Chapter Text
Hoseok doesn’t wake to dappled sun on his face and birds chirping. He wakes up in a dark room to the sound of a taxi laying on the horn, long before the sun is ready to be up (and long before he is too).
He’s not in his bed.
That’s a problem.
Someone is snoring next to him.
That’s…a problem.
Hoseok winces, one eye open, the other one pressed shut against the pillow beneath his head. Cotton case. Green striped. Organic. Hoseok’s are silk and trimmed with lace, pretty just the way he likes it. He rolls, a slow, twisted contortion meant to minimize the chances of waking whoever is beside him. He’d prefer they stay asleep until he can sus out who exactly it is. Some people are better run from in the night than greeted.
He lands on his other shoulder and squints. In the pre-dawn black, all he can really make out are sloped shoulders, sheets slipped down to chest height, a broad back, the well-defined nape of a neck, close-cropped dusty blond hair and grown out roots.
Hoseok drops back down into his pillow, biting his tongue to muffle a dozen or so expletives,
It’s Namjoon Kim.
That’s a fucking problem.
He screws his eyes shut, hunting for the last thing in his sludgepool memory that he can firmly grasp.
Yesterday afternoon, when he got the email that the Aerie campaign slipped through his fingers. He had it. He had it. He was waiting on the contracts to hit his inbox, then instead of official paperwork, he got a notice that they opted to take “a different direction” with the campaign.
Different direction, Hoseok’s ass. He knows exactly what that means. He’ll see a bunch of white models on the website’s home page within a matter of weeks. Whatever. Fuck ‘em. That’s the industry, cutthroat as hell.
Except, no, it’s not fuck ‘em, it’s a near-crisis for Hoseok. He needed the series of paychecks that would bring, his other partnerships are dwindling, if he doesn’t get something else big on the books soon, he’s going to lose momentum, and making it in New York City is all about momentum. Taehyung says he doesn’t need to sweat about it yet, but Hoseok’s already perspiring. If he’s being honest, when he signed the lease on this place near two years ago, fresh out of Cornell, he’d been…perhaps overly optimistic. It wasn’t that it was out of budget, it’s just that it very much depended on that whole keeping momentum thing. He was confident then, given that the endeavor he and Taehyung wrapped themselves in was proving to be especially lucrative. Uarmyhope, AKA Hoseok Jung, dancer, Pilates instructor, NYC fashionista, and budding model. Signed to an agency, albeit not a shockingly famous one, and managed by Taehyung externally, bless his heart.
Hoseok’s lease renewal is on the horizon, and the facts are that if he doesn’t start getting this graph to chart upward again, he’s going to need to downsize.
Not that that would be awful, he grumbles internally. At least he wouldn’t share a complex with Namjoon Kim anymore.
How the fuck did he get here again? The Aerie deal. He went to that bar down the street on an empty stomach. Cheaper and faster to get drunk that way. He saw Namjoon there. One thing must’ve lead to another, and…
Well, Hoseok had very acute reasons to be feeling self-destructive last night. But he tries to make a point of not sleeping with Namjoon Kim, though it’s happened several times since sophomore year at their college. Only several. Hoseok swears that as long as he can tally their nights together on one hand, he doesn’t need to worry about it. This makes…four. Maybe five. He’s doing a shit job of counting, but he tries not to think about Namjoon in general. He’s the kind of alpha Hoseok tries to avoid: obnoxiously regimented, a runner and a fucking snob about it. A snob in general. One of those insufferable academics. A holier-than-thou nerd since Hoseok met him in highschool. His whole personality worsened during their time at Cornell (no, Hoseok didn’t mean for them both to end up there, and no, he doesn’t want to talk about how pissed he was to find out. Don’t even get him started on the apartment complex thing).
He shouldn’t be here. It’s a Saturday morning. He has classes to lead later.
He presses his tongue up against the backs of his teeth and starts to peel his body toward the edge of the bed. Thankfully, he wasn’t touching Namjoon to begin with, which makes it a lot easier to escape. He manages to get all the way to his feet without causing Namjoon to even twitch. He looks around. There are too many damn books in this room, stacked by the end of the bed, haphazardly piled on the dresser in the corner. Where are Hoseok’s clothes? He spots his jeans thrown over a shoe rack in the corner and reaches for them, grasping the cuff and tugging.
Clunk.
“Shit, fuck, shit,” Hoseok whispers, scrambling for his phone a second too late and watches it slide from his pocket and hit the hardwood floor, obnoxiously loud in the silence broken only by the monotonous sound of city life on the ground floor below.
Too late. Namjoon shifts where he lies, turning once, twice—fuck Hoseok’s life—then pushing up on one elbow.
God fucking damn it. Of course he’s a light sleeper. Why can’t anything just go Hoseok’s way?
