

He pulls away from Taehyung, almost spilling Taehyung’s drink.

“Bathroom,” he says, resisting his heaving stomach, and fights his way off the dance floor and into the men’s room.

He stumbles inside and finds an empty stall, manages to lock it before getting to his knees. The music from the club is dulled in here, nothing but a low kind of throb, and he stays that way, hands on either side of the toilet bowl and breathing as deep as he can, until he’s sure he’s not going to be sick. Then he hears a voice from outside the stall.

“Jungkookie?” says Taehyung. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you upset, or uncomfortable, I just thought — it seemed good, before the third drink. I’m so sorry.”

Jungkook stands up and unlocks the door. It’s just Taehyung, normal Taehyung, his eyes wide, his face full of concern. The panic ebbs.

It’s just Taehyung, he reminds himself, over and over. It’s just Taehyung.

“I wanna go home,” says Jungkook. “Can we go home?”

“Yeah, Jungkookie. Course we can.”

Taehyung wraps his arm around Jungkook’s waist and now that the touch feels gentle again, it’s good. Jungkook lets himself lean into it, lets Taehyung support some of his weight. Breathes in Taehyung’s scent. Reminds himself why the dancing felt so right in the beginning.

But as they walk back to the house, Gil behind them and Max having texted to say he’ll be back in the morning, Jungkook knows something’s different, and it feels a little like loss. He’s not sure if he’s upset because he knows he can’t be with Taehyung, knows that it wouldn’t be fair, or if he’s upset because he knows, now, how it feels to be close. Knows how it feels when Taehyung breathes against his skin, knows how Taehyung’s body feels pressed to his own. Knows how it feels to be safe.

*

The next morning, Jungkook wakes up to noodles.

“I think you probably meant, like, jajangmyeon,” says Taehyung, as Jungkook comes downstairs with the kind of exhaustion in his bones that only comes from a night of alcohol and emotions. “But this is Provincetown, and there isn’t any. So I made you spaghetti.”

Jungkook runs his hands through his hair and smiles through the sleepiness. “Spaghetti for breakfast,” he says, but he knows he sounds soft.

“We had a deal,” says Taehyung, setting a fork down beside the plate of spaghetti at the breakfast bar. “It was a disaster, at least at the end. So I owed you noodles.”

Jungkook takes a bite and promptly gets tomato sauce on his shirt.

“Just as good as jajangmyeon,” he says, with his mouth full.

“Hey,” says Taehyung, after Jungkook’s eaten half the plate in about three bites. Taehyung’s sipping a glass of orange juice and not quite making eye contact. “You don’t have to talk about last night, if you don’t want to, and I’m don’t really know what happened, but I’m really sorry. I know I already said that, but I thought I should say it sober — I didn’t mean to make you upset. I won’t do it again.”

Jungkook freezes. Part of him wants to explain everything, right now. Part of him wants to tell Taehyung he’s ace, and that’s why he panicked at the club; to give Taehyung a chance to surprise him. To make it clear that if Taehyung’s interested in him, he shouldn’t necessarily give up. But Jungkook can’t do it. He opens his mouth, and no sound comes out, and he knows he’s too afraid.

“It’s okay,” he says instead. “I just got overwhelmed. It was so loud, and there were so many people. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Taehyung looks mildly relieved, if not entirely convinced.

“Okay,” he says. “But you’ll tell me? If I do something you don’t like?”

Jungkook wonders if Taehyung’s thinking about Yugyeom, about how Jungkook didn’t say no to the sex he hated, and suddenly the pasta becomes hard to swallow.

“I will,” he says. “I promise.” He pauses, takes a drink of water, and adds, “And I liked it. The dancing. I liked dancing with you.”

“You did?” Taehyung’s eyes light up.

“Yeah. I liked it a lot.”

“Me too.” Taehyung goes over to him, tucks a strand of hair behind Jungkook’s ear. “I just — I like being with you. However you want.”

Do you mean that? Jungkook wants to ask. Do you really?

But he doesn’t ask.

