Archive of Our Own

Jungkook is idly flipping through profiles on his phone, lying in bed in his boxers, like he does most nights he doesn't already have a date lined up, and he's bored.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, he thinks that he shouldn't be bored, and that maybe, if he is bored anyway, he should find something better to do with his time.

He's also dimly aware that he's horny and lonely and wouldn't mind getting out of the apartment, if he could find someone to match with, so he keeps scrolling.

He swipes left on a girl with long, dark hair smiling up at the camera, swipes left on another with blonde braids hanging down over her shoulders, left on a woman who set up her profile with a photo of herself in a full business skirt and blazer.

On another night, he probably would have swiped right, but there's just something about his mood tonight.

He's listless and antsy, wants attention – wants to give attention – but at the same time, nothing feels right, and he knows he can't force it. Not today.

With a laugh, he swipes left on a man with sharp cheekbones and equally sharp eyes. He's an attractive man, Jungkook supposes, but he isn't interested, only has the app set up to show him men as well as women thanks to a dare from Jimin at some drunken party months ago.

He's never gotten around to changing it back, but he always swipes left on the rare occasions that a man comes across his page.

By the time he hears a knock on his door, he's already passed by three more women. The knock is perfunctory, as is his grunt in response, and a second later the door is swinging open to reveal Jimin, his roommate and best friend, fully dressed and clearly ready to go out, which only makes Jungkook more pathetic.

Jimin bites his lip at the sight of him, making Jungkook feel even worse.

"Do you want to come with me?" he asks after a long moment spent taking in Jungkook's state, the opposite of put-together or ready to go anywhere.

Jungkook tosses his phone away from him without bothering to close out of the app, whining a little as he settles himself down deeper into the nest of his bed.

"Aren't you meeting someone?" he asks.

He can hear that he's being petulant, that his boredom is getting the better of him, but Jimin knows him well enough not to take it personally.

He shrugs and says, "Yeah, at a club. You could come with me and then do your own thing, try hooking up with someone in person for a change. It would probably be easier for you that way."

Jungkook knows what Jimin means, even agrees with him to a certain extent, but he gets shy talking to people for the first time, though he does go out fairly often anyway.

It's easier through text, where he can think about what to say first without having to pause too much in his speech.

He knows that since he's only really looking for hook-ups anyway -- the "looking for" section of his profile reads hook-ups, dating, casual , but he can hardly remember the last time he went on a real date -- meeting in person probably wouldn't be so bad. People like the look of him anyway.

But going out with Jimin would mean getting out of bed, and that feels like too much effort right now, at least for anything less than a sure thing.

"Go without me," he says, trying not to sound too pitiful. "You've got a date, and you know you would worry about me if I was there."

Jimin laughs and doesn't try to deny it.

"Fine," he says, "but if you're still here when I get back, you can't be mad at me if things get loud."

His grin turns lecherous but somehow still cute because he's Jimin.

Jungkook rolls his eyes to the ceiling and chucks a pillow at Jimin, making him laugh as he shuts the door to protect himself.

"Don't have too much fun in here alone!" he shouts instead of a goodbye, and then Jungkook hears the door to the apartment slam shut in Jimin's excitement to get to his date.

With a sigh that's halfway between lethargic and annoyed, Jungkook stretches to reach his phone.

Now that he's truly alone, most likely for the night, he shuts off his light and turns on the mood lamp instead, settling in for an evening of scrolling on TikTok and hanging out with his own right hand.

Even closing out of the app to open TikTok seems like too much effort for the moment though. He decides to scroll a little while longer, swiping left on a few more profiles without paying much attention to them.

He's moving his thumb so thoughtlessly across the screen that he almost doesn't catch himself in time to keep from swiping left on the first photo that's caught his eye all night.

The photo is simple, but there's something striking about it. It certainly stands out, the first profile picture Jungkook has seen in a while that doesn't show a face.

In fact, he can't tell quite what it is that he's looking at, at first. He holds the phone up closer to his face to get a better look, and that's when he realizes that he's looking at an expanse of bare skin, golden and soft, photographed in some sort of low light.

There's something abstract about it, artful, and Jungkook finds his eyes grazing down along the lines of the photo, tracing over them the way he might with his fingers in real life.

It takes him a few moments to understand which part of the person's body he's looking at. It's a long curve, from the upper corner of the photo to the lower, moving out and then in and then, just barely, out again at the bottom right.

It's a waist, he realizes, sweeping down from a shoulder and just hinting at more curves out of frame.

It's pretty, as well as interesting, and for the first time all night, Jungkook is moved to click into the profile to see more. He goes straight to the photos, not sure if he's expecting or even wanting to see a face, or if he's hoping for more abstract photos that only hint at shape and form.

Regardless of whether it's what he wants, it's what he gets: the golden curve of a neck sweeping shown to a sharp, fragile-looking collarbone that sends a feral little thrill through Jungkook's belly and he isn't even sure why.

The next photo shows the delicate angle of a wrist, and then another expanse of skin, this time in black and white, that it takes Jungkook another moment of puzzling over in order to determine that it's a soft, plush-looking thigh.

The photos never show anything explicit, but they don't show anything personal either.

Missing are the photos of this girl with her friends, the inevitable mirror selcas, the photos chosen to show that she's not only smart and pretty and sociable but that she has hobbies and talents.

Clearly, though, she does have talents, because the photos themselves are lovely to look at, draw Jungkook's eye in a way that feels effortless in the moment but that he's sure had not been effortless to create.

It makes her mysterious, even more so when he checks the name on the profile and sees that it's just a few initials and not a name at all: thv.

He doesn't even bother checking out the rest of the profile. He swipes right and is immediately gratified to see that it's a match. He goes straight to the app's instant messenger and smirks when he sees the three little dots indicating that thv is already typing out a message to him.

Feeling smug and pleased, he leans back into his pillows and gets comfortable. He hadn't even been aware that he was tensing up as he'd scrolled through the photos, becoming invested, but now that his interest is clearly returned, he relaxes and falls back into his more confident persona.

The dots disappear a couple of times but always come right back, and Jungkook smirks down at his phone watching his mystery match try to think of what to say to him.

When the message finally pops up, though, Jungkook is surprised.

thv

weird app to use if you're just looking for hookups

Jungkook's brow furrows. He isn't sure what to do with that, and because he'd clicked directly from thv's photos to the messenger, he doesn't have any idea what she'd written in her own "looking for" section, so he isn't sure if this is an in or a reprimand.

jjk_97

is it?

not sure what else i would use

sorry if that bothers you

i just really liked your photos

thv

you did?

jjk_97

of course

they're really well done

and you look really pretty in them

The three little dots appear and disappear again, and then thv answers with a blushing, smiling emoji that makes Jungkook wish that he had some idea of what she looks like, so he could better imagine what the same kind of smile would look like on her real face.

He wonders if she's sitting in her own bed, like he is, whether she's actually smiling at her phone, at his compliment, whether she's actually blushing like that.

He wonders if maybe the reason her profile doesn't include photos of her face is because she's insecure about it.

Maybe her face isn't as pretty as the rest of her? For that matter, he doesn't even really know if the rest of her is pretty, or if she's just good at posing and photography.

For a brief moment, he considers whether or not he cares about that, but he quickly decides that he doesn't. He's only looking for casual anyway -- he'd like to think he's not so shallow that someone interesting and talented also has to be beautiful for him to be willing to spend a little time with them.

Still, it makes him curious enough to ask. He doesn't want to come across as a total dick, though, so he words it a little differently.

jjk_97

why is your profile so empty btw

He figures that's a safe enough way to ask, since from what he had seen of thv's profile, she hadn't answered any questions with much depth, just a few quick responses here and there.

thv

just got back in town

i haven't had a chance yet

That makes sense. It explains why Jungkook hasn't seen her profile before now. He's sure that even if he hadn't been in such a strange mood, it would have stood out to him.

jjk_97

i like it

it makes you mysterious

thv

yeah?

you like a mystery, jjk?

Jungkook bites on his lip rings. It's just the mildest banter, but he feels a little warm. Maybe he likes a little mystery even more than he'd realized.

jjk_97

i guess i do

what about you

what do you like?

Jungkook plays with his lip rings with his tongue as he watches the dots appear and disappear on the screen.

He doesn't know what to make of it but even those dancing dots are cute to him. thv is adorable, trying to craft the perfect answer to his simple question. It almost doesn't even matter what she says, though at the same time he's waiting anxiously for her answer.

When she replies, Jungkook can't help his smug grin. He doesn't try to stifle it, since there's no one around to see.

thv

confidence

and it looks good on you

jjk_97

i'm glad you think so

and thank you

Jungkook hopes that response comes across as adequately chill, especially since he's feeling increasingly less chill. In fact, he hasn't felt this excited about someone he's talked to in a while.

Deciding to embrace the confidence that thv apparently likes so much, he types out another message to ask what she had been up to before coming back to town.

She responds that she'd been traveling for her side job, and when Jungkook asks what work that entailed, she tells him that she's a freelance photographer in addition to her main job.

jjk_97

that makes sense

thv

why?

because you like my photos?

or because it adds to the mystery?

jjk_97

both?

what kind of photos do you take?

He doesn't mean it as a line, but that's certainly how thv takes it.

thv

can't give too much away too soon

not if it's the mystery you like

There's something about that response, some hint at a promise of more, that kindles the sense of excitement that's been growing.

Jungkook finds that he doesn't want their conversation to end, but also that he wants to savor this interaction. Usually he's happy to dive in with someone right away, but he has a feeling that thv is going to want to play with him a bit, and he doesn't even mind.

jjk_97

tell me one thing though

you know what i'm looking for

what is it that you want?

thv

i think you should find out yourself

you seem like the type to take initiative

Jungkook is staring at the answer in his hand, about to type another question, an attempt to get more information, and then thv follows her answer with a kissy face emoji before the little green dot indicating that she's online disappears.

Jungkook almost drops his phone in his scramble to get back to thv's profile.

This time he scrolls right down past the information at the top, past the pictures he'd already looked through before their brief conversation, and goes straight to the "looking for" section. thv's chosen answers are even less open than his own are: dating, relationship .

No wonder she'd made that comment about him only looking for hook-ups.

And if he's honest with himself, usually the relationship tag is enough to send him looking for someone new, unless the profile specifically says that someone is down for hook-ups too. It's just not something he's looking for.

It isn't that he doesn't like a little romance - who doesn't? - it's more that he doesn't see any reason to be tied down to one person.

On top of that, he's never really met anyone he would feel comfortable having that kind of relationship with.

Usually even if he just keeps it casual with someone, after a few dates, he feels an itching under his skin that he can't ignore, a restlessness to move on from whatever woman has been holding his attention.

There’s always a drive to find someone new, someone who would be a better fit, somehow, even if he's never sure of exactly what that means for him.

Still, there's overlap here. Even if thv is looking for a relationship ultimately, she's clearly okay with dating too.

Maybe Jungkook should cut and run now, but he already knows that he doesn't want to. Besides, what's the harm in talking a little? Deciding later whether they want to meet in person or not?

He doesn't see any, so he reads on.

As he does, he learns that thv had been traveling around the US for photography "even though her English is bad," according to the profile. He learns that she does a lot of portraits, especially of people in local music and fashion scenes, which are often featured in online magazines.

Her responses to most of the profile questions are brief but thoughtful, though for the most part, not especially revealing.

Jungkook learns that thv loves samgyeopsal, which is nice because he loves it too and it could be the basis to a strong date idea, but at the same time, it's a fairly popular food, and not exactly a rare one, so it doesn't tell him much about her as a person.

The more he reads, the more he comes to think that this is exactly what thv wanted him to do with that little comment about taking initiative to find out for himself.

What he doesn't understand is why. Had it been to point out the fact that she isn't interested in casual? But if she isn't interested in him at all, then why reach out first?

He's pondering this when it occurs to him that in his rush to get to the good stuff, he had skipped right over the basics at the top of the profile.

Figuring that at this point, he may as well be thorough, he scrolls back up to the top.

His eye is immediately grabbed again by the profile picture, the sweeping lines of thv's artistic curves.

He stares wide-eyed for a long moment before shaking himself out of it, reminding himself that he's supposed to be learning more about her, so that when they talk again -- and they will talk again, he's convinced of it -- he'll have more to say, and he'll be able to unpack the mystery a little more.

The idea of talking to thv again sends a little shot of adrenaline through him, the same thrill as pushing himself further than usual in the gym, a kind of excitement he feels when he knows he's about to take on some new challenge.

With a grin, he refocuses on his task and skims over the additional information at the top of the profile.

There he discovers that thv is within the Seoul city limits, not far from him, and that she's two years older than he is. The display name isn't much more telling than the username, a simple V . Jungkook is gathering that he's not the only one who likes a bit of mystery.

And then he sees it. Right there at the top of the profile, but somehow the very last word that Jungkook sees:

Male .

#

For a little while, Jungkook puts the whole encounter out of his mind. It had only been a little flirting over an app, after all, and it's easy enough to set it aside and simply not think about it while he goes about his daily life.

He gets up the next morning, same as usual, heads to work, hits the gym on his way home, and then he's in the shower at the apartment he shares with Jimin before he even thinks about it again.

He'd like to think it only pops into his head because this is about the time that he usually starts trying to decide what he wants to do for the night.

He could jerk off in the shower and then settle in for a cozy night of playing videogames or watching something, if he isn't feeling up to going out. He could check with Jimin to see if he's got plans and maybe meet up with some friends.

Or he could open up his various apps and see if there's anyone promising online that he could chat up and maybe meet somewhere.

It would make sense if his conversation with thv would pop into his head under those circumstances. Then he could laugh it off, maybe even tell Jimin about it because he knows it would make his friend laugh too, and move on with his night from there.

But those are not the circumstances under which he remembers his conversation with thv.

Instead it pops into his head completely unbidden when he remembers, in a flash, that first photo on the -- his -- profile: the long, lovely curve, the golden skin, how it had instantly fascinated Jungkook and made him want to know more.

He realizes with a start – as he nearly gets water up his nose, he’s so distracted – that the feeling hasn't gone away.

He hasn't lost that sense of fascination despite seeing the gender tag on thv's profile. He still feels that same pull that had caused him to open up the in-app messenger the night before, even if, alongside it now, there's an edge of nerves that hadn't been there before.

Suddenly the thought of telling Jimin about it doesn't seem so appealing.

He knows that Jimin would laugh, because he knows exactly how he would present it. He would explain how it had happened, how the photos had been so pretty, how he'd told thv exactly that and received a gratifying blush-face emoji in return.

He would play up the way that the flirting had come easily, the banter and the give-and-take of it, how they had both seemed to feel the same pull even though neither of them had been sure where it was going, how thv had left him wanting more and so he'd rushed straight to the profile.

And then he would reveal that final moment, and Jimin would fall to pieces, bright and ecstatic over his friend's embarrassment at having been so mistaken and allowing himself to be taken for a ride because of it.

A few minutes ago, that would have been exactly what Jungkook wanted, to mine the brief conversation for a shared laugh before moving on forever.

But it's exactly that thought that holds him back as he gets out of the shower and quickly rubs his towel over his head and chest, thinking.

It takes him a few minutes, as he dries off and wraps the towel around his hips and wanders back out into the apartment, for him to put words to the feeling, but eventually he realizes that he isn't quite ready to let it go yet.

He doesn't want to tell Jimin, doesn't want to use the experience for a laugh, because he knows that on the other side of it, there would only be one way forward: to set it aside, to never think about it again.

Telling Jimin would turn it into a silly mistake, an accident, a joke, and nothing more. And even though he isn't quite sure why, he isn't ready to do that.

He'll tell Jimin tomorrow, after he has a chance to get used to the idea, he decides.

"Hey," Jimin himself says when Jungkook steps into their apartment's kitchen. "What are you up to tonight?"

Jungkook makes a vague sound from the back of his throat, non-committal, still feeling weird about what had happened the night before and his sudden lack of a desire to tell his friend about it.

He opens the fridge, considers a beer, but he feels a little off-kilter and thinks that maybe drinking isn't such a good idea. He grabs the milk instead and takes three big gulps of it while Jimin eyes him, perturbed.

"You want to come out with me and Joon?" Jimin asks when Jungkook puts the milk back in the fridge. "We're just hitting the bar down the street, nothing big."

"No date tonight?" Jungkook asks. "Didn't hear you come home last night."

Jimin grins at him and shrugs.

"It went okay," he says. "Might see her again, but not right away."

Jungkook shakes his head and laughs. He understands Jimin's drive for novelty, but if Jungkook finds someone he likes enough to hook up with more than once, he usually sticks with her until the fling burns itself out.

Jimin's tendency to flit around from one hookup to the next and back again has never made much sense to him. Jungkook supposes it's because he's a devoted person at heart -- he's just never found someone he's felt devoted to for more than a few nights.

"So? Want to come out?"

Jungkook bites his lip ring but he already knows the answer. He shakes his head no, even though usually he'd be itching to do something after a night alone in the apartment. It isn't so much that he wants to go out all the time as it is that he doesn't like being by himself.

What he'd really love is for Jimin to stay in with him, to sit together on the couch with a bowl of popcorn while Jungkook makes Jimin sit through Titanic for the thousandth time, but Jimin already has plans and Jungkook doesn't want to spoil them.

He doesn't want to be that needy, especially since he doesn't know what has him feeling so off.

Jungkook goes to his room and commits to staying in for the second night in a row by putting on a simple oversized t-shirt and sweatpants.

By the time Jimin is out the door, he's already on the couch with Netflix queued up and a delivery app open on his phone, tracking his dinner as it crosses through the city streets to reach him.

In the end, he does put Titanic on, and he makes a pact with himself not to tell Jimin because he knows his friend would only make fun of him ("I've never met someone who loves this white people movie so much," he's said on more than one occasion, albeit usually only when Jungkook insists that Jimin watch it with him - "And I've never known anyone who cries over it every time either.")

When his fried chicken arrives, he pointedly doesn't think about what he's attempting to use food to comfort himself over.

It's not like anything is wrong , he just doesn't quite feel like himself. Nothing a little self care can't fix.

So he eats his greasy food, settles back into the couch, and lets the emotions of his favorite movie wash over him one at a time: first the thrill of adventure, then the heart-aching romance of Jack and Rose, the pain and the beauty of their relationship developing when they know that no one outside their two-person world could ever understand or accept it, and finally the drama and tragedy of the shipwreck.

And Jungkook does cry, and he refuses to see himself as any less masculine for it.

When the movie is over and Jimin still isn't home from his catch-up session with Namjoon, Jungkook is forced to confront the fact that it's only 9 PM and he isn't sure what to do with himself.

He reaches for his phone which, since the arrival of his fried chicken earlier, he has staunchly avoided touching. He picks it up, unlocks it, and then re-locks it and sets it down again without looking at anything.

On the TV in front of him, Celine Dion is singing her heart out, probably a little too loud for the comfort of the neighbors, if any of them are at home.

The living room is starting to smell like the stuffy aftermath of a grease-lodged dinner, so Jungkook gets up from the couch, opens the window, and takes out the trash. By the time he's back inside, he's managed to kill about four whole minutes. He picks up his phone again.

He flicks several uninteresting notifications away, settling back down on the couch. The instrumental tracks on the Titanic credits are still playing as he clicks into his favorite dating app, the one where he seems to get the most traction, and the one he happened to have been on the night before.

He doesn't have any new messages, which he already knew, because he would have been notified if anything had come in. He does have a couple of new matches, but when he clicks onto the women's profiles, neither of them really interest him.

They're people he doesn't even remember swiping right on in the first place, and now that he's looking at them again, he isn't sure why he did.

There's nothing wrong with either of them, but there's nothing that stands out to him about them either. They're both pretty, both well-dressed in their photos, always stand out in their pictures with friends, but Jungkook has been around long enough to know that everyone chooses those kinds of photos.

Normally he would message one of them, see if they could strike up a conversation, maybe even ask them if they would want to meet up, especially if they seemed interested in the same sorts of things that he's looking for. But tonight he just can't muster the motivation.

He's starting to wonder if maybe he's coming down with something, something that's sapping his energy, when a little notification pops up in the corner of the app.

Jungkook isn't expecting much when he clicks it to open his new message, but then he suddenly sits up straight, struck with a bolt of adrenaline when he sees that the message is from thv.

He opens the message right away and then kicks himself, knowing that it will show on thv's side that he's already seen it.

The message itself is simple enough at least.

thv

did you discover anything?

in your investigation i mean?

Bizarrely, Jungkook's heart is racing. He feels so anxious and he doesn't even know why. Still, he knows his answer right away, and before he knows it, his fingers are typing it out.

jjk_97

maybe i did

He bites his lip, fingers hovering over the keyboard, questioning whether he should say more, if he should come clean that the entire time they'd been talking the night before, he had assumed that thv was a woman.

Admitting to it would be inviting several different paths forward, and he isn't sure he wants to follow any of them.

Maybe thv would feel insulted, and Jungkook doesn't want to offend him. Or maybe he would simply ask if it bothers him that he isn't a woman, and then Jungkook would have to admit that his account is only set to show him men's profiles because of a joke - a joke that suddenly feels shitty to him in a way that it never has before.

thv waits for another moment before sending a string of question marks back, but Jungkook is still at war with himself. In the end, thv lets him off the hook.

thv

i made a discovery too you know

jjk_97

oh???

thv

i found out i'm way better at league than you

Maybe it's because it's the first break in Jungkook's sense of inner tension that he's felt all evening, but thv's answer startles a laugh out of him, loud in the otherwise now-quiet living room.

jjk_97

i don't play that often

you might be surprised if you went against me

Jungkook had forgotten that he'd added his League of Legends rank to his profile at one point. He'd gone through a phase when he played a lot, and it had been a fun way to get to know people.

thv

let's play then

together

if you think you're so good

Before he even realizes it, Jungkook is grinning as he types a response back – you're on – and then he and thv are exchanging entirely different kinds of profiles and Jungkook has moved from the living room to his bedroom as he boots up the game on his computer.