Namjoon blinks. Without his glasses, Hoseok knows he’s a single shaky step down from legally blind. Plus, it’s dark in here. Maybe he won’t recognize Hoseok at all. He could cut his losses with his shirt, just take his jeans and run out. He only has to go up two floors to get to his apartment, and with any luck there won’t be anyone around to spot him doing a naked walk of shame.
“Hoseok?”
Right. There goes that plan.
Now that he’s up, Namjoon’s scent is, too, percolating around the room. He’s all earthen and damp, he’s morning dew, green and ever so slightly sweet. He’s salt, mineral-heavy, wetting the palate. He’s freshly laundered cotton, an air of clean warmth sitting soft on his skin. All good things, all fine, but nothing Hoseok wants. He shouldn’t have come here.
“I’m on my way out,” he mutters, stepping into his jeans and scanning the dark for his shirt.
Namjoon sinks back into his pillow. “It’s like, the middle of the night.”
Hoseok checks his watch. “It’s 4:30.”
“Like I said…”
“I have class,” Hoseok replies. It’s not a lie. It’s just that the earliest class in his week’s lineup doesn’t start until 6:30, and even then, he only has that on Mondays. On Saturday, he doesn’t show up at the studio until 8:00, and that’s if he’s being ambitious.
“At 4:00 in the morning?”
“Yes, it’s called being employed,” Hoseok informs him, bristling. Where is his god damn shirt? If he was at a bar last night, he knows he wore something good, something he isn’t willing to lose to the literature-laden purgatory of Namjoon’s apartment. “Ever heard of it?”
“Hoseok,” Namjoon’s voice is muffled by his pillow. “I work in a hospital.”
Right. Shit. Hoseok forgot about it. What is it that he does? Pharmacist? Radiologist? He’s not a doctor, Hoseok knows that. Christ, he’d be fucking insufferable if he was a doctor. Either way, the unemployment jabs don’t work nearly as well on Namjoon as they do on Yoongi Min. If Hoseok were more generous, he would concede that Namjoon is arguably more employed than he himself is, but he’s not feeling kind this morning.
He spots his shirt, a Chanel button-down that hangs loose and pretty off his frame, snagged on the edge of an overstuffed laundry basket. He snatches it up and shakes it on, glad that it doesn’t smell like dirty running shorts. “I’m still leaving.”
Namjoon lets out a sound that’s something between a grunt and a yawn. “D’you want me to walk you to your train?”
Hoseok goes still. Unbelievable. He’s fucking unbelievable. Hoseok starts doing his buttons up faster. “I live upstairs. Are you such a manwhore that you actually don’t even remember who you took home last night? How long is the roster of people you’re taking to their trains?”
At that, Namjoon lifts his head again, looking appropriately ashamed. “No. That’s not–I know where you live. I just–it’s 4:00 AM, can I have some slack, please?”
“No,” Hoseok replies waspishly. His bag is hanging politely on the back of the door. At least he thought to put that somewhere obvious. He swipes it up and throws it over his shoulder. If his shoes aren’t somewhere on his way to the exit, he’s walking away without them. “Go back to sleep.”
“Hoseok–”
Whatever Namjoon was planning on saying, Hoseok doesn’t stay to find out.
He returns to his apartment—shoes in hand, thank god—and lets himself in, bone tired despite having just woken up. The system beeps, announcing it’s been bypassed, and Hoseok winces until it falls silent again. Taehyung is probably trying to sleep, like any sane person at this hour. Hoseok pictures him curled in those new Hommey sheets he just got, pillows punched into a perfect nest, and he’s suddenly overcome with the urge to crawl in there with him. He could fall back asleep in minutes, he knows it. Maybe catch another couple hours before he should start thinking about getting ready.
Hoseok sets his shoes in the hall and pads to his own room, making a pit stop to ditch his clothes and throw on shorts and a T-shirt. His bed is neatly made, but empty and cold compared to the warmth he knows he can find next to his best friend. He turns and heads across the hall, turning the knob to Taehyung’s room—perpetually unlocked, same as Hoseok’s is—but he stops in his tracks before crossing the threshold.
Jeongguk is with him.
Of course he is.
They’ve been together for over two years now, and Hoseok still stumbles remembering the fact that his and Taehyung’s lives, the thing they’ve shared and built together since they were omegas knocking around in high school, now include that scruffy, punky alpha Jeongguk. Which isn’t to say Hoseok has anything against Jeongguk, he’s a sweet guy and kind of harmless and cute the way that alphas rarely are. It’s just that Hoseok…well, he isn’t sure what it is exactly. The fact that he has to share Taehyung? Or the fact that while Taehyung is smitten, Hoseok has…no one who matters at all?