They stay glued together the rest of the morning, the unspoken fact of the next day’s departure weighing heavy between them, and Jungkook leans into every touch. Taehyung runs his fingers through Jungkook’s hair while Jungkook makes coffee, rubs Jungkook’s shoulders when Jungkook looks tense, puts an arm around Jungkook when they sit side by side on the couch, and Jungkook loves all of it. Never wants it to end because he knows it can’t go anywhere new.

Sometime around seven in the evening, the whole group gathers in the living room for their promised final night fancy dinner. Their professors have picked an Italian restaurant on Commercial Street and everyone pulls on sweaters and boots, chatters happily about the work they’ve been doing as they take the now-familiar walk downtown. Jungkook participates as much as he can, encouraging Mareem’s portrait of Jorge and asking for advice about how to pair his own pieces, but mostly he sticks to Taehyung. Mostly he makes sure they’re touching at all times, that Taehyung’s body is never apart from his own.

The restaurant is comfortably classy — nothing too extreme, nothing over the top, but nice, white tablecloths and big plates of comforting food. They go through at least ten bottles of wine, everyone pouring generously and drinking well, and by the time most people have finished their entrées, everyone is relaxed and loose. Taehyung, who made sure to sit next to Jungkook, is playing an unsubtle game of footsie with him under the table.

Scott, who proves to be exceptionally talkative when tipsy, is one of the few people still eating. He seems to forget he has food on his plate whenever he’s mid-conversation, and he’s always mid-conversation — he talks to everyone, asks everyone questions, refuses to let there be so much as one awkward silence.

“Did you two know each other before this weekend?” asks Scott, turning his attention to Jungkook and Taehyung as the professors flag down a waiter for the undoubtedly massive check. “I don’t remember seeing you together before.”

“We didn’t,” says Taehyung, his lips stained red from the wine. “I knew who he was, but we’d never met each other.”

Jungkook nods his agreement and then gets distracted by the way Taehyung’s face looks in the dim light of the restaurant.

You’re beautiful, he wants to tell to Taehyung. You should see yourself right now.

Taehyung, as though he can hear what Jungkook’s thinking, finds Jungkook’s knee under the table and squeezes. His eyes find Jungkook’s and he looks desperate, like he wants them to be alone as much as Jungkook does.

“That’s so cool,” says Scott, oblivious, through a particularly large bite of meatball. “You got, like, a bunch of new paintings and a new friend at all once.”

Gil, Jungkook notices, is extremely focused on her food. The corner of her lip twitches when Scott says friend and Jungkook wonders what the club looked like, to her. Wonders what she thought of Jungkook and Taehyung, holding one another, lips to skin.

The professors fend off any and all offers to help with the bill and by the time everyone’s ready to go, Jungkook thinks he might explode if he can’t be alone with Taehyung soon. He’s not even sure why — he knows from past experience that most people, when they say they want to be alone, mean that they want to have sex, but mostly what he wants is to fall into Taehyung’s arms in private, listen to Taehyung talk about art, forget anyone exists in the world besides the two of them.

The walk back feels interminable, the wine settling heavier and heavier in their bodies as they go, and by the time Taehyung and Jungkook get inside and upstairs, they’re both thoroughly tipsy. They’re tripping over each other as they stumble into their room, both of them laughing helplessly, Taehyung with his arms around Jungkook’s waist and giggling into Jungkook’s shoulder. Jungkook finds taking his shoes off so challenging that he has to stop walking and concentrate on the task. This sends Taehyung into a fresh peal of laughter.

“Your face,” he says, gasping for breath, “look at you, you’re so fucking cute.”

Jungkook gets his left sneaker off and tries to figure out what his face is doing. He determines that he’s got his eyes and mouth wide open and he tries to adjust the situation.

“No, no, don’t, I like it,” says Taehyung, into the fabric of Jungkook’s shirt. “You tip your head sideways when you concentrate, I like it.”

Jungkook, in spite of himself, tips his head sideways again. He manages to get his right sneaker off and then wraps his arm around Taehyung’s waist in return. He tells himself he’s just steadying them, keeping them from toppling over as they make their way to Jungkook’s bed.

“You do?”

Taehyung nods. “Mm-hm. I like it. I like you.”

