Here's the thing.

Yoongi really is looking forward (secretly and against his better judgment) to picking Jeongguk up from the train station on Friday.

It's just that also, he has clinical depression. Which comes with irritability, nauseating side effects from his medication, restlessness but the inability to actually do anything that might take away that restlessness, trouble sleeping, trouble eating, trouble giving a fuck about shit as simple as getting off. So while at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, he's kind of buzzing over the anticipation of it, 6:00 p.m. finds him lying on the couch in a stupid, fucked up haze, agitated and spiraling with some deep, dark unsteadiness that makes his limbs leaden, his head unsure of why he should bother doing anything besides sleeping for the rest of his life. Namjoon isn't home to recognize the symptoms and help talk Yoongi into eating dinner; Yoongi can hardly summon the motivation to blink let alone to call Hoseok or Seokjin to come over and coax him out of this.

Instead, Yoongi collapses into bed before 7:00 p.m. and can't sleep but also can't move, and—

Whatever. It's whatever.

When Yoongi finally drags himself out of bed Friday morning after a long night of drowsy, weary unrest, it takes too much energy to feel any sort of excitement at the prospect of seeing Jeongguk again.

"You want breakfast?" Namjoon asks, holding up a box of cereal, because that's the easiest, least fire-starting thing that can be made in the morning. Even Namjoon can't fuck it up (probably).

"I'm fine," Yoongi says, snappish, nursing a mug of coffee in his usual spot at the table, his head balanced precariously atop his palm. It feels like his whole brain might come muddling out of his ears if he tips his chin wrong, like he has to maintain this perfect neck angle or else the whole thing—his wrist, his elbow, his spine—will go toppling down, leaving Yoongi a mess of viscera and dry-shattered bone fragments on the floor.

Namjoon catches his foot on the corner of the counter on his way over, jolting him so his just-poured cereal spills all over the floor, the milk nearly soaking Yoongi's socks.

"Fuck. Sorry," Namjoon says, sighing as he sets down the bowl, which is now dripping down the sides. Immediately a puddle forms around the bottom edge of the bowl, and irritation flares white hot in Yoongi's chest.

"Fucking every time, Namjoon," he spits, standing up so fast his chair thuds into the wall. He grabs paper towels as Namjoon tries not to let the milk dripping from his hand get all over the floor.

"I'm sorry, " Namjoon says. "You know I can't help it."

Yoongi scoffs. "Right."

"Look, let's not fight about this," Namjoon says, sounding so rational it makes Yoongi's blood boil. He throws the paper towels down.

"Fine."

"Yoongi—"

"I have to go get Jeongguk. You know, the kid you tutor who needs help getting home but you made up some flimsy excuse so I would have to do it instead?"

"Hyung, that was—I thought you'd want to—"

"Just clean the fucking floor," Yoongi snaps, yanking his shoes on and stalking out the door even though he's got a while before he really has to leave. He's annoyed at the prospect of the drive ahead of him, annoyed at Namjoon, annoyed at himself. Annoyed that he has to go pick up some kid he's met one time because—like, why? It's not like Jeongguk can't carry his shit back to his place. Yoongi has seen Jeongguk's stupid well-muscled arms. A long-ago Yoongi would've fantasized about Jeongguk picking him up, holding him like a doll, a toy —slamming him against a wall, fitting their bodies all together, teaching Yoongi what helpless pleasure feels like—

As it is, Yoongi just slams the door behind him and stomps downstairs to his car.

Which doesn't start.

Because of course it doesn't.

" Fuck! " Yoongi yells, banging his fists on the steering wheel. The horn goes off and startles him and that just makes it worse, all the irritability stirring up in him because he doesn't have the fucking energy for this. Not for Namjoon and his well-intentioned-but-presumptuous-match-making, not for broken-down cars, not for Jeongguk. That one in particular fucking sucks, because Yoongi was looking forward to this.

See, this is the annoying thing about depression. Knowing that you want to do something, remembering a time when you liked that thing a lot, and being unable to access any of those emotions or feel any new ones either. It's perpetual nothingness, bone-deep exhaustion—why should I bother talking to this person, why should I bother doing this thing. It's not like it's going to matter in the end. Namjoon and Hoseok (and Seokjin, once he became a part of the group) have been pretty good about forcing Yoongi to Do Things throughout the past couple years, and a lot of that stuff has turned out to be at least somewhat fun or worthwhile, but it's not like Yoongi's head can put the dots together about any of that and decide that actually, doing things can be fun. Not on its own, at least. I'm just tired, Yoongi always says, because he always is. I just don't feel very good.

It was Hoseok who figured out something was actually wrong. He'd just met Seokjin, and they'd been talking (Yoongi still doesn't know what "talking" means when it comes to dating, but Hoseok apparently does) , and Hoseok was telling Yoongi about his new Boy with so much enthusiasm—and then he mentioned that fact that Yoongi hadn't been dating, hadn't even been trying.

There's a cute guy in my music theory class, Yoongi had shrugged.

Why don't you talk to him? Hoseok had chirped, excited the way people get when they're about to be In a Relationship. Like the whole world is rainbows and butterflies, and they have the power to make everyone happy. All of that had been intensified by the fact that Hoseok is an actual sunshine spirit of enthusiasm and love. It had been a bit overbearing.

You used to love this sort of thing, Yoongi-hyung, Hoseok had said, fingers tapping on the table atthe coffee shop. Yoongi remembers the way the sun had lit up his chocolate hair, the way he'd looked so Instagram Model with his bright smile, ceramic mug in hand.

Yoongi had shrugged. It's boring now.

What? And here you were the one who used to say how much you liked the chase, how you always knew how to play your cards right with people you liked. How you were good at getting what you wanted.

That sounds really creepy, Yoongi had said. God. Fuck, I hope I never coerced anyone, I hope I didn't—shit, shit, I should—ask—

Hyung, what? Hoseok's face is vivid in the memory, wide eyes blinking and confused. No way, I mean—it was, like, four people. And you didn't even sleep with two of them. You just went on some dates. I really don't think that flirting with someone and asking them on one date and having them accept counts as coercion.

Yoongi remembers vividly the spiral of his thoughts, a broken loop pedal, something that couldn't be controlled or quieted —fuck, I coerced them, I tricked them into liking me, none of them did I'm a horrible person what if I sexually harassed them what if I—

Hyung, hey, Hoseok's voice cuts through. Hey, it's okay. You wanna go home now?

I can't stop thinking it, Yoongi didn't say. He didn't say it, but maybe Hoseok read it on his face, because he'd left their coffees right there on the table and then they'd been out in the fresh air and marching back to Yoongi and Namjoon's apartment, their old-old apartment, the one before the one Jeongguk had helped them move out of—Namjoon and Yoongi have lived together for a long time.

Namjoon had been sleeping. Yoongi remembers the muss of him well: swollen eyes and purple-white hair all askew. What's wrong?

I think you need to talk to him about what he feels, Joon, Hoseok had said. I don't wanna diagnose. But it sounds like what you told me about high school.

Namjoon had raised an eyebrow at Hoseok. You think Yoongi-hyung's depressed? Then he'd turned to Yoongi. Do you think you're depressed?

Yoongi had shrugged. No. I feel fine. I mean, I'm still functional.

That doesn't mean—Yoongi, hyung, come inside, let's just talk, Namjoon had said, and Yoongi, with no effort in him to resist, had acquiesced. They'd talked, Yoongi too tired to do anything other than say he was fine.

The scary thing in his head had grown.

Now: nights like yesterday. Lying awake, intrusive thoughts swirling, Yoongi entirely aware that what's going on in his head isn't supposed to be happening, like a new computer trying to run an old videogame in compatibility mode only the sound card won't connect, and then the resolution gets fucked and you can't get it to go back so all the icons are huge, and Windows 10 changed the Properties and it says "Personalize" when you right click and you can't find the actual settings you're looking for—

Now: medication, therapy, side effects, snapping at Namjoon over spilled milk. Working a retail job at a music store even though he has a top-of-his-class music production degree from a good university. Slamming the car door and stomping to the train station, too irritated to consider asking if he can borrow Namjoon's car.

Yoongi at least manages to get a seat for part of the train ride, and when he sits down he feels something in his back pocket. It's the letter Yoongi had received from Busan a couple days ago, Jeongguk's number written big on the front of the card with a doodle of a bunny and the words "Text me!" in big bubble letters.

Yoongi looks around the train. No one is paying him any attention. He opens the card and reads it again.

Dear Sorta-Mean-Thinks-He's-Funny-But-Isn't-Hyung,

I had to use your actual name on the envelope because, like, postal things, but I refuse to use it on the inside on the principle of you don't use mine. Also, I hope you appreciate all the meme/texting grammar that I'm gonna use in this card, because reasons. I am going to use all of the things, and you have to put up with that bc you like me <3

First: your questions. 1) Home is Busan, as you can probably see from the postmark on the envelope. Where's home for you? I feel like you sorta spoke in satoori a bit when we were moving your stuff but I couldn't place it bc you're really good at being Seoul. so. 2) waduheck, I do not like skinfood!!! Just kidding. I like the brown sugar one, but the one that doesn't actually smell like anything. bc things that smell like stuff make my skin all red and angry even though they smell really good, but also I'm sensitive to smells in general so I don't wear any cologne or whatever. bc then I get headaches and don't feel good. tears pouring down cheeks emoji.

Um, so I'm not out to my family and you seemed to kinda know based on how you wrote your last letter, but actually roommate/boyfriend sorta accidentally came out to boyfriend's family on this trip. (he's also from Busan, remember? Roommate is from Daegu.) It went okay? Idk if I would come out without an actual SO here just because, like, people not believing you and whatever. Like, if I'm not dating a boy, mom will probs just be "oh it's a phase" etc idk honestly my family wouldn't be mean about it probs but they would just like not understand? And not try to understand? But if I had someone with me, they wouldn't really have a choice, would they. So.

Anyways, I'm running out of room again, and I was just thinking about that, how it's sad and not-sad at the same time, the running out of room thing. There's only so much paper for me to fill. Do you ever feel that way in life, too? I guess that's my only question for this time. Do you feel things running out? Does it make you sad, hyung? (Okay, so more than just one question really, but it's all on the same topic, so I think I haven't really lied or misled you tbh.)

I'll talk to Namjoon-hyung once I'm back and we can all meet for drinks. You can bring friends too if you want, hyung! Since I get to bring Taetae and Jiminie. <3

Love,

Jeongguk-ah

ps <3 <3 <3

Yoongi puts the card back in his pocket, careful not to bend it too much. He checks his watch, yawns. It's fucking stupid, how excited he was for this yesterday, how it hadn't even mattered once the weird depression fugue state had crept in. The dissociation was the reason for the medication switch; he had thought it might be a side effect from the first prescription they tried. But it's happening on the new meds too. So. That means another lovely visit with his psychiatrist, Hi, sorry, no, apparently it wasn't the medication at all; I'm just crazy.

Cool.

Somehow, Yoongi makes it to Seoul Station on time even without his car. He heads for the bullet train gates and slouches against a pillar, irritation a little lower now that he's here and will be home again soon. He plays around on his phone while he waits, Hoseok is still beating him at this dumb RTS game—

Around 1:45, a horde of people swarms up the stairs and out of the elevators. Yoongi straightens up, searching the crowd for familiar sandy hair, maybe a bright Bunny-toothed smile. Sure enough, Jeongguk appears in the midst of the crowd, and his hair is still sandy but there's no smile. He has a black mask covering the bottom half of his face like some pretty, delicate idol—which isn't weird, exactly; he's traveling, and it's winter, and lots of people wear masks for either or both of those reasons. But the drowsiness in his eyes, the dazed glassiness of them—and the way he's struggling with a duffel and a giant suitcase, a near-bursting black backpack weighing him down—something's wrong.

Okay, something is really wrong. Because Yoongi is taking the first concerned step forward, he can see it in his head— Jeongguk, hey, Bunny, are you all right, he's going to say—but then Jeongguk is basically curling himself over top of the suitcase, head down, breathing hard, and Yoongi can see the tremors running down Jeongguk's spine, the sheen of sweat like fever.

"Jeongguk-ah," Yoongi says, heart pacing faster with concern as he rushes forwards to make sure the kid isn't going to pass out. Jeongguk lets out a shuddery, strength-gathering sigh and lifts his head. He looks so sick, and so determined not to show it. Beneath the mask, he must try to smile, because his eyes crinkle. It looks more like a wince.

"Hey, hyung." He doesn't even sound that bad. Must be the flu, with the fever and the shaking and the obvious discomfort written into the tense line of his shoulders, the way he's holding his frame so gingerly, like everything hurts hurts hurts.

"Hey, Bunny," Yoongi says. He can hear how fond and concerned his own voice sounds. Which is ridiculous. Yoongi has met Jeongguk once.

Somehow, it is enough. Yoongi looks at Jeongguk and—okay, Yoongi is tired, yeah, but there's something so innocent about the kid, something like the fact that he's been exchanging actual physical letters with Yoongi like they're in the 1800s or something. That he's cute and has cute handwriting and Yoongi can see the way his nose must crinkle while he reads Yoongi's words, while he writes back all exasperated and huffy and sweet.

Jeongguk now: dazed and nearly falling over, holding himself up on a suitcase. Yoongi frowns. "Jeongguk-ah, here, give me the duffel. Let's find somewhere for you to sit down."

"Huh? I'm fine," Jeongguk manages. "Thanks for getting me." He shudders and closes his eyes and summons all his strength. "Guess I'll have to send another thank you card."

"What's wrong," Yoongi says, because maybe being direct will yield better results.

Jeongguk closes his eyes. "I'm fine, hyung, what are you talking about?"

"The fact that you're so sick you're about to fall over in a train station. Jesus kid, you could've waited and come home in a couple days."

"Didn't feel that bad when I left," Jeongguk says. "It just—on the train, I was asleep. Then I woke up all shivery and—I mean—"

"You have the flu," Yoongi says, crossing his arms. "You have the actual flu if it came on that suddenly. So you need to go home . My car is—fuck. Fuck. "

"What's wrong?" Jeongguk asks, eyes wide and beseeching, like he thinks he's done something wrong.

"No, no, honey don't look—I mean. Just, my car is currently not running, so it's...I can help you carry shit, but we have to take the trains. Unless you wanna just get a cab."

Jeongguk shakes his head, just like Yoongi knew he would. "It's fine. I probably just slept weird, like—now my head's weird because of that."