Hoseok shuts his eyes. In all honesty, Jeongguk is so good natured that he probably wouldn’t be pissed off if he woke up in bed with his boyfriend and Hoseok was there. But Hoseok can't bring himself to do it. They look too comfortable together, too intimate to interrupt. The August heat must have sent them to sleep dressed down to underwear, sheets slung over their middles and dripping off the bed, only half used. Limbs tangled up and indistinguishable despite the fact that it’s bordering on warm even at this hour, with the windows cracked open to let in the city’s incessant noise. At some point, the traffic becomes the calm. A necessary backdrop for the lives they live.
Hoseok turns away.
Maybe he isn’t tired anymore.
“Oh, come on. Seriously, you have to go.”
“I’m tired,” Hoseok repeats, turning back to the green tea in his Owala and taking a drink that prevents him from having to say anything more. “And it’s hot as fucking balls, you think I want to go to a club tonight?”
“It’s underground,” Taehyung counters, bracing his hands on the back of the couch and leaning forward to forcibly engage Hoseok, who is curled on the far cushion scrolling through his own comments section. “It’ll be cool.”
“Not with that many people packed into it it won’t,” Hoseok murmurs.
“It did sell out quick as fuck, didn’t it?” Taehyung hums. He sounds like he’s getting momentarily lost in pride over his boyfriend. Jeongguk departed maybe an hour ago after spending the morning into the afternoon at their apartment. He had to go get ready to play his show. A show which Hoseok would normally attend with few qualms, because he’ll be the first to admit that Amygdala makes great music, even if he has less than stellar feelings about their guitarist. But the thing about the show tonight is that it really is disgustingly warm out, he’s still hungover even after teaching his two classes today and downing three packets of Liquid IV, and he doesn’t want to see Namjoon Kim in the flesh so soon after…last night. And the chances are he’ll be there, because he’s always with that damn cousin of his, and his cousin is dating the pianist, and everything is so fucking incestuous in New York City. Everything overlaps, everyone knows everyone, and they’re all in each other’s hair all the god damn time.
Taehyung sighs, and gives Hoseok’s shoulder a shove. “You already told me you’d go. You can’t say no just cause you’re still sloppy from your bender last night.”
“It wasn’t a bender,” Hoseok sighs. He isn’t sure if it was. He can’t remember most of it. “It was just a night out.”
“Who’d you go home with anyways?”
Hoseok lifts a shoulder that says no one who mattered. He hopes Taehyung will let him leave it at that. “Just some guy I met at the bar.”
“Was he good?”
Hoseok nods. The problem with Namjoon was never that he’s bad in bed. It’s…pretty much everything else. It’s being around him that sucks the life out of Hoseok.
A moment of silence. Taehyung sounds like he’s chewing hard on his next sentence before speaking it. “Are you upset about the Aerie deal falling through?”
“No,” Hoseok answers. Too quick, and too stern. It’s a glaring red flag that screams upset! Upset! Upset!
“Hoseok.”
He clicks his phone off and turns, looking at Taehyung in earnest this time. “I’m not. I’m fine. I feel fine. Honestly, it would have been so much work anyways.”
“I’m just saying. You’re not acting fine. You don’t usually go drink your way into some stranger’s bed.”
Hoseok tips his head into the couch. It’s too fucking hot to argue. “Are you saying I don’t get laid?”
“I’m saying that sleeping around definitely isn’t your priority, and that’s not a problem. In fact, as your manager, I approve of it. And, as your manager,” Taehyung ruffles a hand through Hoseok’s hair, taking a gentle handful and tugging his head back softly, “I say put a cute little outfit on, we go to the show tonight, take the hottest pictures of you that the world has ever seen, and you keep rolling. Aerie isn’t the only brand. Someone’s going to see you tonight and your motherfucking life will change.”
If Hoseok's life is being changed tonight, he’s starting to think it’ll be for the worse.
He was right when he said it would be hotter than hell in here. Underground doesn’t count for much of anything when there’s a fire-code violation number of people packed into the venue. It’s a trendy enough spot to be found at on a normal night, but with Amygdala playing, the crowd has easily doubled. Fans and influencers alike are vying for a good spot, crowding the bar, the booths, the club’s neon sign in the little photo-op alcove in the back that Taehyung already made Hoseok pose at while they waited for the band to get onstage. Hoseok dressed cute because that’s practically a requirement to leave his apartment at this point—his black wide-legged jeans, a belt that accentuates the waist his Pilates certificate secured him, black boots and a little white baby tee that reads I’m With The Band that leaves his navel on display. Taehyung insisted on the shirt. “Everyone knows Amygdala is there tonight,” he groaned, practically wresting the collar around Hoseok’s neck, “It’ll be great for engagement on the photos.”
He’s right, but Hoseok tries not to be associated with Amygdala any more than he absolutely has to. Not since sophomore year in college.
After they finished with photos, he and Taehyung had settled into a booth mercifully far back. Taehyung used to insist they cluster right up to the stage so he could be within arm’s reach of his man, but he seems to be settling into the micro celebrity boyfriend role comfortably now, happy to linger further back with the kind of smug attitude that says he isn’t worried about the throng of omegas reaching out for Jeongguk like he’s the Second Coming of Christ, because the only coming Jeongguk does these days is inside of Taehyung.
