baby i’m the one (and you’re the only one) (2/2)
←1/2
Over the past months, Jimin has become unphased to scratching coming from his front door. Taehyung has accidentally left Soonshim outside more times than he can count. He’s used to hanging out with her until Taehyung would knock on his door hours later, shrugging his shoulder and grinning sheepishly.
He’s passing through his living room, freshly showered, when he detours towards the front door and opens it. Jimin drops his eyes to Soonshim’s level automatically, the usual fondness blooming in his chest.
“Hi.”
Only then does he notice the shoes behind Soonshim, following the path up skinny-jean-cladded legs to meet Taehyung’s twinkling eyes. His hair has changed once again to a soft chocolate that blends in with the colour of dying leaves.
“Hi,” he straightens up, leaning casually against his door frame, a wry smile on his lips, “Soonshim escaped again?”
“Nope,” Taehyung pops the ‘p’, grinning gleefully, clearly pleased with himself. “I let her out, because she seems to like you a lot.”
Jimin’s normally droopy eyes widen a fraction, mouth dropping open with realisation that his neighbor had just used his dog to trick him into coming outside. And he fell for it.
“Are you gonna let us in? It’s cold.” Taehyung reveals the six pack he’s holding in one hand, “I brought an offering.”
“Tae-hey!” Soonshim dashes into his house from between Jimin’s legs, heading straight towards the cushion that Jimin has designated to be her spot every time she stays over.
Taehyung naturally strides in after her, kicking off his shoes and flopping onto Jimin’s couch like he owned the place. Jimin stares after him, before shutting his door with a slow shake of his head. It is really cold outside.
They spend a few good hours marathoning Haikyuu!! on Taehyung’s insistence. Between the two of them, the beer as well as a few bottles of soju from Jimin’s stash steadily disappear. By the time Jimin is properly tipsy, he’s watching Taehyung with great amusement - the other is considerably more shitfaced than Jimin is.
It’s funny, Jimin thinks, for his Saturday night to end up like this, getting drunk in his apartment with his neighbor, whom he recently realises has been sending him strange, confused signals for a long, long time.
What he could have never have anticipated is for Taehyung to tug his shoulder around to face him, and press his lips sloppily onto the corner of Jimin's, before colliding their foreheads together, giggling uncontrollably. Just as suddenly, Taehyung backs up to his spot on the floor and comments casually about how cool Oikawa is.
It doesn’t go as well for Jimin. He’s struck dumb in place, his muddled mind trudging sluggishly to catch up with the development of events. The skin where Taehyung touched is tingling still, Taehyung’s light laughter echoing in his head. For a few long moments, all he could hear was his pulse racing, feeling his whole body heat up as his eyes roam Taehyung’s profile.
He takes in the way Taehyung’s newly coloured fringe falls into his glazed over eyes, the straight slope of his nose and spit-slicked lips, the curve of his Adam’s apple down to his sharp collar bones, bared by the low neckline of his sweater. Jimin gulps. Never before has he felt desire curling low in his gut so quickly. His throat clamps up when Taehyung catches him staring just as he flicks his eyes back up. There, in Taehyung’s pupils, the same want is mirrored.
As how unexpected everything with Taehyung is, Jimin finds himself just as suddenly kissing Taehyung, the other crashing into him with enough force to knock him backwards onto his carpet. Jimin would be lying if he said he didn’t kiss back, tongue curling hotly over Taehyung’s, or that his body wasn’t reacting to Taehyung’s every touch, keening and urgent.
They don’t make it to Jimin’s bedroom. Jimin’s worn leather couch seemed good enough right at that moment. Taehyung makes quick work of their clothes, tugging Jimin’s shirt up high, his lips following and worshipping every strip of skin revealed. He finally meets Jimin's eyes after raising his head from his position sucking a bruise onto Jimin's neck.
Jimin stares back, his pupils blown, the normal soft brown only a thin ring around dark pools of yearning. He doesn't ponder for long, can’t anyways with his intoxicated mind. All he’s sure of is the pure black want, wrapping his arms around Taehyung's neck when the other dives back in, claiming his lips like second nature.