Jungkook tries to focus on why it’s not a good idea to date Taehyung — he doesn’t know you’re ace, he likes sex, he really fucking likes sex — but then they’re sitting down on Jungkook’s bed and Jungkook can’t remember any of it.

“I — me too,” says Jungkook, in spite of himself.

“Yeah?” asks Taehyung, his pupils blown wide. His face is so, so close to Jungkook’s. “I just thought — after the club last night, I thought maybe — ”

“I told you,” says Jungkook, almost under his breath. “I just got overwhelmed. It’s not cause I don’t like you.”

“Jungkookie,” says Taehyung. “God. Look at you.”

Taehyung gets to his feet up and stands in front of Jungkook. He trails his hands along the outsides of Jungkook’s arms, over the swell of Jungkook’s shoulders and then along the collar of Jungkook’s shirt, leaving goosebumps on Jungkook’s skin in his wake. His right thumb comes to rest in the hollow between Jungkook’s collarbones.

“Wish I could paint you,” he says.

“You could,” says Jungkook, barely above a whisper. “If you wanted to, I mean. I’d let you.”

Taehyung brings one hand up to Jungkook’s face and runs the tips of his fingers along the line of Jungkook’s jaw. Jungkook keeps his face tipped up towards Taehyung, unmoving, barely breathing. He doesn’t want this moment to end.

“There are so many colors to you,” Taehyung says. “The shadows here” — as he traces the hollow of Jungkook’s throat — “and the light here” — as his touch ghosts over Jungkook’s cheekbone. “I don’t know how I could ever get it right.”

“You know me,” says Jungkook, without thinking. “You’d get it.”

“Do I?” asks Taehyung. “Do I know you? I want to. I want to know you so bad.” He brings one of Jungkook’s hands to his lips and kisses the pads of Jungkook’s fingers. “I want to know everything about you.”

“I want that too.” Jungkook gets a hand around Taehyung’s waist and finds it soft underneath his palm. He tugs until Taehyung’s sitting on the bed beside him again, and then he stretches out on the mattress. Taehyung follows him. They’re sharing a pillow now, facing each other, their mouths so close, and it feels like it felt when they first started dancing — safe, and good, and right. Jungkook wants to memorize this moment, the way Taehyung looks in the dim light of the room, the curve of his hip, the warmth of his eyes. The wine makes it harder to remember why he shouldn’t reach over and touch.

Taehyung drapes his arm over Jungkook’s waist, rubs circles into Jungkook’s lower back with his thumb. He seems content to stay like that, still and silent, sharing breath.

“Am I dreaming?” Taehyung asks, eventually, almost too quiet to hear. “Is this real?”

“It’s real,” Jungkook whispers. He runs the back of his hand up and down Taehyung’s forearm. Feels like his heart’s on fire.

Taehyung nods, reverently. “Good,” he says, and then he lifts his head off the pillow slightly and begins to close the gap between their lips.

Time slows down, in that moment, as Taehyung’s eyes fall shut, as his lips part, as a lock of hair falls across his forehead. Jungkook wants to give in so badly — wants to kiss Taehyung, wants to taste the wine on his lips and then fall asleep in his arms. But he knows that once he does, there’s no going back — he’s learned, now, what Taehyung wants from relationships, and what Taehyung wants is sex. He imagines Taehyung slipping a hand down his pants, imagines Taehyung cupping his cock, and then imagines himself panicking and pulling away, imagines Taehyung embarrassed and uncomfortable and disappointed and guilty. Imagines how much it would hurt to know what it’s like to kiss Taehyung and then never to be able to kiss him again. He doesn’t want to hurt like that. He doesn’t want to ruin the safety of their friendship, he doesn’t want to kiss Taehyung without being honest first, and he doesn’t want to come out to Taehyung now, like this, wine drunk and messy, their mouths two inches apart.

So Jungkook, at the very last second, turns his face, and Taehyung’s lips land on Jungkook’s cheek. He feels Taehyung freeze against him. Neither of them move.

“Can we just — can we just cuddle? Like this?” says Jungkook, eyes tight shut, something hot and painful burning in his throat. “I just kinda want to be held.”

“Yeah,” says Taehyung, relaxing slightly, something that sounds like sadness in his voice. “Of course. Of course we can. Whatever you want, Jungkookie.”