It's true that he doesn't play often, but thv has appealed to his competitive nature and he feels himself growing excited at the prospect of showing off.

And this is fine, right, he thinks – this is a totally normal thing to do with a guy he happened to meet online and turned out to have something in common with.

It doesn't really matter that they met (accidentally) on a dating app, and perhaps it matters less now than ever, since they're officially moving out of that space and into one that's much more -- relaxed.

Jungkook swallows, grateful for the first time all night that he's alone so there's no one to see the way his cheeks have suddenly flushed with warmth. He shakes his head.

He likes to think of himself as an open-minded guy, so it's not like it's a big deal that thv turned out to be a man, it's just that he hadn't been expecting it, and it had been a mistake.

Shit, should he feel bad for that? Does thv think this is something other than what it is? Which is, of course, a friendly match of League between two dudes who (accidentally) connected on a dating app?

As he watches the loading screen, it hits him for the first time all day that of course thv thinks they've been flirting, because as far as he's aware, they'd both known the whole time exactly what they were doing.

He had matched with Jungkook for real , and he has no reason to think that it wasn't the same for Jungkook.

Guilt twists his stomach, but then thv is adding him and they're joining a game together and the competitive spirit washes everything else out of his head.

It turns out that thv is actually better than him at League, but together they're so good that even though the rest of their team sucks, they sweep the floor with the opposing team.

thv messages him in the game as soon as they're finished to compliment him on a job well done and ask if he wants to play more.

Jungkook thinks about it for a second. It's been a long time since he's spent a night in just playing video games, but he's having fun, and if he's honest with himself, thv is part of the reason.

He is really good at the game, which is gratifying, and it makes Jungkook want to challenge himself to do better too. His commentary is also both helpful and funny, and when something doesn't go his way, he whines in the chat in a way that makes Jungkook laugh to himself every time.

After three games, and after getting scolded by their teammates for talking too much and not concentrating enough on the game, they decide to exchange Discord profiles too, so that they can talk while they play.

Jungkook finds himself excited to have an easier time communicating, so much so that he forgets to be nervous when he answers the call as soon as it comes through on his screen.

"Hello?" he says, and right away he's self-conscious about his voice, which isn't something he typically feels at all.

"Hey," a voice says back – a deep, rich, soft voice.

Jungkook feels himself instantly heat up from head to toe, maybe just because it feels especially ridiculous now to think that he'd spent their whole first conversation believing that this man was a girl, and what's even more ridiculous to him now is the idea that thv still doesn't even know that their entire first several messages had been exchanged under those false pretenses.

For two seconds he wars with himself, wondering if this is the moment he should just come clean, so they can laugh about the misunderstanding and then move on, maybe actually be friends, once thv understands that Jungkook isn't interested in more now that he knows the truth.

Because Jungkook does like him, he just isn't going to like him like that . Which he's sure thv would understand, if he could just bring himself to explain.

But when he opens his mouth to try to say something about it, he realizes how panicked it's going to sound if he just blurts it out at the very start of their first real conversation. He doesn't want to be that guy.

The result is that he panics anyway and blurts out something stupid instead, but at least it isn't offensive.

"I'm Jungkook, by the way," he says.

He must sound a little ridiculous because he hears a breathy laugh through his headphones, but somehow it doesn't make him feel embarrassed. There's something about the sound that comes across as pleased.

"Taehyung," thv says. "Nice to meet you, Jungkook."

"Yeah," Jungkook says, breathing a sigh of relief as the conversation settles and some of the tension leaves him. "You too."

#

Jungkook stays up late that night, playing and talking to Taehyung.

He quickly discovers that even though Taehyung is two years older than him, Jungkook doesn't feel younger when they talk. He feels a little bashful at times, but confident too. He can't quite put his finger on why, but it's a feeling he likes, and by the time the night is over, he's teasing Taehyung like they've known each other for years instead of essentially hours.

The sun is rising by the time he finally crawls into bed for a few hours' sleep.

In the morning, he feels weird about it. He doesn't want to, and he tries not to, but there's definitely a weirdness.

He feels like an asshole for it, but he's grateful that they didn't exchange numbers at the end of their long string of games, something he had considered asking about, if only because he had been delirious with lack of sleep at that point.

He thinks about it as he gets ready for the day, though, and he realizes that there hadn't been anything weird about their conversation while they played. He starts to think that maybe he won't have to say anything about that initial unfortunate misunderstanding after all.

As he showers before heading to work, he thinks that maybe Taehyung isn't actually interested in him that way either, now that they've actually started talking.

The thought isn't as much of a comfort as he feels like it should be.

It's a Friday, and the day drags on. Jungkook ends up leaving work a little early because he can and he's anxious to get to the gym, wanting to burn off the excess energy that seems to be racing through him.

He pushes himself as hard as he can, but he knows that Jimin is waiting for him at home, because they always check in with each other about their Friday night plans, so even though he feels like he still has energy to burn, he packs up and heads back to the apartment.

He goes straight for the shower, unable to clear his head, unable to shake off the itch under his skin.

"Um, hi?" Jimin calls after him.

He waits for Jungkook to start the shower and then walks into the bathroom without waiting to be invited.

"A hello would be nice," he says.

"Hello," Jungkook grunts from the shower.

"What's with you today?" Jimin asks. "Actually it's not just today. It's been a few days now."

As he speaks, he sounds more and more suspicious.

"Oh no," he says, and even though he can't possibly know what's actually been going on with Jungkook, Jungkook feels his insides turn to ice anyway.

"Did you watch Titanic without me and get all sad? You know you can't be trusted to watch that movie alone."

"You hate watching it with me!" Jungkook protests.

"Yeah, but I would do it for you, baby," Jimin jokes, and his laugh is exuberant, infused with Friday night energy.

Normally Jungkook would laugh too, but something about the joke lands a little flat for him and he doesn't say anything.

"Okay," Jimin says, suddenly sounding stern.

Jungkook can't see him on the other side of the shower curtain, but he just knows that Jimin is now standing with his hands on his hips, probably leveling a suspicious glare at him through the plastic.

"That's it. You're officially being too weird for me to leave you alone. I don't care what plans you have, you're coming out with me tonight. No more moping around the apartment alone -- unless you want to tell me what you're moping about."

"I'm not moping," Jungkook says, mopily.

"Great! Then you won't mind coming out with me. In fact, you should be thrilled."

"Why?" Jungkook asks, feeling suspicious himself now.

"Because I have a date and --"

Jungkook cuts him off with a dramatic groan even though he knows Jimin isn't done talking.

"Let me finish! I have a date and she's bringing her friend because I told her you would come with me."

He rushes to get it all out before Jungkook can interrupt him again, which was a smart move because Jungkook is suddenly both annoyed and exhausted.

"You promised I would be there?"

"Yup!"

"So I can't bail without standing someone up."

"Exactly. Come on, Jungkook-ah, you haven't gone out in days. This is, like, a whole-ass dry spell for you. You're getting cranky, and as the person who has to share an apartment with you, I'm looking out for my own needs."

Jungkook scoffs, but he doesn't actually argue.

He'd gone the whole day not letting himself think about how he would be spending his Friday night, and he realizes now – now that he feels some measure of disappointment – at some level he had been considering asking Taehyung if he wanted to play more League with him, or even a different game. Jungkook wouldn't mind branching out.

But maybe that isn't such a good idea. Maybe Jimin is onto something.

Besides, for all he knows, Taehyung has plans of his own for Friday night. Maybe he's going out too, trying to find someone to go home with just like Jungkook, or even going on a date – with a guy? Probably? Or at least maybe.

It's not exactly like they've talked about their sexualities, and Jungkook doesn't want to assume, but unless Taehyung's profile had been set to be interested in men as part of a joke too (as much as he might like to believe that, if only so that he can feel less guilty about it himself, he doesn't think that's likely) then Taehyung must at least be open to the idea.

Jungkook wonders, as he shuts off the water and tells Jimin to get out so he can towel off, what kind of guy Taehyung usually goes for.

Is Jungkook his type? Or did he just swipe right on Jungkook's profile because he was good enough?

He's struck with the wild idea that he could ask him, but then it hits him how unhinged that would really be – especially because then Taehyung might ask him about his type in men, and Jungkook wouldn't have a clue what to say.

Of course none of this matters anyway. It's just idle brain chatter. Still, he finds himself coming back to it as he brushes his teeth, picks out clothes, gets them approved by Jimin, who insists on having some say since he's the one who's bringing Jungkook along.

When they first arrive at the club, Jungkook feels himself gain a burst of energy. Going out isn't always his favorite thing to do, and sometimes Jimin has to nag him to get him to agree.

As much as he likes dancing and connecting with people (a phrase Jimin would and has laughed at him for – "Just say fucking," he's said on more than one occasion), sometimes the call of his own bed, home in their cozy apartment, is too much temptation to resist.

Once he's out, though, he can usually have a good time, especially once he gets a drink or two in him.

Jimin knows this, and he orders him his favorite at the bar as soon as they arrive, so that it will work its magic on him.

And it does. In just a few minutes, his blood warms and he feels lighthearted, happy, even excited to be meeting someone.

At some level, he's still aware of how nice it had been the night before, to stay in and just talk to Taehyung while they played League and got to know each other a little bit. There was no pressure, and Jungkook hadn't ever felt the need to present himself in the best light like he does on these dates.

He hadn't been angling for anything after all, hadn't been trying to make a good enough impression to get Taehyung into bed.

That thought makes his stomach twist unpleasantly, so he downs the rest of his drink and leans into Jimin when his friend throws an arm around his shoulder.

"Oh, clingy drunk Jungkook!" Jimin says with a delighted laugh.

"I'm not drunk," Jungkook argues.

He doesn't get drunk from one drink. He doesn't bother trying to deny the rest though. He still feels off-center, unsettled, and it's comfortable to lean on Jimin, so he does it both physically and emotionally, not that he would ever tell Jimin that.

"Just keep it together until she gets a look at you."

Jimin pokes Jungkook in the belly, prompting him to back off of him.

"Why just until she sees me?"

"Because after that, nothing else matters," Jimin says, like it's obvious, and it isn't as though Jungkook doesn't know what he means.

Of course when he's going out and meeting new women every week, the primary draw between them is physical attraction – that and a mutual desire to get laid. What else would it be? What else could it be?

Still, something about the implication that it doesn't matter how he acts or what he does, that the only thing that matters is how he looks, bruises him.

He knows he looks good, and he takes pride in it, works out regularly both for the health benefits and to attain a certain physique that he's always longed to have and finally feels some true satisfaction in. He tries to dress well too.

These are all parts of it, but if he's honest with himself, of course he wants people to see more than just how he looks on the outside.

It's gratifying when people find him attractive, he loves to be told about it when someone thinks he's hot or sexy or handsome, but is that all he is?

"Okay, what the hell is going on with you," Jimin says.

He's more serious all of a sudden, something that only happens when Jungkook is really deep in his feelings over something – some Titanic-level shit.

"You're doing that thing where you get all morbid and sad, like an angsty teenager."

Normally this would make Jungkook laugh, but today it feels a little too close to the truth. When he doesn't laugh, as Jimin clearly expects him to, he orders them another round of drinks and then drags Jungkook off to a booth and shoves him inside.

"You need to tell me what's up," Jimin says. "Right now."

He doesn't say it, but Jungkook knows this is him pulling the hyung card. The fact that he's two years older doesn't affect their dynamic much, and more often than not, Jungkook at least tries to resist it, but he knows that Jimin just wants to help.

He plays with his lip rings between his teeth and looks out at the club around them.

Even though it's still pretty early, it's a Friday night and the place is already crowded. He doesn't know when they're expecting their dates, or what he should be looking for, and for the first time it occurs to him that he's been so wrapped up in his head today that he hasn't even asked who he's supposed to be entertaining for the evening.

Beneath his heavy boots the floor is sticky, and the whole room glows with body heat and blue lights that dance to the music with more enthusiasm than anyone on the floor is currently showing, trying to coax them out of their work personas and into weekend mode.

Jungkook wishes it would work on him, but there's just something getting in his way, and the harder he tries to pretend not to know what it is, the more his awareness of it sticks into him, like a thorn caught in his skin.

When he looks back at Jimin, his friend is watching him with a sense of gravity that is custom to him but that doesn't come out often -- only when he's really concerned.

Jungkook sighs.

He hadn't wanted to tell Jimin about this because he'd known his friend would laugh, but that had been two days ago, when he'd assumed he would present it in a funny way.

Now there's a feeling not unlike guilt eating away at him and nothing about the situation seems funny anymore.

"I sort of," he starts, looking down at his hands where he's fiddling with his fingers, "met someone the other night. Sort of."

He glances up in time to see Jimin's brow furrow.

"Okay?" he says, clearly picking up on Jungkook's anxiety. "Should you not be on a date then?"

"No!" Jungkook says. "It isn't that. I mean, it isn't like that, so it's okay that I'm going on a date."

Jimin looks more confused than ever.

Jungkook sighs and closes his eyes. The problem is that he doesn't really know what his problem is. This should be a silly little misunderstanding, something that they can, if not laugh about, then at least brush aside like it doesn't matter.

Only when he thinks that, he starts to wonder if he's just being an asshole. He feels like he needs to tell Jimin either way at this point, but he isn't sure anymore what he hopes his friend's reaction will be.

"The thing is," he says, deciding that he needs to just get it out, hating how young he sounds to his own ears, how desperate he suddenly is that Jimin will know how to react because he doesn't know himself, "the person was a guy."

Jimin's eyes get comically wide and round, although it doesn't feel remotely funny. He clamps down on whatever reaction Jungkook is sure he's having internally.

"It isn't like that though!" Jungkook clarifies. "I already said that. It was just an accident. I thought – I mean I thought he was a woman, at first?"

Jimin's mouth opens, like his jaw is dropping in slow motion, and Jungkook rushes to explain more before Jimin starts talking.

"His profile was really vague and I forgot that mine was still set to say I'm into guys after that party, so I didn't realize when we were first messaging. I only noticed after. But then he wanted to play League –"

"Oh! Is that why you were up so late last night?"

Jungkook nods, and Jimin looks like he's thinking all of this over. Jungkook is sure he's coming to the wrong conclusions, but he also feels like he has to wait and see what Jimin says.

After a moment, he speaks again.

"So are you, like, into this guy?"

"No!" Jungkook says, not exactly surprised by the question, and yet still somehow shocked by it. It's as though he had been waiting above a depth of cold water, preparing to jump in or at least considering it, and then had been pushed in instead.

Jimin is startled by how loud he is, but doesn't say anything else.

"It's just – I liked talking to him. He's a cool guy. But I'm not into him like that ."

"Okay? So what's the problem then?"

"The problem is he doesn't know I was just talking to him by accident and that I'm not actually interested, and I feel like I can't tell him because then he'll probably think I'm panicking and an asshole and he won't want to talk to me anymore."

"And you don't want that to happen because you like talking to him."

"Right! And I don't want him to think I'm a dick."

Jimin nods. Jungkook feels irrationally grateful to him suddenly, for taking this seriously, for not laughing when it's clear that Jungkook is anxious about it.

"Well, I think it's nice that you care about that, Jungkook-ah," Jimin says after thinking about it for a moment. "But it's not like everyone who matches on a dating app is going to end up being attracted to each other or liking each other. I don't think you have to tell him if you don't want to, or maybe just wait to see if it ever comes up. If you do want to tell him, just to make sure you're on the same page, I don't think he'll think you're an asshole, as long as you explain why you wanted to let him know. Just tell him what you told me."

"Yeah?" Jungkook asks. "You don't think he'll think I'm just some straight guy making fun of him or something?"

"Not if you don't make fun of him. Why? Do you feel that way?"

Jungkook's stomach squirms but he tries not to run away from the discomfort. Why does it make him uncomfortable? It's not like every one of his friends is straight. But no one has ever thought of him as not being straight either.

He doesn't like that the idea of Taehyung assuming he's gay makes him uncomfortable. So what if someone thinks that about him? But no matter how much he hates it, there is something about it that feels unpleasant to him, like he's under a microscope.

"No," Jungkook answers. "But it's like something about the idea of him assuming I'm," he pauses for a second, even just the word uncomfortable in his mouth, "gay – it bothers me, and I feel bad about that."

Jimin nods seriously.

"It's not something you're used to, I guess. It makes sense though."

"It does?" Jungkook asks, skeptical.

Jimin shrugs.

"I think so. I mean, I know you, and I know you're not a dick. It's not like you have a problem with gay people, right?"

Jungkook shakes his head.

"No way."

"Right, so it's just that someone is perceiving you different than you really are – someone you like and want to spend time with. I can see how that might feel a little weird."

"Yeah," Jungkook says, so relieved to have an explanation that doesn't make him a total douchebag that he doesn't think about how that answer doesn't seem to quite fit.

It does alleviate some of the pressure in his chest, and that’s good enough for now.

"Just relax tonight," Jimin says. "Have fun, see where the night takes you, try to get out of your head. And then the next time you talk to this guy, clear the air, and just be honest about why it's important to you. I'm sure it will be fine, and if he's a good dude, you two can still play League or whatever."

Jungkook nods. He considers telling Jimin that while he feels a little better, there's still something nagging at him, like he hasn't quite gotten all the way to the root of the problem, but he doesn't know what else Jimin can do that he hasn't done already.

"Thanks," he says instead, letting the conversation morph into something else.

Before long, their dates arrive and find them at the table. Jimin's date is adorable and clearly into him and Jungkook's is pretty and obviously game to spend some time with him once they get a good look at each other.

It's easy to let his conversation with Jimin slip from the forefront of his mind and engage with her instead.

This is familiar territory, comfortable, almost soothing in how easy it is to play the charming, easy, attractive guy that any girl would want to flirt with, lean into, maybe go home with at the end of the night.

It's a performance, but it's a fun one, and Jungkook enjoys it.

His date seems to enjoy it too. She laughs and leans in close to him in the booth, and once they've both had a drink and he asks her to dance with him, she's happy to oblige.

On the dance floor, it comes even easier. There he doesn't have to worry about finding the right things to say that will impress or charm her, doesn't need to worry about the right way to string his words together.

There he can simply move however comes naturally, and when his date takes his hands and places them on her body, it's easy enough to go along with it, fluid and changing but just another part of the choreography.

Another drink, another few dances, their bodies coming closer and closer together, and then she's on her toes so that she can speak softly into his ear, asking him to come back to her place.

The air in the back of their rideshare is warm and dry. It crackles over his skin like static, a small excitement, a comfortable anticipation, which he sees through to its end when they reach her apartment.

She wraps her legs around him and it's warm and comfortable and fun like it always is, and Jungkook loses himself in that just as he had been able to lose himself in the dancing.

The next morning when he takes another car back to his own apartment, he wonders how Taehyung had spent his Friday night.

#

The next time Jungkook talks to Taehyung, he starts the conversation himself.

He's lying around Saturday afternoon, bored and lonely.

Jimin isn't at the apartment and Jungkook suspects he's still with his own date from the night before. He knows it isn't the first time Jimin had seen her, unlike Jungkook and his own date. He doubts he'll see her again, didn't even bother to exchange numbers with her.

He's lying in bed in sweatpants, vaguely considering jerking off, or else putting Titanic on again, when it occurs to him that he could message Taehyung now. He's probably busy, it is Saturday after all, but maybe he's free, maybe he's as bored and alone as Jungkook is and wouldn't mind a game.

Feeling a little jittery, almost nervous, Jungkook opens Discord on his phone and quickly navigates back to his chat with Taehyung.

There isn't much in the history, because they had only messaged back and forth a few times before agreeing to get on voice chat to make the game easier, but Jungkook clicks into the text box now and shoots off a quick message to ask if Taehyung is free and maybe wants to play.

He expects to wait at least a few minutes for a response, so he's surprised when he gets an " okay!!!! " from Taehyung almost immediately. He grins at his phone, pleased that Taehyung is apparently excited to play with him again.

A moment later, Taehyung is calling him over the app. Jungkook laughs and jumps up from his bed to answer the call on his computer instead of his phone.

"Hi," he hears himself say, and if he sounds a little breathless, he's sure it's only because of the way he had leapt up and run across the room.

"Hi," Taehyung says back, something pleased and soft about his voice that Jungkook is fairly sure hadn't been there before. His stomach twists at the sound of it, but before he can think much about his response, Taehyung says, "Wasn't sure I'd hear from you again."

"Why not?" Jungkook asks, the words out before he has a chance to doubt the wisdom of asking.

There's a pause on the other line, like Taehyung is distracted, or possibly as though he's trying to think of how he wants to answer.

In the end, he says, "After I kicked your ass last time," and somehow even though they barely know each other, Jungkook can hear that he's smiling.

"It's a team game."

"Still did way better than you," Taehyung argues, cheeky.

Jungkook feels his eyes narrow even though Taehyung can't see him – a thought that's quickly followed by a flash of an idea, that it would be so easy to switch to a video call, and then Jungkook would be able to see him too.

"You're a brat," Jungkook says.

Taehyung makes a cute little sound of protest, and Jungkook imagines that he's pouting.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asks, and Jungkook absolutely isn't prepared for the way that question lances through his body from his chest to his toes.

He's fairly certain his breath catches somewhere in there, and he just hopes his microphone didn't pick up on the sound.

For several seconds, he's too stunned to respond – both by the teasing question and by his own reaction to it, which is undeniably high stakes, his heart beating so hard in his chest that he can feel it.

And then the answer pops, blessedly, into his head and he smiles, shaking the moment off because what else can he do?

"I'm going to kick your ass," he says, and the sound of Taehyung laughing, full and deep, through his headset is strangely soothing.

#

He doesn't kick Taehyung's ass – it is a team game, after all – but he does hold his own a little better this time around, and he thinks it's because knowing how good Taehyung is helps push him to really give the game his all.

They play three games and their team wins two of them, and when one player drags them into a losing match, they complain to each other over their voice call.

It's easy, which is what stands out to Jungkook the most. It's so easy to talk to Taehyung, and Jungkook isn't worried about performing the right version of himself at all.

