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“Jimin-ah,” Seokjin hisses, poking Jimin’s arm as they shuffle slowly down the jetway. “Jimin-ah.”
“Ow, what?” Jimin asks, far too loudly.
Seokjin flails the arm that’s not busy hauling an overstuffed carry-on. “Shh!”
“What?” Jimin asks again, in an exasperated whisper.
“Switch seats with hyung,” Seokjin commands.
“What? No,” Jimin responds. “I want to sit next to Taehyungie.”
“You sit next to him all the time,” Seokjin points out. “You live together. You sleep in the same bed.”
“Hell yeah we do.” Taehyung, in line in front of Jimin, reaches back a hand for him to high-five. At Seokjin’s glare, he asks, “Oh sorry, was I not supposed to hear this conversation?”
“No,” Seokjin bites.
“Sorry hyung,” Taehyung says, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “But this isn’t really a good place for private chats, you know?”
“He’s right,” Hoseok chimes in from behind Seokjin. “I can hear you too.”
Jungkook, clinging to Hoseok’s back with his nose pressed into Hoseok’s hair, mumbles something unintelligible against Hoseok’s neck. Hoseok pats his arms soothingly. “Oh yeah. Jungkookie does too, hyung.”
Seokjin glances nervously behind Hoseok and Jungkook. He sees a half-asleep Namjoon first, and finally Yoongi bringing up the rear. Mercifully, Yoongi is wearing headphones. His massive over-ear noise-canceling ones, what Hoseok always calls Yoongi’s fuck off headphones. He barely even looks up as the line moves a few steps forward, eyes fixed firmly at the ground.
Seokjin can’t tell if he’s angry or if that’s just his face, still scrunched up with the little sleep he’d gotten. He’s not sure if he wants to know the answer.
“Well forgive me for thinking this friend group had any tact,” Seokjin sniffs.
“Yeah that’s really your mistake,” Taehyung says blithely.
Seokjin pokes Jimin again, punctuating each word with a firm jab. “Switch. With. Hyung.”
Jimin narrows his eyes. “I said no. Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not weird,” Seokjin argues.
Jungkook snorts. Hoseok swats at him with a soft brat. Jung Hoseok is the only one that Seokjin can trust in this world.
Jimin giggles. “You’re the weirdest out of all of my hyungs,” he tells him. “You and Yoongi-hyung.”
Seokjin’s face must do something at the mention of Yoongi’s name, because Jimin’s eyes go even narrower. He feels Jimin’s intensely focused gaze like an x-ray. Fuck.
He turns to Hoseok. “Hoseok-ah, switch seats with me?”
Jungkook’s arms wind even tighter around Hoseok’s neck. “Sorry hyung,” Hoseok wheezes. “I don’t think our Ggukie would like that very much.”
Jungkook agrees by way of taking a very loud sniff of Hoseok’s hair.
“Jungkook-ah, please?” Seokjin asks, pouting.
Jungkook surfaces enough to say, “Ew, don’t do that with your face.”
Seokjin does it harder.
“Stoooop,” Jungkook whines.
“Hyung stop, you’re scaring the baby,” Jimin scolds, whacking at Seokjin’s arm.
“I’m the baby,” Jungkook supplies helpfully.
“If he really wanted me to stop, he’d switch seats with me,” Seokjin says.
“Not gonna happen,” Jungkook declares, and tucks himself back into Hoseok’s shoulder blade. He looks like he’s trying to climb into his skin.
“You’re being really insistent about this seat thing,” Hoseok comments. “What’s wrong with your seat?”
“It’s an unlucky number,” Seokjin lies.
“And you want to give one of us your unlucky seat?” Taehyung asks, eyes going wide with false hurt. “What happened to hyung will do it, huh?”
Seokjin feels himself start to sweat a little under the combined attention of his dongsaengs. Jimin, once he smells a little gossip, is like a dog you can’t shake off.
Seokjin casts his desperate gaze back to Namjoon. He hasn’t seemed to register any of the conversation, still gazing bleary-eyed at the grey carpeted floor of the jetway, stepping forward like a zombie whenever the line moves. Yoongi is looking up now, baleful gaze flitting in between Seokjin, Hoseok with his Jungkook-shaped barnacle, and the two ‘95 demons. There’s a confused little frown on his face, but he doesn’t seem to have heard them through the 90s hip-hop he’s probably got blaring into his eardrums.