Yoongi scoffs, gesturing for the duffel. "That seems likely."

Jeongguk lets out a whine. "It's fine. I'm fine. Hyung, if your car broke down, you shouldn't have—you didn't have to come all this way—"

"Nonsense. Come on. Let's get you home."

Jeongguk looks just the slightest bit hesitant but he nods, bleary, and finally allows Yoongi to take the giant duffel out of his hands. They pace their way down the long hallway to the local lines, fight awkwardly through the narrow turnstiles. By the time they're at the platform, a million people are there, and Yoongi resigns himself to the fact that Jeongguk won't be able to sit down during the ride.

They get on the train and sure enough, they have to stand in the middle of the aisle, Jeongguk breathing heavy and shuddery like an animal in pain. The occasional tiny whine escapes the back of his throat. He looks like he wants to cry.

Finally, Yoongi can't take it anymore. "Jeongguk-ah. Bunny," he says, tilting Jeongguk's chin up and searching his eyes, earnest and concerned. It's the first real skin-to-skin contact they've ever had—the first deliberate contact, at least. More intense than the arm-brushing when they were standing at the trunk of Namjoon's car, and more shuddery.

Yoongi swallows. "Sorry you don't feel good," he says, a weak smile twisting his mouth up not-quite-right, like when you're bending wire and it makes sort of the shape you want but just not exactly , and the sharp end keeps stabbing you and leaving little stick-spots that bleed more than they should, and even wire cutters don't solve anything.

Jeongguk closes his eyes. Sniffs. "I'm just—out of it, sorry, this is so impolite, hyung—"

"It's fine, fuck, just—you're really not okay, kiddo," Yoongi admonishes, feeling kind of scared and out of his depth.

"I'm fine," Jeongguk says, but he looks like he's about to fall. Yoongi can see the tremble in his knees, the way he's listing forward. God, it would be so nice if Jeongguk could just tip forward, let Yoongi take his weight for a while. And it would be really nice, really really nice, if Yoongi could stroke Jeongguk's hair too, just sort of generally hold the baby Bunny safe in all regards and make him feel—well, probably still really sick, but at least sort of warm and cared for along with the flu misery.

The train jerks a little and stutters around a curve, and Yoongi watches the panic with which Jeongguk sways. "Hyung, I need to sit down," he says, voice high and tremulous. There's panic there, like Jeongguk is too desperate to hide anymore, reduced to helpless admission — "Sorry I've met you one time and I'm already being this much of a fucking mess in front of you."

Yoongi shakes his head. "I'm really, really not worried about that. Here, calm down, you're okay—just lean on me since there's nowhere to sit, I won't mind, here, just—"

And then Yoongi is half crawling, half stepping over Jeongguk's bulky duffel so he's right in front of the kid. He almost elbows someone in the face, but at least he manages to situate them so Jeongguk can sit down on his suitcase and lean into Yoongi's chest. Yoongi guides Jeongguk forward and he just kind of goes, because he probably can't do much else. Too sick, and feverish, and nearly crying.

Or—actually crying.

Yoongi ducks his head into Jeongguk's hair and cards his fingers through the bleached-light strands. "Hey," he whispers, getting one arm around Jeongguk's shoulders, crowding in so he can wrap himself around the kid, because he seems like he needs a shelter. "Hey, you're okay. I know you feel, like, really bad. And we're gonna be home in maybe twenty minutes, and I know that you can live through it, because you're really strong, honey. Bunny."

Jeongguk sniffs. "I'm okay." It's a chant almost, something he's not sure he believes but he's trying to. "I'm okay. It'll be over soon."

"I hate that you feel this bad, Guk-ah," Yoongi whispers. "I know you can live through it, but I hate that you have to. Wish you felt good right now, because it really sucks, being that sick and having to be on a train with all these people and you can't sit down properly."

"Hyung, the flowers," Jeongguk mumbles, which makes no sense. That's worrying. "The flowers are all shivery."

Yoongi closes his eyes. "What are you talking about, Bunny?"

"The flowers," Jeongguk says. "They're—all over my ribs, and tickly, my ribs tickle."

Yoongi squeezes Jeongguk tighter. "It's just the weird aches and pains from the fever. You can take a bath when we get home. And take some ibuprofen."

Jeongguk coughs weakly and shudders in Yoongi's hold. "'M so tired," he mumbles. Coughs again, like tissue paper rattling lightly in the breeze. Like he doesn't have the strength for even a reflex like that. " Hyung. "

Voice so small, smaller than the smallest star in the smallest galaxy in the universe of Yoongi's cosmic lungs, his black hole heart. But it doesn't matter. That smallest star is swelling up with the sound of it, terrified and shining suddenly bright in the chasm between two of Yoongi's ribs— Jeongguk, Jeongguk, Jeongguk.

"Bunny," Yoongi whispers. "We'll be there soon."

The train announcement calls out the next stop. "We have to transfer," Jeongguk mumbles. "Have to transfer here."

"You wanna just get a cab?" Yoongi rubs the back of Jeongguk's neck with one hand, strokes his hair with the other. Keeps Jeongguk's face pressed into his sternum, knees tucked between Yoongi's wide-legged stance.

"'S just two stops," Jeongguk says. That weak concussion of a cough chokes him again, just a couple times. "Train's fine. Sorry 'm coughing on you."

"It's okay, Bunny," Yoongi murmurs. "You have to stand up though, okay? Right now, so we can get ready to go. Get your bags and stuff."

Jeongguk sniffs again and huffs like he can't get a good breath. It's probably just because of how achy he is; he doesn't want to draw in a whole lungful of air and risk his ribs and spine protesting the expansion of it. It's still worrying. It's still scary, the fact that humans can get this sick. It still makes Yoongi's heart rate pick up.

And then Jeongguk pulls back. He looks up at Yoongi with determination in his eyes, and it's weakened by how feverish he is, but he drags himself up using the pole next to them and grabs his suitcase. The mask is still in place across his mouth, and maybe that's part of why his speech has been so soft and mumbly, but Yoongi kind of doubts it. Figures it has more to do with how obviously sick the kid is. Yoongi reaches up and presses his hand to Jeongguk's forehead.

Christ.

"Hey," Yoongi murmurs, trying to be calm, trying to keep Jeongguk calm. "How would you feel about going home to drop your stuff and then going to the hospital? I can call a taxi. Or we can call Namjoon?"

Jeongguk's moon eyes wax from half-crescent to full in an instant. "I don't wanna—no, hyung. " He sounds so distressed that an intergalactic storm rages through Yoongi's whole body. Yoongi reaches out and grips Jeongguk's wrist and gets his fingers up against the point of Jeongguk's pulse—it's fast, frantic, jack-rabbit quick, and Yoongi tries with all his might to drag the sickness out of Jeongguk's veins and into his own, if only he could—because it's fucking sad, the way an adorable Bunny moon-eyed kid can be suffering this bad, but Yoongi can't suffer it with him. That Jeongguk is afflicted with this when he doesn't deserve it, and Yoongi does; half the time Yoongi can hardly get out of bed anyways, head spinning out beyond the reaches of the universe into the places that keep the dark matter, the anti matter, the negative everything all opposite of what it should be in the deep places beyond the space anyone can reach—

"Hyung," Jeongguk says, pressing his wrist against the resistance of Yoongi's palm. "Transfer."

They do. Somehow they make it, and there's still nowhere to sit, so Jeongguk leans against the wall with his eyes closed. Yoongi wants wants wants to pull him in, and doesn't. Doesn't, because he doesn't have permission, and he doesn't want to overstep.

"You sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" Yoongi asks once the train is zooming forwards.

Jeongguk coughs that impossible flower blossom cough. "Please," he says. "Just sleep. Please."

"Not gonna make you go, honey," Yoongi says, the words tugged out of him from somewhere low in his chest, near his diaphragm. "We'll get you home and Taehyung will take care of you."

Jeongguk whines. "Tae's in Busan," Jeongguk says, shuddering all of a sudden and whining again at the pain of it. "'S why—why I'm here alone. Tae an'—an' Jimin're—staying. Two more days."

Yoongi resists the urge to curse, mostly because there's a mom and some kids standing just a few feet away from them. "Okay," he whispers, nodding. "Come on. Let's get home, and I'll stay and make sure you don't need a doctor or anything."

"Hyung, I don't—just sleep, just need to. Sleep." Jeongguk hardly manages the syllables, eyes closed, mask muffling the sound of his shallow breathing. Yoongi can hardly hear it over the rush of the train, the ambient sounds of people cramped together in a small space, but it doesn't matter. There's a pulse between them, palpable when Jeongguk's eyes blink open and he gazes at Yoongi with such a look of honest need, dependence even, that it makes Yoongi's heart shake. I'm counting on you, Jeongguk's eyes say, probably not even a sentiment he really means to convey, but it's there, and Yoongi isn't going to just drop him.

"Okay, Bunny," Yoongi says. Hands shaking, blood racing in his veins, he reaches up and brushes hair out of Jeongguk's eyes, feels the scorch of Jeongguk's skin beneath his fingers, the sweat that's gathered on his forehead. Fever sweat, cold somehow—

"Hyung, don't," Jeongguk says, ducking his head, voice smothered by the mask, the collar of his hoodie. "You'll get sick."

"It's fine."

"It's gross. I'm sweaty."

"Don't care," Yoongi says. Brushes a thumb across Jeongguk's forehead and then wipes the sweat on his own jacket.

"Hyung." Jeongguk's voice is small. Small small small, that tiny brilliant star again, eyes nebulas and freckles constellations and shoulders the long line of Orion, broad and warm.

"I don't care, Jeongguk," Yoongi whispers. "Come on now. We're almost there. I'm taking you home."

Jeongguk doesn't say anything. He slumps harder against the wall, if that's even possible, drops his head forward even more, until he's about to collapse onto Yoongi's shoulder, and Yoongi can feel the magnetism of it, the desperate pull, the gravity past the event horizon, it's sucking them both into the depths of him, into the depths of his heart—

Jeongguk whimpers. Fucking whimpers, and the moment snaps, the atoms of them—and things subatomic, the quarks and gravitons and particles less discernible even than those, string theory and relativity and Jeongguk's forehead on Yoongi's shoulder. Just like that, easy-easy, with Yoongi's hands coming up without a second's passing thought to rest at the nape of Jeongguk's neck, massaging comfort there. He hopes that he can be whatever Jeongguk needs: cool fingertips easing the strain of aching muscles, or else warm palms cradling safety and security into him through the electric current running from Yoongi's hands into Jeongguk's vertebrae, into the fibers of his spinal cord.

The train announces the next stop.

"Almost there," Yoongi whispers. He turns his head so the words are a litany against Jeongguk's hair, and Yoongi's lips brush the soft-brittle of it, the flyaways tickling his nose. "Come on, Bunny. Gotta get off the train now."

Jeongguk inhales, deep this time, and shuddery like flower blossoms fluttering in the breeze. Now that Yoongi can feel the jutting lines of him, the bone branches and petal-pink flesh, he can buy into the delirium of it: Jeongguk, a flower, a whole bouquet—but then again, no. Something stronger than that, and not cut away from the earth and arranged into false perfection the way Yoongi might have originally thought Jeongguk to be. There is a wild strength to Jeongguk even in this fevered flu-vulnerability, even as he huddles against Yoongi to summon his strength. Something like a bush of bleeding hearts, pink swollen flowers with white tips and green leaves thin and stalks thickening to brown, tough cording worthy of being bent into crowns.

Jeongguk, eyes glassy and skin too pale and sticky with sweat, straightens up. He's holding tight to the suitcase, his backpack heavy on his shoulders. "I can do it," he says. "I can. Let's go."

They take the elevator because of all the luggage. Yoongi carries the duffel and it's kind of too heavy, but it's not like he's going to complain, not when Jeongguk is carrying and dragging easily twice as much stuff and marching down the street with a determination that suggests only force of will is keeping him upright. His gait is stiff, knees locked like his balance is a precarious game of stacking his bones up perfectly on top of each other so they can't collapse.

Yoongi is intimately familiar with that particular survival method. He carts the duffel without protest and even manages to talk Jeongguk out of the backpack when they're halfway there, leaving Jeongguk to drag the suitcase. Yoongi has to give the kid credit—he's pretty goddamn capable even with a fever that's gotta be borderline unsafe.

"Keys are in my pocket," Jeongguk whispers when they stop in front of the door to his and Taehyung's apartment. He's kind of curling up over the suitcase again, breathing hard, swaying like he's trying not to pass out. Yoongi reaches into Jeongguk's back pocket and finds nothing, tries the other—"Coat, hyung," Jeongguk giggles. Or, not really giggles, because if he's too weak to properly cough, then he definitely can't attempt a laugh. But there's that sort of tonality, an amusement that has Yoongi shaking his head and half-smirking even as a comet of affection tears through his lungs, catches his breath in the fiery tail of it.

"Sorry," Yoongi whispers, hoping he's not hurting Jeongguk's ears. The worst thing about being sick, Yoongi has often thought, is the way it intensifies all your senses wrong: makes music grating instead of soothing, takes away the comfort of warm blankets so the slightest brush of anything against you just hurts instead of offering comfort.

As soon as they're inside, Jeongguk drops the handle of the suitcase and literally curls up on the floor.

"Guk-ah," Yoongi says, letting the door slam as he drops the duffel and the backpack and crouches down, a hand on Jeongguk's shoulder.

"I'm okay," Jeongguk says, kind of gasping with it. "I'm okay, just—thirty seconds, hyung, then I'll get up."

Yoongi moves his hand to the back of Jeongguk's neck. "Fuck. You feel really hot."

Jeongguk trembles. "Yeah. And dizzy. Might throw up. I mean—probably I won't; I'm not that kind of sick. Just—feels like I worked out too hard. And all my muscles hurt, so my stomach hurts too. Like that sort of hurt. Just sore everywhere." Jeongguk is panting by the end of it, trembling harder.

"Hey, don't worry about talking that much," Yoongi says. "You need to get in a cold shower, Bunny."

Jeongguk whines. "Hyung."

"I know it sucks," Yoongi says. "I know. I remember my mom making me do that when I was little and I got really sick, and I remember her saying it would be lukewarm and then it was the fucking freezing-est thing ever. I know. But if you're so feverish that you can't stand, then we have to try to get your temperature down."

Jeongguk turns his head just enough that he can crack his eyes open and look up at Yoongi. His forehead is still resting against the floor, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. "I'm fine, hyung. I've been sick before."