At the same time, he quickly realizes that this isn't because he doesn't care what Taehyung thinks of him. He does care, a lot.

He wants Taehyung to think he's smart and good at the game, he wants Taehyung to think he's clever and funny, and every time he hears Taehyung's low, happy laugh come through his headset, Jungkook feels more and more satisfied.

They keep talking for a while even after they finish playing, just about little, inconsequential things, and it's during this time that Jungkook finally remembers his conversation with Jimin the night before.

He doesn't know how to bring it up, but Taehyung ends up making that easy for him too.

Since that first conversation, before they'd moved off of the dating app, neither of them had mentioned the fact that they'd matched in the first place.

For Jungkook, it's because the whole thing had been an accident – a happy accident, maybe, because he really does like talking to Taehyung – and he hasn't wanted to draw attention to it.

He isn't sure why Taehyung hasn't mentioned it. Maybe it's because he isn't Taehyung's type after all, and Taehyung likes him well enough to play League of Legends with but wouldn't want to go on a real date with him.

Maybe it's because what he's really interested in is a relationship, and Jungkook's profile makes it pretty clear that he isn't looking for the same thing.

Whatever it is, it bothers Jungkook - or, not bothers him, exactly, but it's like the awareness of it never fully leaves the back of his mind. There's no reason why he should care, and actually, he should be happy that it's worked out this way, but there is still that one private part of him that wants to know why.

Why had Taehyung swiped right on his profile days ago but he hasn't mentioned it since?

"You know," Taehyung says when there's a brief lull in the conversation. They've been talking about their favorite anime – something that Jungkook would usually feel self-conscious about – and he hadn't said anything in response to Taehyung's last comment, preferring instead to sit and quietly listen to him laugh. "Most guys would have asked for my number by now."

Once more, Jungkook is glad that they're only on a voice call, because he knows what Taehyung is implying and that alone is enough to make him flush.

He's sure Taehyung is telling the truth.

Taehyung is fun to talk to, easygoing but exuberant at the same time, and he's got this mix of confidence and timidity that Jungkook is sure anyone interested in men would find irresistible - not to mention the fact that he's clearly attractive.

His photos on his dating profile had been so pretty that even Jungkook had been taken in by them, which is how this whole thing had started in the first place, and exactly what he'd agreed with Jimin that he should probably come clean about.

"Yeah," he says with a laugh so forced that he cringes to himself.

He scratches his head, feeling awkward, wondering whether this would be more or less awful if they could see each other on their screens.

"I wanted to talk to you about that." He takes a deep breath, grateful that Taehyung doesn't say anything, most likely waiting for Jungkook to ask for his number after all. "I just – don't want you to get the wrong idea."

He decides to bite the bullet and just get as much of it out as he can, all at once.

"The thing is, I sort of – well, it wasn't exactly an accident, I did really like your pictures, but I didn't really read your profile before I swiped right? Not until after we talked that first time. And it's possible that I, uh," he breathes a long, anxious sigh, "that I thought you were a woman? Before then?"

There's silence on the line for a long moment. Jungkook actually holds his breath and turns up the sound on his headset, listening as intently as he can, trying to get some impression of Taehyung's reaction.

Then, finally, Taehyung speaks, but it isn't exactly encouraging.

"Oh," he says.

One simple word, maybe not even a word so much as a simple expression of surprise and something else that Jungkook can't recognize. He really hopes it isn’t disappointment.

Jungkook doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to assume that Taehyung would be disappointed, and he think he knows him well enough now to know that he wouldn't be offended, but he still feels like he's done something wrong somehow, maybe by not mentioning it sooner, maybe just by being so careless in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he says, a little pathetic, not sure what else he can do.

Taehyung laughs into the receiver of his mic, but it's not the same laugh Jungkook has been listening to all afternoon. It's chagrined, self-deprecating, a little sad, and Jungkook immediately regrets presenting it the way he did.

He almost wishes that Taehyung would be angry with him – exactly the thing he had been dreading – because then maybe he wouldn't sound so discouraged.

"You don't have to apologize," Taehyung says. "Just a mistake, right?"

"Right," Jungkook says weakly.

He wonders if he should come clean about the rest too, the reason why his profile was set to show him men in the first place, but he doesn't want to make things worse than they already are, and he really isn't sure it would help.

Silently, he vows to himself that he'll correct the preferences in the app as soon as they're off this call. It hadn't been a funny joke, and he shouldn't have kept it up that way for so long.

The line is silent for another long moment, and Jungkook is torn up by his guilt. He suddenly wants Taehyung to feel better so badly that he would say anything.

"For what it's worth," he says, "I did think you looked really pretty in your photos."

He knows his cheeks are pink, but it's worth it for the way Taehyung laughs again, this time less sad and more shy.

"Yeah?" he asks.

Even just that one word is tender, vulnerable. It makes Jungkook want to protect him, even if he has to protect him from Jungkook himself.

"Yeah," he says. "And I'd still like to ask for your number, if that's okay, so you can school me in League whenever you want," he adds, suddenly more confident again.

"Okay," Taehyung says.

Jungkook breathes a sigh of relief, because he can hear that Taehyung is smiling again.

#

After that, they're friends, real friends. They chat throughout the day over text, to the point that Jimin even gets jealous because, for the most part, Jungkook is notoriously bad at texting.

He defends himself by arguing that it's different with Taehyung, because they can only talk by call or some form of messaging each other, whereas Jimin is always around.

Jimin gives him a skeptical look, but he doesn't push the matter.

Jungkook is pretty sure Jimin is just happy that he has a friend who will play games with him, since Jimin isn't really into playing, and isn't especially into listening to Jungkook whine about wanting to play either. This way he doesn't have to do either.

It only takes a few days, though, before Jimin is teasing him for trading in his usual routines for staying home alone to play League of Legends with Taehyung over Discord calls.

"When's the last time you even got laid?" Jimin asks as he rummages through his closet looking for something to wear out for his date.

Jungkook is in sweats and an oversized t-shirt – he can't remember the last time he wore something else outside of work or the gym – sitting on Jimin's bed.

He isn't here because he particularly loves hanging out with Jimin while he gets ready, but because Jimin hadn't wanted to be alone and thought he would ask Jungkook for outfit advice (even though whenever Jungkook offers any, Jimin scoffs and does whatever he had been planning to do anyway).

Jungkook shrugs in response to the question.

"It couldn't be the time we went out together?" Jimin says.

Jungkook is pretty sure he's right. He shrugs again.

Jimin stops what he's doing, his arms held comically overhead as he turns to look at Jungkook over his shoulder.

"Are you serious?" he says.

"Yeah? What's the big deal?"

"Jungkook, I don't think you've gone two weeks without sex since I met you."

Jungkook's brow furrows and he shakes his head, laughing it off. There's no way that's true, he thinks, but then when he really considers it, he realizes Jimin may be right. He supposes that is sort of weird.

"Guess I just haven't felt like it," he says.

Jimin raises his eyebrows, his eyes wide, and he looks so foolish that normally Jungkook would laugh, but something about the conversation doesn't feel especially funny to him. 

He knows Jimin isn't judging him, but he has that feeling again, like he's under a microscope, being observed too closely in a way that he can't observe himself.

"Too busy talking to Taehyung?" Jimin says.

Jungkook can't tell if this is meant to be a real question, or just a comment, possibly only a teasing one.

The fact is, he has been talking to Taehyung more often than not.

They're usually texting throughout the day, and once he's home from work and out of his post-gym shower, when normally he would start deciding whether he wants to go out or open some dating app to see where it leads him, instead he logs on and calls Taehyung and they play and chat for the rest of the evening.

He hasn't felt the same drive, that same empty, hollow place that pushes him to try to find someone new every few nights.

"I guess so," he says, because why should it be a big deal? Jungkook told Taehyung the truth, and they’re friends.

Jimin gives him a long look but doesn't say anything else about it. He finishes getting ready, and as soon as he's out the door, Jungkook checks his phone for any new texts from Taehyung.

Unsurprisingly, he has one from just a few minutes earlier, inviting him to play a game of League if he doesn't have any other plans.

Jungkook has never really told Taehyung outright that before they started talking, he had plans more often than not, but Taehyung always allows for that when he asks to hang out. Jungkook wonders if it's the same for him, if he's ditching his other friends, blowing off potential dates, to hang out with Jungkook instead.

The thought makes him feel oddly pleased with himself.

Within minutes they're on a call, booting up the game on their own computers. In these moments, Jungkook goes back and forth on whether he wants to ask if they can turn on the video function.

He's curious what Taehyung looks like while they play together, whether he's really smiling or pouting whenever Jungkook thinks he is.

As always seems to happen though, he gets nervous right when he thinks about asking. It's weird, he isn't usually nervous about people seeing him, and now that he's confessed the truth about how he came to speak with Taehyung in the first place, he doesn't have anything to hide.

Something about the idea of Taehyung seeing him, though, gives him a little shiver of anxiety every time he thinks about it. He cares what Taehyung thinks of him.

Maybe it doesn't matter that they both know Jungkook isn't interested in him as anything other than a friend. They both know that Taehyung could be attracted to Jungkook even if Jungkook doesn’t return the feeling.

He isn't sure why he should care, maybe it's just ingrained in him at this point, but he does.

After a couple of games, when they're just talking idly like they've come to do once they've worn out their capacity for clicking and arguing with strangers in the in-game chat, Jungkook finds himself thinking about it again.

Taehyung is telling him about his family, his younger siblings and his grandparents who raised him, and Jungkook is listening to the warmth and joy in his voice, how he slowly puts his words together like each and every once has to be treated tenderly, and he's suddenly struck with this need to see what Taehyung looks like when he's speaking like this.

He needs to know if his expression is as soft as his voice, if he talks with his hands or sits with them primly held in his lap.

He has a vague sense of what Taehyung looks like from his photos on the app, but none of those had really shown his face, and even though they've been playing League together over Discord almost every day for the last couple of weeks, they haven't exchanged any other social media.

So despite his inhibitions, Jungkook hears himself say, "Hey, want to get on video?"

"Oh," is Taehyung's immediate response, and then there's a long moment of silence during which Jungkook swears he can hear a faint crackle of static like it's flitting back and forth between their two headsets, separated by some unknown distance.

It gives him just enough time to worry that he's made this irreparably awkward, and he starts to wonder if he should have offered some explanation for the request, if just putting it out there without telling Taehyung why he wanted to see him is only going to give him the wrong idea, if maybe that's why he's quiet on the other line.

Before he can spiral too far out of control, Taehyung says, "Um, okay -- I'm just in pajamas though, if that's okay."

Jungkook, relieved both that Taehyung doesn't seem to think the request is weird (or at least, not too weird) and that he's not the only one who doesn't currently look his best, grins.

"Of course," he says.

Taehyung doesn't ask him why he wanted to switch to a video call, and since the moment has passed, Jungkook doesn't offer an explanation. He isn't sure what he would say if Taehyung did ask, isn't really sure why he cares so much himself.

It's that itch to know if the image in his head matches the real thing, which maybe shouldn't matter to him at all, but he supposes it's just basic curiosity at the end of the day.

As it turns out, the image in his head does not match the reality. Not at all. He isn't sure how it even could have.

Taehyung's dating profile photos had been nice, after all – they had been pretty, like he'd said more than once, and the primary reason Jungkook hadn't realized at first that the profile belonged to a man.

But as lovely as they had been to look at, they had been artsy shots of various body parts, removed from a face, removed even from a person at all.

Once Jungkook found out that thv was a man and not a woman, he hadn't thought as much about the photos, instead sinking easily into his newfound friendship.

He knows Taehyung to be mostly soft-spoken, though at times exuberant or cheeky, loud with joy at a hard-won battle or with anguish at a particularly brutal loss.

Taehyung to him is someone quietly competent, sometimes timidly proud and sometimes self-deprecating in a way that makes Jungkook want to protect him from himself, like he doesn't see all of the same positive qualities in himself that Jungkook sees, even without being able to see him at all.

So when he finally does see him, when Taehyung clicks the button to switch from voice only to video and Jungkook's screen blooms suddenly with his face and the upper part of his body, Jungkook is surprised to discover that he's easily the most handsome man he's ever seen.

It sounds like hyperbole, maybe, but he knows it instantly. There's no question in his mind, even as someone who doesn't typically spend a lot of time thinking about how handsome this or that man might be.

Taehyung could be a model, and actually maybe he is one, now that Jungkook thinks about it. It would explain those photos anyway.

Because Taehyung isn't just handsome -- he's sort of beautiful? Jungkook doesn't know what to make of it, or how he would even begin to explain it, but there's just something so striking about the arrangement of his particular features.

His face is unique but in a perfectly pleasing way. His eyes are the warmest deep brown, subtly mismatched in shape, which draws Jungkook's attention to them immediately.

And the rest of his face is a blend of hard and sharp and soft, endlessly interesting as Jungkook's eyes move across it, taking in the details. He looks more like art than a person, truly the living embodiment of his profile photos.

Maybe Jungkook should have expected that, but he's seen too many photos that hardly seem to match the real people claiming them, once he sees them for the first time.

Taehyung is the opposite. He looks more like those photos than Jungkook ever would have expected, even in -- like he'd said -- his silken pajamas, blonde hair fluffy as though he's been running his hand through it in frustration while they've spent the last hour playing.

"Oh, did we freeze?" Taehyung asks, and it's only then that Jungkook realizes he's been staring straight at the screen.

He'd almost forgotten that Taehyung can see him too now.

Jungkook shakes his head both to indicate that no, the camera hasn't frozen, and to try to clear his head.

It isn't every day that he sees someone as objectively attractive as Taehyung apparently is. He's just feeling a little star struck.

Part of him wants to tell Taehyung just this, but then he remembers how they became friends in the first place, and he worries that Taehyung will get the wrong idea.

It isn't that it bothers him, exactly, to think of Taehyung believing that Jungkook might find him attractive in a more than simply platonic way, it's just that he doesn't, and he likes Taehyung, and he wouldn't want to be responsible for confusing him or even hurting his feelings.

Which is why he's even more thrown off than he might have been otherwise when Taehyung says, "You're very handsome, Jungkook-ssi."

He doesn't say it in a flirty way, but Jungkook feels heat rush to his face nevertheless. From what he can tell, Taehyung is just making a polite observation, but it has Jungkook grinning from ear to ear as though he isn't told he's good-looking all the time.

Maybe it just means more coming from Taehyung, who knows not to expect anything from him other than friendship and a League of Legends partner.

"That means a lot coming from you," Jungkook says, slipping easily into the same demeanor he might use if he were out at a club with Jimin or chatting with a girl on the same app where he had inadvertently started talking to Taehyung.

He isn't prepared for the way his comment makes Taehyung's cheeks flush pink as he smiles (exactly as softly as Jungkook has been imagining, he notes with some degree of satisfaction) and looks down at something out of frame of the camera on his computer.

Jungkook is even less prepared for his own reaction to Taehyung's reaction.

Simultaneously, his heart jumps and his stomach swoops in what feels to him like an aggressive version of a feeling he's quite accustomed to: the early indication of interest.

It's unmistakable, and settles uneasily over him, the recognition of it. He knows he falters, just hopes that Taehyung is distracted enough not to notice.

He doesn't know how to process it for himself, and he certainly has no idea what he'll say about it if Taehyung notices and mentions it. He feels suddenly nervous. He tries to brush the whole thing off -- the same way, he realizes now, he's been brushing off a lot of the details of his friendship with Taehyung -- but this is too much to just ignore.

He's been in this position too many times before, with too many people -- too many women -- to pretend he doesn't recognize the flush of pleasure at having an effect, the heat of interest brewing in his own body, even through the screen.

It feels chemical, a concrete response that lives in the body, something he usually feels so in tune with but that now seems to have moved on without him, leaving his brain and his own understanding of himself far behind.

But he doesn't have time to dwell on it now.

Taehyung looks back up at his webcam, and therefore at Jungkook, his eyes big and sweet and unaware that he's just radically thrown Jungkook for a massive loop.

Jungkook swallows, pushing it down, refusing to think about it when Taehyung is right there in front of him, waiting for him to say something.

The problem is that he now has absolutely no idea what to say.

He settles for a truly witty, "Uhhhhh."

He feels like his brain is short-circuiting, and for a split second that would be embarrassing if anyone else had been aware of it, he wishes that Jimin hadn't had a date tonight. He wants his friend here, home and available, so that Jungkook could unload his sudden and extremely urgent crisis onto him.

He's fairly certain that it hadn't been his original plan (if he'd even had one) but he's unavoidably aware of the fact that he can't speak at the moment, and that he has some thinking to do, so he ends up asking if Taehyung would want to watch a movie.

Taehyung perks up as though he would like nothing more. He literally sits up taller in his chair like nothing could be more exciting to him than watching a movie with Jungkook while they sit on the Discord call together.

This at least gives them something to talk about for a couple minutes as they try to decide what to watch.

Jungkook already knows Taehyung doesn't like anything scary, that had come up while they discussed the different video games they like, trying to find the places where they would overlap. 

That doesn't stop him from suggesting a couple of horror movies though, just to watch the way Taehyung gets flustered and bats at him as though he could hit him through the camera.

Jungkook laughs at his antics, and it's easier to ignore the sense of jittery nerves and fluttery insides once they’re talking.

They end up agreeing to watch My Neighbor Totoro, a re-watch for both of them, because Taehyung pouts for it as soon as the idea occurs to him and one new thing Jungkook has to contend with about himself is that, apparently, when Taehyung pouts at him, he has two options: one, fold and give him exactly what he wants, or two, tease him a little bit and then fold anyway.

He feels it as soon as he sees it, that plush, pink bottom lip shining even across the shitty webcam video, pushed out like Taehyung has never known shame in his life, and it is immediately effective.

So Jungkook pulls it up from his external hard drive and streams the movie over Discord, and they watch it together.

Taehyung grins as soon as Jungkook agrees, his smile so big it takes over his whole face, making his eyes crinkle up at the corners. It sends another wave of that disorienting swoopy feeling through him, so he focuses on getting the movie running smoothly instead of on Taehyung.

But as soon as the movie is on and Taehyung's attention is rapt on the sisters and their new, magical home, Jungkook finds it difficult to concentrate on anything but Taehyung.

He keeps the video with their call up in one corner of the screen so he can see Taehyung's reactions. He'd thought that he would mostly watch the movie, but this way they could glance at each other during the funny parts, or enjoy the wholesome moments together.

As it turns out, he spends far more time watching Taehyung watch the movie than actually watching the movie himself.

He's captivated by every shift of his expression, and this is something he learns about Taehyung: that he's an extremely expressive person. He rolls his eyes, pouts his lips, Jungkook has started keeping track of all his different smiles and what they might mean. He thinks it might take a long time to accurately catalog them all.

Most of the time he's doing something that can only be described as adorable, but every once in a while he'll shift in his computer chair, sit back with a neutral expression on his face, look to the side and flash his profile to the webcam, and Jungkook will be struck all over again by just how stunning he is.

He looks like he should be modeling luxury fashion brands on the cover of expensive, high gloss magazines, and instead he's a grainy image on Jungkook's computer screen.

Jungkook reasons with himself, as the cat bus makes its way through the dark forest night, that some of his reaction can probably be chalked up to the fact that, objectively, he's never seen anyone so completely beautiful before. Not in his daily life, while he sits in sweatpants and a t-shirt and worries about whether or not Taehyung can see the problems he's having with his skin today.

But even if he can use that excuse to write off the fact that he's fascinated by Taehyung, it isn't enough to explain away his reactions to him.

They're visceral, liquid, physical but emotional at the same time. It's every connection he's ever made texting someone from a dating app, every electric moment of eye contact with a beautiful woman from across a bar, every chemical jolt to his body when he's pressed up against someone on a dance floor -- except that it's even more than all of those things.

The movie plays out in front of his eyes but Jungkook barely sees it.

Instead he sees the way Taehyung's eyes shine when the girls visit their mother, and he sees every moment he can remember when he had been attracted to someone, comparing it against this feeling that isn't quite new but isn't quite familiar either.

Because if that had been attraction, if that had been desire, then what is this?

He feels bowled over. He feels subsumed.

His heart is racing and his whole body feels warm. Every time he starts to calm down he looks at Taehyung again, thinks about the sound of his voice through the headset when they play, the way he shouts with joy when they win a game, how praises come so easily to his tongue when Jungkook makes a good move, but how he blushes and shies away when Jungkook returns the favor.

The movie ends before he even realizes that they've been sitting quietly together for nearly an hour and a half.

Suddenly the credits are rolling and Taehyung is yawning and Jungkook is feeling that lighting-up-from-the-inside feeling again because Taehyung is just cute, everything about him is cute and it should feel the way it does when Jimin does something objectively adorable, but it doesn't. It isn't like that at all, and Jungkook is freaking out.

He panics.

"Thanks for watching a movie with me, Jungkookie," Taehyung says.

He's smiling shyly at Jungkook through the screen and Jungkook just can't handle it at all. He regrets ever asking to see his face, but it's not exactly like he can say that.

"Sure," he chokes out. "Yeah. You look tired though. I'll let you go."

"Oh," Taehyung says, "I'm not –"

"Goodnight, hyung!"

Jungkook ends the call before Taehyung has a chance to finish his sentence. Jungkook sees enough of his reaction to know that he's surprised, maybe a little disappointed, but then the screen goes gray and Taehyung is gone.

Jungkook shuts down his computer before he has a chance to get second thoughts, and he banishes himself to his bed because he doesn't know what else to do, kind of just wants to sleep so he can forget about everything that just happened.

He can't sleep though.

His mind is on overdrive and it won't slow down, no matter how many deep breaths he forces himself to take.

He goes back and forth between thinking about Taehyung, how it's been to talk to him, how it had felt to see him for the first time, even thinking back to that first night on the dating app when he had been so taken by his pictures that he hadn't even realized he was looking at a man.

His sheets are tangled around his legs and he's hot. He kicks them off and flops onto his front, closing his eyes even though they want to pop right back open to stare into the darkness.