“Nevermind,” Seokjin says quickly, doing his best to clear all expression off of his face. That one acting class in college really comes in handy. “The seat is so fantastically unlucky that it’s circled its way around back to being lucky, so actually, I win. You all wish that you had this incredibly lucky seat.”
Jimin eyes him suspiciously, not buying it, while Taehyung whispers about how now he kind of does want the seat, just to see what all the fuss is about, Jimin-ah.
The line shuffles incrementally forward again, and Seokjin continues his march to certain doom inch by excruciating inch.
When he finally makes it onto the plane itself, the flight attendant greets him with far too much pep and vigor. Doesn’t she know that Seokjin is not going to make it to landing? Smiling at his certain demise. How rude.
He slings his bag into the overhead compartment and slides into his seat. The window had seemed like such a great idea a month ago, when he’d booked the plane tickets. It was his first time in Malta, and he’d wanted to see the clear blue water and architecture from above. He’s always enjoyed watching the world from so high up, when it looks kind of like a patchwork quilt. Even better if he’s flying at night, when the lights below are like glowing veins of gold. Light pollution doesn’t look so bad when you’re at a higher altitude.
Now, as Yoongi shoves his own bag up, wincing a little at the weight but glaring forcefully when Seokjin makes a move to help, the window seems like a terrible idea. Now he has no means of escape.
Yoongi doesn’t say a single word as he sits down next to Seokjin, buckling his seat belt and crossing his arms over his chest. Namjoon settles into his aisle seat and truly boxes them both in. Seokjin watches as he tilts his head back, eyes slipping shut and mouth falling open, already returning to sleep.
Seokjin wishes he could do that. He is tired, exhausted really. They hadn’t gotten much sleep, after all.
Maybe Yoongi will fall asleep too. That would help lessen the distinctly glacial shoulder that Seokjin is getting. He’s not sure why, because everything that happened was Yoongi’s idea. Seokjin just went along with it, because that’s what the two of them do. One will start a silly little game, a stupid bit, and the other will play along until the joke falls apart or goes too far.
Last night went much further than any of their bits ever had before. All the way, one might say. Past first base, second base, and rounding third to bring it home. The only way they could have gone any further was if there had been murder involved.
Well. Given the way Yoongi is acting towards him now, that might still be on the table.
As the rest of the passengers board, Seokjin does some light contemplation of the life choices that have brought him to this point.
It all began, he supposes, with becoming friends with Park Jimin. That imp. That devil. Seokjin should have known that the sweet little freshman would grow to be nothing but trouble. If it weren’t for him, he would never have met Jung Hoseok, and without Hoseok he never would have heard the words oh hyung, I know someone who needs a roommate.
That someone, of course, being Min Yoongi.
When they met, Yoongi was a scrawny little thing with bleach-fried blonde hair. It crunched under Seokjin’s fingertips whenever they were sitting on the couch and Yoongi shoved his head onto Seokjin’s lap, because he was endearingly aggressive about asking for affection. Unfortunate, really, that Seokjin chose to fall in with him.
Although, maybe that wasn’t so much a choice as an inevitability. The real choice that brought Seokjin here, to this moment, was choosing to fuck someone that he was in such pathetic, helpless love with.
Next to him, Yoongi shifts in his seat. His hair is his natural color now, a healthy dark brown that he’s grown out until he can sweep it behind his ears. He doesn’t look so consumptive anymore. While the malnourishment vibe had kinda worked for Seokjin, the full cheeks he has now works even more. If he’s honest, anything Yoongi does could work for Seokjin. It’s deeply embarrassing.
Yoongi bends his neck from side to side, the muscles popping painfully. As he stretches, Seokjin catches a glimpse of a purple-pink mark on the pale skin right above his collarbone.
He really can’t overstate it enough that Yoongi started the whole thing. Seokjin can be stupid, but he’d never be so stupid to initiate sex with his unrequited crush of what’s going on a decade at this point. Just stupid enough to kiss back, when a slightly-tipsy Yoongi rose on his tiptoes and pressed a gentle kiss to Seokjin’s lips. It was a kiss that was clearly testing the waters, and Yoongi had pulled back after a moment and actually made eye contact for once.