“He’s so good it actually kind of sends my physical body into distress,” Taehyung announces, hollering over the rim of his cocktail—a house special off the menu curated specifically for tonight, each drink wittily named after an Amygdala song—in order to be heard above the music.
“At least it isn’t sending your spiritual body into distress,” Hoseok replies, swiping at the condensation building on the side of his Lemon Drop and pressing it against his cheeks in the hope that it will cool him. The relief lasts for all of about two seconds.
“Oh, no, it is,” Taehyung assures him, sitting up straighter in the side of the booth they’re sharing. Easier to speak this way and still manage to be heard, though Hoseok isn’t in the mood for much chatting. He’s too busy scanning the room for signs of Namjoon Kim. He saw Seokjin earlier, which means Namjoon can’t be far. Unless he’s on a night shift. Please be on a night shift. “Since we had the place to ourselves last night, you would not believe the things I had done to me.”
“Incredible,” Hoseok replies, and takes a sip of his drink. He’s barely bounced back from his hangover earlier, it’s a bad fucking weekend when he’s getting drunk two nights in a row, but what else is he supposed to do? This is his post-Aerie rejection bender. Being put together starts…tomorrow.
“He’s so good at eating pussy that as your best friend I wish there was a way to astral project the experience to you so you could have it for yourself. Sharing is caring, and I fucking care.”
Hoseok frowns around the edge of his glass, unwelcome memory striking him. Namjoon between his thighs, tasting him where he was sopping wet with slick, grinding against Namjoon’s mouth and smearing glossy, syrupy sweetness all over his chin, his nose. Fogging up the glasses he was still wearing like a fucking nerd. Of course Namjoon give’s head with glasses on. The recollection is so visceral that Hoseok actually squeezes his legs together beneath the table and hopes Taehyung doesn’t notice and assume he’s thinking about Jeongguk.
“But then, you were probably being taken care of last night, huh?” Taehyung gives Hoseok’s shoulder a playful shove, and Hoseok just nods.
“Yeah,” he replies flatly. “He was great.”
Something catches in the corner of Hoseok’s eye and he looks over sharply, scanning the crowd for a half second before his vision trips and stumbles on the one person he was dreading seeing tonight. Namjoon Kim. He’s standing next to Seokjin to the left of the stage, right in the middle of all the action, and the worst part is he’s looking directly at Hoseok. Knowing full fucking well what they did last night.
Taehyung pinches Hoseok’s bicep. “Are you even going to tell me the name of the guy you went home with?”
Hoseok’s hand tightens around his glass in his haste to bring it to his mouth and down the rest of his sugary, tangy vodka mix. “Honestly,” he says, slamming the glass down. “I don’t even remember. I’m getting another drink, I’ll be right back.”
The worst part of being in a band is that Yoongi is expected to be social after the fact.
He just played an hour long setlist, and now they want him shaking hands and making small talk? Fuck that. Maybe once a week he’ll indulge in it, knows networking is a necessary part of the New York hustle, but Jimin and Jeongguk do a perfectly fine job of covering that base for all three of them. No one really wants Yoongi making small talk anyways; he tends to set the conversation backwards by several paces when he tries to join. Apparently his sense of humor is too dry, and his penchant for talking without breaks about a highly specific fact is something only he finds interesting.
If Jimin and Jeongguk still try to get him out there smiling and greeting people, Yoongi will default to his last resort and whine a reminder that his first language isn’t English, and he forgets how to speak it when he’s tired. Now, that’s largely a lie—he may have grown up in Daegu, but his parents put him through English classes from a young enough age that he rarely grapples with the language anymore, especially after five years in New York—but what Jimin and Jeongguk don’t know won’t hurt them. And it certainly helps him.
No, he’ll be squirreled away in their green room avoiding company until at least half of the crowd outside peels away. The room isn’t much to look at, but at least it’s something. Up until Yoongi graduated Cornell, they were playing the corners of bars, no talent accommodations to speak of, and only every other gig (at best) was paid. Too many of them were for exposure, late nights sweating for the future they wanted, with little return to speak of. Now, they’re finally starting to crack it. Digging their claws into the New York City music scene, maybe even worldwide. Streams are starting to pick up across the nation, they’re gaining traction on social media thanks to Jeongguk’s cleverly edited mini vlogs and silly videos.
They worked for this.
Yoongi wants to enjoy his green room.
He kicks back on the couch and lights up a joint, nothing short of pleased to have the room to himself, grungy as it is. It’s a whole couch, a full-sized fridge, a sort-of kitchenette, and a private entrance. Does the door lead up a pair of concrete steps to a dead-end back alley? Yes, but private is private.