Barely two minutes pass before he's cold and he drags the blankets back up over his body, until he starts to sweat and, frustrated, throws them off again. He huffs, annoyed with himself and the world, feeling like he's got the biggest splinter somehow lodged between his ribs, making it impossible to think about anything else.

He wishes Jimin would come home so he could grab him to talk - preferably alone, but he isn't above dragging him away from getting laid if he really needs to talk to him, and he doesn't think he's ever needed to talk to Jimin more.

He lies very still in the dark room and listens, hoping to hear the heavy tread of boots on the stairs leading up to the apartment, but there's nothing. He looks at the time on his phone and sees that it's after two AM. He also sees that he has a new message from Taehyung, but he staunchly ignores it, doesn't even let his eyes glide over the preview.

Closing his eyes, he tries to imagine what Jimin would say if he were home and Jungkook was able to dump all of his thoughts from the last few hours at his friend's feet for sorting. Jimin is good at that sort of thing.

He finds that he can't summon up what he imagines might be Jimin's real words, but as he mulls it over, thinking about their last conversation, he knows that Jimin would push him to dig into the feelings and ask himself what he's so afraid of.

So he forces himself to ask the question.

Is he attracted to Taehyung?

He kind of has to answer with a resounding apparently . He'd be lying to himself otherwise, and as tempting as it may be to lie, he spends too much time in his own head to do it satisfactorily.

Another unpleasant question.

Is he bothered by the fact that he's attracted to Taehyung?

This one sits even more uncomfortably than the first, but maybe that's a good sign. Maybe that means he cares more about being secretly homophobic than he cares about being secretly gay -- or, secretly not straight? He isn't sure. That can be a question for later.

He sits with this one for another few minutes, and eventually he comes to the conclusion that he's less bothered by the idea of being attracted to a man than he is by the idea that there's a part of him that he hadn't known before, and he has no idea how deep it runs.

He'll have to explore it, he decides – just a little bit. Test the waters, put small amounts of pressure on it here and there, just to see where the boundaries are, what it means.

Maybe he just thinks Taehyung is pretty; anybody would think so, there isn't really an argument to be made against that. Maybe anyone would be attracted to him, at least a little bit. Jungkook could believe that. Maybe it doesn't mean anything more than that, but he won't know unless he pays attention to it.

He suspects that Jimin would say something similar to that, and with that much figured out and decided, he's finally able to slip into something that is at least a mostly restful sleep.

#

After that, Jungkook pays almost as much attention to himself as he pays to Taehyung. He's sure that both are notable to Jimin, who seems to keep an eye on him but never brings it up.

Jungkook keeps careful catalog of every reaction he notices in himself that seems to hint at some attraction to Taehyung, and as he notices more and more of them, he realizes that some of them had been present even before their first video call.

The giddy excitement he feels whenever he sees that he has a new text (for that matter, the anxious sort of anticipation he feels over texting Taehyung first) has been there since before he'd seen Taehyung's face for the first time.

The sense of comfort and easy happiness, the obvious pleasure he takes from talking to Taehyung, teasing him, feeding him little praises like treats to spoil him with, the sense of privilege he feels, like he's lucky to be allowed to make Taehyung feel good -- it all adds up to a feeling Jungkook knows he's never had before.

It's a feeling that's marked equally with frenetic tension - nerves and excitement and anticipation that's part sick-feeling and also tenderly pleasant, the feeling of eating too much sugar too fast – and the warm, syrupy-soft and sweet feeling of comfort and familiarity at the end of a long day, a Christmas postcard of a feeling, all golden and glowing.

Every time he starts to feel afraid of all these new emotions, that second sensation will spread over him, Taehyung's words and presence, even through a computer screen, like a soft blanket to soothe him and ease his anxieties.

"I like winter the best," Taehyung's low, soft voice says in his ear.

It's late at night, Jungkook isn't sure of the time because his phone is in his hand. He's lying in bed, once more tangled up in his sheets, but this time they aren't bothering him.

Taehyung had texted a while earlier to ask for a favor. He hadn't been able to sleep, a problem Jungkook shares more often than not lately, and he wanted to know if Jungkook would be up for a call.

Jungkook had said yes, because Jungkook always says yes to Taehyung.

Taehyung is speaking quietly, probably to keep from waking up his roommates, who he's told Jungkook a little about, enough to feel like he would know them if he saw them. Jungkook is speaking quietly back even though Jimin isn't home, just because it feels like the right thing to do.

He loves this feeling, there's no denying it, and he doesn't want to deny it anyway. He only wants to lie here, warm and comfortable in the still, quiet dark, with Taehyung's voice close as he tells him about his favorite season.

"I hate being hot," he says.

"Is that the real reason?" Jungkook asks, non-judgmental, curious.

Taehyung makes a small sound on the other line, one that Jungkook can't quite decipher but he enjoys trying nevertheless.

"It's one real reason," Taehyung says.

There's a long moment where he doesn't say anything else, but Jungkook is learning to read his silences, his pauses and hesitations, and he feels that this is a thinking silence, so he waits for more.

Taehyung puts his words together with deliberation, quiet and slow. He takes his time, and Jungkook finds that he doesn't mind giving it to him.

With Taehyung, the rest of the world melts away. Jungkook stops worrying about time, about rushing around, about things like productivity and gains and making the most of things, all the bits and pieces of his own small life.

With Taehyung the world narrows and fades into a worn blur, and Jungkook knows, in a way that's so bone-deep it must be innate, in a part of himself he had forgotten somewhere along the way, that none of that matters. Only this.

Only lying warm in bed, well-fed and cared for, with Taehyung's gentle, steady silence on the other end of the line.

"I like," Taehyung starts, and Jungkook feels a bloom of pride spread through him from his chest knowing that he'd been right to wait, "I like when everything is cold and quiet outside and I'm cozy at home.

"Don't you like going out?" Jungkook asks, because Taehyung has told him that he likes to spend nights out with his friends, dancing at bars, getting to know people.

He doesn't even drink very much, most of the time, just likes the feeling of being surrounded by strangers and possibilities.

It's a different version of Taehyung than the one Jungkook has seen, but he's gotten flashes of that part of him: bright smiles, sudden, loud laughter, and the sense from those first photos that he inhabits his body in an entirely different way than Jungkook does.

It's so easy to imagine him dancing, lithe and elegant and glamorous. Jungkook wonders if, had he ever seen Taehyung out in a setting like that, he would have caught his eye, despite everything he thought he knew about himself.

"Hmm," Taehyung hums, thinking again. "I do. But there's something nice about having an excuse not to, don't you think?"

Jungkook smiles in the dark, no one there to see it.

"Yeah," he says, "I think so too."

An idea pops into his head, half-formed, a thought that trails like a thread of smoke through his mind before disappearing.

In the light of day he may not even have noticed it. Lying quietly in the dark, though, he's aware of it: how nice it would be, how good it might feel, if instead of being here alone, with Taehyung's voice over the phone but the rest of him out of reach, Taehyung himself were here with him.

The thought sends another one of those increasingly familiar little jolts of heat and awareness through him.

He imagines lying beside him in his own bed, facing each other in the dark, unable to see more than just an outline here and there, the shape of a shoulder, a hip, the glimmer of eye in the black of his bedroom.

Maybe their feet would brush, legs tangled at the ankles. Maybe if Jungkook was brave, he'd even reach out to touch him.

That's where the thought falls apart, because when he imagines touching Taehyung like that, he realizes he doesn't know what that would mean, or what he would want to do after.

Would he pull him closer? Or just brush his fingers across his cheekbone, his jaw? He doesn't know where it would start, let alone where it would end.

He realizes he hasn't said anything in an awkwardly long moment.

"Sorry," he says.

"It's okay," Taehyung tells him. "I like being quiet with you."

His words are coming slower now, and even deeper than usual, like he has to concentrate to pull speech out of the depths of himself.

"Getting tired, Tae?" Jungkook asks, half-teasing and half something else.

Taehyung hums in response. Jungkook wonders if he's lying in his own bed with the lights off, head pressed into his pillow and phone pressed to his ear. He wonders if he's drifting, if talking to Jungkook has helped him find some inner comfort or peace that he had been lacking before. He hopes that it has.

"It's okay," Jungkook tells him. "Sleep."

"Mmm, no," Taehyung says, sounding petulant and pouty and half asleep already.

Jungkook smiles despite himself.

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to go."

Jungkook's breath actually catches. Who the fuck even is he anymore?

This, at least, should surely be too far. This must be the moment where he finally hits the breaks, determines that he needs to, if nothing else, figure out what exactly it is that he's feeling before he puts his foot in his mouth or gives Taehyung the wrong idea -- an idea that he can't follow up on.

He should tell Taehyung goodnight, tell him to go to sleep. He should hang up the phone.

He doesn't. He can't. The thought of doing something for Taehyung, something that would make him happy, even something small - maybe especially something small - is too tempting to resist.

"I won't go then," he says.

"What?"

Jungkook draws a careful breath.

"I'll stay on the phone with you until you fall asleep," he says, "if you want."

There's a long silence but Jungkook can't find it in himself to feel self-conscious about what he'd said. He means it, and somehow he doesn't think Taehyung is bothered by it.

"Okay," Taehyung says finally.

It's a simple word but even that sounds different in Taehyung's mouth, all soft sounds, each one pronounced in a way that's uniquely Taehyung.

"Thanks, Jungkookie."

Jungkook almost tells him it's nothing, because it's easy enough to do, but he doesn't want to give Taehyung the impression that it doesn't mean anything, because it does. He may not know exactly what it means, but it clearly means something.

So he doesn't say anything, just hums back and settles in a little more comfortably against his own bedding.

"Goodnight, Tae," he says when he hears the sound of rustling sheets.

"’Night, Jungkook-ah," Taehyung says with a quiet sigh.

He falls asleep quickly after that, Jungkook is fairly sure. He hears his breath slow and deepen over the next few minutes.

It takes Jungkook a lot longer to fall asleep.

His head is a riot of conflicting thoughts, all of them wrapped up around the man on the other end of the line, the two of them linked through the phones against their ears, across the distance of the city.

He can't shake the feeling that he needs to know how deep this curiosity runs. If it's a shallow, passing thing, a glimmer of attraction that he might feel for any stranger passing by him at the bar, then he can write it off as some quirk of Taehyung's particular beauty and be done with it.

But he knows it isn't just that paired with the excitement of a new friendship. He knows it isn't. It's too big for that, too distracting.

He finds himself thinking of Taehyung at all hours of the day - at work, at the gym, wandering around the apartment, even when he's out dancing or talking to other people (something he's doing less and less often, if at all, anymore).

It's to the point where even though he holds himself back from mentioning Taehyung whenever he can, all of his friends have heard more about Tae than they have about Jungkook himself over the last couple of weeks.

That's something . He knows it is. He just doesn't know what, and he has to figure it out before he gets in too deep.

#

He starts trying to test the waters. He's careful not to bring Taehyung into his experiments too much. He doesn't want to make his own self-discovery journey, or whatever he would call it, Taehyung's problem.

Whatever else is going on, Taehyung is just a guy who thought he was talking to someone who was interested in him, and who had the good grace and kindness to still be Jungkook's friend when he found out that wasn't the case. Jungkook doesn't want to hurt him.

The first time he sends a selfie along with a text, he doesn't say anything about it, just plays it off like this is something he always does when he texts his friends.

It's an innocuous one, just a picture of him bored at his desk at work. He makes sure the lighting is right, that the sun filtering through his office window is hitting his good side, and he pulls a face that's silly enough to be considered jokey but that still allows him to look good.

He sends it along with a text lamenting how bored he is at work and how he wishes he were home playing with Taehyung instead.

Jungkook has always had the impression that Taehyung is fairly attached to his phone, because usually when he messages him, he gets a response right away.

Taehyung also mentions lots of friends, and he seems to be in constant contact with all of them, so Jungkook figures he must text a lot.

So it stands out when he doesn't get a response for nearly half an hour, by the end of which he's sweating despite the temp control in his office.

Had that been too much already? Is Taehyung put off by him somehow? Is he offended that Jungkook would send him a photo, even a basic selca, after essentially friend-zoning him?

He's just about ready to text Jimin to ask if he's seriously overstepped somehow when his phone buzzes on his desk.

Jungkook doesn't think he's ever picked up his phone and unlocked it so quickly, but his (embarrassing) eagerness is rewarded when he sees that the new message is from Taehyung.

He opens up his text app and stops breathing for a moment – just a tiny moment, he tells himself. Barely noticeable.

It's just that Tae looks so effortlessly handsome in his response selca that, Jungkook is sure, anyone would have been taken aback to open their texts and see that .

It looks like Taehyung is at work too, maybe on his lunch break, because he's sitting behind a desk with a whiteboard behind him, though the whiteboard is covered over with children's drawings.

Taehyung had told him that his main job through most of the year is as a music and art teacher at a neighborhood elementary school, but Jungkook had never really imagined what that would look like.

As it turns out, it mostly looks wholesome and pretty, which maybe he should have seen coming.

In the photo, Taehyung is wearing a cream-colored sweater that looks too big on him, but in the most charming way, hanging down a little off his shoulder.

His hair is soft and fluffy, like he hadn't put anything in it to keep it back off his face that morning so he's been brushing it back with his hands all day. He's leaning his cheek against his hand and it makes his pink lips pout just a little bit.

Noticing that definitely does not do anything troubling to Jungkook's heart at all.

Somehow he looks both like Jungkook could reach right into the photo and touch him, so soft and accessible, and so handsome that he's completely out of reach at the same time. The text under his photo reads i'm bored too. why don't teachers get recess

Jungkook smiles down at his phone.

at least you get lunch , he texts back. He's had to work straight through his, but despite the mountain of files he should be getting through, he doesn't mind taking some time to talk to Taehyung, just until the kids get back.

They text for a few more minutes. Taehyung tells Jungkook about how he had narrowly avoided getting a paper plate full of bright blue paint splattered across his sweater earlier that morning when a kid had tripped on his untied shoelaces and Tae had moved to catch him.

Taehyung

my beautiful new sweater jungkookie!!!!

it would have been ruined

Jungkook

that would have been a real heartbreak

Taehyung

don't tease me, it would have!!!

Jungkook

no no of course

and it makes perfect sense to wear a new sweater

that you love

to teach five year olds how to paint

Taehyung

hey they would be offended if they heard you call them five

they're six

and of course it makes sense

where else would i wear my pretty new sweater

Jungkook knows exactly what he would say if he were talking to a woman right now. It would be all too easy to make some comment about how he doesn't know where Taehyung could wear it, but he knows where he could take it off, or something like that. He would figure it out. But even though in some ways it's right at the tips of his fingers to type it out, he holds back.

Is that what they're doing here? Flirting? Or is this just some friendly banter? He decides to err on the side of caution, but he can't quite resist the urge to keep teasing.

Jungkook

i guess you're just lucky you have such great reflexes

Jungkook is already grinning down at his phone at his own response because they've talked a lot about how Taehyung doesn't feel like he's the most active person.

He's confessed that the most exercise he gets is trying to wrangle his kids at school, and even though Jungkook would never judge anyone for how much they do or don't work out, he's always happy to take any excuse to tease Taehyung because –

Right on time, his phone buzzes with a new message, and he’s overcome with a warmth that's part comforting, part exciting, and all overwhelming, because Taehyung has responded with another selca.

This time he's pouting openly, facing the camera with his face tipped down so his eyes are big and round where they're focused as though he's looking right at Jungkook.

It does things to Jungkook that he's supposed to be analyzing, but all he can think to do in the moment is text back, and he knows exactly what he wants to say.

He bites his lip rings, trying to decide if he's going to do it. His heart is pounding even just considering it, but he wants to. He takes the plunge.

Jungkook

if you don't want me to tease you

you'd better stop rewarding me for it

He'd give anything to see Taehyung's reaction, whether it hits him or rolls right off of him, if it makes him shy or embarrassed, if it makes his face flush pink, or if the implication misses him, or if he writes it off.

It's impossible to tell from his text response. Jungkook watches the three little dots pop up a couple times, playing with his lip rings with his tongue as he stares avidly at the phone, waiting for the answer.

In the end, though, he ends up shooting off a quick text that the kids are back from recess and he has to go, leaving Jungkook to spend the rest of the day wondering what his real reaction had been.

#

Jungkook ends up waiting a couple days before he sends another photo. He doesn't want to do too much too fast, and he wants to make sure that everything stays the same between them when they get on Discord to play League.

When it all goes smoothly, he decides to push a little harder the next time, so he waits until he's at the gym after work.

He would like to claim that he just snapped a quick photo in the mirror of the dressing room after he's finished his workout for the day, but the truth is that he takes several, subtly altering his pose between each one, before he's satisfied enough to send one to Taehyung.

At least he looks nonchalant in the photo, which is going to have to be good enough.

In the picture, he's in a sleeveless top (which may or may not have been chosen for this exact purpose, not that he would ever admit it to anyone) and because he's leaning on the counter with the hand not needed to hold up his phone, the muscles of his arm are accentuated.

The sweat from his workout catches the harsh overhead lights in a way that probably doesn't look attractive at all in life, but that adds a certain wild-and-barely-contained look to the photo that Jungkook likes.

He hopes it makes him seem mysterious rather than just like any other gym bro, but it's hard to know.

In the photo, his hair is messy, pushed back off of his face. He thinks it makes him look casual, even though the sad reality is that he'd spent more than a few minutes playing with it until he finally achieved the artfully messy look he wanted.

Overall, he's pleased with the result, and, with an excited tremor running down his spine, he hopes Taehyung is pleased with it too.

He doesn't put as much thought into the accompanying text as he probably should, making a quick joke about how he's been training for tonight's League session.

Given the way Taehyung has reacted to his bolder, more suggestive comments so far, he expects to wait a while for a response, so he's surprised when Taehyung answers right away.

Taehyung

.............

jeon jungkook

did you just send me a thirst trap

Jungkook, still standing in the middle of the locker room because he hasn't been able to tear himself away from his phone, contemplates his response.

The thing is, he did, objectively, just send Taehyung a thirst trap.

He could try to backtrack on it, but that will just make him seem not only a little ridiculous (because who would he be kidding?) but also more than a little cowardly. He doesn't want to be ridiculous or cowardly.

More importantly, he doesn't want Taehyung to see him that way.

He wants Taehyung to see him as cool, and right now, despite what society and media and countless classmates throughout his formative years would have him believe, seeming cool also means seeming a little gay.

He'll set that thought aside for further consideration later.

Jungkook

maybe i did

Taehyung

..........what am i supposed to do with that??

This time, when the flirty answer presents itself to Jungkook, even though he feels his heart beating as hard as it had been earlier when he'd been working himself to the bone, he doesn't hesitate.

Jungkook

whatever you want

;)

#

The crash after Jungkook's brush with bravery at the gym is dramatic. Jimin notices it right away.

"Oh no," he says as soon as he walks into the apartment and sees Jungkook sitting on the couch with his hood pulled down low and tight over his face, effectively turning him into just a nose in a black void.

"I know that look," Jimin says.

He sets down his work bag next to the couch after kicking his shoes off by the door, and then  crawls onto the couch until his knees are pressed up against Jungkook's thigh.

"This is what you did after you threw up that one time, at Jin's party, do you remember?" Jimin's tone of sympathy quickly melts into laughter. "That was so funny."

Jungkook turns in his void just enough to glare at Jimin through the small hole left in his hood.

"Right," Jimin says, quickly schooling his features to look serious again.

It's almost impressive, except that Jungkook can tell that he's still trying not to laugh.

"Not so funny for you, I guess."

Jungkook doesn't say anything, just pulls his knees up onto the couch and buries his head in them.

"Okay, so, what did you do this time?"

"Why do you assume I did something?" Jungkook asks, hearing and hating the pout in his own voice.

"Because you wouldn't be hiding in shame if you didn't," Jimin says, shoving his shoulder and making Jungkook tip to the side before he rights himself with another glare.

"Spill," Jimin says.

Jungkook hides his face against his knees again before he speaks. The first time he does, he mumbles too much for Jimin to understand him, which gets him a sharp jab to the ribs.

He sighs and tries again.

"I sent a thirst trap to Taehyung."

There's a piercing silence that follows this confession.

Jungkook wants to look up from his hiding place, but he's also afraid to see the look on Jimin's face. He isn't sure if he expects his friend to laugh out loud or tell him he's an asshole. He is, however, fairly certain Jimin is most likely going to do one of those things.

He doesn't.

He sits with this knowledge for a long moment, one that Jungkook is at first pretty sure is meant to torture him, and it's only when Jimin finally does speak that he realizes he's just been thinking over how to respond.

"Okay," he says slowly.

There's something careful about his tone, like he doesn't want to push Jungkook too hard, but Jungkook is just relieved that he isn't laughing at him or calling him an asshole.

For another few seconds, neither of them says anything else. Jimin loses the battle of wills first.

"Why do you think you did that?"

It should be a stupid question. The answer should be obvious, and in some ways Jungkook supposes that it is.

He groans.

"I don't know," he says, sounding as miserable as he probably looks, still curled up tightly in a ball on the couch, every inch of him consumed by hoodie.

He doesn't even need to look up at Jimin to know that he's glaring at the side of his head. He can feel it.

"I mean, I wanted to, obviously."

"Obviously," Jimin says in a mild tone that makes it impossible to tell whether he's being sarcastic.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Now he's sure that Jimin will laugh, but he doesn't. He resituates himself on the couch so that he's sitting next to Jungkook properly, and he puts his arm across Jungkook's shoulders.

"What did he say?" is what Jimin eventually asks.

Even though Jimin can't even see his face, Jungkook feels himself flush thinking about his little act of bravery in the locker room.

He isn't entirely sure what to make of Taehyung's response to his thirst trap. He'd called him out for it, and Jungkook had assumed his response was a good one, but Taehyung had guarded himself a little better than Jungkook had.

Part of him wants to just show Jimin their exchange, but he would be too embarrassed for Jimin to see the photo he'd sent, and anyway, he's been afraid to check his phone again since sending that stupid winky face.