Seokjin spared a few seconds for some thought, then decided that the water was perfectly fine and dove in headfirst.
They’d had to be quiet. The walls of the apartment they’d all rented weren’t terribly thick, which Jimin and Taehyung had been kind enough to demonstrate for them on the second night of the trip. When Seokjin had sucked the bruises into Yoongi’s neck, he’d thrown a hand over his mouth to muffle his own moan. The gasp Seokjin had let out when Yoongi took him into his throat felt deafening.
The captain coming on over the intercom jolts Seokjin out of his tortuous memories of the previous night. He welcomes them aboard, voice crackling on the speaker. Seokjin resists hitting his head repeatedly on the seat in front of him when he cheerfully notes that the duration of their flight today will be approximately 15 hours and 40 minutes.
If Yoongi has any mercy, he’ll kill Seokjin early in the flight.
“We’re expecting a bit of turbulence at takeoff, but it should even out as we get to our cruising altitude,” the captain finishes. “Thank you for choosing Air Malta. Please turn your attention to our flight attendants for a brief safety demonstration.”
Seokjin leans over to Yoongi against his better judgment. “Should we wake Namjoon up for the safety information?”
Yoongi flicks his eyes over to Seokjin in a very impressive glare.
“I will take that as a no,” Seokjin says, unable to stop himself. Yoongi’s gaze burns holes into the side of his head.
The plane jolts as it pulls away from the jetway. Seokjin’s looks out the window, taking Malta in one last time. He has to get his money’s worth for what he’s both literally and figuratively paid for.
The airport isn’t as nice a view as the city and beaches had been. There are a few scattered trees, blowing in the wind. The sky, as the plane climbs higher, is a brilliant blue spotted with fat white clouds.
As they ascend, it becomes very clear that the captain wasn’t lying about the possibility of turbulence. Maybe the trees should have been a clue. The plane shakes, jerking up and down in sharp motions rather than a smooth upward glide. It feels more like the clunky climbing of a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster with terrible safety ratings, one that was probably built in some bizarre backyard Saw trap. Like maybe the owner of Lotte World was a real dick, and Jigsaw decided to strap him into his own personal death coaster.
Next to him, Yoongi’s hands knot together in his lap. They’re clenched so hard that his knobby knuckles have gone stark white. Another particularly rough shake, one that sends Seokjin’s head snapping painfully forward, and one of Yoongi’s hands flies up to his mouth while the other curls tightly around his stomach like a second seatbelt. He starts to rip at his finger with his teeth, tearing away at his nails and the delicate skin of his nail beds.
Seokjin is suddenly and violently reminded of how Yoongi had looked last night, with Seokjin’s fingers in his mouth instead. The way he’d swirled his tongue around them, coating them with saliva because they hadn’t had the foresight to bring lube on what was supposed to be just a trip with their friends. The way Seokjin had gotten to drag the edge of Yoongi’s mouth down with the tip of his finger, watching the plump skin of lower lip give way, before leaning back in to kiss him some more.
Seokjin pinches himself in the thigh. It’s not the time to be horny. If he can help it, he’ll never be horny again. Look where it’s gotten him!
Though it wasn’t really horniness More just selfishness, wanting to take what he could get. It was all he’d ever get, after all. It was pathetic desperation, that’s what it was.
Well. Seokjin will never be pathetic and desperate ever again. It isn’t becoming. Especially for someone with his face and physique. As soon as they touch down in Korea, he’s done with yearning. Longing and pining, too. He’s going to be a short deciduous tree from now on.
“How is Namjoon sleeping through this,” Yoongi mutters, words a bit mangled around the fingers in his mouth.
Almost in response, a snore rips its way out of Namjoon’s chest.
“I think he might be under a sleeping curse,” Seokjin answers. “Did you notice any witches when we were boarding? Aside from Jimin, that is.”
Yoongi doesn’t laugh, but he exhales quick and hard through his nose. A laugh in abbreviation. For the situation they’re in, it’s enough to have Seokjin’s heart glowing a little.
“How do you think we break it?” Seokjin asks, as the plane rattles worryingly around them. “Do you think the captain is going to come on over the intercom and give us his riddles three?”