Yoongi takes a drag and shuts his eyes. He could catch a nap here. They still have to pack up their equipment later, but Yoongi meant it when he said he doesn’t want to go back out there until the throngs fade out, and those wannabe influencers schlep back to their studios with their fake designer bags. Not that Yoongi is any good at spotting a real designer bag.
And not that he’s one to talk about living a lie.
Across the room, the knob twists and the door creaks as it swings open. Yoongi doesn’t open his eyes. It’s probably Jimin and his boyfriend looking for a place to fuck. Or Jeongguk wanting to wheedle a joint off of Yoongi. Little shit. He knows Yoongi never says no to him.
“Oh, shit.” An all too familiar voice speaks—though not one Yoongi was expecting.
He opens his eyes and sits up. Hoseok Jung is standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised, one hand lifted in surrender, the other on the door knob. “I didn’t know—I was looking for…nevermind.”
“There’s a bathroom in here,” Yoongi says. He brings his joint to his mouth and takes another drag, wincing when the smoke hits the back of his throat the wrong way, but managing not to cough. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the little cupboard of a washroom sitting ajar behind him. “If the lines out there are bad.”
“Not what I was looking for,” Hoseok mutters. There’s a glittery little sheen over his eyes, a touch of makeup now smudged by sweat. Maybe distress. He looks like he’s been rubbing his face and had one too many drinks while he was doing it. Yoongi pays too much attention to Hoseok’s details when he lays eyes on him. This has always been a problem.
It’s Yoongi’s turn to raise a brow. “Are you hiding?”
Two identical dots of pink appear on Hoseok’s cheeks. Yoongi can smell him from here, the rippling annoyance in his otherwise sweet scent. Pear and honeysuckle, syrupy, fresh, floral.
“I’m not,” he says.
But he is. Yoongi guessed it while playing the show, and it’s confirmed now by Hoseok’s flighty attitude and poorly concealed pout over being found out so easily. Hoseok in the back cowering by his drink, Namjoon up front constantly glancing over his shoulder. Yoongi watches Namjoon too much, too, but in an entirely different way from how he watches Hoseok. Though he’d probably be better off paying less attention to both of them. In a way, it can’t be helped. His eyeline needs somewhere to wander while he plays, and he’s always been better at watching people than he is at engaging with them. There are entire stories to see if you just pay attention. Sometimes people wonder how Yoongi knows so much about them, and the answer isn’t anything more in-depth than he watches. Namjoon and Hoseok are neighbors, they share an apartment building, they should be alright sharing the floor of a well-crowded club, but tonight they’re not, which means Yoongi can only conclude that something went down between them. And it doesn’t take a body language analyst or a genius to guess what.
He reaches over and stubs out his joint on the tray set on the coffee table in front of him “Namjoon?” Yoongi hazards a guess.
If Hoseok’s cheeks were pink before, they’re in flames now. “No,” he replies, a shade too aggressive to be convincing. He has the mouth of a liar on him right now. “How would—? Why would you—?”
“Lucky shot,” Yoongi replies dryly. Namjoon fucking someone—anyone, really—is the most obvious and likely the most frequent event happening in Manhattan. “Let me guess, he stood you up?”
“No,” Hoseok replies, more sour than in denial this time. His hand is still dancing on the doorknob, oscillating between staying or going. If he wanted to leave, he certainly could. The exit is literally within arm’s reach, and Yoongi sure isn’t standing in front of it.
“Your shirt says you can come in,” Yoongin tells him, nodding at the slogan across Hoseok’s chest. Papery-thin material, a shadow of his nipples peeking from underneath. It looks every bit as good on him as he thinks it does. I’M WITH THE BAND. Funny. Witty, given their history. That had to be on purpose, right? “Did you wear that just to make me laugh?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?” Hoseok fires back, but he’s stepping into the room and letting the door fall shut behind him. Evidently, his desire to avoid seeing Namjoon Kim outweighs whatever self-preserving instinct that has kept the two of them from being alone with one another for the last couple of years.
“If he didn’t stand you up, what’d he do?” Yoongi asks, ignoring Hoseok’s jab in favor of yet another question. “Fuck your best friend?”
“My best friend is dating your bandmate, they only fuck each other, thank you very much.”
“Oh, don’t thank me, I didn’t set them up,” Yoongi replies, auto-rejecting all credit, joking or not. If he could have picked anyone for Jeongguk, he certainly wouldn’t have picked the best friend of a former fling. Things may have gone sour with Hoseok, but life keeps shoving them back into the same orbit. You’d think the city was only a mile wide with how often they end up stepping on each other’s toes. Namjoon too, for that matter, but Yoongi loathes to be around him far more than he does Hoseok.
Which is fucking saying something.