He has no idea if Taehyung has texted him back, or what he would say if he has. He's scared to check.

"Jungkook-ah," Jimin says softly. He squeezes Jungkook's shoulders. "Can I ask you a question?"

Jungkook has a feeling he isn't going to like this question, and also that if he wants to feel better, talking to Jimin about it is probably the best thing he can do.

He nods in his hood.

Jimin takes another second, but then he says, "Are you maybe, like, actually attracted to Taehyung?"

Even though he's been asking himself that question for days (and, if he's honest with himself, answering it for almost as long) it feels different hearing it from Jimin.

Hearing it out loud, outside of his own head and the swirl of anxiety that always accompanies it, is a little overwhelming, but it also feels good. It feels good to hear it acknowledged, a simple fact rather than a whole crisis of personality.

He nods his head yes again, and next to him Jimin lets out an audible breath.

Jungkook wonders what's going through his head. Is he freaked out? Is he judging Jungkook for not knowing himself better sooner?

He knows Jimin isn't homophobic, and he knows that Jimin would love him no matter what, but does that necessarily mean there won't be some sort of adjustment period when he finds out that Jungkook is attracted to a guy? Jungkook is having a hard enough time adjusting himself.

"Okay," Jimin says. "Thanks for telling me. Does that mean that you're, like –"

"I don't know," Jungkook says, muffled because he's still speaking against his knees rather than looking up.

"That's okay," Jimin says. "You don't have to know."

Those words work on Jungkook immediately, loosening something in his chest. He's felt so at war with himself over just that.

If he had been capable of whatever it is that he's going through now, this thing he feels for Taehyung, all his life, then how has he gone this long without noticing it?

He's been torturing himself over the idea that maybe it isn't real at all, or maybe it's merely curiosity, or maybe he's so worried about being a homophobic douchebag that he's making himself feel things that he doesn't really feel -- and then, of course, there's the worry that it is real, that he is feeling these things, and what does that mean for him if he is? Where does he go from here?

To have Jimin tell him that he doesn't have to know, that he doesn't need to have it all figured out, takes a weight off of him that he had been struggling under for days, if not weeks.

He finally peeks up from where he's buried his head, though he leaves his hood pulled tight over most of his face, so only his eyes peer out.

Jimin grins at him, but not in a way that seems like he's laughing at Jungkook's expense.

"We're on a roll," he says, "so let me ask one more."

Jungkook knows he'll just do it anyway, so he waits.

"Do you think maybe you might have actual feelings for Taehyung?"

This is the line, Jungkook knows, that he's been dancing up to and darting away from for a while.

It had taken some time and the unavoidable fact of his body's reactions to Taehyung for him to realize that what he was feeling was attraction, but feelings -- real feelings -- are harder to pin down.

How can he know exactly what it is that he feels for Taehyung?

How can he know if this is just a budding friendship that happens to have a little bit of surprising attraction attached to it, or if it's something more serious?

The truth is, he doesn't think he's ever really felt this way before, about anyone. Does that mean it's more likely to be something new, something uniquely Taehyung's?

Evidently he thinks about it for too long, because Jimin gets a sly look on his face.

"Do I need to remind you that the other day you told me you like the way he says okay ?"

This time it's Jungkook's turn to glare at him.

But maybe he has a point.

"Maybe you have a point," he mumbles.

"It's okay, you know," Jimin says, his expression turning serious again. "I mean, you do know that, right?"

Jungkook sighs. Of course he knows. He's never had a problem with anyone else being into guys. He just hadn't ever realized that he was, or that he could be. It makes him feel off-balance, wrong-footed, unsure of himself, and he isn't used to feeling that way.

"It's just," he says, "aren't I a little old for all this self-discovery or whatever?"

Jimin's brow furrows.

"No, Jungkook-ah," he says. "You're not, because there's no such thing. Maybe it just took meeting the right person to figure it out. If you'd met him sooner, maybe you'd have known this about yourself sooner too. And maybe not. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you feel this way now."

Jungkook nods.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

If Jungkook knew the answer to that, he probably wouldn't be sitting curled up in a ball on the couch.

What he does know is that he wants to do something. He may still be reeling over all of this, and it may feel completely new to him to be entertaining thoughts like this about a guy – and some of them for the first time in his life, about anyone – but he knows that he doesn't want to stop whatever he's doing with Taehyung.

He knows that, really, he wants more.

His face must be giving away some of his thoughts, because Jimin leers at him.

"I guess you've got some ideas," he says.

Jungkook shoves him, which makes him cackle and tip over. He looks delighted.

"What are you so happy about?" Jungkook asks, feeling vulnerable and a little grumpy about it, even though he is grateful for Jimin's help.

Jimin grins.

"I'm just hoping this means I won't ever have to hear 'you know how I like it, girl' through the walls again."

This time Jungkook doesn't stop shoving until Jimin falls off the couch.

#

When Jungkook finally gets the courage to check his phone after his conversation with Jimin (and once he's safely shrouded in his own blankets in bed) he sees that Taehyung's only response to his last comment had been a blushing face emoji -- one of his favorites.

Jungkook is relieved that he hadn't blown Taehyung off after that, and he finds that despite the minor crisis it had put him into, he's glad that the flirty nature of his comment hadn't been lost on Taehyung.

Besides, now that he's talked about it and acknowledged that not only is he attracted to Taehyung, but he might have some level of feelings for him, it feels easier to face it head on. Jungkook has never been one to shy away from things, it just takes him a little while sometimes to understand what he's facing.

Now that he recognizes it, he can face it, accept it, and decide what to do with it.

That turns out to be surprisingly easy. It's all rooted in what he wants, after all. All he has to do now is go after it. The only question left is how to do it.

The selca thing has been working pretty well for him, so he decides to stick with that, push a little more, a little harder, and see where it gets him.

Jimin says he should just tell Taehyung that he's crushing on him, but Jungkook isn't convinced that's the way to handle the situation. He doesn't tell Jimin why, but he's not sure that's the best way to describe the feelings he's having.

He's fairly certain he's had crushes before, that fluttery feeling of anticipation when he's getting to know someone new. Not for a while maybe, but he's felt it.

With Taehyung, that's only part of what he feels. He also feels comfort, like they've known each other far longer than they really have.

He thinks about him when he's bored, when he's lonely. Everything he sees makes him think of Tae, and every time that happens, he wants to share it with him.

On top of that, there's the gut response he seems to have to everything Taehyung says or does. He wants to talk to him all the time, but he also wants to be near him. He wants to know what it would be like to touch him.

It's intense. He feels intensely for Taehyung. He doesn't want to just drop that on him out of nowhere. He feels that it needs some build-up first.

So he dials up the flirting. He accepts that that's exactly what he's doing, and he embraces it. Now that he's being honest with himself that he does have feelings, it's surprisingly easy to do.

They continue to send photos back and forth, not always of themselves, sometimes of the world around them, and more often than not, when they play League of Legends, they do so on video call so they can see each other. They stay on the call, lingering even after their games are finished.

Jungkook stops trying to hold himself back from complimenting Taehyung's appearance, stops trying to hide the way he smiles whenever Taehyung does anything adorable, showers him in praise for every little thing he does -- for every song he sends Jungkook the link to, every good move he makes in League, every cute or sweet little thing he does when they're on their video calls, or when they talk on the phone late at night when neither of them can sleep.

And to his delight, Taehyung picks up on it. He's less withholding of his own thoughts and comments, tells Jungkook that he thinks he's handsome and even pretty (which makes Jungkook blush and feel grateful for the low quality of webcams), opens up to him more about the ways he spends his free time when he’s not with Jungkook.

One night they're sitting in front of their computers, hefty headsets on, having demolished another team in League of Legends, and without really thinking about it, just because he's curious and would listen to Taehyung talk forever, about anything, Jungkook asks if he has any plans for his upcoming Friday night.

"Oh," Taehyung says.

He looks up at Jungkook's eyes through the camera, and then down again at his desk. He takes a second, and Jungkook wonders if he's steeling himself to say something that he sees as a risk.

"I was going to go out dancing with some friends," he says.

Jungkook feels something flare in his chest that he doesn't want to name.

"Just friends?" he asks, as casually as he can.

He and Taehyung have been talking for weeks now, and they did meet on a dating app after all. It wouldn't be unheard of for Taehyung to have gotten involved with someone in that time.

It's not like he really knows that Jungkook has been doing an awful lot of self-reflection these days – and even if he is picking up on his interest a little bit now, he has no way of knowing how serious Jungkook might be, and he could easily have become entangled in the meantime.

It isn't something Jungkook usually lets himself think about, but the idea of Taehyung going out, dancing, his body against some other guy's, makes Jungkook confront the possibility in an entirely new way.

On the screen, Taehyung's brows pinch together briefly, like he doesn't understand the question. He rubs at his arm under his rolled-up short sleeve, his elegant hand catching Jungkook’s eye.

"Just friends," Taehyung confirms, though he sounds unsure, like he still doesn't really get what Jungkook is asking.

Jungkook flicks his lip rings with his tongue and thinks for a moment, trying to decide if he really dares to say what he wants to say next. In the end, though, he wants to know, and he isn't very good at denying himself when he only has everything to gain.

"And when you're there?" he asks.

Taehyung's eyes are fixed on him through the screen and he cocks his head.

"When you're there," Jungkook adds, "when you're dancing, will you be looking for someone who wouldn't be just a friend?"

He realizes that he's probably strung this sentence together in just about the worst way possible, but he also sees the way that Taehyung understands exactly what he's asking this time.

It's something in the way his eyes go just the tiniest bit wider, how his lips part as the meaning hits him.

There's a long, drawn-out pause, in which neither of them speaks or makes any sound at all, and neither of them looks away.

Jungkook watches Taehyung lick his lip, watches the way his throat moves when he swallows.

When he speaks a second later, it's both his words and his tone that give life to the ember of warmth and light that Jungkook feels growing somewhere at the core of him, deeper than he's ever felt anything like it before.

"Not if you don't want me to," Taehyung says.

Jungkook takes a breath, sharp, stunned by how gratified he is to hear it.

He doesn't break his gaze when he says, "I don't want you to."

#

Friday night comes and goes. Taehyung tells Jungkook happily about his time out with friends, describes dancing with someone named Yoongi, who sounds as though he was nonplussed by the situation and couldn't understand why Taehyung wasn't dancing with strangers like usual.

Taehyung lets the implication lie, and Jungkook does his best to reward him appropriately.

He tells him he's sure he looked good on the dancefloor, that everyone watching him probably wished they could be the one dancing with him.

Catching on to his newfound bravado, Taehyung asks him, "Do you wish you could?"

Jungkook bites his lip, more because he expects it to be a difficult question to answer than because it actually is. Jungkook loves to dance. Before talking to Taehyung he had been out with Jimin multiple nights a week, always with the goal to find someone to hook up with, but equally because he just loved it.

He's missed it, even though it's been worth giving up dancing to talk to Tae all the time. The thought of being able to do both at once is instantly attractive.

"Yeah," he confesses.

Taehyung grins down at his desk, visibly pleased. Jungkook wants to make him look that happy every day.

Then Taehyung looks back up at him, daring, amused, and says, "Yeah? Are you jealous of Yoongi-hyung, Jungkookie?"

Jungkook knows when he's being teased, but he also doesn't mind leaning into it when the reward is seeing Taehyung blush and grin like everything Jungkook says is music to his ears.

He also remembers how he had felt thinking about Taehyung dancing with other men, and then this question is easy to answer too.

"Yeah," he says, "I am. Does that make you happy?"

Taehyung grins his biggest, brightest grin and nods.

"Brat," Jungkook tells him.

Somehow this doesn't seem to dampen his spirits any. Jungkook shakes his head, so fond it's almost painful, not entirely sure how he's meant to survive all this.

If anything, Taehyung seems pleased by the name, and his cheeks flush pink in the way that Jungkook loves, and yeah, okay, he's down bad and he probably should have realized it sooner. At least he's more than happy to make the most of it now.

Taehyung is pretty happy about it too.

Over the next few days, he loosens up more and more, opens up to Jungkook in ways that Jungkook had only ever hoped for at the back of his mind, where things like hopes and new, latent understandings of himself and his feelings have been able to develop without too much interference from the rest of him.

More often than not, they end the night on the phone together, and that's exactly where they are the first time Jungkook says the words that have been on his mind for longer than he likely even realizes himself.

"I wish you were here."

He's lying on his back in bed, speaking quietly because he knows Jimin is asleep in the room on the other side of the wall. It's somewhere in the soupy hours of the early morning, and neither he or Taehyung have been able to sleep.

Jungkook isn't sure what's holding Taehyung back, but he knows that for him, he can't ignore the deep pit of longing in his gut. It makes it impossible to want to hang up the phone.

"I'm here with you," Taehyung says.

His voice is quiet too, but Jungkook doesn't mind. He keeps his phone close to his ear on the pillow, and it makes it sound like Taehyung really is here, right beside him in the bed instead of on the other side of the city somewhere, speaking into his own phone, just as alone as Jungkook is.

Jungkook sighs.

"I can't touch you through the phone," he complains.

Taehyung hums a little sound that might be contemplative or surprised, it's impossible to tell without being able to see his face.

"You want to touch me, Jungkookie?" he asks.

The question isn't teasing, not really, but at this point Jungkook feels that he's made himself pretty clear.

"You know I do," he says.

"Oh, really?" Taehyung says. "Hmm. But – are you sure? I mean, you sort of said..." he trails off without finishing his thought, but Jungkook thinks he knows what he means.

He did tell him, after all, that the first time they spoke, he had only struck up the conversation because he'd thought he was speaking to a woman. He'd said it to set the record straight, so that Taehyung would know what he was getting into.

It only makes sense that he has some reservations about Jungkook’s new displays of interest.

"I did say that," Jungkook says. "I believed it back then."

"But not now?" Taehyung's voice is hesitant, like he knows the answer he wants to hear but still isn't convinced that he's going to get it.

"Not now," Jungkook agrees.

There's a moment of quiet on the line, but it's one of those quiets where Jungkook knows Taehyung is thinking, working on putting his thoughts into words, so he gives him space to do it.

"So you've never," Taehyung starts and pauses, and Jungkook would bet his favorite machine at the gym for a week that he's licking his lips, "done anything? With a guy, I mean?"

Jungkook almost laughs, just because Taehyung is so cute, but he doesn't want to make him think he's laughing at him. It's a fair question anyway.

"Nope," he says, and then, because he's feeling bold and confident in the dark of his room, with only the mood lamp to illuminate the world around him, he adds, "but that doesn't mean I don't want to, with you."

Taehyung hums again, and Jungkook hopes he's letting that answer wash over him. He must finally believe Jungkook, or feel like he has a better grasp on where he's coming from and how serious about this he is, because when Taehyung answers, his tone is completely different, equally confident but in a coy way, like he's playing at shyness purely for the fun of it.

"Like what, Jungkook-ah?" he asks, and this time he is teasing, but not in a way that makes Jungkook feel at all self-conscious. "You said you want to touch me. How would you do it, if I were there, like you said?"

There are about a million answers to that question, all of them accurate, and half of them are enough to stop Jungkook's breath for a second when he considers it.

But this is new for them, they've never crossed this particular line, and he doesn't want to push too fast too soon.

"If you were here with me," he says, thinking as he speaks, opening his eyes to look into the space next to him on the bed, imagining that Tae could be there looking back at him, the blue and purple lights from the mood lamp shifting over his skin, "I would touch your face."

Taehyung laughs, but it's a quiet, soft sound in the quiet, soft darkness.

"My face?"

"Mmm," Jungkook says, "I want to know if it feels as perfect as it looks."

This startles another laugh out of Tae, which makes Jungkook grin like an idiot. He wouldn't even mind if Taehyung could see it, if it meant that he really was here.

"My face looks perfect, huh?" Taehyung asks.

Jungkook scoffs.

"You know it does. You're, like, the most handsome person I've ever seen. Tae, you gave me a whole sexuality crisis."

Taehyung giggles, which might be the best sound in the universe.

"Okay," he says. "So you'd touch my face. Then what?"

Jungkook draws a steadying breath. He supposes Taehyung is leaving it up to him to determine whether or not they're doing this, or how far they’re taking it, but he doesn't even have to think about it. If Taehyung is up for it, then Jungkook wants it.

"I would kiss you," Jungkook says, mostly to gauge Taehyung's reaction, see how he responds.

This is the first time Jungkook has said anything so direct, and he's pleased when it lands well. He hears Taehyung's breath catch on the other line, but he recovers quickly.

"Just like that?"

"Hmm, no," Jungkook says. "I would want to make sure you really wanted it first."

Jungkook doesn't wait for Taehyung to ask him how he would do that. He wants to prove to him that he doesn't feel nervous about this.

He wants Taehyung to know that, new as this may be for him in certain ways, he knows what he's doing, and he's committed to bringing all of that knowledge to bear on making Taehyung feel good.

"I would pull you close to me first," he says.

He can already feel himself slipping under the effects of even just the idea of what he's saying.

"With my hands on your hips, I bet you would feel really small, huh? It would be easy to pull you closer."

On the phone, Taehyung makes a choked off sound that's hard to interpret but that goes racing straight down through Jungkook's body. He decides not to mention it, not yet, because they're still easing into this and he doesn't want to make Tae too self-conscious to make a sound like that again.

He closes his eyes and lets himself imagine what it might feel like to have Taehyung in his bed – what he would do, what he would say, if he really could have his hands on Tae right now.

He wouldn't just want him close. He would want him as close as possible. He would pull until they were pressed tight to each other, he would bury his face in the crook of Taehyung's neck and not pull away until he had memorized how he smelled.

"I would kiss your neck first," he says, his voice lower now. He hopes Taehyung notices. "And then the spot behind your ear. Do you know what I would do then?"

"Kiss me?" Taehyung asks, his own voice more breath than sound, the guess rising with hope at the end so that it sounds more like a question, a request, than a statement of fact.

Jungkook bites down on his lip rings but can't quite chase off his grin.

"Mm, no," he says, "not yet."

The sound Taehyung makes is something between a whine and a groan, and there's really no accounting for the way it makes Jungkook feel.

"I should have known you would be a tease," Taehyung complains, except it only half-sounds like a complaint at all.

"Oh?" Jungkook asks, giggling into the phone mic without a care in the world, because he can hear how affected Taehyung is already.

"Yes," Taehyung pouts. "You're so – so," he huffs in frustration. "You just like making me suffer."

Jungkook hums, knowing he's being cheeky but unable to care.

"I do," he admits.

Taehyung makes another little frustrated sound, but he says, "Fine, what would you do next then?" as though he isn't hanging off of every word.

"Next I would kiss your ear, and then your jaw -- but slow," Jungkook says. "Don't want you getting too much too fast."

"Why not?" Taehyung asks.

Somehow he sounds annoyed and turned on at the same time, and Jungkook wouldn't have guessed that this combination would work for him, but it does. Maybe everything about Taehyung works for him.

"I told you, I have to know you want it."

"I do!" Taehyung says, and Jungkook loves how desperate he sounds already, loves how even though he knows he's ridiculously turned on just from a bit of talking and listening to Taehyung breathe over the phone, he sounds so calm and in control in comparison to the way Taehyung is unraveling.

"I want it," Taehyung insists.

"Do you?" Jungkook asks. He keeps his own voice light, wants to see how far he can push just with a little teasing.

" Please ," Taehyung breathes into the phone.

The sound of that simple word in Taehyung's voice, said directly to Jungkook like that , is enough to turn the languid heat that's been pooling low in his body into something decidedly less languid.

Jungkook presses the heel of his palm against his cock where it's gone from stirring in interest to half hard in a matter of seconds.

He can hear it in his own voice when he speaks again, but he isn't sure if Taehyung is aware enough to notice.

"Begging already?" he asks with a smile that he just can't suppress. "And for just a kiss, too."

He laughs, which prompts Taehyung to make another frustrated little sound. Jungkook melts and knows that he has to reward him.

"That's good," he says. "I would kiss you now."

"How?"

Jungkook can't help feeling gratified at the way Taehyung has gone from speaking in full sentences to single words.

He hums to himself as he thinks about it, but the answer comes easily once he considers it.

"Slow at first. I would try to figure out what you like. And I'd keep my hands on you."

He hears a shaky breath filter through the tinny speakers of his phone, wonders how much richer it would be if Taehyung really were here with him.

"I want us touching everywhere," he says.

He tries to imagine what it would feel like to have another man's cock grinding against him, whether their clothes would be too in the way or if that would add to it, give him a sense of heady anticipation.

A sharp spike of pleasure lances through him at the thought. He squeezes his own cock now through his sweatpants and finally lets himself ask the question that's been on the tip of his tongue since Taehyung had started making all those tantalizing noises.

"Tae," he says, "are you hard?"

There's a rustling sound and Jungkook is struck with an image of Taehyung nodding against his pillowcase before he remembers that Jungkook can't see him.

"Yes," he says.

It's vindicating, and it makes Jungkook feel intoxicated with a sort of triumph that's familiar but, like most things with Taehyung, bigger and louder than he's ever experienced before.

"Are you touching yourself?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He isn't sure what he expects the answer to be, but Taehyung knocks him on his ass nevertheless.

"You didn't tell me to."

"Fuck," Jungkook says, "okay. Good, that's – that's good, Tae."

Suddenly Jungkook feels both more and less in control of the situation. For the first time, he reaches past the waistband of his own sweats and wraps his hand around his cock. He's pretty sure that he's never gotten hard for a man in his life, and he also knows without any doubt that it doesn't matter now. He's as hard as he's ever been for anyone, and it's all for Taehyung.

"You can touch yourself now, okay?"

"Okay," Taehyung tells him, so sweet – he's always so sweet, even when he's being a brat.

Jungkook loves that too, but he's not being bratty now. Now he's being so good, and all Jungkook wants to do is reward him.

"Tell me how you like it," he says.

Jungkook hears a low, quiet moan before Taehyung answers.

"Slow and kind of light to start," Taehyung says. "And," he hesitates, like he isn't sure he wants to say the rest.