Taehyung fucks him like that, facing each other, his large hands burning on Jimin's thighs, pushed up and bent at his knees. It's incredibly, unnervingly intimate to Jimin, to be held that way, and it's all Jimin could do to cling onto him tightly. It’s been a while for him, but it’s the first time he’s felt such electric in someone’s touch, rendering him incapable of any rational thought outside of how Taehyung feels against him, inside of him, steady and unreserved.
When Jimin comes, messily between their stomachs, phasing in and out of his high, he vaguely hears Taehyung chanting his name, over and over against the column of his neck before finishing.
Sounds of someone trying to move around quietly shakes Jimin from the grasps of sleep. He cracks his eyes open and promptly panics a little. He's still lying on his couch, sore, and there's a blanket pulled up to his shoulders.
Jimin doesn't know why he makes no indication that he's even awake, an irrational sort of fear bubbling up inside him. He settles for watching Taehyung silently, who's pulling on his coat and shoes, humming a tune softly under his breath. Soonshim trots over to his feet and he bends to blow raspberries on her nose, his smile uninhibited, the kind Jimin feels is reserved behind closed doors. He looks away, feeling strangely intrusive. Then he hears his front door swing open, footsteps and hushed coaxing, and then the door clicking shut again. He stays in place until he hears the same sounds repeated, muffled this time as Taehyung enters his own apartment.
A glance around the room tells him that Taehyung had cleaned up the beer cans and soju bottles. Sitting up, he notices that Taehyung had even wiped him down from the mess last night. A ping from his phone indicates a text from Taehyung and he swipes to unlock it with shaking fingers.
had fun last night! take it easy today
we should hang out again soon :)
He groans at the dull pounding in his temple, before dropping his head into his hands.
What the fuck happened. He had been convinced that Taehyung is just a super touchy-feely, clingy, flirty, generally affectionate friend all this time. Jimin had seen it for himself, the way Taehyung treats everyone around him. Never could he have dreamed that Taehyung was the type of person to fuck and forget, leaving him feeling ridiculous, frustratingly confused.
But mostly angry, furious that Taehyung had done that to him, and livid that he had let himself do the exact same thing.
-
Unsurprisingly, Jimin starts to avoid Taehyung. Which he quickly realises is a massive task, considering how much time he’s used to spending with Soonshim over the months they’ve known each other. Still, Jimin holds down the yearning in his gut and steels his resolve, even when the image of Soonshim’s sad puppy dog eyes keep haunting the back of his mind.
He was fine before Soonshim, before Taehyung, he’ll be fine now.
It’s a wake up call to Jimin, when a few days later, Taehyung shows up at his door, nonchalantly begging Jimin to ‘go get ice cream with Soonshim?’. He sees through it with such clarity, how Taehyung had basically used Soonshim as an excuse to get to him since day one. He tells him no, his tone icy, congratulating himself when he doesn’t even spare Soonshim a glance.
For once, Jimin is thankful for finals season. His days become a routine spent away from his apartment. Longer hours in study groups with Namjoon in the campus library, volunteering as a student mentor in his faculty, hitting the gym, throwing himself into dance with Hoseok at the studio, and repeat.
Life is so busy, that Jimin neglects his favourite dongsaeng completely, until said boy practically rams down his front door on the Saturday of his birthday week and drags him out to celebrate at their favourite barbeque house.
“So, Jungkookie,” Jimin starts, guilt tinting his tone, after the waitress leaves with their order, “what’s up?”
He’s not going to say it, but avoiding Taehyung somehow involved avoiding Jungkook too, since the younger has been spending more time with him as of late.
Jungkook sneers at him, his pretty little face scrunched up unpleasantly, “alright hyung, something is wrong, what is it, spill.”
“Nothing is wrong,” Jimin sputters, refusing to meet the younger’s eyes because he knows he’ll cave once he stares into those huge orbs of- “alright, alright.”
The little shit had the audacity to smirk at him, leaning forward onto his elbows, waiting for Jimin to continue.
“I,” he pauses, “miss Soonshim. A lot.”
Jungkook scoffs, his head rolling backwards following the intensity of disbelief in his voice. “Right,” he narrows his bambi eyes at Jimin, “you miss Soonshim.”