Yoongi leans back, tipping his head onto the couch. He didn’t smoke enough to get a real high, just enough to loosen his limbs. The drink or two he had before the show is probably helping with that too. The room smells hot and sweet, ripe with Hoseok’s scent. He must have sweated through his blockers. “So you fucked him again, then?” Yoongi asks, blunt bordering on reckless. He doesn’t have much left to lose with Hoseok, which is a social relief in its own weird way. It takes away the pressure of trying to be charismatic, to network, and be charming. He wasn’t going to win Hoseok over either why, so why does it matter?
“Again?” Hoseok chokes on his own indignance.
Yoongi picks his head up and flicks that brow toward his hairline again. “Please. I know you live in the same building, and I know him. The chances of you not having fucked before are slim to zero. You and I both know he’s a slut.”
Hoseok rolls his eyes, flicking a lock of dark hair out of his face. “Are you still hung up on Cornell? What was it, freshman year?”
“His sophomore,” Yoongi replies waspishly. “My junior. Filing error, remember?”
The housing mishap that placed them in a box of a room together, beds barely four feet apart, no room to breathe without knocking against the other person for nine months straight. They were, Yoongi thinks, the most tragically ill-suited roommates that Cornell’s management possibly could have had the misfortune of pairing.
“No,” Hoseok replies with an air of disgust. He’s a snob of an omega, always has been. Carries that edge ofsuperiority with him—he’s young, he’s gorgeous, he could have anyone he wanted in this whole city, his career trajectory doesn’t seem too shabby. Yoongi supposes he has a lot to be stuck up about. “Because I grew up.”
“So did I, but living with Namjoon Kim isn’t something one just forgets,” Yoongi replies, equally snide. Just because he understands why Hoseok acts the way he does doesn’t mean he appreciates it. There’s a reason the two of them didn’t work out. Well, there are many reasons, but Hoseok’s attitude will always be one of them. “An actual manwhore. Forgive me if I’m traumatized.”
“Sounds like jealousy to me,” Hoseok replies softly, lowering his voice to the tone of someone who has decided passive aggression will burn more than the active variety.
“Why would I be jealous?” Yoongi fires back, venom on the tip of his tongue. “He’s the one dipping into my sloppy seconds.”
Hoseok’s laugh is a short, humorless sound, disbelief painting his face. “Wow, Yoongi. Very classy. Extremely progressive. I’m just used pussy now, am I?”
“Come on,” Yoongi rolls his eyes. His fingers are itching for that joint again, a little something to soften the edges of the conversation that sharpened too fast. “You know that was a joke.”
“Didn’t laugh.”
“You quite literally did.”
“That was fake.”
“Just like your orgasms when you let Namjoon fuck you, right?”
Hoseok adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder and turns back in the direction of the door. “I think I’ll just head back out there. Shockingly, it’s more bearable than being in here.”
“Okay, okay, no, look Hoseok, I’m chill. I’m relaxed. I’ll stop being a dick.”
“First time, are you nervous?”
Yoongi lifts a lazy hand and flips him off. He puts his sneaker-clad foot up on the coffee table and pokes at the ashtray with his toe. “You wanna share the rest of this?”
“I don’t smoke,” Hoseok replies, peeved in the way that those clean, shiny, sober people are.
“Right. Good boy. I forgot.”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Why not? It’s true. You’re all well behaved. By the book. Healthy. Pilates, right?”
“What’s wrong with Pilates?”
“Nothing,” Yoongi replies. He means it. Every now and then he’ll remember his Instagram password and peek at Hoseok’s page. An observer hidden among the other seven hundred thousand followers cluttering his engagement. Yoongi never likes or saves anything, he isn’t there to interact or, god forbid, get noticed. Just watching, again. Watching Hoseok look damn good in yoga shorts. Watching him stretch in a park. Watching him share a cheeky behind the scenes glimpse at life on some set somewhere in Midtown. “Pilates are great, if you’re that sort of person.”
“Well, don’t say it like it’s a slur.”
“I’m not.” Yoongi looks over and catches the crease in Hoseok’s brow. He shakes his head. “Seriously, I’m not. You’re reading into it too much.”
“Well, you leave a lot of room between the lines,” Hoseok replies, the edges of his voice sharpening up.
Yoongi’s breath seems to solidify in his chest, taking the shape of something he doesn’t want sitting there. Are they still talking about Pilates? Or are they talking about a time that both of them should reasonably have left behind by now? Before he can ask, Hoseok turns and begins to pace what little room there is to walk in.
“Forget it,” he mumbles. “Don’t listen to me. It’s been a long, long fucking day—weekend—and, I don’t think I should have gone out tonight, and now I’m hiding back here. With you.”
“Well don’t say it like it’s a slur,” Yoongi replies, echoing Hoseok’s words from earlier.
Hoseok stops in his tracks and turns to look at Yoongi. “I should go.”
He should. He can. But he’s announcing it like he needs permission. Yoongi lifts a hand and rolls it in the direction of the door behind Hoseok. “You left it unlocked.”
“Yeah. Obviously. Wasn’t planning on—nevermind. I’m leaving. It was—yeah, I’m going. Bye.”