"Tell me."

"I like it kind of wet."

"Oh?" Jungkook says, aggressively turned on and smiling and maybe it is for the best that they can't see each other because that might be too much.

"You like to get a little messy, Tae?"

He doesn't know if he means for it to come out teasing or something else. All he does know is that he's starting to feel a little unhinged, and he works his hand over his own cock a little more quickly thinking about Tae touching himself at the other end of the line.

"Yeah," Tae says, the word barely there but the confession impossible to ignore.

It's new knowledge, but it slots easily into what Jungkook understands already about Taehyung, even if he isn't entirely sure why. It just makes sense, and Jungkook can't deny that he likes the idea of it, likes knowing that he has some little particular piece of Taehyung that he can use to bring him pleasure, and to prove that that's exactly what he wants to do.

"Okay," he says. "Get yourself some lube or lotion, whatever you usually use.”

"Is that what you would do?" Taehyung asks, and Jungkook hears the click of a bottle opening. He wonders if Taehyung finds it easier to speak now that he's stopped touching for a moment.

"No," Jungkook says.

This answer comes easily too, not outside the realm of what he might do with some of his past hook-ups, and it's even easier because he has a feeling that Tae will like it.

"If I was there, it would be my hand on you, and I would spit on it."

Taehyung moans, louder than he's been the whole time, and Jungkook knows his guess was accurate.

For a brief moment, he experiences a flash of vertigo. A few short weeks ago he would never have imagined himself getting off to the sound of another man moaning, spinning a fantasy about spitting on his cock, but every sound Taehyung makes, every whimpered answer to his questions, makes him care less and less about what he might have done or thought or said all those weeks ago.

None of that matters now. He hadn't known Taehyung yet.

Jungkook alternates between praising Taehyung – for listening, for being good, for anything really – and just listening to him through the phone.

Every little sound he makes drags Jungkook closer to the edge, and if he concentrates, he swears he can hear the slick sound of Taehyung's hand working his cock.

He's too hot under the covers but kicking them off doesn't even seem to help. He bites hard on his lip because he doesn't want to come first but he can't bring himself to slow down. He's losing control, in more ways than one, but he can't fight it.

Behind his eyes, he tries to imagine what Taehyung would look like, feel like, if they were together. The scope of his want is overwhelming.

He needs to know if Tae's cheeks flush pink when his cock is touched, if he squeezes his eyes shut or if they simply lie open but heavy as he watches whatever his partner does to him – whatever Jungkook would do.

He needs to know what all those beautiful curves would feel like under his hands. His need is a grip pulling hard at something so deep inside him, he doesn't think anyone else has ever even touched it.

"Tae," he chokes out, and that's when Taehyung finally falls apart.

"Jungkook," he says, something between a gasp and a sob. "Please – I need –"

Jungkook latches onto it, something Taehyung needs, something he can do, something he can provide.

"What, Tae?" he asks. "Tell me what you need."

"I need to come," he whines, desperate, needy, and Jungkook wants him so hard it hurts.

"Please, can I? Can I come, Jungkook?"

"Fuck, Tae, yeah – yes, you can come, go ahead, make a mess."

Taehyung groans like he's in pain and Jungkook loses it just as bad. He spills across his own hand as he listens to Taehyung come over the phone, and it's the hardest he's gotten off in he doesn't know how long -- months maybe, maybe longer.

Even when they're both done, they stay quietly on the phone for a moment, coming down, listening to each other breathe.

Jungkook hears the rustling of sheets through the tiny phone speakers and it snaps him out of his haze.

"Wait," he says.

There's a hesitance to Taehyung's voice when he says, "Yeah?" like he thinks Jungkook might be about to freak out at him.

But Jungkook is very, very far from freaking out, at least over anything other than how hot that was.

"Before you get up, take a picture for me."

Taehyung doesn't respond right away.

"What?" he asks, either genuinely confused or thrown off by the request.

Jungkook supposes that makes sense, if Taehyung is expecting him to claim that this doesn't mean anything, that he had just been horny and caught up in the moment, or something like that.

"Before you get cleaned up," Jungkook says, "take a picture and send it to me. If you want to, I mean."

He's fairly certain he hears Taehyung breathe in a long, slow breath before says, "Just to be clear, you want me to send you a picture of –"

"How you just came all over yourself," Jungkook confirms. "Yes."

Taehyung huffs, which might be a laugh or a sound of disbelief, but a second later Jungkook's phone vibrates with a new message.

"Thank you," he says smugly, without opening it to make sure that Taehyung sent what he asked for.

He knows he did.

"Now you should get cleaned up, and try to sleep."

"Okay," Taehyung says, sounding shy again now that the heat of the moment has passed. "I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

He says it like a question, like they haven't talked every day for the last several weeks, like he thinks what they just did still might push Jungkook away rather than drawing him irrevocably closer.

"Of course," he says. "Sleep well, Tae."

When the call is finally ended, Jungkook makes quick work cleaning himself up too, and then he lets himself look at the photo Taehyung sent. His head rushes as all the blood his brain had just regained tries to abandon it all over again.

Taehyung had done precisely as Jungkook had asked.

The photo shows him lit with the warm glow of what Jungkook assumes is a bedside lamp, from his pretty collarbones to the hips Jungkook had been fantasizing about grabbing onto.

He's cropped the photo to keep from showing his cock, but painted across the golden plane of his lower belly, Taehyung's come catches the light in a way that's almost artful.

It goes without saying that Jungkook has never before found himself turned on by the sight of another man's come.

And yet, he falls asleep with that image emblazoned behind his eyes, his head full of thoughts of everything Taehyung had said while he touched himself at Jungkook's instruction, every sound he had made, every little detail about himself that he had revealed.

He gets off to that photo before he even gets out of bed the next morning.

#

"When can I see you?" Jungkook asks, for what he's fairly certain is the hundredth time in the last week.

It hadn't taken long after that first phone sex session for him to know that he wanted it again, more, better – on the phone, on video, however he could get Taehyung gasping and moaning into his ear, but most especially in person.

Taehyung laughs, like he always does when Jungkook asks, or at least, like he always does when Jungkook asks outside of the dim dark of early morning.

When Jungkook asks in those moments, his voice so quiet that he's sure it barely brushes through the phone speakers on its way to Tae’s ears, Taehyung doesn't laugh.

He'll hum thoughtfully, like he's thinking it over, or he'll ask if Jungkook is sure that he really wants that, or – and this is Jungkook's favorite – he'll say, just as quiet, "Soon, I hope."

Now, sitting and facing each other through their webcams, ridiculous gaming headsets on despite the fact that they both just jerked off watching each other, Taehyung wears a wry grin.

"You just want to get into my pants," he says.

He doesn't look bothered by the idea, but something about the glib way he says it pulls at Jungkook's heart.

"Not just that," he says.

He means for it to come out confident, maybe a little cocky, because that usually works for him, but it comes out pouty instead and he has to bury his disappointment.

Taehyung grins at him, but the smile is couched in a look like he doesn't believe him, and it sparks that unpleasant feeling again.

"Will I talk to you tonight?" Jungkook asks.

It's mostly a perfunctory question. They talk nearly every night now, only missing their evening call if one of them has plans. Jungkook doesn't remember Taehyung mentioning anything, so he's surprised when Tae shakes his head no.

"My friend Yoongi is having a crisis, so I have to go over there. I'll probably be out late, if I even get back."

Jungkook's brow pinches in disappointment and confusion.

"I thought Yoongi is the one who pretends not to have emotions?"

Taehyung laughs.

"He doesn't exactly pretend not to have them," he says. "He's just – what's that word, when you don't talk much?"

"Stoic?"

"Yeah, he's stoic. So my other friend Hobi noticed that he's having a crisis and asked me to come over."

Jungkook pouts but tries to hide it. He doesn't feel like it fits with the image he wants Taehyung to have of him, and anyway he knows it's not cool to demand all of Taehyung's attention, especially when his friends need him.

Doesn't stop him from being jealous though, and despite his best efforts, Taehyung notices.

"Aww," he laughs. "Don't worry, I was actually going to send you something later – if you want."

Jungkook feels a leap of happy, hopeful pleasure in his chest, even before he understands what Taehyung means.

It's only when he puts together the look of nerves on Tae's face, the way he's biting his bottom lip, and the topic of conversation, that he fully understands Taehyung means he's going to send him something .

"Oh!" he says. He can feel the smile taking over his face but he doesn't even try to stop it. "Of course, Tae. You can send me whatever you want."

"Anything?" Taehyung asks. "Because I just want to make sure –"

" Anything , Tae."

"Okay," Taehyung says, soft and sweet, but then he's telling Jungkook that he has to leave for Yoongi's, and Jungkook is left alone in his room on a Saturday afternoon.

He isn't sure what to do with himself, which makes him think back to how he might have spent a Saturday before he'd met Taehyung.

Saturday night, he would either have gone out to meet someone from one of his apps, or else he'd go to some bar or club with Jimin. He glances at the time and sees that it's barely 3:00 PM.

Weeks ago, before Taehyung, he would probably still be asleep at this time on Saturday, because he would have gone out the night before too.

He misses that, the loud noise of the club, the exhilaration of all those bodies pressed into the small space of the dance floor. He misses the thrum of alcohol in his veins because it had loosened his limbs and freed him from the petty worries and anxieties of his day.

He knows he could go out tonight. Jimin never minds when Jungkook crashes his plans, even when it's a date.

The thing is that now when Jungkook thinks about going out like he used to, it doesn't have the same appeal. He knows he wouldn't be trying to meet anyone or hook up, not now that he and Taehyung are doing whatever it is that they're doing, but it's more than just that.

Now when he imagines drinking at the bar or dancing, he imagines doing those things with Taehyung.

That's what he really wants.

He'll never complain about getting any part of Tae however he can, whether it's through a screen or a phone speaker, but he wants more.

He wants to see him in perfect, full-life 3D. He wants to touch him, not just as a fantasy, but as a reality. He wants Tae more than he's ever wanted anyone, but he has a feeling that Taehyung doesn't really believe it.

It's like he doesn't trust that Jungkook knows what he wants, at least when it comes to wanting Taehyung.

He sighs and leans back in his chair. He doesn't know how to prove to Taehyung that he's serious about this, and that even though feeling this way about a man – or anyone, for that matter – is new to him, he isn't afraid of it, not like he might have been.

If anything, he's frightened by the fact that he has the capacity to feel so much for someone when it's never happened before.

He'd thought he'd known what it was to want someone. Now he's forced to realize that if this is desire, all he'd ever felt before had been a passing, fleeting impulse for pleasure.

It's so fundamentally different that he can hardly explain it even to himself, the gulf between his experiences before Taehyung versus with him.

The thought of his own experience, and what could be said to be lacking from it, gives him an idea.

He's fairly certain that he'll be able to convince Taehyung how serious he is when he says that he wants to see him, to touch him, to be there with him in person instead of just through a screen.

And when he does, he wants to prove that he's ready for it. He doesn't want Tae to have any doubt that he's meant it all along when he's told him that he likes him, enjoys talking to him, wishes they could share space together – space, and other things.

He wants to have made the effort to know what he's doing.

He sits up straight in his chair again, adjusts his headphones from where they had fallen slightly askew when he slumped back, and sets his fingers to the keyboard.

Jungkook hasn't looked at gay porn in any serious way since he'd been a curious teenager with more access to the Internet than his parents had likely realized.

Back then, he'd found himself fascinated in the same way that anything related to sex would fascinate a teenage boy. It didn't do anything for him in particular, and as he developed his own tastes, he'd found himself drawn more to things that he felt he could relate to better.

He's never felt a real need to question that ancient, adolescent wisdom.

But Taehyung has made him question a lot of things he thought he knew about himself.

He opens an incognito window and pulls up the most expansive site that he uses. His eyes flick nervously to his bedroom door, already shut as it always is when he's talking to Tae these days.

He doesn't feel embarrassed in particular by the fact that he's looking up gay porn, except that he knows if Jimin were to walk in on him, he would know instantly why he's doing it, and there's no way that wouldn't be humiliating.

Figuring he should at least start with the most vanilla stuff he can find, he clicks into the "gay" tag and sorts the videos by most popular of all time.

It's novel to see so many videos that are completely new to him, a little exciting even, despite the fact that he isn't sure what to expect himself to feel through this experiment.

He clicks on the very first one because he assumes he may as well.

As anticipated when he'd been a teenager, new to the world and, more importantly, the Internet, the video isn't immediately appealing to him.

He doesn't feel as though he can really relate to either of the men in the thumbnail – both muscle-bound white men with only subtle shades of difference between their honey blond and golden brown hair – but he loads up the video and settles in to watch. For research.

Yeah, he had really better make sure Jimin doesn't catch him at this.

The video starts out and he immediately feels a little uncomfortable, a squirming unpleasantness in his stomach. He doesn't like that he feels that way, but at the same time, it isn't entirely unknown to him.

Porn always takes a minute to settle, like a medicine that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He finds he can enjoy himself if he gives it a minute to adjust, but sometimes it takes a bit.

So he tries to have patience and just watches the screen as the men talk to one another, maneuvering through some scripted nonsense to set up the reason that they're about to start fucking on the couch in the middle of the living room set.

Jungkook wishes they would skip this part, but just in case it's important somehow, he lets it play out without jumping ahead.

It gets a little nicer when they start kissing, even though it's hard to relate to the way they drag their hands all over each other without any sense of seeming to relish what they feel.

This is the problem Jungkook often runs into when he tries to watch porn instead of just hooking up. It's so hard to tell whether the people involved are even enjoying themselves.

Call him a romantic but that's important to him.

Still, he watches, and to his interest and, to some degree, surprise, he reacts to this video in much the same way he usually does when he gives up on going out and resigns himself to a night in with his right hand.

Which is to say that he's not uninterested.

It doesn't feel the way it does when he's actually with someone, it never does – it doesn't even feel the way it feels when he's talking to Tae, touching himself to the sound of Taehyung's voice over the phone, or watching him through the webcam, both of which they've done a few times over the last week.

Thinking about that, though – that makes him feel a little more interested. He watches the screen and tries to imagine Taehyung in place of one of the burly men in the video.

It's hard to do. He may be a man, but he doesn't look anything like either of them. Where they're buff with muscle, Taehyung is slender and pretty – but not weak or willowy either.

He has a subtle strength to his body that Jungkook can see even through video calls and photos. At the same time, he would be no match for Jungkook in terms of strength or even pure mass, despite the fact that they're nearly the same height, Taehyung even a little taller, from what he says.

And that's something, he realizes – something important.

He backs out of the video and looks with a more discerning eye through the options, until he finds one where the guys seem to have similar builds to his own and Taehyung's. He's never had to think about it before but he thinks that's crucial: he likes to be bigger than his partner.

The next video goes a little more smoothly, works a little better. He finds that it's easier to imagine Taehyung this way, and to imagine himself with Taehyung, and then it doesn't matter so much that the act between the two men on screen seems distant from him.

It feels more familiar, and as he watches and thinks about Tae, this person he's enjoyed getting to know over the last weeks, someone who feels special to him, however foolish that might sound even in his own head, he realizes that this is all he ever really gets from these videos.

There's a faint stirring in his body at the idea of sex, but it isn't until he attaches that to someone he's personally interested in that he feels anything more than a dull glimmer.

It's more boredom than real desire.

But when he watches these men kiss and tussle and eventually fall, laughing, onto the bed, he can imagine it, what it might feel like to do that with Tae, the two of them together, and suddenly that low simmer of potential arousal is tinged with urgency.

He isn't hard, but he could be in a moment if he were to touch himself while he watches. It hasn't been long since he'd gotten off with Tae, though, and he isn't sure if it's worth the time. He decides to commit to the research for now.

After that video, he chooses another one from the same channel, and another after that. The weirdest thing about gay porn is how not-weird it is.

In most ways, it's similar to the stuff he usually watches, and even in the ways that it's new and different, he finds that his responses mostly are the same – which is to say, pretty minimal, but not impossible to work with.

If anything, he's a little frustrated by his middle-of-the-road reactions. He had assumed that either he would find it much more enticing than the traditionally attractive men and women he's more accustomed to watching going at each other, or that he would be a little freaked out, even disturbed by it, even if he didn't want to be.

Either way, he had assumed he would have some sort of answer about himself on the other side of his experiments, and instead he feels more confused than ever.

If gay porn and straight porn both leave him with the same sense of mostly bored, faint arousal, then who does that leave him attracted to?

After a couple hours, he's barely hard in his sweats and he feels he's gotten as much out of this as he's likely to.

Feeling frustrated and annoyed, he gives up and heads to the living room.

He's listless, restless. He misses Taehyung already, which is so ridiculous that he doesn't even let himself entertain the thought of texting him, even though he wants to.

Taehyung is with his friends and Jungkook knows he should let him have his time. He just wishes Jimin were here to entertain or at least distract him.

He's halfway through the first Twilight movie and just starting to think that maybe he's bored enough to jerk off again after all when his phone buzzes for the first time in hours. He knows Tae is busy, so despite what he had said earlier, Jungkook doesn't expect to see a message from him when he picks up his phone.

He checks it anyway, more because he's so bored than for any other reason. He assumes it's a text from his mom or maybe from Jimin complaining about something while his date is in the bathroom.

His stomach drops to his toes when he sees that the message isn't a message at all, but a video.

He sits up straighter on the couch and pauses the movie. He knows instantly that whatever video Taehyung would send him requires his full attention.

He glances at the door to the apartment, but it's Saturday evening and Jimin isn't home yet, so he almost definitely has plans out somewhere, and besides, Jungkook doesn't even really know what the video is yet.

Still, he remembers the shy way that Taehyung had told him he would send him something later, and he hopes he has an idea of what that something might be.

Lip rings planted between his teeth, he gets comfortable on the couch and opens the video file.

It's immediately apparent what Tae has sent him when the first thing Jungkook sees is a screen full of skin.

The video was clearly taken on his phone, which he had propped up next to his bed on a small table, angled to show his body but not his face. Jungkook is able to just see Taehyung's mouth when he leans back and situates himself against his pillows.

He isn't wearing a shirt, but he is wearing a pair of lilac purple sweatpants that look soft and loose on him. He's got a glow all over and around him, and Jungkook guesses that he took the video sometime late at night with only a bedside lamp to light the space.

The bed and room around him are blurred into the surrounding darkness. Everything about the way he's set the scene makes him the focus, not that Jungkook would be tempted to look anywhere else anyway.

He doesn't seem nervous, exactly, but he does seem a bit timid. He sits tall but comfortable, clearly aware of the camera, but not paying it too much attention.

Without a shirt, the delicate bracelets he wears around his wrists, the chains and necklaces around his neck, draw Jungkook's eye easily and avidly to the fragile-looking bones there: his wrists, his collarbones, which he's seen a few times now and which always strike him dumb for a few seconds because they're so beautiful.

That feeling doesn't last much longer though, because once the Taehyung in the video is satisfied with his set-up, his hands go to the waistband of his sweats and suddenly Jungkook knows exactly what he wants to do.

Taehyung hesitates for a moment and then slips one hand beneath his waistband, the one closer to the phone so Jungkook can still see what he's doing. The other he grips into the fabric at his hip.

Jungkook wonders if he had been nervous recording this. They've seen each other a few times now, but it must be different doing it for someone rather than with them, in some ways more vulnerable to be alone.

But despite whatever nerves he might feel, in the video he presses down with his hand and Jungkook hears his sharp breath at the sudden spike of pleasure, which is matched in his own body.

The difference between watching a low-quality, compressed video of Tae on his phone versus two nameless people in hi-def on his 4k monitor is immediately apparent. There's no low, dull simmer of vague arousal now.

Jungkook is interested , his eyes fixed on every subtle movement of Taehyung's hand even though it's still beneath the soft purple of his pants, his own cock already getting hard, without him even having to touch it. Not that he holds back.

On the small screen, Taehyung's head tips back, still mostly out of frame, and he bites his lip as he pulls his cock out into full view. He pushes his sweats a little further down his thighs so that Jungkook can see clearly.

Jungkook finds that, with the freedom of knowing Taehyung can't see him in return, he stares, taking it in.

He's seen it before, at this point, but usually only glimpses at the bottom of the screen. It's never been the primary focus, but because of the way Taehyung has positioned the phone, it is now.

Jungkook wonders, at the back of his mind, if Taehyung had thought to test him, to see whether his interest would extend as far as being confronted with his cock, as up close and personal as it can be through a phone screen.

If he'd thought he would scare him away, he's going to find himself surprised.

Jungkook doesn't think it's the cock itself that has him feeling a bit weak and starry – although in his opinion, it is quite a nice one – but the fact that it's another part of Taehyung that he's now been allowed to see in detail. It's exciting for that reason more than anything else.

But it is exciting, there's no denying that.

Taehyung wraps his long, pretty fingers around the base of his cock and squeezes without much pressure. Jungkook remembers what he had said about liking it light and soft at first.

Curious, he pulls out his own half-hard cock and mimics Taehyung's movements. He wants to feel what Taehyung feels, to understand why he likes what he does, and beneath that, there's a desire to know how to do it himself, so that he can do it for Tae someday, if he'll ever let him.

In the video, Tae works himself quickly to full hardness, but mostly with small, subtle motions of his hand. Jungkook likes a firmer touch usually, but something about touching himself the same way Taehyung does stokes him hotter than simply going at his own pace.

Fully hard now, Taehyung slides his hand up to instead get a loose grip around the head. He twists his hand and Jungkook catches the low murmur of a quiet moan through the speakers.

He holds his phone in his left hand, his cock in his right, eyes fixed avidly on the screen, only dimly aware that he's in the middle of the living room and that Jimin could, technically, walk in at any minute, however unlikely.

It doesn't feel important. Nothing feels important except whatever Tae is going to do next.

Taehyung hadn't been kidding about liking it wet and with little pressure, at least to start. He's barely gotten fully hard before he reaches for something out of sight, and when his hand reappears in frame, he's holding a bottle of lube that's clearly seen its share of use.