Yoongi raises his eyebrows. "Have you ever been this sick and completely by yourself? Or were you sick but with your mom there, or with Taehyung."

Jeongguk's answering silence tells Yoongi plenty. "I'm calling an ambulance if you get even slightly worse."

" Noooo, " Jeongguk whines, a bit stronger now that he's spent a couple of minutes huddled in a ball on the floor.

"I'm a worried hyung," Yoongi says, tilting his chin up, chest swelling protectively. "I'm not letting you die or get, like, brain damage on my watch."

"Brain damage," Jeongguk says, his tone weak but still sarcastic enough that Yoongi can tell exactly what he thinks about the likelihood of that happening.

"It can happen when you get that bad of a fever."

"Sure, hyung." Jeongguk turns his head back down to the floor again, neck probably aching, because Yoongi can feel the tension in the muscles as he keeps his palm there; for once he's glad it's chilly outside and his fingertips are cold, because he can feel the transfer of heat from Jeongguk's skin into Yoongi's hands, can feel his own lingering January cold soaking into Jeongguk and hopefully helping at least a little bit to mitigate the fever.

"Okay," Jeongguk says after another couple of minutes. "I can get up. But I warn you, I'm going straight for my bedroom and probably will have to rest again once I fall into bed."

"That's fine," Yoongi says. "We can take this in phases."

"Okay," Jeongguk whispers. He pushes himself up. Yoongi reaches out and unzips Jeongguk's coat while the Bunny is still getting his feet under him, and Jeongguk closes his eyes and lets his coat slide onto the floor. Yoongi kneels again and unties Jeongguk's Timberlands, a reversal of the first time they met, when Jeongguk helped Yoongi into his Converse. "Hyung, hurry. Gonna have to sit down again."

"I've got you," Yoongi says, straightening up once Jeongguk has stepped out of his boots. For whatever reason, the moment reminds Yoongi that Jeongguk isn't really that much taller than him—he is taller, but it's not like he's Namjoon or Seokjin or something. And Jeongguk is solid, but there's something so small about the spirit of him, not so demanding as Yoongi has frequently been told his own energy is (thanks, Hoseok). There's less of the low key-high key intimidation factor, more the sort of cute that Yoongi has come to expect out of baby animal videos that pop up in his Facebook feed courtesy of those few random girls from high school that he keeps forgetting to unfriend. If Jeongguk were a holiday, he would be Easter: bunnies with pastel pink fur, fluffy yellow chicks, marshmallow candies covered in dyed sugar, tulips blooming with thick-sticky petals in rich red and royal purple.

Jeongguk leans into Yoongi and together they make their way down the hall, passing Taehyung's color-explosion of a room—"He never closes his door," Jeongguk whispers, "sometimes even when Jimin's there and they're, like, about to have sex."

Yoongi laughs and wonders about this Taehyung kid, what he looks like—his room is plastered in posters for Spongebob and Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys and other old-ass Nickelodeon shit, and there's a Jurassic Park poster and the entrance hall banner draped up along the long wall of the room: WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH. Yoongi has no frame of reference for Taehyung's face, obviously, but he pictures a bright smile anyways, and wide eyes, and childlike excitement about everything. Someone who wears ridiculous clothes to work and plays Roller Coaster Tycoon during meetings and somehow gets away with it.

When Yoongi voices this thought, Jeongguk drops his head onto Yoongi's shoulder to nod. "He wears Vans every day—he's a receptionist at this drug rehab center, you can ask him about it sometime, he studied chemistry. He calls it 'business pop punk' instead of business professional."

Jeongguk's room is at the far end of the apartment, and it's considerably smaller than Taehyung's. "He pays more rent," Jeongguk says. "He has the master because Jimin sleeps here so much."

"What about Jimin's place?"

Jeongguk pushes open his very much closed door (Yoongi approves of this—Taehyung's open-door policy is way too much for any self-respecting introvert) and lets go of Yoongi to beeline for the bed. "They've been together forever, but they always say they're not ready for that step."

"Cool," Yoongi says, kneeling down to peel off Jeongguk's socks.

"Hyung, I can do it," Jeongguk protests.

"It's fine. I've got it."

"Okay." Jeongguk sighs and wiggles a little, slowly—everything Jeongguk is doing is in slow motion, like he's too delirious to move at the right speed. He finally unhooks the mask from his face and drops it on the pillow neck to him. "I can get—like. Pants."

"I don't mind," Yoongi says. "But if you wanna do it, you can. Consent, and everything."

Jeongguk pouts. Pouts, oh, that's Jeongguk's bottom lip in between his cute bunny teeth, that's what that looks like. Yoongi knows now and it's like seeing through an optical illusion, the kind of thing you never notice until it's pointed out to you and then you'll never unsee it. "I'm sick, hyung. Honestly not convinced I can do anything but babble deliriously at you and look ridiculously pathetic."

Ridiculously cute, Yoongi's mind supplies, watching Jeongguk in his jeans and soft sweatshirt and his arms all sprawled out and his blondish hair a halo on the pillow. Yoongi clears his throat. "Just—I've met you once. Twice, I guess, counting today. I don't wanna—like. Overstep."

Jeongguk's eyes flutter closed. "You know Taehyung and Jimin got together from a one night stand?"

"Huh?"

"That's how they met. First week of college. So, like, four-and-a-half years ago now? They were both at a club and they hooked up and Jimin took Tae back to his dorm and they had drunk sex and Tae snuck out in the morning and didn't even leave his number even though it was, according to him, 'the best most mind-blowing would-sleep-with-again sex' he had ever had in his life. They both figured it was just a one-time thing, but then they bumped into each other again and actually talked and the next week, Jimin-hyung was texting me—I was back in Busan because I was still in high school—and telling me about his soulmate who he met at a club called Lava Ignite. Like. Cringey AF and they've been inseparable ever since."

Yoongi can't quite follow whatever point Jeongguk is trying to make. Like reading an essay someone wrote in a hurry and you can see the point and you can see their evidence but the analysis that's supposed to tie those things together is nebulous at best.

Actually, on second thought, Yoongi can't even be sure what claim Jeongguk is trying to defend. Is he saying that Yoongi and Jeongguk are going to end up in a relationship as intertwined and happy as Jimin and Taehyung's apparently is? No way, that's not—nah. Impossible. Jeongguk is sick as fuck and his brain is literally on fire. That's why this line of reasoning makes no sense.

"Um," Yoongi says after a silence that feels awkward to Yoongi but probably feels just fine to Jeongguk, who looks kind of lost in his own feverish head. "Okay. Come on. Maybe let's get to the bathroom and we can figure out how to get your clothes off there."

Jeongguk huffs that weak, flu-y not-giggle and rolls over. Like, he literally rolls off the bed onto his hands and knees on the floor, and then he takes a breath to summon his strength, and he pushes himself up. "'Kay, hyung."

They go back into the hall, cross to the small bathroom. It has a bathtub, at least, and Jeongguk gingerly settles himself on the toilet and ducks his head. "Fuck. I really don't feel good."

"I can tell," Yoongi says, opening up the medicine cabinet to look for painkillers or flu meds or something. There's a couple bottles of penicillin prescribed to a Park Jimin—which points to the fact that Jimin lives-here-without-living-here and has for a while, judging by the date listed on the bottles. Jimin and Taehyung are clearly the sort of serious where they can be sick in front of each other and it's not a "hey I'm sick don't come over" thing, it's a "hey you're sick come here so I can take care of you" thing.

Yoongi looks over at Jeongguk struggling out of his hoodie, eyes fever-glazed and hands all shaky. It's probably good that he's here, Yoongi thinks—and then he thinks of wiping sweat off Jeongguk's forehead, and letting the kid cough into his hoodie. Thinks of prescription bottles, thinks hey you're sick let me take care of you .

But. Well. This is different. This is because Jeongguk literally can't take care of himself right now, and it's an emergency and Taehyung isn't here, and neither is anyone else Jeongguk can rely on—

Those people aren't here, but Yoongi is. He can't just leave.

(He doesn't want to leave. Even with the risk of getting this same flu and being out of commission for a few days, moping around his and Namjoon's apartment and receiving probably no sympathy from said roommate—

Preemptively worth it, Yoongi thinks. Worth every percentage point of risk.)

"Hey, do you have soup or tea or something?" Yoongi asks as Jeongguk finally gets out of his sweater, leaving him in a thin t-shirt and jeans. "I can make those for you while you shower."

Jeongguk blinks. "I don't know about soup. Tea, yes. Probably. Jimin and Tae like it."

"Okay," Yoongi says, swallowing as Jeongguk moves his hands to the button of his jeans. Jeongguk pauses a moment like he's summoning his strength, and then finally he undoes the pants. He makes no move to take them off, at least. "Um," Yoongi says. "You wanna—can you handle it from here? Or are you going to fall and hit your head and suffer a traumatic brain injury."

Jeongguk gives up on the pants and tugs his shirt over his head— fuck, abs . His hair comes out a mess. "I can do it. You're very fixated on the possibility of my brain sustaining some sort of trauma."

Yoongi steps back towards the hallway, ready to make his escape. "Shut up. I'm just being sensible. You're the one acting irrationally, not even concerned about your own pretty head."

"Pretty," Jeongguk mumbles, finally standing to shove his jeans down his legs. "Go away, hyung. 'M gonna get naked now."

Yoongi hightails it out before he can be exposed to the long lines of Jeongguk's thighs, before he can even glimpse corded quads, nearly as big and strong as Hoseok's ridiculous dancer legs. He goes to the kitchen fighting down a blush and sets out to make tea. The shower go on; Yoongi resists the urge to go bug Jeongguk and make sure it's cold water he's rinsing off in and not hot. Digs through the cupboards until he comes up with a single packet of miso soup mix. Good enough.

When Yoongi returns to the bedroom, he sets the soup and tea down and goes to knock on the door of the bathroom. "Bunny? You okay in there?"

"F-f-fine," Jeongguk says. "Have to s-s-sit on the f-floor though."

"Are you just being dramatic with the teeth-chattering thing?"

"N-n-no," Jeongguk says. "'S really c-c-c-cold."

Yoongi rolls his eyes fondly. Already fond of this kid, and they've been in each other's presence a combined total of, like, six hours. "I feel like you're at least a little bit faking it."

"Hyung can c-come in and feel the wat-t-ter," Jeongguk says.

And fuck, Jeongguk is sick and Yoongi hardly knows him, it's so fucking inappropriate to be thinking about the potential implications of that—going in with Jeongguk in the shower, reaching behind the curtain to check the temperature, stripping himself off and climbing in, pale skin and abs and thick thighs and wide brown eyes and pretty lips—not even for sex but just to hold Jeongguk up, he has to sit on the floor he's so sick—

"I believe you," Yoongi sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. Fuck. Get it together. "Also, tea and soup are ready if you think you're good to get out."

There's a few moments of silence, and then Jeongguk says, "Few more m-minutes, I think. Just—to be sure. My head f-feels a little c-c-clearer, but..."

"Oh fuck," Yoongi says, "I forgot to actually find you any medication."

"Might not have any. J-just old antibiotics and, l-l-like, hangover powder stuff."

"You're terrible at being sick."

"Tae and I both d-don't usually get that s-s-s-sick," Jeongguk says. "T-tae got really sick when he and Jimin went to Bali. But that was f-food p-poisoning. And that was like three years ago."

Yoongi sighs. "You've gotta at least have ibuprofen."

"Jimin m-might have some. He takes it for inflammation from this dance injury. They w-won't mind if you ch-ch-check. Tae's open door is an invitation that n-never expires."

So Yoongi goes to search the Nickelodeon- Jurassic Park room for painkillers. He comes up with some in the drawer of the nightstand, which also happens to contain lube and some toys and a telling lack of condoms. Yoongi shuts the drawer without thinking too hard about the fact that Jimin and Taehyung are apparently comfortable enough with just everything that they casually keep their sex stuff in the same place as their painkillers and a pair of old glasses and an iPod that looks like it came from 2007.

The shower turns off just as Yoongi is leaning against the bathroom door. "I found the painkillers. Also Tae and Jimin's sex toys."

Jeongguk snorts weakly. "Yeah, sounds about right. Hey, hyung, could you please bring me clothes? We forgot earlier."

"Oh, fuck. Yeah. Where?"

"Soft Things are in the bottom drawer of the dresser."

So Yoongi goes and finds the drawer of Soft Things —oh my god, Soft Things , Yoongi might die from how fucking lovely and sweet and cute that is—and pulls the handle and is hit with Soft smell, because that's a thing. It totally is. The smell of old things, worn things, clothes that you've loved so hard they're barely clinging together anymore—and Jeongguk's Soft Things smell sort of musky and sort of floral and sort of like childhood, somehow. Yoongi selects a baggy pair of sweats and some old old boxers that are threadbare and worn just right, the waistband stretched out so the elastic won't bug Jeongguk's flu-sensitive skin. There's a nice plain t-shirt that was once white, probably, but now is so thin-frayed it's basically grey. It's so fucking soft when Yoongi touches it that he kind of doesn't want to stop touching it, and he bundles it up with the other Soft Things and takes them to Jeongguk.

"I'll drop them inside the door. If I picked wrong, I'll get you something else."

But Jeongguk coos when he sees the clothes; Yoongi hears it through the bathroom door. "Thanks, hyung."

"Welcome," Yoongi mumbles, ducking his head down and standing awkwardly in the middle of Jeongguk's hallway and out of his depth here, like, totally.

When Jeongguk opens the bathroom door and leans against the frame, a bit of clarity returned to his eyes, Yoongi is pretty sure a big bang-caliber explosion is taking place inside of him. Jeongguk's hair is wet and curling over his forehead, and his eyes are impossibly dark despite the glassiness of them. His cheeks are fever-flushed up high beneath his eyes, but the rest of his skin is pale and clean. He smells like plain bar soap and sea salt-citrus shampoo. The worn shirt is loose over his broad shoulders; the sweats hang low on his hips.

Yoongi swallows and turns away. "Come on. Soup and tea in bed. And then you're going straight to sleep."

"You sound like my mom," Jeongguk says, following Yoongi into his room, collapsing onto his bed. He lies there for a second with his eyes closed and then blinks up at Yoongi, the picture of relief. There are goosebumps on his arms, and he's still clearly feverish, but at least he looks comforted by the sheer fact of being finally home and in a soft, safe place where he can rest.