“You’re terrible at riddles,” Yoongi grumbles. “Namjoon would stay asleep forever.”
Seokjin gasps in mock offense. “I’m excellent at riddles. How dare you suggest otherwise?” The plane dips in the air, Seokjin’s stomach flipping inside his chest. Yoongi hisses as he rips the skin of his thumb. “Riddles are just like puns, and I’m great at puns.”
“I don’t know if I’d call your puns great,” Yoongi responds.
“Did I ever tell you that one about the horse?”
“Please don’t,” Yoongi grits out, finally removing his hand from his mouth in favor of gripping both armrests as hard as possible while the plane continues to shake.
“Well, there’s always the classic method,” Seokjin continues.
“What’s that?”
“True love’s kiss,” Seokjin answers. “You should just lean over and plant one on him.”
Yoongi’s face shutters completely, the tentative spring that had begun to poke through the ice freezing right back over. He doesn’t say anything in response, just turns and stares at the seat back in front of him.
I’m sorry, Seokjin should say. I actually don’t want you to kiss Namjoon either. I want you to kiss me again. He should also say please talk to me, what did I do?
He doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, he says, “Wow, okay. Don’t worry Yoongi-yah, I won’t tell Namjoon that you find the idea of kissing him so offensive.”
It isn’t the right thing to say. Seokjin knows that. But he’s said it anyway. To top it off, the turbulence picks that exact moment to calm down. Now they’re right back to where they started this miserable journey. Yoongi is absolutely furious at Seokjin for an unknown reason, and Seokjin is torn between wanting to rewind to the previous night so he never fucked his best friend and the equally strong desire to keep the memory on loop forever like a tape. What’s that saying? Better to have fucked and lost than never to have fucked at all?
A small voice in his head that sounds very much like Namjoon says you know that’s not how the saying goes, you idiot.
Seokjin squints over at Namjoon. He’s still sleeping soundly. Just his conscience, then.
Yes I know, Seokjin thinks back at his inner Namjoon. But the thing is that Seokjin still doesn’t know what it is that he did wrong.
Yoongi kissed him first. Yoongi stared up at Seokjin, all questioning, and Seokjin answered. It was Yoongi who led the whole time– Yoongi who peeled Seokjin’s shirt off after he got tired of just touching and wanted to look, too. Yoongi who rested his big hands on Seokjin’s hips, right at the waistline of his jeans, and asked can I? in his low, rumbly voice. And it was Yoongi who blew Seokjin until he was right on the edge, then fucked him until he tumbled over it. Maybe it was Seokjin who said yes, who wanted every moment, but it was Yoongi who did it.
They had fallen asleep together side by side, after Seokjin had done the awkward, furtive walk to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth to clean themselves up with. It was nice– they hadn’t slept in the same bed for a long time, not since Yoongi worked for a different studio that he didn’t really like with a boss that took him and his seniors out to drink too much. He would come home all drunk and clingy, climbing into Seokjin’s bed and whining unintelligibly, and Seokjin would wake up overheated in more ways than one.
But this morning was a different story. Yoongi was already awake by the time Seokjin’s alarm went off, moodily throwing clothes into his suitcase. Seokjin isn’t sure what he expected– he’s not naive enough to think that fucking once meant they were togther now, that Yoongi loved him back. He didn’t think that Yoongi would be so angry. He really didn’t think that Yoongi would regret it this much. Seokjin has always gotten good reviews as a lover– he’s attentive, he’s sweet, he keeps it light.
Maybe the problem was that there’s nothing light about Seokjin’s feelings for Yoongi. They’re the albatross across his clavicle, the training weights around his ankles and wrists. Yoongi must have felt the weight of them, pressing him down, and realized when he woke up that he didn’t sign up for that kind of baggage. He wanted to have a simple night of meaningless sex with a friend, and what he got was several years’ worth of unrequited love.
That has to be it. Except that would be kind of cruel. Min Yoongi is a lot of things, but Seokjin has never known him to be cruel. And Yoongi, of all people, is not the one that Seokjin would expect to blame him for feelings.
He resists the urge to bang his head repeatedly into the seat in front of him. It would be kind of disruptive to the person in front of him. It’s much more polite to keep his crisis completely internal.