Jungkook wriggles closer to Taehyung, buries his face in Taehyung’s neck, and is only marginally comforted by the way Taehyung wraps his arm tighter around Jungkook in response. Taehyung’s heart is beating fast, Jungkook can feel it through Taehyung’s ribs and then against his own, and the tension remains palpable, heavy and unspoken. Jungkook wants to fix it and has no idea how.

They stay like that for a long time, both of them awake, lying motionless in each other’s arms. Eventually, once Taehyung’s breathing steadies and his heart slows down, Jungkook allows himself drift into an uneasy, regretful sleep.

*

When Jungkook wakes up on Monday morning, it’s hideously early and he’s alone. Taehyung isn’t in bed with Jungkook, isn’t in his own bed, isn’t in the bathroom. His suitcase is packed by the door. Jungkook creeps out of bed and rolls his clothes into his duffel bag before making his way downstairs.

Most everyone else has just woken up as well and the kitchen is full of sleepy, hungry grad students, chugging coffee and getting ready to go back to campus for their Monday classes. Jungkook pours himself what’s left in the French press and finds Taehyung by the front door.

Taehyung smiles at him as he approaches and if Jungkook hadn’t spent so much time over the past few days studying Taehyung’s smile, he would’ve assumed everything was fine. But Taehyung looks a little bit sadder than normal, a little bit more subdued, and Jungkook knows that Taehyung is taking a strange kind of pity on him. Taehyung’s not going to make him talk about the night before, he’s going to let it pass, and any chance Jungkook might have had with him has been pretty thoroughly blown.

“Hungover?” says Taehyung, ducking his head at Jungkook’s coffee, and Jungkook groans in response.

“That was too much wine for a Sunday night.”

“It was,” agrees Taehyung. “Like, way too much. But regardless. Give me your phone.”

Something like hope blooms in Jungkook’s chest and he hands it over without thinking. Taehyung takes it and creates a contact for himself. He types his name in Korean.

“Here,” he says, giving it back. “I’ve put my American phone number and my Korean phone number and my KakaoTalk ID. And understand that if I don’t hear from you, I will hunt you down and yell at you about it.”

“Fair enough.” Jungkook tries not to read too much into this — Taehyung had tried to kiss him and he’d turned away. This is just Taehyung being friendly. He’s sure he’ll hear from Taehyung once or twice, and then the texts will less and less frequent. Will stop coming altogether.

“Actually,” says Taehyung, “text me now. That way I have your number, and I won’t have to track you down. I can just call you every five minutes until you give in to my charms.”

“What makes you think I’m not good at texting?” asks Jungkook, doing as he’s told.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Taehyung. “Just a feeling. That and I haven’t seen you answer a single text the entire time I’ve known you.”

Jungkook has no reply to this. I like you so much, he wants to say. I like you, I want to be with you, I want you to paint me and kiss me and know me. I’m sorry about last night. There’s just so much I need to explain.

But he says none of this, because he likes Taehyung, and he’s too ace for Taehyung, and nothing will ever work out. They go upstairs to grab their bags and he follows Taehyung out to the vans in the front yard, a little more space between them than there had been the day before.

There are two different vans, heading to different parts of campus, and everyone picks the van dropping off closest to their first class. Jungkook’s first class, it turns out, is on the opposite side of campus from Taehyung’s.  

“I guess this is it, then,” he says, trying not to sound too pitiful, as Taehyung heaves his suitcase into the first van and climbs in the backseat.

“You make it sound like I’m getting on a ship for the new world,” says Taehyung. “At the very latest, I’ll see you in two weeks, but I don’t think it’ll be that long.”

“What’s in two weeks?” asks Jungkook, as the van driver comes around and slides the door shut. Taehyung sticks his head out the window.

“Halloween party!” Taehyung says, as the van roars to life. “Remember? I told you! Attendance is mandatory, and costumes are mandatory, and I’ll figure out where you live if you don’t show up.”

Jungkook laughs as the van pulls away, waves to Taehyung until someone inside smacks him on the shoulder to make him retract his head and sit down properly. Jungkook watches the taillights until they disappear around a corner and inside he aches, aches, aches.