Yoongi hovers awkwardly at the edge of the mattress. "Yeah, well. Namjoon is also a fucking train wreck when he's sick, so I have plenty of practice."

Jeongguk pushes himself up a little, reaches up to pull down the fluffy duvet and settle himself under it. He props himself against the headboard and all the while Yoongi is just watching, honored to somehow be a part of this: the careful construction of Jeongguk's pillows, the way he tips himself against the wall, blanket all cuddled around him, knees up near his chest, sort of curled into himself. "Yeah? You make him soup and tea and make him take freezing showers that are miserable and give him goosebumps?" Jeongguk pouts.

Yoongi crosses his arms and shifts from foot, still just kind of awkwardly standing there. "No. Yes. Sure. I don't know; here, eat your soup." He snatches up the bowl off the nightstand and holds it out. "If it's gotten cold, I'll go microwave it."

But Jeongguk sips at the broth and closes his eyes, settling deeper into bed. "It's fine, hyung. It's good. Thank you." He sounds serious now, less small and childlike and bratty. More like an adult, but one who still needs help.

Yoongi thinks that for all the growing up he's done, he's still pretty bad at being an adult. Jeongguk too. Jeongguk is a grown man, but he's somehow better like this, better at being young. He probably still laughs at dick jokes. He would probably love that dumb 4chan post Hoseok had put in the group chat the other day, the one that started with two friends driving in a car and somehow ended in a parking lot "brojob" and then the aw, shucks finale: "Gotta love playing pranks on my friends."

Namjoon and Hoseok and Seokjin and Yoongi had guffawed over it for, like, an hour, and then Yoongi had thought— fuck, I know exactly zero adults besides the four of us who would actually find that funny.

But Jeongguk might. (Judging by the bedroom decorations, Taehyung and Jimin might, too. This feels sort of like the community thing Yoongi always complains about lacking.)

"You can sit down, you know," Jeongguk says.

Yoongi looks down. Stops checking off boxes in his mental checklist of cute boy things for cute boys Min Yoongi wants to date and glances at the bed, glances around the room. "Um. Where?"

"On the bed," Jeongguk says, closing his eyes as he cups the bowl of soup in both hands and kind of huddles around it. His eyes flash open. "Or did you want to go? Oh my god, sorry hyung, you can—you probably have tons of things to do."

Yoongi sits on the bed faster than he's ever sat down anywhere, possibly. "No way. You still haven't even taken Jimin's ibuprofen. You're taking that and then you're sleeping, and I'm staying here until Taehyung and Jimin get back. Just in case things get bad again."

Jeongguk's eyes are wide and sort of disbelieving. "Hyung, come on, you don't have to—I feel a lot better, honest."

"Yeah, right now. Because the fever is down from the shower. But that doesn't mean it's gone. If this really is the flu, then you could be out of commission for a couple days."

"The fever will break," Jeongguk whispers. "I'm sure it will. I never get that sick, I told you."

But Yoongi shakes his head. He can't help feeling worried, can't push away the memories—"One time, my friend Hoseok got really sick. And he didn't say anything, and his boyfriend, my other friend Seokjin—Seokjin found Hoseok collapsed in the kitchen. He passed out and Seokjin had to call an ambulance and he was in the hospital for a couple of days. Okay? Don't downplay my worry," Yoongi insists, leaning forward to press his palm to Jeongguk's forehead. "You're not fine. I'll stay until you are, or until Taehyung and Jimin get home."

Jeongguk nods, and finishes the soup and then half of the tea, wilting slowly the whole time until finally he's practically asleep against the wall, clearly suffering again. "Guess it was too good to be true," he mumbles. "Feeling not this shitty."

Yoongi nods even though Jeongguk can't keep his eyes open to actually look at him. "Yeah, Bunny. I know. I'm gonna go get the ibuprofen and you can take that, and then you need sleep."

Jeongguk agrees sleepily. He's barely awake to even take the pills, but somehow he does, and he slides down under the covers and tugs the duvet up over his ears, and then he's out.

Here's the thing: Yoongi really isn't thinking about it. Like, the logistics of his life. The fact that he has a job, and a roommate who might (definitely will) eventually worry about his whereabouts, and the fact that Yoongi has medication that he has to take every day to keep the depression fog away even if the pills aren't exactly perfect—still. Still.

Yoongi has a shift the night and figures he'll have to call out. Goes for his phone and there's, like, twenty notifications from Namjoon asking where he is, because—shit, it's going on 6:00 p.m. and Yoongi hasn't been home since Namjoon left in the morning even though he'd said he'd be back around 2:00.

And—fuck. The meds.

Yoongi peeks into Jeongguk's bedroom and the kid is still out. Mouth open, drooling, limp save the shivers that occasionally go through him, brow furrowed—okay, so he's probably not sleeping well -well, but he's at least asleep enough that Yoongi can make a call.

"Hyung?" Namjoon asks right after the very first ring. "Where the hell are you? Thought we were gonna work some lyrics."

"Sorry, Joon," Yoongi says. "Um. Something came up."

Yoongi can practically hear the way Namjoon raises an eyebrow, interested. "Oh, really? Did you read my texts?"

"I read zero of twenty. My car fucking won't start so it's still in the parking lot at our place."

"Oh, shit, you could've borrowed mine. Anyways, the texts didn't matter that much. The first ones were congratulatory, although then you took so long getting home that eventually they got kind of worried."

"Congratulatory about what?"

Namjoon coughs. "I figured you and Jeongguk-ah went for, like, I don't know, lunch, or coffee, or ice cream or something. Some sort of cute food date like that."

Yoongi blinks. "Huh?"

"Um, hyung. I was there the first time you two met. You don't have to pretend there's nothing going on there."

"Going on where?"

"Seriously?" Namjoon asks. "You've been sending each other letters back and forth through me for, like, a month. And he even texted me for our address so he could send a card all the way from Busan."

"So? It was a thank you card arms war," Yoongi says. "Everyone knows that you have to be the last person to send a thank you or else it's, like, extremely rude and terrible."

Namjoon makes a sort of choking sound. "Um. Right. That."

Yoongi sighs. "Look, I'm at Jeongguk's and he's currently in bed and—"

Namjoon makes another choking sound. "That's pretty forward—"

"He's really fucking sick. Flu, probably. Could barely stand, let alone carry his luggage home. It's a good thing I was there to help, even without a car."

"Shit," Namjoon says. "That's not an ideal meet-cute, but okay I guess."

"Meet-cute? I've met him. It's not a meet-cute if you've already met."

"So the moving day was the meet-cute?"

Yoongi resists the urge to hurl the phone out the window. "There was no meet-cute . Jeongguk is really fucking sick like when Hobi ended up in the hospital, like he's that sick. But Jeongguk's roommates aren't coming home for a couple days, so I'm gonna stay and keep an eye on him before he ends up in an ambulance or he passes out and hits his head or something."

Namjoon is suspiciously quiet on the other side of the line. "Interesting."

" So, " Yoongi says, glancing in to make sure Jeongguk is still asleep, "I need you to bring me my medication. Because I need to stay overnight and I'll need them in the morning and I can't leave Jeongguk-ah alone in case his fever spikes or something."

This time, Namjoon's silence isn't suspicious or judgy or anything other than contemplative. "Sure, hyung. I'll head over now."

"You need the address or anything?"

"I know where it is, it's fine," Namjoon says. "I'll drive over and leave my car with you so you have a vehicle there in case Jeongguk does need to go to the hospital. I can take the train home. Anyways, Hoseok and Seokjin-hyung are here right now. Hoseok says he'll look at your car; it probably just needs a battery or something if it wouldn't turn on."

Yoongi sighs. "Thanks, Joon. Also...sorry about this morning. I didn't mean to get mad at you like that."

"It's fine," Namjoon says. "I know I've done the same thing plenty of times."

"Still. Thanks."

Yoongi calls out from work, fucks around on his phone while he waits for Namjoon to show up, stretched out on the couch as the light in the living room goes from pre-evening yellow to thin, pale dusk shadowscape. Right around the time Yoongi thinks Namjoon should be getting there, Jeongguk stirs. " Hah—hyung, " he mumbles, just loud enough that Yoongi can hear it from the living room. Fuck. Fuck. Yoongi does not need Jeongguk stumbling in on Namjoon stopping by to provide Yoongi with his depression meds.

Yoongi stays quiet, frozen with indecision.

There's a silence then, a sort of rigid acceptance that settles over the apartment and Yoongi realizes that Jeongguk doesn't know he's here, thinks Yoongi has up and left—and suddenly Yoongi feels every bit the intruder he is, lying on the couch kind of scrunched down so he's not taking up any more space than the dimensions of his body absolutely demand—Yoongi is a fly on the wall, a shadow behind the door that you've never thought anything of until one night when it's late and suddenly every blur of black-gray might be a demon lurking to get you—

Fuck. Namjoon is knocking hard on Jeongguk's door.

There's a strangled noise from Jeongguk's bedroom, a sound like someone stumbling hard trying to get out of bed. It's been probably four hours since Jeongguk fell asleep; he isn't due for more ibuprofen yet, but Yoongi know that the whole six-to-eight hours thing is pushing it. That four hours is about the point where your pain comes back, the fever mounts again—

"Yoongi-hyung?" Namjoon calls. Yoongi's phone is going off too; Namjoon is calling him, must be waiting at the door with his phone to his ear.

"Coming," Jeongguk calls from the bedroom, delirious and slurry. There's no way Namjoon could have actually heard it through the door, but Yoongi hears it. Hears the telltale sigh of Jeongguk summoning strength; he's probably going to come actually try to open the door.

Yoongi figures he has two options: curl up in a ball and hope Jeongguk just doesn't notice that actually he is still here, that he's not only ignoring the very person he's here to care for but also that he's having his roommate bring him medication for all the crazy that he is. That, or stand up and pretend he was napping and only just now woke up.

Which. Nice, Yoongi's brain. You might be fucked up enough that only artificial chemicals can bring you some semblance of balance, but you are killing it on the quick thinking here.

"Hold on," Yoongi calls to Namjoon, throwing a little bit of a yawn into his voice. It's not hard; he's been zoning enough it was almost a nap on the couch anyways, and he hasn't talked to anyone since he called Namjoon, and that had been done in an almost-whisper. So Yoongi's voice is low and raspy like it is in the morning, and he looks back towards the bedroom and doesn't actually see motion. He can grab the meds quick, right? Stash them and then hurry off to Jeongguk, make the kid get back under the covers, stroke his hair for the couple of hours of discomfort before he can take another dose of ibuprofen—

Yoongi pulls open the door and yawns, not even fake. He blinks owlishly at Namjoon. "Hey."

Namjoon holds up a bag. "Brought you a change of clothes, too. And a toothbrush."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "Did Hoseok and Seokjin tell you to do that?"

Namjoon blushes. "Hoseok decided that it is indeed your battery even though he sorta just, like, popped the hood and looked at the engine and that's it...so. Now they're at our apartment being couple-y and getting wine drunk together."

"Why are they doing that at our apartment?"

Namjoon shrugs. "Wanted company. I was about to join in the drinking when you called me. I did drive, though, like I said. You could use a car just in case."

There's a noise from behind Yoongi, and he turns to see Jeongguk slouched against the wall, head resting on the plaster, eyes half-lidded and glassy. "Hey, Joon-hyung. Hey again, Yoongi-hyung."

Yoongi swallows. "Go back to bed, Jeongguk-ah. I'll be there in a minute. You look like you're going to pass out."

Jeongguk takes a shallow, shuddery inhale and lets it out. "Feel bad again."

"Yeah, Bunny," Yoongi says, voice just this side of pleading. Jagged with it, fractured around the syllables, because he doesn't want Namjoon to see this, whatever gravity is stretching from Jeongguk to Yoongi, pulling Yoongi's heart so hard he can't escape. At the same time, though, Yoongi doesn't want Jeongguk to see the bag, even if it's a mostly-opaque shopping bag that you can't really see through. Even if there's no way Jeongguk would be able to detect SSRIs in with the pajamas and whatever else Namjoon and Seokjin and Hoseok decided to put in there. "Go back to bed."

Jeongguk sighs, clearly exhausted. "Sorry, Joon-hyung. Probably shouldn't come...because in the germs here, you shouldn't."

"Fuck," Namjoon says, soft enough that Yoongi realizes it's directed at him, not Jeongguk. "Are you sure he doesn't need a hospital?"

"'M fine," Jeongguk mumbles. Apparently he heard. "It's...the wrong—nothing, I'm not—sense. Making sense. Feel like I'll remember this and not making...fever. Sense. Makes sense."

If there's anything that could make Yoongi stop caring about what Namjoon and Jeongguk think, it's everything that has just happened. Every delirious, misordered word from Jeongguk's mouth cuts the elastic holding Yoongi strung up between Namjoon and Jeongguk, propels Yoongi across the room to Jeongguk. He presses a hand to Jeongguk's forehead, still holding the bag. "Fuck. You need more ibuprofen."

"Can I, hyung?" Jeongguk whispers, leaning into Yoongi's touch. "Has it been six to eight hours?"

"Yeah," Yoongi says, guiding Jeongguk off the wall to rest against Yoongi instead. "Come on. Might have to do another bath."

"Don't wanna," Jeongguk slurs. "Please."

"It's okay. You're okay," Yoongi says, trudging down the hall with Jeongguk in tow. He hears the front door close but he doesn't really register it.

Later that night, once Jeongguk's fever has crept down again and Yoongi is sitting in bed next to him, per Jeongguk's feverish request and Yoongi's own actual terror that Jeongguk really does need a doctor, he checks his phone.

RM: remember to lock the door behind me when you get a chance

RM: and, um. don't break kookie's heart, okay hyung?

Yoongi doesn't respond. But he does go lock the door, and then he settles back next to Jeongguk and feels the kid's forehead and it doesn't feel like Jeongguk is dying, at least not of this.

In the quiet darkness of Jeongguk's bedroom, Yoongi falls asleep.

Jeongguk spends about two days (well, he thinks it's two days) in a haze that feels bright and intense while it's happening and then never gets coded properly into memory, because he wakes up out of really hard sleep into morning light and feels like a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon, wondering at the fact that he is suddenly a butterfly.

By butterfly, of course, Jeongguk means that he is a sweaty, greasy-haired, still sorta sick twentysomething. At least the fever is finally gone.

Maybe that's why the memories of the past two (maybe) days are just a swirl of light and color and hands that belong to someone warm and soft-comforting, hands getting Jeongguk comfy under the duvet, or helping him into the bathroom for a miserable-cold shower made less terrible somehow by—by what? By some phantom presence Jeongguk can't dare to hope was—it couldn't have been...