Jimin sinks into his seat. He does, though, miss Soonshim. But he looks up and Jungkook is still expecting an answer from him, so with a sigh, he tells him everything. Jimin is an open book. He’s never been very good at hiding anything, and even less so from Jungkook.
By the time the meat is done cooking, Jungkook is positively annoyed with Taehyung, jabbing at a piece of pork belly with his chopstick. Jimin stares on quietly. Recounting the events also brought a lot of the confusion and anger he’d been ignoring so diligently, back to the surface, only now he could pinpoint other things in the mix, mainly hurt and disappointment.
All this talk is making his chest squeeze in an ugly, twisted way. He drops his face into his hands, moaning in frustration, “I just feel like he used Soonshim to get into my pants, and that really pisses me off, you know?”
“I’m going to rip off his balls,” Jungkook grinds out, “and feed it to his own dog.”
Jimin’s face morphs into one of abhorrent alarm, and he keens weakly, “Jungkookie please.”
“But, hyung,” Jungkook puts on his serious tone, “you know this means you do like him, right? Or else it wouldn’t upset you this much. It’d be just like another casual fuck.”
Jimin chews on his bottom lip, brows furrowing. He doesn’t want to admit it out loud because that would make it real, but Jungkook has known him long enough that he doesn’t have to.
Jungkook sighs deeply then, pinning Jimin with a Look. Jimin gulps. Uh oh. Jungkook means business.
“You’re not angry at him, hyung, not all angry anyways,” he emphasises ‘all’, “you’re afraid.”
When Jimin doesn’t say anything, he continues, “only you know how you feel. Running from it isn’t going to make it go away, stupid.”
Jimin can’t even find it in himself to be mad at the younger for disrespecting him.
“You know,” Jungkook says after a long silence, “I really admired you when you confessed to me in high school,” he shrugs sheepishly, a smile lifting at the corners of his lips at the memory, “even though you were a stuttering mess and it was embarrassing as fuck, you had guts.”
Jimin had been a graduating senior, and Jungkook was in his first year. Jimin had known him for nine months through club activities, and crushed on him for seven of those months. It had been bad enough that Jungkook was so young, but Jimin had also been 200% sure that Jungkook didn’t swing that way. He thinks the finality of graduation was what gave him the courage to come clean those years ago, and even when Jungkook had rejected him, as he expected, he still graduated high school.
It had hurt, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Jimin stares across the grill at his best friend and realises how much more mature Jungkook has become, from the snot-nosed kid he had longed for, to this, all grown up and coming to his university next spring. A sort of pride fills up his chest then, only to deflate when it hits him that he’s listening to a kid two years younger than him telling him what to do.
-
As effective as finals season is, it comes to pass. Despite their Talk, Jimin successfully continues an entire stretch avoiding Taehyung. Once Seokjin’s final paper is done, the gang gets together to celebrate at Namjoon and Seokjin’s shared dorm. Everyone is in high spirits, even Jimin feels lighter than he has in the past weeks. He avoids the alcohol, though, in favour of keeping Jungkook company as the only ‘responsible, sober hyung.’ Yoongi scoffs and flips him off at that, taking another swig of his beer.
“Hey, where’s Taehyungie?” Seokjin asks and the way Jimin freezes up is only noticeable to Jungkook, who has his side pressed up against him.
He tries for a nonchalant shrug, “beats me, he’s my neighbor, I don’t keep tabs on him.” He chuckles, but the sound is dry and unconvincing, judging from the frown on Seokjin’s pretty face.
“Tae hyung is still studying for his last paper tomorrow,” Jungkook takes pity on him and cuts in, “he told me when I texted him to come.”
Jimin casts him a grateful look, only to receive a stinkeye in return. Apparently, Jungkook disagrees with his coward ass, and Jimin honestly doesn’t blame him. At around 1am, Jimin declares that it’s passed Jungkook’s curfew, pulling the younger to his feet and bidding his goodbyes before the older kids start getting rowdy. He walks Jungkook back to his own place a few blocks away, despite Jungkook’s protests of being treated like a child.