Jungkook wonders how much of the mostly-empty bottle Taehyung has used alone versus with people he's brought home, even people he's been seeing, and a little lick of flame unfurls in his belly, adding heat to the already thrumming pleasure rolling through him.

The possessive thought doesn't linger though, blasted out of his brain by the sound Taehyung makes when he wraps his now-slick hand back around himself.

It punches Jungkook in the chest and knocks the breath right out of him. He wants so badly to be there, to be the one making Taehyung sound like that.

He keeps his touch feather-light around the head of his cock and Jungkook does his best to match it even though it's like torture.

He can hardly stand to do it to himself, but as soon as he sees Taehyung give in and chase the feeling, hips rocking up into his hand at the same time that his grip finally tightens, he knows he could keep going if his hands were on Tae instead of himself.

It would be easy to hold himself back if it meant keeping Taehyung on the edge like that, but for now he contents himself with matching his pace.

They're getting a good rhythm going, Jungkook's eyes darting across the screen to try to take in every detail, when Taehyung makes a low, restless sound, like he's frustrated with something, and then he bends his knee so that his foot is planted, out of sight, on the mattress.

It's only when he reaches for the lube again and, one-handed, manages to get the cap open that Jungkook realizes what he's about to do.

There's a roaring in his ears that blocks out everything in the world but Tae, and it only gets louder and more consuming when Taehyung doesn't stop touching himself in order to squeeze the lube onto his free hand. Instead, he lets it pool directly onto his bare belly and moans when he drags the fingers of his free hand through it.

Jungkook has to bite down hard on his own lip to keep from coming right then, a new wave of desire hitting him so hard he barely knows how to face it. But that becomes his new normal when Taehyung's hand disappears between his legs and Jungkook is forced to imagine what he's doing, exactly how he's touching himself now.

He thinks he sees the moment Taehyung presses a finger inside himself even though he can't actually see it happen. His breathing picks up pace and the little noises leaving him become constant.

Jungkook is so hard in his own hand, and he's given up trying to match Taehyung's movements, instead gripping himself the way he likes it, hard and tight, because he can't resist.

He wishes he could be the one pressing his fingers into Tae, opening him up, and if he can't have that, he wishes he could see it properly. Instead he has to imagine it based on the golden tone of Taehyung's bared throat, the desperate movements of his hands

It doesn't take long after that. Taehyung's hand around his cock finally tightens as he gets closer and closer to the edge, and his voice goes alternately even deeper than usual, punching low little sounds of pleasure from deep within him, and high, whiny and needy in a way that makes Jungkook feel lit up and wild.

Jungkook feels as though his own pleasure is being dragged along after Taehyung's. Every little thing he does to himself makes Jungkook's desire for him spike, until it feels dangerous and out of control, like despite the hand working over his cock, the inevitable end to this is in Taehyung's hands, not his own.

He's vaguely aware that he's making more noise now too, lost in every sound that Taehyung makes through the speakers on his phone.

Jungkook comes almost unexpectedly, because he comes when Taehyung does.

On the screen, Taehyung's mouth drops open and his body tenses. The hand that Jungkook can see squeezes suddenly, tight, around the head of his cock and gives it one almost vicious-looking twist, while the hand that Jungkook can't see does something he can only begin to imagine, and Taehyung comes hard across his belly, adding to the mess of lube that's still there from his impromptu problem-solving.

As soon as Jungkook sees and hears him fall apart, he follows him over the edge, desperation racing through all the invisible parts of him until he's spilling across his hand and hurrying to catch it all so he doesn't make a mess on the couch that Jimin will never let him live down.

In the video, Taehyung bites his lip in a pitiful attempt to hide his smirk as he ends the recording.

Jungkook stares at the ended video, even though he can feel his own come drying on his hand. Every time he starts to think maybe he's figuring this whole thing out, Taehyung throws him for a loop.

But he's starting to think that maybe it doesn't matter what kind of porn he gets off to, how affected he does or doesn't feel when he watches this video or that one, imagines these parts or those, how attached he is or is not when he meets up with a hook-up or finds someone who interests him at a club.

Maybe there is no way to situate Taehyung into the long line of sexual experiences he's accumulated in his life, because maybe Taehyung is just something else entirely.

Maybe there doesn't need to be more to it than that, some label he can apply to himself or some way to explain this feeling to anyone else. Maybe all that matters is the pool of heat and wanting that lives all the time in him now, springing to life whenever he so much as thinks of Taehyung.

He stands up from the couch feeling a little dazed and cleans himself up. He knows it must have been vulnerable sending a video like that, so he doesn't leave Taehyung waiting for a response any longer than he has to.

Jungkook

you're killing me tae

please

i have to see you

#

Taehyung doesn't relent right away. Jungkook makes sure that his desire is known without being pushy about it. The last thing he wants is to make Tae uncomfortable, but at the same time, he needs him to know that Jungkook is serious.

So he does his best to tell him, and to show him, every way he can.

He's on the phone with Taehyung one day in the living room, idly flipping through movies on the TV even though it's muted and he isn't really paying attention.

He's listening to Taehyung talk about music, all of the different styles and genres that he loves. Sometimes he lapses into small pauses where he thinks about how to describe what he means, or when he tries to remember something specific, and Jungkook loves these quiet moments almost as much as he loves hearing Taehyung's voice, because all of them still feel like Tae even when he isn't speaking.

Jimin comes in from outside and sees him on the couch in his boxers with no cheesy movie or anime playing on the TV, and then he notices the phone in Jungkook's hand and grins and shakes his head.

Jungkook can feel the affection pouring off of him from across the room.

Jimin stands in the doorway to take off his shoes and drop his bag, and then before Jungkook even realizes what he's doing, he bounds across the room to the couch and snatches the phone right out of his hand.

"Hey!" Jungkook protests.

His brow furrows and for an instant he's terrified that Jimin will end the call and Tae will think Jungkook hung up on him.

But Jimin doesn't hang up the phone. He holds it up to his ear and, with a frighteningly large smile, he starts talking.

"Taehyung-ssi?" he asks.

Taehyung's voice is too low for Jungkook to hear, but he must answer Jimin because his smile softens.

Jungkook glares at him from the couch and moves to get up, but Jimin holds out his arm to keep him at bay. Jungkook knows he could overpower Jimin – knows it from experience. But by that same experience, he also knows that it would be messy.

Jimin would put up a fight, and who knows what Taehyung would hear through the phone? He doesn't want Tae to think he's actually been a violent serial murderer this whole time, so he keeps his place on the couch but glares up at Jimin as he starts to talk to Taehyung.

"It's nice to meet you too, Taehyung-ssi," Jimin says, smug as Jungkook has ever seen him, which has been a lot.

Taehyung must say something else then because Jimin's grin spreads even wider and then he's laughing, big, full-belly laughs that make Jungkook wonder what Tae had, and whether it had anything to do with him.

Judging by the way Jimin meets his eyes with a face full of mirth, he's willing to bet it did.

"I would love to talk all about that, Tae-Tae-ssi," Jimin says, using his typical Jimin charm to jump right to nicknames despite the fact that he's only ever traded a few words with Taehyung. "But I stole Jungkook-ah's phone to ask you a favor."

Jungkook makes his move, less because it seems like an opportune moment than because he's desperate.

He lunges, making a grab for the phone in Jimin's hand, but Jimin dances easily out of reach and runs halfway to his bedroom before Jungkook regains his footing.

Jimin could be in the room with the door locked before Jungkook could reach him. He gives up with a huff and falls back onto the couch.

"The thing is," Jimin says, "Jungkook has been moping around here for days now. I've caught him watching romance movies at least twice in the last week, and I'm pretty sure I barely avoided walking in on him jerking off on the couch the other day."

Jungkook throws one of the pillows from the couch at Jimin's head. He tries to dodge it, but Jungkook at least gets the satisfaction of seeing it make contact with the side of Jimin's head before it flops back down to the floor.

Jimin flashes him a smirk but it doesn't stop him from saying more.

"So what I'm wondering is, can you just agree to meet him in person? I've never seen him like this. I think I'm starting to get actually worried about him, and I don't know if he's told you, but it's really all he wants right now. He talks my ear off about you every day."

Jimin pauses and then cackles, delighted, most likely at Jungkook's expense. Jungkook can feel how warm his face has gotten, and part of him wants to stalk off to his bedroom and slam the door in Jimin's face. If he were still an angry teenager, he's sure that's exactly what he would do, hyung or no hyung.

Instead, he sits where he is and glares and hopes Jimin feels at least a little bit bad for this later. He probably won't, especially judging by the grin on his face as he listens to whatever Taehyung is saying. He looks triumphant and impish when he finally hands the phone back to Jungkook.

Jungkook snatches it away from him, and now he does stalk into his room, and throws the lock for good measure. Jimin's laughter follows him across the apartment.

As soon as the phone is back against his ear, he says, "I'm really sorry about him – he's being a dick."

Taehyung laughs the quiet, soft version of his laugh.

"Yeah," he agrees, "but he's a dick who loves you."

Jungkook snorts like he doesn't buy it, even though he knows it's true.

"He's willing to wingman for you to a total stranger over the phone," Taehyung points out.

He sounds amused, which is better than offended. Jungkook will take it, even if Jimin doesn't deserve it.

There's a moment of quiet, during which Jungkook tries not to die of embarrassment. It's Taehyung who breaks the silence.

"Is it really that bad?" he asks.

Jungkook has spent enough time not only hearing his voice, but watching him speak by now that he knows Taehyung is smiling to himself as he asks.

"You’re really moping around your apartment?"

Jungkook's first instinct is to brush it off. He scoffs, but then he remembers that he wants Taehyung to know how much he means it when he tells him he wants to see him, to be in the same place as him, to touch him. He sighs.

"Of course," he admits.

His usual confidence has left him, drained out of him in a pool of humiliation thanks to Jimin, but he tries to push himself to be vulnerable. That is, he realizes, exactly what he's asking of Taehyung: to take a chance on him. How can he ask for that if he isn't willing to do the same?

"You drive me crazy, Tae," Jungkook says. "Jimin wasn't lying. I've never been this – this twisted up on someone."

He doesn't know how to describe what he feels for Tae, or why it's so different than anything he's felt before. He'd thought at first that maybe he's just been gay this whole time, and the fact that Tae is a man made everything fall into place for him.

But he doesn't feel different about anyone else now that he's had this revelation. If anything, he feels less and less certain that he's ever felt real desire before.

In any case, he's never felt need like this. He's wanted people before, but he thinks that maybe there's just something about Taehyung, for him.

"Yeah?" Taehyung asks, timid like he is when he's less sure of himself, or when – Jungkook is pretty sure – he feels tender and wants to be cared for.

"Yeah," he says.

"Then," Taehyung takes a long, slow breath that Jungkook can hear through the phone, "okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay – we can hang out. In person."

Jungkook's heart leaps.

"You're sure?"

Taehyung laughs.

"Yah, Jungkook-ah! I'm sure. Now go say thank you to Jimin for being such a good wingman."

Jungkook is so happy when he hangs up the phone that he doesn't even mind doing just that.

#

Jungkook stands outside the door of Taehyung's apartment with his hands in his pockets and his heart in his throat.

It's a couple of days after Jimin's intervention on his behalf, Friday night – the first time Taehyung had available – and Jungkook can't believe they're finally seeing each other in person.

They've been talking every day for weeks, but always from a distance of miles, with a screen between them.

The fact that he's about to be in the same room as Taehyung is not only overwhelming but a little surreal, and he can't help the nervous anticipation racing through him. It's like adrenaline, icy and fast under the skin.

It makes him want to pick at his fingernails, which is why his hands are hidden away in his pockets while he waits.

And then the waiting is over. He hears the lock click and the doorknob turn, and then it's swinging open on silent hinges and Taehyung is standing there, right in front of him, within reach for the first time.

"Hi," Taehyung says, with the deep voice Jungkook has become so familiar with over the last few weeks, but it's different in person, heard without the filter of a microphone and then a speaker or a headset. It's sweeter, closer to the earth.

"Hi," he says back, but it sounds more like a breath than a word.

Taehyung smiles and Jungkook is so distracted by it that it takes him a moment to realize Taehyung is holding out his hand for him to shake.

"Oh!"

He takes Taehyung's hand at the same time that he steps back so he can bow in greeting, which makes Taehyung laugh.

"Aren't we past formality now?" he asks.

Jungkook grins, thinking of just how far past formal they've gotten recently, but despite what Jimin likes to tell him, he was raised right and he knows to mind his manners when he's meeting someone for the first time.

He leans into it, plays it up, to make Taehyung keep smiling.

"It's very nice to meet you, Taehyung-ssi," he says.

Taehyung giggles, but he bows too, and then he's pulling Jungkook into his apartment by the grip on his hand that he doesn't release.

"Would you like anything to drink, Jungkookie?" he asks.

Apparently they've left formality on the other side of the threshold. Jungkook can't say he minds.

"Uh – sure," he says. "Thank you. Just water, please."

Taehyung lets go of him to walk through the small living room to the even smaller kitchen. Jungkook takes off his shoes by the door and lets his eyes wander, taking in the space.

It's a cozy apartment, but Taehyung has filled it with little oddments of design that strike Jungkook as sometimes interesting, sometimes silly, but always very Taehyung and therefore entirely endearing.

Jungkook follows Taehyung into the kitchen and before he knows what he's doing, he's standing right beside him at the sink, watching him fill a glass with water.

Now that he's close, it's like he needs to be as close as possible.

Taehyung startles when he turns and finds Jungkook right there beside him, and by instinct, Jungkook reaches out to steady him, his hand finding the small of Taehyung's back like it's been there a thousand times before.

He'd been expecting Tae to be a little taller, but they're almost the same exact height, which means that they look directly into each other's eyes as they stand there.

For several long seconds, Jungkook forgets what he's meant to be doing.

He'd been captivated by Taehyung since the moment he'd first seen his dating profile photos, his gaze teased and pulled along the tantalizing lines of his body even before he'd known anything about him.

And then they'd spoken and Jungkook had been intrigued from that very first conversation – so much so that even learning he was a man hadn't scared him off.

Since then he's been pulled closer and closer into Taehyung's orbit, and every day all he's wanted is to be near him, to be as close to him physically as he's come to feel in every other way.

That initial, flirty conversation had melted into long League battles, late night conversations, the slow revelation of Taehyung's true personality, an even split between loud, passionate exclamations and soft, timid confessions.

Jungkook had been captivated, so enchanted he couldn't even have a true crisis about it.

And now Taehyung is here, right in front of him, even more beautiful in person, and he smells like something soft and musky, like sandalwood and cotton, and Jungkook can't stop touching him, he just can't.

"Um," Taehyung says, barely a sound in the small space between them. "Your water."

They're pressed so close that he can't even hand it to him.

"Thanks," Jungkook says.

He takes the water from Taehyung's hand, but he doesn't drink it. Without even looking to see what he's doing, he finds a clear space on the counter to set it down.

There's a single, suspended moment after the glass has been relinquished where neither of them moves.

Taehyung is so close that Jungkook can feel him even where they aren't touching, feel the heat of him, and then Taehyung steps even closer, drawing that small emptiness shut, lining his body up perfectly with Jungkook's, making what he wants as clear as it can be.

Jungkook wasn't going to do this. He wasn't going to see Tae for the first time and immediately latch onto him, he wasn't going to drag him to bed first thing, before he'd even made it clear that he wants more, even if he isn't quite sure what "more" might look like.

But Taehyung is warm and he smells good and he's so close, and Jungkook is only a man, after all.

With the hand still at the small of Taehyung's back, he draws him even closer, as close as he can get, pulling them tight together, chest-to-chest.

Taehyung's lips part and his eyes go heavy and Jungkook can't resist him at all, his good intentions out the window, if they'd ever made it into the apartment in the first place.

Jungkook is fairly certain they lean toward each other at the same time, at the same slow pace as though both trying to give the other a chance to pull away, but neither of them do.

His heart races, but he's always been a fan of a little danger, always loved to ride that wave of exhilaration straight into new experiences – and, as soon as his lips touch Taehyung's, he knows that kissing Tae is an experience .

He has to work hard to hold in his reaction as every part of him wants to shout with something that can only be described as joy and pull Taehyung even harder against him. He wants to hold him so tightly that he never wants to leave, and if the way Tae's hands come up to grip into the back of his t-shirt are any indication, he feels the same way.

That first kiss is soft, gentle, each of them testing the waters.

Only vaguely, at the back of his mind, Jungkook is aware of the fact that this is his first kiss with a man. Much more present at the forefront is that this is his first kiss with Taehyung, and despite his usual urge to jump right in, he feels an internal pressure to savor it.

He's about to pull back, to try to measure Taehyung's reaction, when Taehyung parts his lips against Jungkook's and his body officially takes over.

Jungkook's arms tighten around Taehyung's waist of their own accord. He's been wanting this for long enough now that he's not entirely surprised by how good it feels to hold him.

It's different, his frame wider, his arms stronger, than what Jungkook is used to – but he's still soft, still pliant when Jungkook kisses him harder. He makes the softest little sound, low and quiet from the back of his throat when their tongues brush for the first time.

Jungkook can hear his own heart beating in his ears, feels his pulse in his wrists where they press against the warmth of Taehyung through his t-shirt.

Taehyung kisses exactly the way Jungkook might have hoped, if he had let himself dwell on it, which he hasn't, mostly to try to protect his own sanity.

He kisses with a strength that's not restrained so much as given up, handed off like he doesn't even care that he has it. And Jungkook is more than happy to take it from him if that's what he wants.

He feels it in the way Taehyung melts into him, leaving Jungkook to support him. He sags even more when Jungkook breaks the kiss to trail his lips along Taehyung's jaw and then down his neck.

Tae bends back, arching, letting him have as much space as he wants, full access to any part of him that Jungkook can reach. It sends a thrill racing down through his whole body. Against his lips, he can feel that Taehyung's pulse is beating as hard as his own.

"Jungkook," Taehyung says, barely above a whisper.

Jungkook thinks at first that he wants to stop, but when he tries to pull away, Taehyung's hands tighten in his shirt. He hums against Taehyung's throat in an attempt to ask what he needs.

Taehyung must understand, because he says in that same breath-soft voice, "Take me to my bedroom?"

Jungkook's heart plummets through the floor and takes his stomach with it, but he pulls back away from Taehyung – a Herculean effort – and as soon as he sees the heated, heavy look in his eyes, he's nodding his head yes.

He's grabbed Taehyung's hand and taken a few steps out of the kitchen before he realizes he doesn't know where Taehyung's room is. He must look ridiculous as he stops suddenly, but Taehyung just giggles and takes the lead, dragging Jungkook after him as he opens a door and steps inside.

The room is like the rest of the apartment, or what Jungkook has seen of it: eclectic, a little odd, but sweet.

There are a couple of big plushies here and there, and an abundance of pillows on the bed. The room is a little messy, but clean, like Tae just has too many things to fit into it, overstuffed. It suits him.

That's about all he has the chance to notice before Taehyung latches onto him again, arms around his neck like he doesn't want him to get away.

Jungkook's hands easily find Taehyung's waist, which feels so small between his palms, plush and sturdy all at once, which is a combination he's quickly coming to associate with Taehyung.

His hands find their way under the worn fabric of his t-shirt. He both hears and feels Taehyung's sharp inhale as soon as skin brushes skin for the first time anywhere below the neck.

He gets a firmer grip, and as soon as he does, Taehyung moves, pulling Jungkook with him closer to the bed.

Taehyung breaks the kiss to look at him again with those irresistible eyes, dark and warm, and Jungkook can feel his whole body just begging him to push him down to the bed – so he does, though he falls with him to gentle the landing.

The next thing he knows, Taehyung is lying under him and Jungkook is hovering over, holding himself up on his arms so he doesn't crush Tae, and all at once he realizes that this isn't what he had intended at all.

He hadn't meant, when he'd arrived here, to send them careening straight into bed, but now that he's here he can't bring himself to regret it.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asks, because he has to ask.

He needs to know that Taehyung is doing this because he wants it as badly as Jungkook does. His own voice sounds strange to his ears – so gentle he hardly recognizes himself.

As an answer, Taehyung nods and starts pulling at Jungkook's clothes.

Jungkook laughs. He's seen Taehyung touch himself, listened to him come over the phone, even talked to him about some of the things he would love to do with him, but none of that had given him this same raw feeling he has now.

Something about having Taehyung underneath him, in his arms, trying to get him out of his clothes – it hits him harder, but it also allows him to see a side of Taehyung that feels new.

There's a desperate edge to him that Jungkook has never seen before. He shoves Jungkook's t-shirt up and over his head, and then he's pulling at his jeans.

He kisses Taehyung again to calm him down, and smiles into the kiss because he can't help himself. He finishes getting himself out of his own clothes, comfortable enough with being the vulnerable one here. He lets Taehyung take him in, trail his eyes and then, after Jungkook nods to tell him it's okay, his hands across his body, from his chest down to his hips.

His eyes have finally lost that heaviness, wide where they trail across Jungkook's body.

Jungkook is used to being admired, but usually only in flashes, quick bursts of adrenaline at a club, or when someone who met him online sees him for the first time.

He's not usually looked at like that by anyone who truly knows him, and even though he and Taehyung are still getting to know one another, there aren't many people in Jungkook's life he's opened up to in the same way he has with Tae over the last few weeks.

It feels different to be looked at like this by someone who has spent sleepless nights talking to him quietly on the phone. It feels good.

He wants to return the favor, and even though he's a little nervous when his own hands slip beneath the hem of Taehyung's t-shirt, he doesn't hesitate to lift it up his body as soon as Tae gives him the okay.

As expected, Taehyung is even more beautiful in person than he could have been over low quality video, and he had already been beautiful then.

Jungkook finds that the more skin he reveals, the more he wants to touch, so he leans down and follows the trail of his hands with his lips.

He gets the shirt off and Taehyung leaves his arms up over his head, neck bared, so Jungkook can kiss his throat as much as he wants. He pauses there for a moment, but he's anxious for more.