When Jeongguk racks his brain, he comes up with hazy memories of his own voice slurring out sentences that don't mean anything. Words in the wrong order, repetition that shouldn't be happening because fever-memory-Jeongguk is just mumbling dazedly, with someone else's voice in his ear asking questions meant to clarify the word salad coming out of his mouth.

But now, on—shit, it's January seventh, according to Jeongguk's phone, so three days, not two—Jeongguk can sit up, can take a sip of the water sitting on his nightstand. His duvet cover is a little bit worse for wear, stiff with sweat, or not stiff but—tacky? Is that the word? His pillows are kind of greasy, ew. Also, the whole scent of the room is off, not in a bad way really, but like someone else almost, not cologne but a faint hint of musk or—well. Must just be some chemical sick smell that happens when you're really really sick for a long time.

Not that Jeongguk would know, considering how infrequently he gets sick. He hadn't been lying to Yoongi when he'd said that.

Which. Fuck. Yoongi.

(He was here, Jeongguk thinks. Hopes. Dreams.)

"Hyung?" Jeongguk croaks, sliding over to the edge of his bed, testing to see if he can actually stand up. He's shaky, like a baby deer just learning to walk, or maybe like the branches of purple flowers in his chest are being rustled by a strong breeze.

Taehyung (not Yoongi, and Jeongguk's heart might pang a little helplessly at that) appears in the doorway. "Kookie! Oh my god, you're alive! Jiminie! Come see Kookie; he's not dying anymore!"

Jeongguk coughs into his elbow and sits back down on the bed. At least it's not a pneumonia cough; there's nothing in his lungs to hack up. Just a tickle in his throat. "Hey, maybe you guys shouldn't come in here. Until I've disinfected, like, everything."

Jimin comes to hover in the doorway. "It's fine; we both got our flu shots."

"I did too," Jeongguk says. "It's a herd immunity thing, but it's not infallible against every single strain."

"Apparently not," Taehyung says, eyes wide behind his round wire glasses. He glances over at Jimin, leans into him with a smile. Looks back at Jeongguk. "You want any food?"

Jeongguk blinks. "Um. No. It's fine."

"You're really pale," Jimin says, coming in (Taehyung right behind him, touching him, not letting him go) to press his palm to Jeongguk's forehead. "Ew," he says, wrinkling his nose. "Sweat."

"I'm gonna shower," Jeongguk sighs, standing up again. He feels like a scarecrow, muscles turned to straw. His stomach growls. "Oh."

Taehyung and Jimin laugh. "We'll make you something healthy," Jimin promises. "Shower and then come out and make a nest on the couch or something. Tae and I are making Christmas cookies."

"Hyung, it's after New Year's," Jeongguk protests, but he follows them into the hall, heads for the bathroom while they meander hand-in-hand towards the kitchen.

In the bathroom, there are two things that shouldn't be there. One: an orange bottle of pills with a generic label that says "Citalopram" and gives instructions for dosage, prescribed to Min Yoongi. Jeongguk doesn't know what this medication does, and he figures it's probably rude to look it up even though his fingers are itching to go on Naver and find out.

Two: a pink envelope with Yoongi's pretty handwriting on it. Bunny-yah, for when you wake up.

Jeongguk's fingers shake as he tears through the paper. The card is light blue with yellow balloons on it, and pink cursive that says "Get Well Soon". There's a teddy bear at the bottom with a bandage around its head, and Yoongi has drawn an arrow to it with the words, "Sorry they didn't have one with a Bunny."

Inside, Yoongi's words take up all the available space.

Dear Baby Bunny-yah,

Sorry that I'm not there with you now that you're awake. I had to go to work :/ it's just a thing at a music store, but I don't have personal days really and I had called out sick twice and when Tae and Jimin got home, they said they could watch you. I think your fever broke late last night, though. I wanted to stay until it did, just in case. btw Tae and Jimin are unreasonably nice and I'm kind of scared of them. Are you sure they're not serial killers? Or, like, anthropomorphized stuffed animals? Or would anthropomorphized stuffed animals be fucking creepy like in that videogame Five Nights at Freddy's. idk.

Anyways, I hope it's okay that I basically crashed with you for two days. You were really out of it a lot of the time. I feel like I should've taken you to the hospital. But ugh, you really didn't want to go, so if you relapse and die of flu-related complications, it's not my fault. It's yours for being too whiny and (there's a word scribbled out kind of violently here, but Jeongguk gets this glowing sense that maybe it originally said "cute") young, and somehow convincing me that you would be okay. Seriously, you were pretty out of it. Not even sure if you'll remember that I was there at all, actually. haha.

Thanks for letting me stay here, and I really do hope you feel better. Once you're back on your feet, we should all get together for drinks, like you said. I know that it might be a while until you're up to it, but just text me. You've got my number.

Oh, and to answer your question. Yes. Things run out, and there's always a last time, and it sucks that you don't always know when that last time will be. Even things like a last first date, a last first kiss, a last first time—even the good last things are sad. The scariest thing isn't thinking about the last one, though. It's worrying that the best one is already behind you. That you've already had the time in your life that will have been the best once you get to the end and you look back and think about all of it. What if I have to live, like, 70 more years and the best day of my life has already happened? I kind of feel like that sometimes. Like nothing is ever going to get better, like it's all just a wide open road ahead of me, with some changes in scenery but none that really make you say "wow" or want to stop and get out of the car, nothing to make you linger. Some desert, some trees. Nothing spectacular. All the good scenery is already gone.

But anyways. Look at me, getting all ridiculous and Namjoon-y in a get well card. Sorry, Bunny-yah. TL;DR my brain is acting weird right now, hope you feel better.

I'm running out of room, so text me and let me know you're okay when you're capable of it? Also, what's your favorite book? You have so many in your room and I tried to guess based on which ones looked the most read/worn, but I'm not sure. Gotta see if I was right. <3

See you soon, Bunny-yah.

Love,

Yoongi

<3 <3 <3

Jeongguk's heart does a backflip, the flowers inside him shooting up into cherry trees. Blossoms leap off in delight and swirl through every cell of him, like in April when you go to the park and everything is a maelstrom of soft pink petals.

Jeongguk pulls out his phone.

Me: thank u for the card, hyung <3

Me: and thanks for staying and keeping me from dying.

He climbs in the shower and rinses off under hot water, luxuriating in the not-cold of it. He washes his hair, feels better once all the sick sweat has been rinsed off of him. When he gets out, he snatches up his phone before his hands are totally dry, mentally apologizes to it for leaving it in a steamy room even though it's electronic— please don't hate me, please don't be dead or something I'm sorry I'm sorry—

The phone is fine. Jeongguk's heart when he sees that there are three new messages sent only a minute after Jeongguk's original two—not so much. It's skipping fast and the magic spell sachet is swelling with cinnamon-sugar delight, fed and happy and full with Yoongi, Yoongi, Yoongi!

"Calm down," Jeongguk mumbles to his heart.

Yoongi, Yoongi! Jeongguk's heart replies, too happy to even sound teasing. Jeongguk rolls his eyes and unlocks his phone.

yoongi-hyung <3: it was no problem, jeongguk-ah

yoongi-hyung <3: are you feeling any better?

yoongi-hyung <3: thanks for letting me crash there

Me: yes feeling way better, still shaky but probably just need food bc I assume I haven't really eaten in a while

Me: my bed is not as comfy without you.

And, okay. Chalk it up to residual sickness, a fever sweated out but a head not fully recovered—or maybe Jeongguk really did get brain damage from his high temperature like Yoongi was so afraid of happening, maybe that's why Jeongguk sends that second message. Maybe that's it.

Jeongguk's phone lights up again.

yoongi-hyung <3: you have a very soft nest of a bed situation, bunny-yah

Jeongguk bites his lip. He's still standing in the bathroom, hair damp, a towel around his waist. Taehyung and Jimin are singing in the kitchen. Jeongguk feels weak still, but reborn, and fresh, and happy.

Then he glances back and sees the pills.

Me: hey hyungie you left some prescription here?

Me: idk if you want me to bring it to you or if you need to come get it or what but

Me: idk what it's for I didn't look it up don't worry I'm not invading your privacy I just

Me: sorry idk I thought maybe you would need it sorry

Yoongi takes a long time to respond. Jeongguk is already back in his bedroom, anxiously pulling on clean Soft Things and hoping he hasn't made Yoongi mad. Yoongi probably needs the medication, if he had brought it over here so he could stay and take care of Jeongguk—which, fuck, maybe Yoongi just feels uncomfortable because they still don't really know each other. Sure, they've exchanged these silly letters and Yoongi has now seen Jeongguk with a flu so severe he was out of it for days, but they're like little fledglings. Baby birds chirping hungry and compelled by a force much bigger than them to learn how to fly. Baby birds in this together, or at least Jeongguk hopes they're in this together, whatever this is.

He spreads his shaky wings and picks up his phone, ready to just call Yoongi and hopefully have an honest conversation, lay himself bare so Yoongi won't be mad, will see Jeongguk's pure intent—

Three new messages.

yoongi-hyung <3: fuck. sorry.

yoongi-hyung <3: shit, yeah, I can't believe I left that there

yoongi-hyung <3: um. it's okay, I can get them later. just whenever is fine.

Jeongguk gets the sense that whenever is not fine.

Me: hyung I can have tae or jimin bring them to you

Me: or I'm like, better enough now? to bring them over if you really need them, I mean you left here last night, right? so you need them today, if you have to take them every day

Me: sorry I'm not looking at them or researching them I swear, I would never get into your medical stuff it's not my business

Me: I just don't want you to not have an important substance that you need for like,,, health

yoongi-hyung <3: um it's fine

yoongi-hyung <3: you're still sick pls don't bring me them Bunny

yoongi-hyung <3: I don't think you're snooping on my meds

yoongi-hyung <3: I'll come back and get them in like 20 if that's cool

Me: okay good <3 <3 <3

Me: I promise im not going anywhere, am still sick sorta :( or like tired, idk

Me: probably will just eat something and give you your rx then go back to sleep again

Me: fuck I need to do laundry, sheets are gross

yoongi-hyung <3: aww Bunny

yoongi-hyung <3: ok yeah be there soon, leaving my place now

yoongi-hyung <3: <3

Jeongguk meanders into the kitchen. Taehyung and Jimin have a bunch of cookie cutters out, all in shapes like Christmas trees and candy canes and stars and wreaths and bells. There are four little bowls of icing, red and white and green and yellow. Sugar cookies cover basically every surface.

"I feel like I shouldn't even be in here," Jeongguk says, hovering in the doorway, the card and the pills still in his hand.

Jimin laughs. "Just don't breathe on any of the cookies?"

"That sounds hard," Jeongguk pouts. "Do we have any thank you cards?"

Taehyung turns to Jeongguk, takes one look at what he's holding, and marches over. He puts his hands on Jeongguk's shoulders. "Jeon Jeongguk. What is going on with you and Min Yoongi-hyung and when did you get a prescription for something, hyung said you didn't go to the doct—oh." Taehyung has lifted up Jeongguk's hand. Is looking at the orange bottle of pills, the label that Jeongguk doesn't recognize.

The understanding blooming in Taehyung's eyes says that he, apparently, does. "Oh. I shouldn't have looked at that. I should not have looked at that."

"What?" Jimin asks, licking frosting off a finger.

Taehyung drops Jeongguk's hand and hurriedly starts rummaging through drawers in the bureau where they keep pens and old office supplies and credit card statements that won't stop coming even though they're all 100 percent sure they've switched to paperless. "I think there are maybe some cards in here, but I'm not sure."

"Tae, calm down," Jimin says, coming over to wrap his hands around Taehyung's wrists, stilling them in their trying-to-be-casual movements. "Take a breath, sweetie."

Taehyung does. When he exhales, he looks up at Jeongguk. "I might have cards in my room."

"It's fine," Jeongguk says, arms at his sides, still holding the card and the bottle. "Um. Maybe I should just go back to sleep."

"I know what the pills are," Taehyung bursts out, blinking. He shrinks when Jimin puts his arms around him. "Sorry. I just—it's not a big deal. Sorry."

"Okay," Jeongguk says, not planning to ask. "Um. If you do find cards, can you come drop them off at my bed, which is where I would like the be right now because standing up is like having the videogame on hard mode right now?"

"There's a box on the desk in our room," Jimin says. "Or, fuck. Did I leave those at my place?"

"Just move in here," Taehyung says, apparently able to forget the awkwardness of the last few minutes in favor of his daily tell-Jimin-I-love-him-and-want-to-live-with-him-forever speech. "You live here anyways. You just called it our room."

Jimin just kisses Taehyung's cheek. "I love you. Jeongguk, I'll bring you some soup in a minute. At your bed, or the couch if you'd rather. Also I'd like it noted that when I says 'at', I obviously mean the actual at sign, like on Twitter."

Taehyung's eyes go wide wide wide. "Oh. I love you. Love when you talk like a Twitter shit post."

Jimin giggles. "That wasn't even at all what just happened, but I'll be sure to remember you have a shit post kink the next time you let me come on your face."

From the doorway, Jeongguk chokes.

Jimin looks over, eyes dark and intent. " Jeongguk-ah. Go away from us. You need warm and asleep on the couch where we can look after you. But first, soup."

Jeongguk nods and heads down the hall, still weak. He finds the cards tucked into the corner of Jimin's desk next to a sparkly purple dildo, because why the fuck wouldn't a sparkly purple dildo be sitting on top of a desk next to a box of thank you cards. Jeongguk avoids the eight ( eight, JFC) inches of silicone and goes for the little box containing several different thank you card color schemes; he picks turquoise and white, because it's delicate and kind of ocean-y.

There's a fuzzy blue blanket in a mess on Taehyung and Jimin's bed, and Jeongguk kidnaps it because they definitely won't mind. Will probably coo at him and pinch his cheeks and wrap him up in it themselves, actually. He goes back out to the couch, leaving the bottle of pills on the coffee table so he can write in the card; Jimin brings soup and Jeongguk gobbles it down, and then Taehyung brings a cookie which tastes sweet and sugar-crystalline, a burst of happy that makes Jeongguk close his eyes and hum, smiling, as he chews.

"Aw, Kookie," Taehyung coos, ruffling Jeongguk's hair. "Minnie-honey, bring Jeonggukkie more pillows?"