The seatbelt sign finally clicks off overhead with a gentle ding. Not that it does Seokjin much good, seeing as he’d have to climb over Yoongi and Namjoon if he wanted to get out.
He scrolls the movies, trying to find something that could take his mind off of his whole situation. He settles on some animated movie that looks bright and colorful and stupid. It does unfortunately little to distract him. Somehow Seokjin can’t keep his eyes away from Yoongi. You’d think with all of the practice that Seokjin has had over the years at carefully not looking at him, he’d be better at it right now. But Yoongi’s legs are right there, poking out of his baggy basketball shorts all stick-like and biteable.
Seokjin loves Yoongi’s legs. His knees are so knobbly, always smudged pink. Back when skinny jeans were actually in fashion, Yoongi used to wear ripped jeans that would reveal stripes of skin through the tears, little tantalizing flashes. He still wears ripped jeans sometimes, but they’re fashionably wide-legged and might even be worse for Seokjin’s health than skinny ones. The wide-legs leave so much room, floating about Yoongi’s little legs, that Seokjin could just reach in and touch. Slip his hand all the way up, up, up. Right now, if the hem of Yoongi’s shorts rucked up just a bit higher, Seokjin could see the bites he’d left there in the soft flesh of Yoongi’s upper thigh–
“Anything to drink, Sir?”
Seokjin flinches in his seat as the flight attendant interrupts his guilty fantasies. Yoongi flicks his eyes over in a slightly questioning look.
“Um,” Seokjin clears his throat. “Sorry. Can I just have some water, please?”
“Of course,” the flight attendant responds with a smile, and Seokjin exhales in relief. It’s alright. No one knows how thirsty he really is. He accepts the water gratefully, drinking it in three large gulps.
He actually manages to pay attention to some of the movie after that. It’s no Coco or Ponyo, but it’s passable enough.
At least it is until a soft weight falls slowly into Seokjin, slumping steadily into his side. Yoongi’s head lands on Seokjin’s shoulder.
Seokjin glances down nervously, but Yoongi is, as he suspected, sound asleep. His eyes are closed, dark eyelashes fanned out against his cheekbones. His breathing comes in deep, even puffs through his barely-parted lips. The scent of Yoongi’s shampoo is practically shoved up Seokjin’s nose. It’s nice, like almonds, and something creamy. He’s used the same one for years now, just because he got it on sale once and got attached. A creature of habit, his Yoongi. Doesn’t like change.
Maybe that’s what’s got him so upset— this is something that changes their dynamic, their carefully struck and maintained balance of so many years. If Seokjin can just chill out, and stop thinking about Yoongi naked, maybe he can show him that nothing has to change. Seokjin is in love with him, and they slept together, but only one of those things is new, so it’s all okay.
He slowly lets his head tilt to rest against Yoongi’s. It’s selfish of him, but he’s never claimed not to be selfish. After last night, shamelessly taking what Yoongi offered, he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
Even furious at him, Yoongi is still the most comforting person to Seokjin. The even rhythm of his breath is so calming, Seokjin slows his own to match without thinking. In the space between breaths, he drifts away into sleep.
He dreams about Yoongi. He knows it’s a dream, because it’s a memory. Or more of an amalgamation of several memories, of all the ordinary nights they share. It could be last week, or last month, or a year or more back.
Yoongi is standing at the counter, his back to Seokjin, chopping vegetables for what looks like dak galbi. A beer is open beside him, and he looks loose and relaxed. There’s no sound in the dream, but Seokjin thinks his memory-self must make a joke because Yoongi turns around and looks at him then, smiling all wide and gummy.
Yoongi mouths something, and gestures to the door, and Seokjin knows him and his own mind well enough to know that he’s meant to turn around and open the door. Maybe they’re having friends over— dak galbi is something they make a lot when they host, and they always say they’ll open their own restaurant someday when they’re older and retired, which Jungkook would say is right now.
Seokjin turns and walks towards their front door. It feels odd to ambulate in the dream, like he’s in an AR headset. He sees his hand reach out to the door handle, twist it open and pull. Instead of the hallway though, the door opens out to an open sky. Wind rushes by Seokjin’s face and suddenly he’s falling, falling—
His head drops and he wakes with a gasp.
Yoongi looks at him with something like guilt, and— oh. Yoongi pulled his head away. That was the falling.