Right as he’s turning to leave, Jungkook takes hold his elbow in one firm hand, grabbing his attention.
“Jimin, this has to stop,” is all he says before he retreats into his room, leaving Jimin to make his way back home, the early winter chill colder than he remembers.
Once the front door clicks shut behind him, Jimin stands in his dark, empty living room. It’s really, really quiet. After kicking off his shoes and shrugging out of his coat, he plops onto his couch, bringing palms up to rub at his eyes.
The silence is all consuming, one that he hasn’t been used to in the past months. Sitting up, he perks his ears. No sound of Soonshim at all. Before this, he could always hear Soonshim’s excited yipping near meal times, and Taehyung’s muffled voice would filter through, trying to shush her. No padding of paws across Taehyung’s floorboards, no whining at his door.
Jimin is worried despite himself. He hasn’t seen Soonshim for weeks now. What if she got caught by management? Taehyung is the type that would get careless like that.
He makes a decision and opens up his personal chat with Taehyung, cringing at the last text sent from Taehyung a few days ago asking him to hang out because i’m boreddddddddddd. Jimin chews on his bottom lip, feeling guilt eating at his insides and Jungkook’s words ring in his head telling him to man the fuck up.
hey tae sry ive been busy
how’s soonshim?
He locks his screen in record speed after the little tick appears next to his text, just so he can’t regret having used Soonshim as a conversation opener. This is stupid. He feels like some pubescent teenager, heart pounding abnormally loud in the silence of his apartment.
Almost immediately, his phone lights up a small halo in the darkness, vibrating consecutively with texts. He scrunches his eyes shut and swipes at his screen.
i hate finals
last paper tomorrow ;;;
im out of coffee can i go over to borrow some
Jimin is perplexed. Taehyung sounds like how he always does, as if Jimin hadn’t just ignored him for forever. He quickly types a reply in the affirmative and gets up to flip on some lights. When he hears the familiar sound of Taehyung’s door opening and closing, he starts to panic a little, recalling the events the last time Taehyung was over.
Fuck. It’s too late to back out now. Fuck.
There is a knock and he bravely pulls open his door to Taehyung’s smiling face. The other sidesteps him quickly as if Jimin would slam the door in his face if he waited any longer, and heads straight to his kitchenette, opening cabinets with practiced familiarity. Jimin watches him as he really does make himself coffee first before settling next to Jimin on the floor, cradling Jimin’s favourite mug like it was holding the liquid of eternal life.
Jimin clears his throat, hugging his knees to his chest. “You still haven’t told me, how’s Soonshim?”
“My parents came down to visit last week,” Taehyung explains, blowing gingerly at the steam wafting from the surface, “they took her home, said she’d be a distraction during finals.” He makes a face of distaste, which Jimin mirrors.
“It’s so quiet without her,” Jimin chuckles into his elbow, “I kinda miss her.”
“Yeah, I miss her too.”
They fall into silence, but not the good kind. Taehyung is staring intently at his mug when Jimin gives in and chances a glance at him. He hasn’t seen Taehyung in a while; he unsurprisingly looks like death, the product of too much caffeine and one too many all-nighters, but still so, so attractive in Jimin’s eyes.
Oh no. The yearning he feels is very real, and Jimin is just scared out of his fucking mind, listening to his own pulse thrumming under the skin of his wrist he has pressed to his lips.
Taehyung isn’t scared, though. He turns his head to the side and grins at Jimin, light rekindling in his eyes, “I missed you a lot too, Jiminnie.”
Jimin goes very still when Taehyung shuffles closer.
“I’m sorry if you felt like I was messing with you,” his lips twist into a shy smile, “Sorry for using Soonshim to get your attention too. You just seemed like you liked her a lot, and wouldn’t have spared me a second thought if I didn’t have her with me.”
It isn’t untrue. Soonshim had been the catalyst of their friendship, even if Jimin still disagrees on the notion of using her as all.
“You’re so stupid,” he huffs.
Taehyung puts down his mug at a safe distance, fingers moving to peel Jimin’s crossed arms away to reveal his face, already flushed a deep fuschia. “Sorry,” he’s still smiling when he presses hushed words of his confession onto Jimin’s lips, chuckles when he feels Jimin shake like a leaf in the wind.