Jimin brings four more pillows. He and Taehyung fuss around to get Jeongguk all set up on the couch, and Jeongguk seals up the card in the envelope, sets it next to the bottle of pills to wait for Yoongi. He can just do his sheets later—for now, he relaxes into the pillows just for a minute, just while he waits for Yoongi—

When Jeongguk wakes up, it's dark outside the windows, and the lamp is glowing in the corner. There's low murmuring in the kitchen, and Yoongi's medication is gone. So is the card. "Hyungs?" Jeongguk asks, voice all raspy.

The noise of a chair scraping back, footsteps before Taehyung and Jimin poke their heads into the living room. "Morning, sleepyhead," Taehyung grins. "Nice nap?"

Jeongguk nods, mouth all sticky with sleep, eyes kind of crusty. He rubs his left eye with his fist and Jimin coos, nuzzling into Taehyung's shoulder. "Did Yoongi-hyung come over?"

"Yeah, we gave him the stuff you left out for him," Taehyung nods. "You were, like, super out, and we didn't wanna disturb you."

Jeongguk blushes and yawns. "Is it terrible if I just eat more soup and go back to bed?"

"No, no way," Jimin smiles. "You need as much rest as you can get. You were really sick. We were all worried."

Jeongguk looks up, eyes wide. "Oh, wait—did you text while you were still in Busan, did I—I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't worry," Jimin says, coming over to kneel in front of Jeongguk, pushing hair out of his eyes. "We called when we got really concerned and Yoongi-hyung answered. Said he had you, and you were okay, just really sick."

Jeongguk nods. "Sorry, hyung."

"Come on!" Taehyung says. "Soup, and then bed. You need lots and lots of rest."

Jeongguk groans at the thought of his icky sheets, but he stumbles down the hall still clutching Taehyung and Jimin's blanket, listening to them laugh and tease each other as they bang around in the kitchen, presumably making more soup.

When Jeongguk enters his room, the bed is perfectly made. He blinks in confusion, certain he'd left it a wreck—but when he pulls back the duvet, everything smells soft and freshly laundered, not sweaty or sickly at all. How the heck.

Jimin brings more soup.

"Did you change my sheets, hyung?" Jeongguk asks.

"No," Jimin says, but he's smiling all secret, like he knows something.

Jeongguk pouts. "What happened? Was it Tae?"

Jimin purses his lips and shakes his head. "Eat your soup, maknae."

"Hyung!"

Jimin flirts out of the room. Jeongguk's heart pounds pounds pounds as he snuggles under the clean duvet and eats the soup, and he's going to text Yoongi as soon as he can figure out the words, can figure out this tentative blossom-warmth huddled up like a fuzzy animal waking from hibernation below his ribs, below his stomach—

Before Jeongguk can come up with anything even close to adequate, he falls back to sleep.

Dear Florence Nightingale Hyung,

Thank you for taking such good care of me while I was sick <3 I know this thank you card is tiny but I couldn't go out and buy a better one before you got here, so I had to steal one of Tae and Jimin's. Soz hyungie <3

I don't really know if you know how much it means that you actually stayed here and kept me from getting fever brain damage. Or passing out and hitting my head and getting a TBI. That would be really bad ☹ You were right that I hadn't ever really been that sick by myself before. So I'm glad that you were here to make sure I drank water and stuff, or whatever you did. I can't really remember a lot, just like noises and conversations that made no sense and, like, being in my room I guess? I'm sorry you had to come get me, though. And like. Take me home and stay with me and everything. You really didn't have to. So, um. I don't really know what to say about that, but yeah. Thanks.

I'm running out of room bc this card is rl smol, but everything you said wasn't crazy. Promise. It all made sense. Like thinking that maybe you already had the best thing and now it's all going to be not as good from here on out. I feel like that sometimes. And I haven't even had all that many really great times but it still feels like—what it that's all that you ever get, you know? Is that selfish? To want more, or to feel like maybe this is just—the rest of it. And to not be okay with that.

I don't know, hyung. Anyways, thanks again. And my favorite book is House of Leaves. What's yours?

Love,

Bunny <3 <3 <3

Yoongi reads it again and again. Remembers to take his meds. Gets his car fixed and it is just the battery, which makes Hoseok cheer triumphantly even though he literally hadn't done anything. Goes to work and has this sneaking suspicion that he and Jeongguk are both wrong.

That the best is yet to come.

yoongi-hyung <3: okay so this is really embarrassing but

yoongi-hyung <3: I have another card for you but I don't actually know your address even though I spent multiple days at your apartment

Me: boo

Me: meanie I'm throwing all your cards away now too

yoongi-hyung <3: huh?

yoongi-hyung <3: how are those things related?

yoongi-hyung <3: you've been keeping them?

Me: ...no

Me: related bc if you'd been keeping my cards you'd have the envelope I sent from busan which has my return address on it

yoongi-hyung <3: yeah, your return address in busan

yoongi-hyung <3: [Image Attached]

Me: oh

Me: well

Me: I sustained brain damage from the fever when I was sick

yoongi-hyung <3: you did not, and don't make me come over there and check

Me: what even would u check for hyung

Me: I'm pretty sure u can't diagnose fever-related brain complications

Me: or, like, any brain complications. mental health related diagnoses.

Me: like, those things are important and u probably can't say if I have them

yoongi-hyung <3: I'm very confused by the tone of all those messages

yoongi-hyung <3: somehow you're both being respectful about mental health stuff while also sort of making a joke about it with the brain damage due to fever stuff?

yoongi-hyung <3: which i mean i've been doing too so

yoongi-hyung <3: I feel like that sounded mean or something but I don't mean it that way I mean

yoongi-hyung <3: fuck

yoongi-hyung <3: sorry, bunny.

Me: im sorry im a mess I didn't mean to make jokes

Me: no like actually, you're right

Me: also though yeah no mental health

Me: v important and I'm seriously not trying to disparage/discount it in any way

Me: <3 sorry, sorry

yoongi-hyung <3: oh my god jeon jeongguk, you don't have to apologize.

yoongi-hyung <3: you're fine

yoongi-hyung <3: it's just like texting is hard and whatever

Me: ok hyung <3 :(

Me: also I keep forgetting we like,,,,, don't really know each other

Me: I mean we do bc you basically saved me and that was really great and nice and!!!!

Me: but you've just heard me talking a lot of fever nonsense :(

yoongi-hyung <3: are you free this weekend?

Me: um, yes?

yoongi-hyung <3: do you like milkshakes and movies

Me: not movies

Me: i can't sit still that long

Me: I like clubbing and looking pretty and roller skating <3

Me: ...why, hyung? <3 <3 <3

yoongi-hyung <3: ...oh my god

yoongi-hyung <3: roller skating

yoongi-hyung <3: fuck, you're going to be the death of me

yoongi-hyung <3: umm I'm off on Saturday if you wanna go get milkshakes and go

yoongi-hyung <3: roller skating *shudders*

Me: lololol we don't have to roller skating, hyung <3

Me: we can just milkshakes. or we can movies, really it's fine!!!

yoongi-hyung <3: good job remembering the verbs in those sentences

Me: :( that's how millennials talk, hyung

yoongi-hyung <3: aren't you techniclly gen z? 97?

Me: idk hyung i think 97liners r just in generational limbo w nowhere to go but i donut wanna be gen z bc ur not gen z

yoongi-hyung <3: you're still a baby Bunny either way

Me: :((((((((((( sad faaaaace

yoongi-hyung <3: anyways. roller skating.

Me: we donut have to!!!!!

Me: it's k i'll still like you!

yoongi-hyung <3: jeongguk I'm committed now

yoongi-hyung <3: I've psyched myself up for it so I'm gonna follow through

Me: I'm free Saturday afternoon if that's good <3

Me: sidenote is it weird that I think it's weird when u call me jeongguk?

yoongi-hyung <3: you're saved in my phone as 'Bunny-yah' if that makes any difference

Me: <3 <3 <3 see you saturday, hyung

yoongi-hyung <3: I'll pick you up

yoongi-hyung <3: <3

On Saturday, Yoongi shows up holding a card. Oh, right. He'd never actually gotten Jeongguk's address in their text exchange about hanging out, or in any of the subsequent flurries of messages they'd exchanged throughout Thursday and Friday. Because they do that now, they text . About foods they like, and funny things their roommates say, and stupid customers who show up at Yoongi's music store acting like they're better than everyone because they knew about Bon Iver before Bon Iver was cool, and Tzuyu who is Jeongguk's Gym Wife and who has a girlfriend named Jihyo who is also one of Jimin's dancer friends. That sort of texting. Not just messages to confirm hangouts or arrange clandestine-until-Taehyung-kinda-ruins-it exchanges of controlled substances. Which kinda makes it sound like a drug deal, which it obviously was not, considering Yoongi has an actual prescription for Clinazopram or whatever the bottle had said.

"This is for you," Yoongi says, holding out a silvery envelope. The look of him punches all the air out of Jeongguk's lungs, makes him blink and blink and swallow. Yoongi's hair is newly dyed to ashy-grayish blond, and it's just barely skimming his strong brows. His eyes are dark and catlike. His lips are warm peach, his nose pink strawberry from the cold of January.

"Thanks," Jeongguk manages, accepting the envelope. The look of it (and Yoongi) makes Jeongguk somehow hungry, and greedy, and maybe a little bit selfish for the words that will be inked into permanence inside. "Hyung, did you...I mean..."

Yoongi's eyebrows go up. "What, Bunny?"

Jeongguk looks down at his hands holding Yoongi's words as they've been scripted onto blank space paper. "Um. When you came over for your...and got...the card..."

Yoongi's lips quirk into a Cheshire grin, and Jeongguk's flower blossom heart quivers in the magic Yoongi-summer breeze. "What? Did I what?"

Jeongguk's cheeks must be pink as roses, his shoulders hunched up like shy violets tucked away at the back of a secret garden, hidden for now but poking their little heads up over the old stone wall, the sort of wall you erect for safety but it crumbles, of course it crumbles, something there is that does not love a wall. "Nothing, hyung," Jeongguk mumbles.

"Have you been sleeping well?" Yoongi asks. "Did you do your sheets since you were sick?"

As if Yoongi doesn't know.

Jeongguk's blush deepens. "Thanks, Yoongi-hyung." Head ducked, biting his lip. Yoongi ruffles his hair.

"Glad you're comfy, Bunny. Would be pretty terrible if your considerate hyung didn't help you out and take care of you when you need it, huh."

Jeongguk, dressed in a soft long-sleeved shirt with big chunky stripes and the Vans logo big across the back, a pair of tight black jeans, and Converse, smiles soft soft soft. He knows he doesn't usually look soft, not the way Jimin and Taehyung so frequently pull out the pastels and the scooping collars that frame elegant collarbones, and the soft leggings that stretch thin over Jimin's dancer thighs, across Taehyung's soft stomach beneath his pierced belly button. Jeongguk can't quite get soft like that, or at least not often. Jeongguk does soft like sweaters, soft like sweats and bedhead, soft like the boyish look of baggy not-his-shirts and dark things that look borrowed off a punky emo boyfriend.

A punky emo boyfriend like Yoongi, even if Yoongi looks more like an idol than a scene kid with the new haircut and the silver and the earrings and the light rose-dark makeup he likes to wear. Yoongi's attitude is the emo thing, because there's always a pout to his mouth that makes him look just this side of sad, and he's small and pale and angsty like a demon fighter. Like, he looks like he's fought a lot of Bad Things, mostly in his head—that's the look of an emo kid, right? It's so easy to romanticize it, the look of a person who goes to war against themselves over and over but still somehow comes out alive, even if they get scars, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively and sometimes both.

Jeongguk wonders what sorts of scars decorate Yoongi's fire-burst soul. Wonders what Yoongi sees in the mirror when he looks at himself. Wonders what Yoongi wants himself to be—wonders if Yoongi even knows. Jeongguk has a hard time with that: he looks in the mirror and thinks he should narrow himself down, just pick something to be. His mom has always been annoyed at his perpetual need to branch out into every discipline, to pursue six passions instead of one. Jeongguk's passion is for being passionate, not for one specific thing. He just wants to feel. He wants to be all the things: soft and lovely and taken care of, flowers blooming in his chest, birdsong echoing his heartbeat, eyes like ponds reflecting summer-blue skies. But also, he wants to be galaxies in and of himself, wants to be dark and deep and swallowing you up, swallowing Yoongi up, letting himself be put in Yoongi's clothes and paraded around not as something owned but as a partner in crime, an ally, an equal.

Jeongguk wants rainbows and lightning storms and pixie dust and fires that burn the house down. Wants pretty white master suites with pretty white linens and pretty white furniture for them to fall into like a couple in a music video; wants dirty brown motel rooms with dirty brown sinks and dirty brown cars parked outside for them to make their escape in. Wants all this and more, wants the middle-ground in-between, the modest house and children's names and nights whispering not to wake them up; and magic, he wants magic, and he wants soulmates, and he wants tropey romcoms, and he wants—

Everything.

Jeongguk looks at Yoongi and sees a hundred million lives they could live together like a hundred million suns sparkling from trillions of lightyears away in the night sky. His mouth goes dry and he hopes he looks young and not too too in love as he stands in the doorway holding a piece of Yoongi's written-down soul in his hands. "Um. Do you want to come in?" Jeongguk finally asks, stepping back even though they're really planning to go right away, not planning to linger.

Yoongi drops his hand from Jeongguk's hair—has it really been there that long?—and on the way down, the trajectory of Yoongi's fingers intersects with the clutch of Jeongguk's at precious paper. Their fingers brush and Jeongguk can see the way Yoongi's eyes widen, can hear the way his breathing quickens—maybe they'd never established this as a date -date but it feels like it is, maybe. Yoongi is wearing clothes that could be for a date-date. Black jeans that match Jeongguk's. Nikes in royal blue and red and black and white. A black shirt that isn't tight but isn't loose. A black bomber jacket. Somehow Yoongi has managed to get multiple separate articles of black clothing in the exact same shade. It's kind of incredible.

"You ready to go? You sure you don't wanna stay here and lie low for a few more days?" Yoongi asks. "You were really sick."

Jeongguk giggles and a swirl of lighthearted, comforting magic sparkles through the air, breaking the livewire breathlessness that had been stringing Jeongguk up like a puppet in Yoongi's hands. It's nice, how they can be warm together too. Not just hot, not just lust and soft desire for touch me, touch me, make me feel good—

This is good too. Comfort and safety—that's what this should be, too. "I'm fine, hyung. Really. Anyways, classes start back on Monday, so this'll be good practice. If I can't make it through a fun outing, then I definitely won't have the strength to go to school, and I'll have a legitimate excuse to ditch."