Hoseok reaches for the knob. Yoongi keeps watching. He knows Hoseok isn’t going to turn it. He knows. He’s not walking into that hallway. There’s something in this room that isn’t finished.
Hoseok spins around again, one hand on the strap of his bag, the other curled at his side. The flush on his cheeks and the symphony of his scent is a story in its own right. “Actually. Do you want to fuck me?”
Jesus Christ. Yoongi didn’t think the pages were turning that quickly. He coughs like he still has the joint pinched between his lips and leans forward.
“Are you drunk right now?”
Hoseok lifts a shoulder. “A little. But you’re high.”
“Only a little.”
“So it’s an even playing field,” Hoseok replies. He sounds pretty fucking convinced.
Yoongi swallows. His mouth went from dry to syrupy wet with anticipation in a matter of moments. His hand slides over to his jeans, picking at the thread he wore loose on the pocket from ceaseless fidgeting. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll realize you regret in the morning.”
He’s being far too chivalrous. He should skip the prologue and drag Hoseok onto his lap. Who the hell argues when Hoseok Jung is asking them to fuck him?
“Yoongi,” Hoseok fixes him with an unflinching look, slinging his back off of his shoulder and dropping it onto the floor. He’s reaching for his belt. Fuck. “Don’t flatter yourself. I know now that I’m going to regret this in the morning. But I want to get fucked tonight, and if it isn’t you then I’ll have to go back out there and cruise for a hookup, and I’m not planning on going home with anyone, which means we’d have to fuck in the bathroom, and that’s foul. You’re right here, and–and the door locks.”
In the spirit of not sending Hoseok into total detonation, Yoongi bites back a snide suggestion that Namjoon might be a viable option. After all, they’re going home together either way, and Yoongi is pretty sure Namjoon Kim has never said no to a hookup once in his life. But Hoseok’s hands are already undoing the belt on his jeans, and Yoongi is a much weaker man than he wants to admit.
Who fucking cares about Namjoon anyway? He’s not here. Yoongi is.
He leans back into the cushions behind him, shifting and spreading his legs in practiced anticipation. “Fine.” He jerks his chin at the aforementioned door. “Lock it.”
Hoseok doesn’t look relieved so much as he looks determined, reaching over and smacking the deadbolt into place. If anyone needs anything here, they’ll just have to cut their losses and wait awhile. Yoongi deserves nice things too.
Hoseok steps out of the jeans sitting low on his hips without the belt and folds them over his arm, taking a moment to set them with his bag instead of flinging them out of sight. Unnecessary preamble, but Yoongi doesn’t mind watching him in that little white tanktop, just dancing on the edge of sheer, and the baby blue panties with the little bow at the front. Yoongi might eye roll at the specific type of person that Pilates tends to appeal to, but there’s no denying the work that Hoseok has put in. He’s just a sliver of a thing naturally, but the definition in his legs, his delicate arms, the rippling plane of his golden stomach is pure effort and dedication to his craft. Yoongi’s stamina is alright—it has to be in order to perform—but he’s pretty sure he won’t be winning any unbelievable body contests any time soon.
Hoseok stalks over to him, bare feet on the worn down carpet, and drops down to his knees with all the sensitivity and grace of a bull in a china shop. “I’m not doing anything fancy for you,” he announces with an air of warning. Don’t whine, don’t get disappointed. “I’m just getting you hard.”
Yoongi doesn’t tell him he’s been well on the way there from Hoseok’s scent alone. It’s a Pavlovian response at this point.
Old habits die hard.
“‘S fine,” Yoongi mutters, undoing the zipper on his own jeans, though evidently not fast enough, because Hoseok knocks his hands away and does it for himself. He follows by yanking Yoongi’s boxers down just far enough to free his dick, and Yoongi has to suck in a short burst of air when Hoseok reaches for him.
It isn’t the first time he’s had Hoseok’s hand wrapped around him—and against his better judgement, he finds himself hoping it won’t be the last—but there’s something shocking about it every time. He’s so pretty, so perfect to look at, that the visual juxtaposed against anything even slightly lewd is automatically erotic, sending the blood flooding from Yoongi’s brain to his crotch. He’s already stiffening against Hoseok’s palm, wasting no time getting where he wants to be. Yoongi thinks of it not as a sign of desperation, but a signal that he’s ever-virile and healthily active for an alpha of his age.
Hoseok pushes up on his knees, mouth hovering over the head of Yoongi’s cock, and spits wet and filthy over him, slippery saliva dribbling down the shaft and swallowed just as quickly by Hoseok’s pumping fist. It’s all Yoongi can do to control his breathing, to act like this kind of thing happens to him all the time. Just another Saturday night after playing a successful show.