“I’ve got you,” he croons, reconnecting their lips, coaxing Jimin into the kiss until the tremors leave his body, and he’s pressing back eagerly.
It isn’t long before they’re crashing together like waves melding into one, kisses turning urgent and hungry as they stumble into Jimin’s bedroom. It feels familiar, but also distinctively different. This time neither of them are drunk. Jimin is infinitely conscious of Taehyung’s touches, gentle and warm against his skin one moment, and searing the next, leaving a trail of fire from his sternum, down the tensing lines of his hard stomach, to just under the back of his muscular thighs.
He feels every miniscule sensation when he sinks down onto Taehyung, mouth falling open and cheeks colouring at how much he wants it. “Oh god,” comes out breathy and staccatoed.
Taehyung sits up, arms circling Jimin’s middle tightly, pulling them flush together as he thrusts upwards, littering words of praise until Jimin has to shut him up with his lips, flushing beyond embarrassment.
But he just smiles at Jimin from under his fringe, his eyes twinkling crescents, and Jimin can’t look away, staring straight into him as he feels the buildup inside him rise quicker than he can push it down, until he comes in streaks over his own hand, white heat exploding behind his eyes.
Taehyung lays him down on his back then, hips unrelenting, intertwining the fingers of one hand with Jimin’s, and looping his other arm around his waist, lifting the small of his back slightly off the bed. He breathes Jimin’s name, voice low and gravelly, against the back of Jimin’s palm when he finishes, riding out his high with a few long, lazy thrusts.
“Wow,” Jimin says into the silence when he finally catches his breath.
Taehyung doesn’t stop what he’s doing, dabbing at the mess the best he can before tossing the tissues towards the general direction of Jimin’s wastebin. He misses. Then he places a quick kiss to Jimin’s belly button before resting his chin there on the back of his palms, sprawled over Jimin’s legs.
There is a shit-eating grin on his face. “I know.”
Jimin wakes up shivering, puffs of cold air slipping in through gaps in his comforter. The temperatures dropped sharply overnight, and his heating wasn’t turned up enough the night before. He turns over to burrow deeper into Taehyung’s side, pulling the edges of his comforter up around them to try and trap as much body heat as possible.
He observes Taehyung’s sleeping face, so still in contrast with his usual animated personality. The warm chocolate of his last hairdye is fading, dark roots creeping up behind. He hasn’t changed his hair colour for months now. Jimin idly thinks that’s a record. He reaches out one finger to trace the shape of his eyes, cross the peculiar slope of his upper lip, and deliberately pokes the small beauty mark on the tip of his nose.
When Taehyung stirs, he simply stares straight back at Jimin for a few full minutes, and Jimin realises that he too, might, maybe just a little bit, have missed Taehyung more than he missed Soonshim.
“Hi,” his morning voice sounds hoarse and his tongue feels like sandpaper, but he presses on, “I think I like you a lot.”
Taehyung snorts, pushing himself onto his forearms and slinging one leg over Jimin’s hip. He trails the tip of his nose up Jimin’s neck, delighted by the goosebumps he leaves in his wake, before pressing a kiss to the corner of Jimin’s mouth, grinning, “it happens.”
(Taehyung nearly misses his paper later than afternoon. He jolts upright in Jimin’s bed and declares, “oh right, I have macro-econs finals in twenty minutes.”
“What?!” Jimin shrieks, violently kicking him out of bed.
“Chill out, Jiminnie,” Taehyung whines, picking up articles of his clothes littered around the room and pulling them on, “I’ve got this. Can I borrow a pen?”
Jimin can hardly believe it, but Taehyung strolls into his exam in yesterday’s clothes, barely salvageable bed hair, and way too much confidence for someone who spent the night before a paper rolling between the sheets. )
-
Exiting the automatic doors of the dance studio, Jimin hurriedly stuffs his hands into his coat pockets, grasping a hot pack he keeps there like a lifeline. He’s waiting for Jungkook to emerge with Hoseok when he gets a twitter notification. Sliding his frozen fingers across the screen, his jaw drops open in shock.