Yoongi snorts and shakes his head. "You think this outing is gonna be fun? Who do you think I am? I'm going to make this the worst time you've ever experienced. Class will be easy on Monday because it'll be so much less terrible than this."

Jeongguk ducks his head, grinning. "Sure, hyung. Whatever you say. Um, should I put the card away and then we can go? Or did you want me to open it now?"

Yoongi's cheeks go lovely and pink. Lovelier and pinker than they already were. "You can read it later. Maybe it'll make up for how terrible I'm going to be at roller skating."

Jeongguk gestures Yoongi into the entrance as he bounces back to his room to slide the envelope under the closed door. Yoongi watches, snorting when Jeongguk leans down. "Seriously? Too lazy to even open the door?"

Jeongguk stands up and brings out his brattiest, cutest pout. "Too much effort, hyung. Come on. I wanna go. "

Yoongi shakes his head again, smiling fondly, not condescending about it but just—happy. Like he thinks it's cute that Jeongguk is young, and pouty, and sometimes selfish and impatient and demanding. Not that Yoongi even knows all that yet. Just—Jeongguk kind of feels like Yoongi will be okay with it. That Yoongi will let Jeongguk be whatever whim he's feeling at the moment. Will let him be cocksure and intense, will let him be fragile and sleepy.

Sometimes, you meet a Boy and you just know. Yoongi's got me, Jeongguk thinks. And I've got Yoongi.

Jeongguk locks up and they head down to Yoongi's car. It's shitty and old but not that shitty and old, and Jeongguk thinks it could make a very good getaway car. For when they're partners in crime, insular and wild and invincible and rich on ill-begotten goods. Or—not ill-begotten, Jeongguk thinks. They'll be gentlemen thieves, Arsene Lupin and Robin Hood; they'll steal laughter from the well-to-do who congregate in Gangnam in their elitist circles, they'll steal judgy glee from the entitled foreigners who come to see Seoul and complain that the kimchi is too spicy, that Korean is too hard and why can't people learn English? Those sorts of things are okay to steal, Jeongguk thinks: moments where you laugh together, inside jokes taken at someone else's expense (but only sometimes, like when they're mean and they deserve it), things that don't cost anyone anything—those things are the best. That's what Jeongguk and Yoongi will take for themselves. They'll give back the world magic in the form of bubbling, champagne-fizzy love.

"What are you biting your lip about," Yoongi asks as they climb into the car. The just-before-evening sunlight is painting stripes across Yoongi's cheeks and forehead, his eyes are bright on fire, molten brown. Jeongguk watches the light and the shadows, takes in the picturesque of it, the delicate intricacy of Yoongi. Yoongi watches him back.

Jeongguk sinks lower in his seat, all wrapped up in the upholstery and the smell of Yoongi in the car and the safe harbor of the moment. He wonders what Yoongi will look like in the summer when it gets dark late-late, and the hills around Seoul come alive in leafy splendor, and humidity hangs sticky in the air, curling Jeongguk's hair and turning his skin dewy. He can imagine the flowers in his chest blooming-blooming, brighter and full, no longer furtive because by then it will have been months: months of Jeongguk nurtured and nourished by Yoongi's hydrogen star, Jeongguk locked in orbit and making himself out of all the chemical energy he can soak up from the pretty galaxy boy beside him.

"Bunny?" Yoongi asks, reaching over to buckle Jeongguk's seatbelt. Jeongguk lets him.

"It's nothing, hyung," Jeongguk whispers. A lock of hair tumbles into his eye, gravity getting the best of the silky strands. Yoongi reaches up and undoes this force of the universe with a brush of his fingers.

"Sure?" Yoongi's fingertips are still resting lightly at Jeongguk's temple; now they're tracing down past his ear; now they're at the nape of his flower stalk neck.

"Your eyes are like stars," Jeongguk murmurs. "And your freckles—they're light, like reverse constellations. And you're like a star. Not the sun like how Jimin and Tae are like the sun, but people always forget that the sun is also a star. Like that, that's how you're like a star."

Yoongi blinks at Jeongguk in this not-casual not-intense sort of way, something that has Jeongguk's toes curling and his spine trembling. "That's—Jeongguk-ah," Yoongi whispers, mouth breaking open into a starburst smile. "That's pretty."

Jeongguk ducks away, looks out the window. Lets the moment be. Lets the moment go. It's not time. He's still dewy and curled in the little shoots of new life, the first green, the gold. "Come on, hyung. I thought you were going to take me roller skating."

Yoongi takes him roller skating. They drive to the nearest rink with the radio playing, the sunlight shining in radiant patches across their cheeks as they weave through the city. They have to drive a ways, out to the suburbs almost, and it's dreamy and warm with the heater on, with Yoongi's hands sitting pretty on the steering wheel and making Jeongguk think about how pretty they would sit curled around his wrists, his throat when Jeongguk is feeling particularly daring towards surrender and trust.

But all through the car ride—Jeongguk tries to focus on the car ride—the conversation is light and easy: Yoongi teasing Jeongguk for his favorite songs because they're too mainstream, Jeongguk teasing Yoongi because his are too esoteric. The time feels insular and spirited away from reality into realms of daydreams, Wonderland or Narnia or Never-Never Land. There are giggles and sparkling eyes and knifepoint smiles, except the blades are dulled and they slice through distance and not through skin. They carve away the excess space between Yoongi and Jeongguk, the light years between their molecules, to bring them closer together, collision and energy and sparks.

Jeongguk, feeling every bit a lovely pretty air spirit thing, dives willingly into Yoongi's world. Yoongi is blue fire and oxygen and chemical warfare, and he drags Jeongguk in close, and they're not touching but inside the car it feels prelude to it, the serenity and comfort that will be Jeongguk's cells finally, finally settling cool against Yoongi's.

They head into the roller rink and Yoongi buys their tickets. Jeongguk tries to pay for the skate rental but Yoongi buys that too. Inside there are black lights on, pink and orange and green designs glowing bright on the walls. Jeongguk and Yoongi are both not dressed in the sorts of clothes that light up purple-white under ultraviolets, but when they step up to the rink in their unwieldy skates, the smile Yoongi gives him is radiant as any neon. They take their first steps forward, pushing off the edge with hands clasped together just in case, and it turns out Jeongguk is still a good skater even though he hasn't done it in years.

Yoongi is dreadful.

"Engage your core, hyung!" Jeongguk giggles, skating backwards with both of Yoongi's hands in his as Yoongi leans awkwardly forward and tries to keep his feet under him.

"I'm engaging every single ab I do not have," Yoongi snaps, rocking suddenly backwards and tugging Jeongguk off-balance. Jeongguk keeps his shoulders squared over his feet and squeezes Yoongi's hands like that will keep them up, and Yoongi manages to come back forwards into the awkward hunch he's been doing since Jeongguk realized that Yoongi really can't just get onto the rink and go.

Jeongguk giggles. "Careful. You need to stand up straighter. Also, you have just as many abs as I do even if they're not..."

"A ridiculous, inappropriate six-pack?" Yoongi grumbles.

"My six-pack isn't inappropriate!"

Yoongi mutters something Jeongguk doesn't quite catch, but it sounds suspiciously like you're not the one who has to look at them and not touch. Jeongguk feels his cheeks burn pink.

"You have abdominal muscles, Yoongi-hyung," Jeongguk says, high-pitched in a nervous squee. "I know basic physiology!"

"Yeah, well, mine are hidden beneath a layer of fat that your scrawny ass does not possess, so."

"Hey!" Jeongguk squawks. "You're super tiny and cute, hyung. And my ass is not scrawny! I will have you know that I do lots of squats to ensure its ultimate vitality."

Yoongi tilts his chin up to eye Jeongguk from under his bangs. "Shut the hell up and help me go forwards."

Jeongguk pushes off a little harder with his skates. They're right next to the wall, and there are lots of kids skating much more skillfully past them, but Jeongguk is content to just hang out right here, palms flat against Yoongi's, both of them with subtly pink cheeks. "Seriously, hyung. Straighten up so you're not, like, permanently bowing. You gotta get your whole body to hold itself up, if that makes sense. Like your bones are stacked up on top of each other and not hunching over. And bend your knees to absorb impact!"

Yoongi's glare intensifies, but he does adjust his grip on Jeongguk's hands and straighten up, knees bending. And bending.

"Not that much, hyung!" Jeongguk half-screeches, laughing and crouching down too, still moving slowly backwards on his skates. "Okay, you're better on the posture thing, but you're not doing wall sits! Just calm down. "

Yoongi yanks a hand out of Jeongguk's just to flip him off. "I'm extremely calm, Bunny. I'm just realistic about what I can and cannot do."

"Here." Jeongguk grins, tugging Yoongi down even lower, so they're crouched down right over their feet, knees knocking to bruise—"Ow," they complain at the same time, and Jeongguk tips his head forward so his forehead knocks Yoongi's too. Denim padding for their knees, and hair between the skin of their foreheads, and Jeongguk revels in the harsh contact anyways.

"Way to be gentle," Yoongi says, but slow, and lazy, like he's more just saying words to put something between them. Something to grasp onto, a safety net just for now. Not a real barrier: as if there's any such thing. Something there is that does not love a wall.

"I'm trying, Yoongi-hyung," Jeongguk smiles back. "Don't worry. I've got you."

Yoongi's lips part and his eyes darken impossibly in the already dim light of the roller rink. There are families skating around them, canned pop music blaring in the speakers, birthday party kids waving glow sticks, all hyped up on sugar. Jeongguk hardly registers any of it. He's too busy spinning through Yoongi's galaxy, spiraling between clouds of space dust and bright pink-orange-green nebulas like the neon black light posters on the walls, a comet streaking into Yoongi's sun gravity and staying.

"I've got you, Yoongi," Jeongguk dares to say. That's what Yoongi wants, Jeongguk thinks. Someone to have him. Just like Jeongguk wants, just like he was thinking earlier. Allies.

Someone zooms past them, then someone else, then—

"Fuck, watch it, " some douchey college frat bro shouts, slamming hard into Yoongi's back and sending him sprawling half on top of Jeongguk. Jeongguk is thrown onto his tailbone and then his back hits the wall, head slamming into the dasher boards.

"Ow," Jeongguk mutters, blinking hard. It take a second for his eyes to refocus, and when they do, he sees Yoongi in his lap, pushing himself up gingerly.

"You okay?" Yoongi asks, leaning in to look hard at Jeongguk's eyes, like he's checking for proper pupil dilation or whatever.

"I'm fine," Jeongguk winces, tipping forward to press his fingertips against the back of his skull. "I'm not bleeding, right?"

"Lemme check," Yoongi says, cradling Jeongguk's head in his hands. He leans up over Jeongguk's aching frame. "Fuck, I can't see. Hang on." He pulls out his phone and flicks the flashlight on, holding it above Jeongguk's head. "You're good, Bunny. No blood. Fuck, I'm so sorry."

"Wasn't your fault," Jeongguk says. He's not hurt—okay, he's hurting a little, his tailbone tender and when he feels again, there's a definite lump on the back of his head. But he's okay. When his fingers brush Yoongi's, both of them still checking carefully over Jeongguk's possible injury, the calm that steals over him is warm and comforting.

"Fuck, fuck those guys," Yoongi grumbles. "My knees fucking hurt. "

Jeongguk giggles. "Come on. We've been here a while. Maybe we should call it quits and go for the milkshakes?"

"No way," Yoongi says. "You still haven't managed to teach my deadbeat legs to do this skating thing right."

Jeongguk tips his head back and misjudges the distance between his skull and the dasher boards. His head thunks there again and he winces through a laugh. "Ow!"

"Oh my god," Yoongi says, shaking his head. "You are doing this to your self. "

Jeongguk nods. "I am. I really am."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. Promise, hyung. Come on, let's go around again. No crouching down this time. Standing room only."

Yoongi nods and helps Jeongguk to his feet, both of them leaning heavily against the wall. The douchey frat bros are still zooming around the rink, and Jeongguk has half a mind to find the one who hit them and apologize as sweetly as possible just to make the guy feel bad, but. Well. That's kinda-mean. And Jeongguk can be kinda-mean, but he's with Yoongi, and being with Yoongi might make him a little bit fiercer than normal, a little bit wilder—but not kinda-mean-er. Yoongi makes Jeongguk too warm for that.

They push carefully off the wall. "Okay, maybe just hold my hand this time? And I'll just skate forwards?" Jeongguk offers.

Yoongi nods and situates his hand in Jeongguk's. Gets their palms a little closer, thumbs overlapping. "Okay. I'm ready."

Yoongi actually does okay. With Jeongguk next to him instead of in front, he seems better able to mimic Jeongguk's easy, flexible posture. Yoongi keeps one hand on the wall and the other in Jeongguk's, and they make it around a few times that way before Yoongi seems to settle into his skin, knees easy, shoulders squared over his hips. After a while, Jeongguk lays back on pushing and lets Yoongi propel them, and they don't fall. They skate that way for a while, exchanging idle observations about their fellow skaters and oooh ing at the guy who can do actual tricks and cheering when good songs come on. Finally, on their fifth or tenth or thirtieth lap, Yoongi declares himself competent enough to call it a night (as long as Jeongguk is ready to go—he says that part all shy and half at the floor, only if you wanna go, Bunny, we can stay if you want ).

"Okay. Milkshakes." Yoongi slips out of his skates and waits for Jeongguk to take off his own, carries both pairs up to the counter and retrieves their shoes. "Any preferences on where we go, Bunny-yah?"

Jeongguk shakes his head. "Just somewhere that makes their milkshakes thick. I don't like it when they're all runny." Jeongguk crinkles up his nose and blinks at Yoongi. "Also side note, my knees are really bruised. And my back sorta hurts." He's still sitting on the bench, and Yoongi is standing in front of him, kind of in between Jeongguk's spread thighs, and suddenly Jeongguk notices that Yoongi looks kind of faint and kind of—oh. Oh. Milkshakes. Bruised knees. Aching back. Yoongi between Jeongguk's legs. Mussed hair and grins and easy intimacy. Jeongguk at eye level with—

Oh.

"Hyung," Jeongguk whispers, shaky and too intimate for the place they're in. Not sure if he's teasing, not sure if he's not. "Come on. I'm sure we can find a diner."