He's prepared to give Taehyung the same treatment as he slowly pushes his pants down over his hips, but Taehyung seems to lose his patience. He kicks the pants off and before Jungkook can get a good look at him, he flips onto his front.

Jungkook pulls back a little in response to the sudden movement, and as soon as he does, Taehyung hikes one knee a little higher up on the mattress and arches his back, effectively stopping Jungkook's breath in his lungs.

"Lube and condoms are in the drawer," Taehyung says, voice halfway to wrecked already.

If Jungkook's breath has stopped, his heart is working in overdrive.

It's pounding so hard it's starting to hurt a little bit, but nothing could stop him from leaning up and reaching to open the drawer in Taehyung's bedside table.

With the bottle of lube and a condom in his hand, the whole situation suddenly feels real. It isn't that he's never done this before, but it's different. He doesn't know what the expectations are, and more than that, this is Taehyung.

Privately, he can admit to himself that because he's here with Tae, it's special in a way that sex usually doesn't feel to him. He doesn't want to mess it up.

He wants to ask again if Taehyung is sure, but he knows it's only his own nerves getting to him now. It's fairly obvious that Taehyung is sure, lying on his front with his hands buried in his pillow, ass canted back, waiting.

What finally gives him the courage to begin is exactly that: he doesn't want to keep Taehyung waiting, doesn't want to give him any reason to think Jungkook is having second thoughts.

He may feel nervous, but he isn't doubting this, and he doesn't want to do anything that could make Taehyung doubt it either.

Tae's shoulders are wide and lovely against the sheets and Jungkook can't resist touching him. He rests the palm of his hand right at the nape of Taehyung's neck and gently trails it down the length of his spine.

Taehyung shivers and his back arches even more, so pretty, which Jungkook tells him just so he can watch his cheeks flush pink.

When his hand reaches the base of Taehyung's spine, he shudders, maybe nervous or maybe just sensitive, and Jungkook finally lets himself touch the curve of his ass, which is as soft and pretty as the rest of him; he doesn't care how ridiculous a thought that is.

Taehyung hums and Jungkook feels that raw feeling again, intense and a little overwhelming. All he wants is to make Taehyung feel good, to know that he's doing a good job for him, and despite his own nerves, he knows that at least the way to start is by giving him what he clearly wants.

He does his best to channel his usual confidence as he opens the bottle of lube and pours some onto his fingers. He rubs them together to warm it a little because it just seems polite.

Something must occur to Taehyung then, because he lifts his head from the pillow and looks back over his shoulder to meet Jungkook's eyes.

"Have you done this before?" he asks.

His voice is a little lighter, like he's pulled himself away from that desperate place because he feels the need to ask. It's sort of sweet, and it makes Jungkook feel a little lighter too, like Taehyung is open to having this experience with him, and it's okay if he doesn't know completely what he's doing.

"Yeah," he says, "just not with –"

"Okay," Taehyung says, understanding, easy, because everything with Taehyung has been remarkably easy, from the first time they'd spoken. 

"Don't be nervous, okay?"

Jungkook doesn't know how to tell him that the only thing making him nervous is worrying that he won't be good enough. He just nods.

"Tell me if you want me to do anything different," he says. “Or if there’s something you like.”

"Okay," Taehyung says again, and then he lowers his head back down to the pillow and gets comfortable.

Jungkook's heart squeezes in his chest at the sheer amount of trust Tae is showing him. He promises himself that he'll be worth it, and then he reaches to brush one lube-slick finger against Taehyung's hole. He barely lets himself watch, so sure he'll be completely overwhelmed and useless if he does.

Instead he keeps his eyes on Taehyung's face, making sure he registers every change, keeping track of every tiny shift in his expression.

His brow furrows slightly as Jungkook presses slowly inside, but it smooths out quickly. He seems relaxed, not tense at all despite the fact that Jungkook certainly is.

Jungkook tries to move slowly without dragging out the moment unnecessarily. He doesn't want to do anything to make Taehyung uncomfortable, wants to keep him in this loose and easy place, so he waits until he seems to have adjusted to the feeling and then presses a second finger in alongside the first.

Taehyung bites his lip and it takes Jungkook a second to notice that he's trying to hide a smile.

He smiles back instinctively even though he doesn't even know what has Tae so amused.

"What?" he asks.

He gives his fingers a little twist for good measure and his heart leaps when Taehyung releases his lip with a little gasp and rocks his hips back against Jungkook's hand.

"Nothing," Taehyung says. "It's just that you don't have to be so careful with me, Jungkookie. I'm – pretty used to this."

"Oh?" Jungkook can't help asking, teasing.

Taehyung laughs and makes a half-hearted kick toward Jungkook, which doesn't connect because it's an impossible angle, and it only makes Jungkook laugh too, but it's nice.

It lightens the moment, and Jungkook takes Taehyung's word for it and presses a third finger into him – still careful, because he doesn't want to hurt him, no matter what Taehyung says.

He had been telling the truth though, and it's only now that Jungkook meets any real resistance. He curls his fingers, curious to see whether he can find what he's looking for, but he focuses mostly on trying to do a good job opening him up. He knows how good this is going to feel for him. He wants to make sure that it feels just as good for Taehyung.

He's so focused that at first he doesn't notice the way Taehyung starts rocking against the bed, making sweet little, mindless sounds into his pillow. When he does notice, he pauses, and before he has the chance to ask what Taehyung needs, Tae is already speaking.

"I'm ready," he says, and when Jungkook doesn't immediately stop what he's doing, he says again, "I'm ready, Jungkookie, please."

It's needy and sweet and Jungkook is powerless.

He eases his fingers out and reaches for the condom. As he puts it on, his eyes are fixed on Taehyung, who, over the course of the last few minutes, has flushed pink from his cheeks to the tops of his shoulders.

His lip is clamped between his teeth again, and Jungkook wants to kiss him but doesn't want it badly enough to stop what he's doing. Now that it's finally time, he feels as desperate as Taehyung looks and sounds.

On the one hand, he doesn't want to rush this, and it already feels like they're hurtling fast. At the same time, though, he feels like he's been waiting for this moment from the first time he'd seen Taehyung's photos on that app, and there's only so much waiting he can do – and only so much waiting he can inflict on Taehyung too.

So when Taehyung whines with a breathy, "Jungkook, please ," he can't hold back anymore.

"Okay," he says, brushing his free hand over the small of Taehyung's back in a way that he hopes is reassuring.

He knows that of the two of them, he's likely the one who feels the most nervous, but his instinct is to soothe and he leans into it, lets it take over him and give him a little more of the confidence he's used to.

Jungkook doesn't think it's dramatic to say that sinking into Taehyung is nothing short of a miraculous experience.

He's never been a religious person, has never been one to believe in fate or destiny or anything like that, but the experience of being inside Taehyung for the first time is one that makes him wonder if he's been wrong about everything in his life, because he's suddenly certain that this is exactly where he's meant to be.

He closes his eyes for the first time, too overwhelmed to keep looking at the blissed-out expression on Taehyung's face.

His hands find Tae's hips and hold on tight, clinging to him just as Taehyung's body clings to his cock, neither of them willing or able to let go of each other. He knows his brow is furrowed with tension as he focuses on keeping it together instead of collapsing across Taehyung and losing himself the way the most primal parts of him want to.

He wants to tell Taehyung how good he feels, how good he is , but he's afraid that if he opens his mouth, all that will come out is some embarrassing sound that expresses his thoughts for him.

It isn't until Taehyung pushes back against him that he finds the will to move. He tightens his grip on Taehyung's hips and rocks forward, pressing as deep into him as he can before slowly pulling out again.

As he does, Taehyung groans in that way that he's only ever heard over a speaker. It sounds so much better in life, richer and deeper and most importantly, because of Jungkook , because of how Jungkook makes him feel.

It's too much, but it's not enough for Taehyung, so Jungkook digs deep and finds it in himself to give Taehyung exactly what he wants.

When he snaps his hips forward, fucking into Taehyung properly for the first time, Taehyung moans and grips his hands into the pillow – Jungkook opens his eyes just in time to see him do it, and to see the way his back arches beautifully, fucking himself on Jungkook's cock at the same pace that Jungkook falls into.

And then it's easy – easy to hold on and lose himself, easy to focus on Taehyung's pleasure instead of his own, watching his face, his body, reading in them every reaction that tells him what Taehyung likes.

He finds the right speed, the right rhythm, learns the way that Taehyung likes it best by providing it for him and then memorizing the way he cries out, the way he moves against the sheets like he can't help himself.

Language is lost to them, but it doesn't matter. Their bodies are as good at communicating as they ever have been.

Jungkook's hands grip Taehyung's hips and pull him hard against him and Taehyung leans onto his elbows to push back on him with the same force. Jungkook slows his pace to grind into him for a minute, needing the pause to calm himself down, and Taehyung shudders and moans.

When Taehyung pushes himself up onto his knees, Jungkook catches his first real glimpse of his cock, hanging heavy between his legs, and he's suddenly consumed with the need for more, to see properly.

It glistens at the head with precome, and when he sees a little dark spot on the sheets, he realizes it's because Taehyung has been leaking where he's been rutting against them, and his mind goes numb.

He pulls out, keeping the presence of mind at least to do so gently, and before Taehyung has a chance to do more than make a small, questioning sound, Jungkook uses his grip on Taehyung's hips to flip him onto his back.

He sees the moment Tae's jaw drops and his eyes go wide when he realizes that Jungkook has just lifted him and moved him where he wants him to be. He files that away for future use (he hopes, he prays , there will be a chance to use that knowledge later) and then he's sliding back in and watching the way Taehyung's eyes roll back right before they flutter shut.

As much as he had loved fucking Taehyung from behind, he's immediately obsessed with this.

This way it's so much easier to see Taehyung's face, and this way he can see his cock too.

It's different in person. It's better, more real, and in perfect detail. Any crisis Jungkook might have had about it pales in comparison to the feeling of being here, with Taehyung, inside Taehyung.

He loves that he can see the proof of how he makes Taehyung feel, right in front of him, and when Taehyung takes advantage of the new position to reach down and wrap his hand around his cock, Jungkook goes slightly wild at the way a small drop of precome gathers at the head.

It isn't something he's ever thought to find hot before, but that doesn't matter. In this moment, it's a physical manifestation of the fact that Jungkook is making Taehyung feel good, using his own body to bring Taehyung pleasure, and that's the only thing in the world that he needs.

So, he keeps it up, does his best to prove with every movement that he's here for that purpose first and foremost.

Taehyung's legs are splayed half-wrapped around Jungkook's waist, and he grabs onto them, holds them in a grip that he hopes is tight but not painful, and fucks him as hard as he can without losing his mind.

He's past the point where he can bring himself to keep his eyes closed in order to hold off his own orgasm. Taehyung is too enticing, and he can't keep his gaze from roving over him.

Jungkook genuinely doesn't think he's ever seen someone more beautiful in his life, but he doesn't think he's ever been so simultaneously lost and present while fucking someone either.

Every grip of Taehyung's body around his cock, every little sound he makes, imprints itself on Jungkook's mind, and as much as he hopes that he gets to do this again and again, he knows he'll remember every detail.

He's barely holding on now, but he's determined that Taehyung will come first, and he recognizes the little keening noises Taehyung is making from their video calls.

He knows he's almost there, and it's confirmed when Taehyung throws his head back against the pillow, gasps out Jungkook's name, and his grip on the head of his cock tightens almost imperceptibly – almost, except that Jungkook has paid attention to every little detail he's been able to see and learn about Taehyung for the last several weeks.

"Tae," he says.

Taehyung's eyes open, heavy-lidded, and fix on him. He doesn't speak, but Jungkook doesn't really expect him to.

Jungkook draws as deep a breath as he can and reaches one hand for Taehyung's cock.

Before he touches it, he says, "If you're ready –" Taehyung nods vigorously, which would make Jungkook laugh if he wasn't so far gone himself, "and if you'll let me –"

" Please , Jungkook," Taehyung says.

He lets go of his own cock, and Jungkook's hand takes over, wrapping around him in just the way that he knows Taehyung likes when he's this close to the edge, and it strikes him all at once that he's touching Taehyung's cock, for the first time, something that feels so monumental, and he can't help it, his head falls back and his other hand grips hard around Taehyung's thigh, and it's all he can do to keep touching Taehyung right through the overwhelming crush that comes over him as he comes into the condom.

He opens his eyes just in time to see Taehyung come all over Jungkook's hand and his own belly. He looks so stunningly beautiful as it happens that Jungkook can't imagine ever looking away.

His whole body arches high off the mattress, head thrown back into the pillows, his hair soft as a halo of light around his handsome face. He makes a lovely, drawn out moan that sounds perfect in his low voice, and Jungkook knows that he'll do anything to be able to hear that again.

He digs deep to find the will to keep fucking Taehyung through it, staying hard by sheer force of will to make this as satisfying for him as it can be, and then once Taehyung finally seems to be finished spilling across his own golden skin, and his back has returned in a slump to the bed, Jungkook finally lets himself slow to a stop.

He lets go of Taehyung's cock first, and then eases out of him, tying off the condom in quick, practiced movements and tossing it into the little waste bin he sees beside the bed.

All of this he does without moving from his place between Taehyung's legs, which have fallen haphazardly around Jungkook's hips as he's started to come down.

Jungkook settles between them more comfortably and just looks for a second, taking in the sight of a spent Taehyung, sprawled across his bed covered in come.

The only thing that could make this better, Jungkook thinks, feeling more than a little unhinged after his own orgasm, is if his own come were mixed with it.

He knows already how much Taehyung likes to feel messy, and the possessive part of him – which is a significant part, especially when it comes to Tae – loves the idea of Taehyung lying here covered in his come.

That thought is quickly followed by another, even more enticing one: if it would feel that good to see Tae covered in Jungkook's come, how much better would it feel to know that Jungkook's come was inside of him?

To be able to see it leaking out of him, another piece of physical proof that Taehyung had allowed him inside his body, that he had trusted Jungkook to make him feel that good?

The idea is so captivating that Jungkook moves almost as though he's in a trance, like he barely has control of his own movement – or, more accurately, like he can't help moving in exactly the way his whole body and soul want to in that moment. He doesn't have the willpower to stop himself.

He feels Taehyung's eyes on him as he swipes his already messy fingers through the come across Taehyung's stomach, gathering up as much of it as he can.

He does, at least, think to look up at Tae before he does anything else, but Taehyung's gaze is merely fixed on him, following along.

His eyes have gone heavy again as he watches and waits to see what Jungkook will do, but still, even with Jungkook paying close attention, it's hard to read his reaction when he wraps his clean hand around Taehyung's thigh and pushes it out of his way, exposing his hole to Jungkook's greedy gaze.

Soft and pink from the recent abuse, it takes two of Jungkook's come-covered fingers easily. He swallows, watching them sink back into Taehyung.

It's easy to imagine it's his own come he's fucking back into him. He wonders if that's what Taehyung is thinking too.

He looks up at him to find him watching Jungkook with his lip back between his teeth. He's breathing hard, his hands clenched into fists in the sheets, but he doesn't tell him to stop. From this angle his eyes look so dark they're almost black.

Jungkook pulls most of the way out just to see what happens, whether the come stays inside or drips right out again.

He isn't sure which would be more satisfying, but when his fingers slip free, easy with the leftover lube, and he sees the little pearls of white leak out after them, his heart leaps at the same time that his stomach falls and before he knows it, he's pushing back in again.

Taehyung moans and his brow furrows and Jungkook gets brave, feels bold with how pliant and accepting Taehyung is being underneath him, and he knows he hadn't spent much time exploring earlier, both of them too eager to finally snap the tension between them.

To distract Taehyung from what he worries will be his awkward bumbling, he leans down over him and embraces his curiosity in more ways than one.

He kisses across Taehyung's belly, licking up the little traces of his come that remain. The taste isn't entirely foreign to him and he finds he doesn't mind it. It's well worth it for the way that Taehyung moans and threads his fingers into Jungkook's hair.

At the same time, Jungkook curls his fingers and searches. He knows about the placement of what he's looking for, thinks maybe he'd even brushed it earlier when he'd been prepping Taehyung, but he hadn't been sure.

He quickly discovers that it's easier to find it now, when Taehyung has been fucked and come so recently.

If there's any doubt in Jungkook's mind that he's found what he's looking for when he brushes against it, swollen and tender under the pads of his fingers, it's dashed away when Taehyung lets out a surprised cry.

He pauses and looks up to see that Tae's eyes are squeezed shut and his jaw is clenched, and then it hits Jungkook that, of course, he must be oversensitive.

"Sorry," he says quietly. There's something about the moment that feels fragile, and he doesn't want to disturb it any more than he wants it to end. "Do you want me to stop?"

He gentles his touch inside him and Taehyung visibly relaxes. He shakes his head no, so Jungkook slowly, carefully, adds a little more pressure again, just to see how Tae reacts.

Taehyung shivers, and his hands clench and release in the sheets.

Jungkook goes back to lapping at the traces of come across Taehyung's belly, hoping it adds enough new sensation to keep him from feeling too overstimulated, and it seems to help.

Taehyung relaxes a little bit at a time, melting against the sheets while Jungkook trails his lips in reverent, sucking kisses across Taehyung's skin, moving further down as he goes.

Taehyung keeps his hands in his air and squirms a little bit against the mattress. Jungkook eases his fingers out before pressing slowly back in again, loving the smooth, wet slide of it between the lube and the come.

The thought of fucking Taehyung like this, fucking his own come back into him, lights him up from the inside, but for now he contents himself with this, enjoying the slick glide and the possessive idea of it, the fact that Taehyung is simply lying there and letting Jungkook play with him however he likes.

He moves back on the bed, taking care to avoid accidentally touching Taehyung's cock, until he's able to lie down between his legs.

Taehyung makes some stilted sound that might be one of protest, but when Jungkook pauses and looks up at him, he seems lost again, his eyes closed, one hand back in Jungkook's hair – not pulling, just resting there like he doesn't want to lose contact – and the other now fisted in the pillow by his head.

Jungkook decides that his curiosity has driven him this far, and he doesn't see why it should stop now. He leans in and gives an experimental lick where his fingers disappear into Taehyung's body.

For the first time, Taehyung's grip in his hair tightens slightly, and he bucks against Jungkook's hand and mouth. Jungkook does it again, because if it makes Taehyung lose himself like that, even if only for a second, then he would happily keep it up all day.

It's clear that Taehyung is riding the edge of overstimulation though, as he alternately moans and hisses at the feeling as Jungkook laps at his rim, licking up the last of his come, so finally Jungkook backs away, pulls out again as carefully as he can, and doesn't let himself get distracted by the look of Taehyung all fucked out and open.

Instead, feeling at once light with exhilaration and heavy with the sated weight of satisfied limbs, he crawls back up the bed to hover over Taehyung.

He knows he has a stupid-big smile on his face but he kind of feels like all of his dreams have just come true, and that this person in front of him is maybe the best one he's ever found, and he doesn’t feel shy about showing it.

Taehyung sighs and his eyes flutter open and as soon as they meet Jungkook's, he smiles back at him.

He glows in the late afternoon sun. Jungkook would like to think that he can take some credit for that. He looks so beautiful smiling up at Jungkook that he just has to lean down to kiss him, light and sweet.

With a laugh – one born purely out of joy and comfort and the unique euphoria of a good orgasm – Jungkook flops down onto the bed beside Tae and wraps his arms around him, pulling him close.

Taehyung giggles but lets himself be pulled in without a struggle.

"I didn't think you would be a big cuddler," he says.

Jungkook pulls back just enough to look him in the eye, which must make him look a little silly because Taehyung laughs again.

"Hm," Jungkook says, and then clings to Taehyung even more tightly, and throws a leg over his hip for good measure. "See what you know."

"You showed me," Taehyung admits, but he looks rather pleased about it.

It's quiet for a long minute while Jungkook basks, playing little flashes of memories from the last hour over and over again in his head. It's only then that he remembers this had never been his intention at all, at least not right away.

He wouldn't change it, could never bring himself to regret doing anything with Taehyung, but he'd had such lofty intentions when he'd arrived at his apartment and he can't help laughing at himself when he thinks of it now.

"What?" Taehyung asks with a slow smile.

"Oh – I was just thinking about how I wasn't going to do that."

"Do what?"

"Fuck you," Jungkook says. "Or, I mean, have sex. I was going to ask you out first."

This time it's Taehyung who pulls back to see him better.

"You were going to ask me out?" he asks.

He sounds so genuinely surprised that it surprises Jungkook right back. He furrows his brow.

"Of course?"

He watches Taehyung's face, trying to understand what he means, why he's so surprised, and sees him flush. That's when Jungkook realizes what Taehyung must have thought.

"Tae!" he says. "We've been talking every day for weeks! You thought I was just going to come over here and fuck you and that would be it?"

"Well, I don't know!" Taehyung says, exasperated and embarrassed in a way that really shouldn't be cute under the circumstances, but somehow manages it nevertheless.

"Your profile said you were only looking for hook-ups!"

Jungkook can only stare at him, thinking about how impossible it is for Taehyung not to understand that his profile had only said that because he hadn't met him yet.

He doesn't know how to explain it, the long walk he's been on with himself over the last several weeks, how everything in him has seemed to change and reshape itself – or maybe just come out into the light – since the first time he'd talked to Tae on that dating app.

It's a lot to go into, and he knows he'd like to tell Tae about all of it, but right now the sun is streaming in through the windows, and Taehyung is in his arms, sated and happy and beautiful, and Jungkook wants nothing more than to let this moment breathe, to let it be exactly what it is: just the two of them, together for the first time in what he hopes will be a long line of moments just like it.

So instead, he tips his forehead to Taehyung's and closes his eyes and breathes in the soft but undeniably masculine scent of him, and feels a wave of deep contentment wash over him.

"Tae," he says. "I don't want this to just be a hook-up. I don't want to ever let go of you. And if you give me a chance, I promise you won't regret me – okay?"

He hears Taehyung take a breath.

"Okay," he says – and yeah, Jungkook really loves the way he says that.