Taehyung has attached photos of one of his favourite plush toys, a cartoon cat he’d received as a gift years ago, to a tweet, tagging him in it. The poor cotton doll is wedged into a clothes hanger and strung up against the corner of his bedroom door.
why don’t you come home, is the caption.
“Fuck,” Jimin hisses, stricken, he should have never given Taehyung a key. Nobody knows about this doll. Except maybe Jungkook. Nobody.
Speaking of the devil’s child himself, Jungkook appears then, snickering over his shoulder. When Jimin looks back, he’s received another mention on twitter.
you should doodle nipples on it, hyung, jimin will implode :P Of course it’s Jungkook.
“I am going to hurt you,” Jimin growls, gripping his iphone until his knuckles turn white, “after I skin that son of a bitch Kim Tae-”
“Hey Jiminnie, you sure do look cute in this picture,” Hoseok cuts him off, brandishing a photo on his phone screen in his line of vision.
And Jimin pales, the blood from his cold-bitten cheeks seemingly rushing from his face. He vaguely registers Jungkook cackling behind him, maybe even falling on his ass onto what he hopes is really dirty, grey, slushy snow.
Taehyung has tweeted another photo of him, asleep without a shirt on. It’s an ugly, unflattering photo, but Taehyung captions it, my sleeping jiminnie <3
“God, you guys are so cute. But you look dead tired in this,” Hoseok chides good-naturedly. Kind, caring Hoseok hyung, “tough week? Take it easy, man.” He pats Jimin’s back comfortingly, but Jimin is anything but comforted.
“Haha, yeah,” his smile is rigid. He’s not about to tell them that the photo was most probably taken after he and Taehyung had gone a second round the night of Taehyung’s birthday a few nights ago.
“Kim Taehyung!” Jimin bellows as he bursts into his room, taking wide, purposeful strides towards his swivel chair, which swivels around to reveal a smiling Taehyung with a lapful of Soonshim, both staring up at him as if he owned two dogs instead of honorarily owning one.
Jimin’s anger simmers down into a discreet annoyance. Even after all this he still allows Taehyung to use Soonshim to get what he wants from him.
“Welcome home,” Taehyung chirps, “I wanted to show you what I found.” He turns back towards Jimin’s macbook, pulling up a tab amongst the shitpile on his desktop as Jimin reluctantly settles in the spare chair they had brought in from the dining area.
“It’s a few blocks from here, but there’s a bus stand right outside. Rent is a little high, but between the two of us I think we can cut it pretty fine,” Taehyung glances at Jimin, and whispers lowly, “they allow pets.”
Taehyung’s eyes are shining expectantly, reflecting artificial light from the laptop, Jimin knows, but still, he’s completely breathtaking like this, sitting there in one of Jimin’s old concert t-shirts and basketball shorts. His hair is a dark, granite brown colour now that makes his skin seem almost ethereal in contrast.
And Jimin can’t help it when he leans over Soonshim, squished between their torsos, to cup Taehyung’s cheeks and mould their lips together. He quickly gains access and drags his tongue across Taehyung’s teeth, pressing insistently against Taehyung’s own tongue, until he’s drawing quiet mewls from the boy beneath him, breaking apart only when the angle gets too awkward.
Soonshim yelps for attention then, and Jimin’s eyes disappear with his smile as he drops a kiss right on her head. Turning his attention back to the real estate page, he casts a fond look at his boy before intertwining their fingers, picturing coming home to not only Soonshim’s comforting presence, but Taehyung too.
Bright, loud, stupid, sunshine Taehyung.
“Yeah ok, let’s do it.”
a/n:
- cleaned it up haha major typos were committed
- it probably shows that i know very little about dogs aha im more of a kitty person /o\
- this was originally a jimin/jungkook during plotting stage but it just derailed lol
- #iamvmintrash
- fun fact: there were a few confusing hours after i submitted the fic where taehyung posted a convo with his brother re: soonshim's gender and a mistranslation somewhere that said it was male and i like freaked out for a while lmao
- idk how this is 11k but enjoy ♥♥♥