Yoongi sighs out a heavy breath and offers a hand. Jeongguk takes it and stands, and Yoongi doesn't step back even a centimeter; their feet are sort of tangled up, their chests brushing, Jeongguk is taller but not towering, and he slouches his hips forward and shrinks his shoulders. He can feel the barely-there friction of Yoongi's coat against the front of his jeans. They're almost eye to eye with Jeongguk making himself small, leaning back—Yoongi sees the vague swaying momentum of Jeongguk's frame and reaches an arm around to steady him, firm at the small of Jeongguk's back.

"Thanks, hyung," Jeongguk smiles, tugging his beanie into place. All the while, Yoongi holds him up, hands careful against the leaves and branches and flower blossoms of him. The light of Yoongi's touch is photosynthesizing in Jeongguk's veins, making his magic-sachet cinnamon-anise-nutmeg-sugar grow and grow and grow.

"Come on, Bunny," Yoongi says, lacing their fingers together on automatic. They're halfway to the exit when Yoongi realizes he's doing it, and he starts to pull away but Jeongguk just squeezes tighter, surges forward to push them through the door into the twilit air. Jeongguk almost turns to look but then doesn't: he feels, suddenly, as Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the Underworld, doomed if he looks back—

Jeongguk laces their fingers together, and Yoongi lets himself be led.

They make it to the car with palms aligned, Jeongguk nurturing a hidden smile, hidden like a shy new rosebud. They have to let go to get in the car but as soon as they're safely capsuled away in the front seat, Jeongguk counts them safe from the doom of Hades. He turns to Yoongi and grins, bunny-like and nose crinkled and teeth so big in his mouth. Yoongi is grinning back, cheeks red and cherry-bright.

"What's your favorite kind of milkshake?" Yoongi asks, slouched low in the driver's seat like they're not going anywhere quite yet. Jeongguk slides lower; they're practically down below the line of sight in the windows now, and somehow they're holding hands again.

"Banana," Jeongguk murmurs, turning fully onto his side. He kind of wants to lean the seat back, actually curl up across the center console from Yoongi. He pictures lying like that while Yoongi drives them out into the country, out of Seoul, out to some rundown motel where no one will ever find them and capture their magic sparkling souls. "What's yours, hyung?"

"Chocolate malt," Yoongi says. "And they have to give you the extra in the metal malt cup that they blend it in. And a long metal spoon."

"With a twirly handle, yeah. And whipped cream," Jeongguk whispers. "And a cherry."

Yoongi's face scrunches all up. "No to both."

"Aw, hyung. "

"The swirly handle bit was right, at least." Yoongi flashes a grin. Shrugs, and drags himself upright, still holding Jeongguk's hand. "I guess I'll just order mine with no cherry or whipped cream." Yoongi starts the car, pulls out of the lot. Ignores Jeongguk's pout with magnanimous focus on the road, even as he reaches over at the first stoplight to buckle Jeongguk in. Even as he plugs Jeongguk's phone into the AUX cord, starts up Jeongguk's Winter Favorites playlist.

There's a diner on a corner a few blocks away. Yoongi parks and Jeongguk is still pouting at him, tapping his foot to the music and letting his fingers dance around on Yoongi's upturned hand: up his wrist to his pulse, down to each fingertip. They're not talking; they're just existing together. They climb out and instantly lock hands; walk inside and Yoongi directs Jeongguk up front, guides him after the hostess to a booth upholstered in tacky red sparkly plastic.

"Hey, you have banana milkshakes here, right?" Yoongi asks before the hostess heads back up front.

"Sure do," she says, offering menus and a small bow as she glides away.

Jeongguk and Yoongi settle across from each other, study the menus even though they don't really need to. A waitress comes over after a minute. "Can I get you started with something to drink?"

"A banana milkshake, please," Jeongguk says. He hasn't eaten dinner and probably Yoongi hasn't either, but this is a milkshake date. Not-date. Whatever.

"Can you do extra whipped cream and extra cherries on that?" Yoongi asks. The waitress smiles and nods, and Yoongi hands her the menus. "And a chocolate malt for me. Extra whipped cream and cherries on mine, too."

Jeongguk furrows his brow for a second, catches the grin Yoongi sends his way, and lights up with the force of a thousand sunflowers. "Oh, um, can we also have the metal things? Do you do that here? Like when you get the extra milkshake in the metal cup with the long metal twirly spoon?" Jeongguk asks.

"Yeah, of course," the waitress says, smiling. "That all?"

"Are you hungry?" Yoongi asks. Before Jeongguk can answer, he turns back to the waitress. "Hold on, can we keep one of the menus just in case?"

The waitress offers one menu back and then flounces off, and Jeongguk turns to Yoongi with a cantaloupe curved smile stretching summery across his cheeks. He feels around under the booth with his foot and manages to gently knock his toes into Yoongi's ankle. " Hyung. "

Yoongi rests an elbow on the table and then gets brave, dropping his arm down to offer his hand. Jeongguk takes it happily. "What."

Jeongguk's grin widens impossibly. He didn't even know his mouth could go this big. " Hyung. You got extra whipped cream and cherries for me. "

Yoongi's hand darts forward to close around Jeongguk's wrist, his thumb stroking across the back of Jeongguk's arm, his first two fingers pressed up tight into Jeongguk's pulse. "Did not. I'm expanding my horizons. Anyways, you asked the waitress to bring the extra milkshake for me."

Jeongguk grips Yoongi's wrist back. His pulse is iambic in melody, strong in his veins; Jeongguk can hear it reverberating through him, like whale songs echoing through the ocean. "You never told me your favorite book, hyung."

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. "Who says I didn't?"

Jeongguk pouts. "I asked in my last card!"

"And I gave you another card back," Yoongi smirks, leaning back in his side of the booth, letting his hand slide back so their fingers are playing together on top of the table. "Maybe I answered you in there."

Jeongguk puffs out his lips like a fish. Closes his eyes, lets the expression go and smiles brilliant at Yoongi. Yoongi looks back, huffing softly and shaking his head. He makes a face too, lips all twisted up also like a fish. Jeongguk giggles.

"One banana milkshake and one chocolate malt, extra whip and cherries on both," the waitress says, interrupting the moment with their drinks. "Let me know if you decide you want anything else."

Jeongguk leans forward and practically dives into his milkshake. Now that he has food in front of him, he's kind of starving.

"Jesus, kid," Yoongi snorts, pulling his own glass towards him. "Okay, look at this menu while you drink that and tell me what you want."

Jeongguk pulls away from his straw and blushes when he realizes he's guzzled, like, half the glass. The milkshake is thick and cold and perfect, just the right amount of sweet banana and cream. "'S okay, hyung," Jeongguk says, half his mouth still full of milkshake.

Yoongi blinks. "Swallow before you talk, kid."

Jeongguk's blush deepens— swallow, Bunny, yeah, good job; god, you did so good for me . Yoongi dragging Jeongguk up off bruised knees, steadying him while they shiver away from the front door and into the apartment, fall into Jeongguk's bed—Yoongi guiding Jeongguk to lie back, get comfy before Yoongi's mouth goes everywhere—

"Guk," Yoongi murmurs, eyes dark when Jeongguk meets them. He must know what Jeongguk is thinking. Must must must, with eyes like that. "Jeongguk. Pick something to eat, baby Bunny."

"Oh," Jeongguk whispers, chin tilted down as he shrinks his shoulders, gazes up at Yoongi with his bottom lip bitten between his teeth—

Yoongi is kind of staring. "Don't look at me that way, Bunny," he murmurs, " God, your eyes are, like, half your face. It's really...you're so pretty."

Jeongguk's toes curl, his foot jerking up against Yoongi's ankle in accidental footsie. Yoongi pushes into the touch even though Jeongguk is still wearing his shoes, can't slip out of them easily enough to get their socked feet together and make this real—and then Yoongi is leaning forward and getting his fingers laced through Jeongguk's—"Do you like it like this, babe?" Yoongi whispers, leaning in over the booth. "Want me to hold your hand, get you really close before you...?"

Yoongi must hear the hitch in Jeongguk's breath even if he can't feel the tug his voice invokes deep in Jeongguk's stomach. Yoongi's grin is secret and safe. "Close to me, I mean," he revises. "Is that what you like? Being close to someone?"

Oh. Oh. Jeongguk's eyes are wide, he can't help the way his pulse is racing, the open pout of his lips. "Hyung."

Yoongi's eyes widen, and he tenses to sit back like he thinks he's done something wrong— oh, no, wait, don't go— "Yeah," Jeongguk whispers, eyes dropping to the red sparkly vinyl of the tabletop as he holds tighter to Yoongi's hand. "That would be nice. I like close. And soft."

"Yeah," Yoongi says, half a question and half confirmation of something he must have already surmised. "Me too, Bunny."

Jeongguk's eyes widen, and he takes another innocent sip of his milkshake. "Really?"

Yoongi's eyes are deep, and nebulous, and unreadable. "Yeah, Kookie. I like taking things easy, and slow."

Jeongguk's heart swells and swells—past little buds of petals, past open blossoms—Jeongguk's whole self is bearing ripe fruit, swollen mangoes or papayas or plums, something sticky and sweet and juicy on your tongue, wet with morning dew, pulsing with rich spring nutrients. "We can do that," Jeongguk whispers. "Like. In all regards."

"Slow, you mean," Yoongi says, eyes wide, recognizing something. Seeing the fruit, maybe, that ripens in Jeongguk from the sheer hydrogen force of Yoongi's existence. "You want—you want to be..."

Jeongguk lets the moment hang, the tension made of embers, the anticipation easy and delightful and new. "We don't have to say anything," Jeongguk says. Not we don't need labels. Not we're just hanging out, seeing where it goes. Jeongguk knows the label, knows what they are, where it's going. Yoongi knows, too, Jeongguk is sure. "It's okay. Drink your milkshake, hyung."

Yoongi looks down at his melting ice cream and takes the long twirly spoon out of the frostbitten metal malt cup to scoop his whipped cream and cherries into Jeongguk's glass. Their fingers are still interlocked. Their hearts are still beating in time: Jeongguk's a juicy starfruit, Yoongi's a flaming star.

Jeongguk orders chicken strips and French fries for them to split. They dip the food in what's left of Yoongi's chocolate malt, grinning secret and only talking in little bubble bursts, and after, Yoongi drives Jeongguk home.

"Bye, hyung," Jeongguk whispers when they arrive at his building, reluctant to get out of the car and face his empty bedroom inside.

"Bye, Bunny," Yoongi murmurs, squeezing once before he lets go of Jeongguk's hand.

"See you soon?" Jeongguk asks, peering up from under his sandy, grown-out bangs.

Yoongi's expression is surprised, but then it goes soft. "Sure. If you want to."

"Yes," Jeongguk says, a single-syllable, binding promise. "Text me?"

Yoongi nods, looking just barely distraught as Jeongguk opens the door, lets himself carefully out of the car. Jeongguk can barely stand to turn away, to head inside, and as he goes in the front door, he sees that Yoongi is waiting to make sure he gets into the lobby safely before he drives away.

Jeongguk shivers and offers half a wave, and then he finally pushes the button for the elevator, half giddy and half drained with the happy-sad of a new budding thing, that time period where you want to throw yourself in headfirst and spend every waking second with a Boy you might love, a time period where that's impossible, and you have to stay kind of separate to make sure that it lasts.

(At least, that's what practical wisdom would dictate. Knowing Jimin and Taehyung, Jeongguk isn't so sure. Knowing Yoongi, he's even less.)

The elevator dings and Jeongguk steps inside, giddy and disappointed to be, now, alone. He misses Yoongi, but Jeongguk likes missing things. Likes the anticipation for the next time, the craving like an addiction in your veins. Likes the emptiness of it, and the fullness, and the pretty distraughtness of pining. Jeongguk feels all of that as he makes his way down the hall, as he pushes into his apartment. When he gets upstairs and into his room, he remembers the letter.

Dear Kookie-yah,

Thanks for letting me crash with you. Thanks for not dying, or getting brain damage. Thanks for giving me my meds back. Thanks for not asking what they are, even though I'll tell you if you want to know. Thanks for how you look when you sleep, and thanks for letting me tell you right now even though it's probably creepy. Thanks for showing me how your mouth drops open, and how you inhale and exhale so calmly, and how your eyelashes flutter, and how you curl up around a pillow. Thanks for waking up when I asked you to so you could take more painkillers. Thanks for taking cold showers, although I'm pretty sure you don't remember them because you were really out of it and talking nonsense that whole time (also I didn't look, don't worry, I wouldn't do that without non-feverish consent).

Thanks for agreeing to come hang out with me. Thanks for not making it hard to ask. Thanks for reading this entire stupid card with all my thanks-s because I thought it would be clever to write it that way but it's probably just cheesy and gimmicky. Thanks preemptively for teaching me to roller skate, because I can't, and thanks for liking a silly flavor of milkshake, because I can just tell there's no way you're going to order something normal, like strawberry or vanilla.

Thanks for letting me call you Bunny or Bunny-yah even though you're a grown-ass adult and I know you know it, even though you like Soft Things. Thanks for liking Soft Things, because that's really fucking cute, Jeongguk-ah. Fuck. Fuck, the first sentence of this card that didn't start with "thanks" started with "fuck" instead. Classy. Sorry, Bunny <3

I'm running out of room, so I'll keep this part quick. My favorite book is The Picture of Dorian Gray. Namjoon made me read it a couple years ago. Have you read it? Also, why did you keep talking about flowers while you were sick? You said they were growing in your chest and tickling you. Have you heard of hanahaki disease? Maybe you have that.

See you soon, Bunny-yah.

Love,

Yoongi <3

Jeongguk pulls out his phone and on impulse takes a selfie of himself holding up the card while he stretches out on his bed, expression pouty and soft, hair splayed across the pillow, shirt bunched up a little and slouching down to reveal a collarbone that casts a deep shadow across the pale of his skin. He doesn't look seductive; he doesn't try for that sort of thing. He just looks sleepy, and cozy, and warm.

Me: [Image Attached]

Me: thank you for the letter, yoongi hyung <3

yoongi-hyung <3: oh

yoongi-hyung <3: you look.

Me: <3

Me: nightnight, have nice dreams, hyung

yoongi-hyung <3: goodnight, sleep tight

yoongi-hyung <3: don't let the bedbugs bite.

Me: <3

yoongi-hyung <3: <3