For a second, it looks like Yoongi might talk to him. But the moment passes, and Yoongi turns away to look at his seat back screen instead.
Seokjin sighs. The lighting has changed in the plane, so he must have slept for a few hours, at least. Namjoon is, incredibly, still dead to the world.
Yoongi starts a movie, some dramatic period piece that Seokjin finds almost more fun to watch without headphones. Judging by what he can see of the lackluster acting, the dialogue he makes up for the main characters is probably better than the actual script.
He watches the whole movie that way, over Yoongi’s shoulder, imagining a wild, overblown plot. If Yoongi were talking to him, Seokjin would tell him all about it. They’d laugh about it together. He would see that gummy smile, just like in his dream, before it got ripped away from him.
The cabin crew begin to work their way through the aisle with the breakfast service.
Seokjin leans over to Yoongi. “Think we should wake up Namjoon? He hasn’t eaten yet.”
Yoongi scoffs. “Good luck.”
“Just… shake him,” Seokjin tells him. “Or smack him, or something.”
“I’m not going to smack him,” Yoongi whispers.
Seokjin barely holds himself back from retorting well if you won’t kiss him. Instead he reaches over Yoongi himself and jostles Namjoon’s shoulder.
“Joon,” Seokjin says. “Namjoon, wake up.”
Namjoon doesn’t wake up. If anything, he snores with renewed force.
“Joon,” Seokjin echoes, shaking him a little harder. No dice.
“Get your arm out of my face,” Yoongi gripes, shoving at Seokjin’s outstretched arm.
“It’s not in your face,” Seokjin argues, pushing at Namjoon some more. It’s not even for Namjoon’s benefit anymore, it’s just to spite Yoongi and his inexplicable attitude. Seokjin doesn’t even want to fight, but he likes it better than the silent treatment.
“Yes it is.” Yoongi grabs onto Seokjin’s arm, pulling it down. He’s so forceful about it that he ends up smacking Seokjin’s hand into Namjoon’s crotch, Namjoon’s eyes flying open and his snores cutting off with a pained gurgle.
“Well, it sure isn’t now,” Seokjin points out, ripping his arm out of Yoongi’s grip.
“What’s going on?” Namjoon slurs, eyes moving sluggishly between Seokjin and Yoongi.
“Breakfast,” Yoongi grumbles, gesturing at the unfortunate flight attendant who has just made it to their row. She’s looking at them with an expectant smile on her face that doesn’t reach her eyes.
Namjoon orders a coffee, not even bothering with a breakfast in true PhD-candidate fashion. Yoongi orders two breakfasts, and Seokjin knows that one of them is for when Namjoon inevitably ends up jittery and nauseous and in need of solid food. It’s so thoughtful, and so Yoongi.
“Oh, good to know that you’re just angry at me,” Seokjin says under his breath.
Yoongi, of course, hears him anyway. Because they’re on an airplane. He is extremely unconvincing as he replies, “I’m not angry at you.”
“Could have fooled me,” Seokjin snorts. “You’ve been glaring daggers at me all morning, acting like I killed your dog or invented capitalism or something.”
“Don’t bring Adam Smith into this,” Namjoon mumbles. Seokjin elects to ignore him.
“I’m not angry at you,” Yoongi repeats. “I’m angry at myself!”
Seokjin blinks. That’s… not at all what he expected. “Why?”
“Because!” Yoongi has gone extremely red, like a cartoon tea kettle about to blow steam everywhere. “I fucked a straight guy! I’m thirty years old, and I should know better by now, and I fucked a straight guy anyway.”
Seokjin blinks again. “I’m sorry, you fucked a what now?”
“A straight boy,” Yoongi says again, crossing his arms over his chest miserably.
“I don’t understand,” Seokjin says. “Who did you fuck besides me?”
Namjoon chokes on his shitty airline coffee. “You two fucked?”
Again, Namjoon gets ignored. Yoongi stares at his tray table and pouts while he says, “Nobody. I fucked you, and I know you’re straight.”
Namjoon chokes some more. Jimin, walking down the aisle to the plane’s bathroom, pauses in his path. “Who is straight?”
“Jin-hyung.” Yoongi points at Seokjin.
Jimin tilts his head. “Jin-hyung is what?”
“Straight,” Yoongi says again, brow furrowing.
Jimin pauses, then starts to cackle. Seokjin stands by his witch comment from earlier. He doesn’t stop laughing as he continues down the aisle. It has to be very disconcerting to the other passengers. Seokjin swears he hears it even after he slides the door to the bathroom shut.
“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin says lowly. “What on earth made you believe that I’m straight?”
“You are,” Yoongi says, sounding remarkably sure of himself for someone who is speaking such utter nonsense.
“No I’m not,” Seokjin tells him. “Why did you think that I was?”
Yoongi’s mouth opens and shuts a few times like a mechanical singing fish. “I– You–” He snaps his jaw closed, then tries again. “You’ve never brought anyone home, the entire time we lived together.”
Seokjin stares. “I’m a good and thoughtful roommate!” he whisper-shouts, taking great care not to outright shriek. He can’t do that on a plane. “Does being polite make me straight?”
“No, I just–” Yoongi is visibly scrambling now, and a petty part Seokjin is a little happy about it. A bigger part of Seokjin is still just incredibly confused, and a little insulted. “You’ve never tried anything. With me. And I thought–”
Yoongi flushes even more, going quiet.
“You thought what?” Seokjin hisses.
Yoongi sighs. “I thought that if you didn’t like me,” he admits quietly. “You must not like men at all.”
“Oh my god,” Seokjin breathes, stunned. “That is so— I thought I was the playfully self-impressed one, Yoongi-yah, damn—“
“Not like that!” Yoongi rushes to say. “I just mean.” He sucks a deep breath in. “I flirted with you so hard, hyung. Back in college. It was the least subtle that I’ve ever been in my life. And you never said anything, you just politely ignored it every time.” Yoongi drops his head into his hands and groans, “I told you I liked you every time I came back from drinking, and you just told me to go to sleep.”
“Is that what you were saying?” Seokjin asks. Several things are slotting themselves into different places in his brain at the same time. It’s slightly dizzying.
“You had to be straight. I tried all of my usual tricks,” Yoongi continues miserably. “And it never worked, you never tried to fuck me. Not until I caved and kissed you last night.”
“Didn’t work?” Seokjin exclaims under his breath. “I fell in love with you!”
Yoongi drops his hands and stares incredulously at Seokjin. “You what?”
“I–”
The click of a camera shutter interrupts him. Seokjin snaps his head over to see Jimin, pointing his phone at the two of them. Namjoon is very pointedly looking away, leaning out of his seat as far into the aisle as he can go, as if he’s trying to get as far from them as possible.
“Jimin-ah,” Yoongi practically growls. It is, unfortunately, sexy. “What are you doing?”
“Documenting the moment,” Jimin chirps. “Do you mind pausing for a second so I can go get Taehyungie? He won’t want to miss this.”
“Don’t you think he would miss you more?” Seokjin asks, making his voice extra saccharine.
“What do you mean?” Jimin asks, still blithely snapping away.
“Yoongi is about two seconds away from murdering you,” Seokjin explains. Now that he’s thinking about it, that would probably be kind of sexy too. Maybe a bit less so since Jimin is their friend and Seokjin isn’t overly fond of blood, but the abstract concept is kind of working for him.
“In Jimin’s defense,” Namjoon sighs, apparently giving up on pretending that he’s somewhere else. “You two are having this conversation on a public plane.”
“Where else do you expect them to have it?” Jungkook pipes up from the row behind them, his head sticking up in between Seokjin and Yoongi’s seats.
“Yah,” Yoongi protests weakly.
“Yeah, Joon,” Hoseok adds, narrow face popping up beside Jungkook. “They’d never have a serious conversation and be vulnerable with each other in private.”
“Glass houses, Hoseok-ah.” Seokjin punctuates each syllable with a pointed finger. “Glass. Houses.”
“Okay, now I really should go wake up Taehyung,” Jimin says. “He’s going to feel so left out if we’re all here and he misses it.”
“None of you should be here!” Yoongi argues, gone about as red as pepper paste.
“Again hyung,” Namjoon says, sounding very tired for someone who just slept for a solid 9 hours out of a 15 hour plane ride. “You are having this conversation on a public plane. There are about 100 other people who are also here, witnessing… whatever this is.”
Seokjin decisively unbuckles his seatbelt and stands up. He has to bend awkwardly at the waist because he’s too tall to stand beneath the overhead bin.
“Yoongi-yah.” He extends a hand down to Yoongi. “Bathroom?”
“Uh,” Yoongi says, mouth tilting in confusion. “I’m good?”
Seokjin sighs. “Let me rephrase that. Would you like to go talk in the bathroom? Privately?”
“Oh my god, they’re going to join the mile high club,” Jungkook murmurs.
“Jungkook,” Seokjin says smoothly, not looking away from Yoongi. “I am never buying food for you ever again.“
Jungkook whines, loudly and dejectedly, and Seokjin ignores it.
“Well?” He asks, arching an eyebrow at Yoongi.
In answer, Yoongi unclicks his seatbelt in one smooth motion. The effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that he then has to clamber over Namjoon’s unreasonably long legs to get into the aisle.
He shuffles down to the bathroom with his weird grandpa gait, Seokjin following at his heels. They shove themselves in the stall when the flight attendants aren’t looking, though a grandma sitting one row over definitely notices them. She casts Seokjin a very disapproving look as he slides the door closed.
The airplane bathroom was really not designed for two people. Seokjin is starting to regret this idea of his. Yoongi has one foot on the closed toilet lid. Seokjin’s ass is shoved half on top of the sink, and it’s uncomfortably damp. They’re breathing the same stagnant air, and aside from a few awkward ums and uhs and ouch, elbow, they haven’t said anything.
Seokjin is hoping that Yoongi will start, because he seems to have left his nerve behind along with their audience. It was easier, in some ways, to say it when all their friends were there. It was farcical, a comedy. And now they’re alone, and all Seokjin is feeling is uncertainty and some lingering confusion.
He decides to grasp at the easier feeling first. “Why did you think I was straight, Yoongi-yah?”
Yoongi isn’t looking at him, eyes trained down by the little no smoking signs. “I already told you. And you’ve never mentioned any boyfriends, just your ex-girlfriend.”
Seokjin frowns. “You’ve heard of bisexuality. I know you have. You’re bisexual.”
Yoongi groans, frustrated. “I know, but— hyung, it’s hard to be… reasonable, around you. You make me so stupid. I feel too much and I can’t think straight.”
“Well-“
“Don’t,” Yoongi cuts him off sharply before Seokjin can make the joke, even if he walked right into it.
“Speaking of,” Seokjin says instead. “What did you think the fact that I slept with you last night meant, exactly?” He asks, trying to shift out of the sink and ending up falling against the door with a thunk, the door knob digging into the base of his spine. This is one of the more uncomfortable conversations he’s ever had, physically and emotionally.
“I don’t know,” Yoongi admits, mouth twisting. “I was trying not to let myself think about it too hard. I wanted to enjoy the only night with you that I’d ever get. Then I woke up and saw you sleeping next to me, and it hit me how ruined I am for anyone else now.”
It’s awfully similar to what Seokjin himself was thinking the whole night. That’s really the only thing that makes Seokjin able to say what he really should, what he really means. “Yoongi-yah,” he starts, “I’ve been in love with you for about eight years. I never brought anyone home because no one else was you. I didn’t mention liking anyone because I liked you.”
Silence. Yoongi looks at him with wide eyes, little mouth hanging open. Seokjin wants to kiss it again, and he thinks Yoongi probably wants that too, but he has to make sure.
“Do you—“
“Obviously,” Yoongi blurts. “Hyung, I’ve told you.”
“I never realized.” But that’s par for the course, isn’t it? Seokjin shifts his weight, foot to foot. There’s toilet paper on the floor. “Tell me again? While I’m awake?”
“I love you,” Yoongi says immediately. “You know, right?”
All the pieces finally come together. Yoongi, laughing at every bad pun Seokjin has ever made. Going on fishing trips at the ass crack of dawn, even when it was cold. The quiet and not-so-quiet ways that Yoongi has shown him, over the years. A shy kiss, and everything that came after it.
“I do now,” Seokjin says, leaning down just as Yoongi pushes himself up to meet him.
The grandmother is staring at them when they finally clamber out of the bathroom stall. Seokjin would try to defend himself, but Yoongi’s kiss-bitten lips probably wouldn’t do much for their case.