The truth of the situation is that Yoongi doesn’t get laid that often. At least, not as much as he probably could. He knows there’s a good handful of omegas at most of their gigs who would let him take them into the green room, or back to his apartment, but he’s only occasionally so horny that he feels willing to put up with the hassle of getting to know someone, even just for a night. It would be much easier if he had a roster of repeat performers, but the fact that Yoongi tries to keep it no strings attached as much as possible often sends him hurdling into a having his cake and eating it too sort of dilemma.
He can’t avoid strangers and lovers without sacrificing sex all but entirely.
Hoseok jerks him back out of his mind and into his body when he dips his head down, taking the first couple of inches into his mouth and sucking. Soft and wet, teeth tucked away, pink lips slippery and stretched pretty. If Yoongi were bolder, he’d ask to take a picture so he can at least have a visual for all the time he spends fucking his own fist, but he’s pretty sure Hoseok wouldn’t approve of him having that sort of material on file. Budding influencer, Yoongi supposes. Gotta keep a clean image.
A quiet groan escapes Yoongi when Hoseok sinks lower, taking more than half with no signs of gagging. Yoongi slips forward, halfway curling in on himself as his right hand jumps to Hoseok’s hair and winds into it, something to hold more than something to pull. “Oh, fuck, Hoseok,” he grunts. “What’re you trying to get me knot your mouth or something?”
Hoseok pulls off and runs the back of his hand across his puffy mouth. His cheeks are splotchy and bright, flushed with as much color as they are sweat. “Just being efficient,” he says, lifting a shoulder. “Not my fault you’re so easy.”
Yoongi declines a response and shoves Hoseok head back down a little more forcefully than he normally would. This time, he guides him, tugging at his silky-dark hair right down to the root, pulling him up and guiding him back down again. He’s not fucking his face—the opposite, he’s going slower than he would if he were trying to finish right now. Long and languid, pushing himself into Hoseok’s mouth and holding there, teasing out the edge of pleasure until he’s right on the brink. Again and again, setting a pace he can manage. Hoseok has started shifting where he sits, squirming like he’s trying to find some sort of relief for himself. Yoongi half expects him to slip forward and open his legs so he can grind down on Yoongi’s Converse. But of course, he has too much self-control for that, so he stays right where he is, sucking at the pace Yoongi set, perfect mouth, easy breath, hair disheveled. When heat starts to build in the pit of Yoongi’s stomach, he squeezes the back of Hoseok’s neck and lifts him off, stifling another moan at the creamy, pearly strings of saliva mixed with precum trailing off his cock and sticking to Hoseok’s lips. When they pull too far and break, they settle on his chin instead, glimmering in the low light.
“C’mere,” Yoongi pats his thigh. He reaches out and plucks the waistband on Hoseok’s underwear. “Take these off.”
For once in his life, Hoseok heeds Yoongi’s directions without shooting back some smartass answer. He shimmies out of his panties, and Yoongi watches the thought process behind his eyes as he considers setting them all tidy on the couch before realizing they’re too slicked up to put on a common surface, and drops them to the side instead.
When he climbs up to straddle Yoongi’s lap, the tidal wave of his scent rolls closer, sucking Yoongi in and swallowing him as well as any blowjob would. So thick and sweet he can feel it coating his tongue, dripping down his throat the way Hoseok’s nectar slick would be if he let Yoongi eat him out.
He won’t. Not here, not now. Yoongi doesn’t even ask.
Hoseok lifts up, shifting his hips forward like he’s planning to sink down on Yoongi’s dick, no plan and no prep, but Yoongi squeezes his waist to still him, pushing him back.
“My turn,” he says, and he doesn’t mean for his voice to soften that way, he doesn’t mean to tilt briefly close enough that they could almost kiss. It just happens that way, because something about Hoseok has a habit of eroding Yoongi’s edges once they get close. Yoongi thinks that played more of a role than he wants to admit in why they didn’t stay close. He knows this moment doesn’t mean much to either of them, knows it can’t be called making love, but for fuck’s sake the bare minumum is that it’s good. For both of them. No rush, no pain.
“Let me,” he says before Hoseok can protest, can say some bullshit like come on, I’m ready. Yoongi’s sure he is, but sometimes it’s the taking a moment to make sure more than the actual needing it that means…something. He doesn’t know what. It probably doesn’t matter.
He’s doing it anyways.
He brings two fingers to Hoseok’s mouth, tapping his chin. “Suck.”
Hoseok behaves so nicely, swallowing Yoongi’s fingers and bobbing his head like it’s good dick, swirling his tongue around until he’s wet every inch of skin, and Yoongi relents and draws his hand away. He trails down Hoseok’s flat stomach, waxed hairless, model-perfect like the rest of him. Takes his time dragging those two fingers down to the heat between Hoseok’s legs, but once he gets close enough, Hoseok reaches down to take his wrist and pushes.
No resistance. He is fucking ready, but maybe Yoongi just wanted this. The sweet, syrupy sound of his fingers pumping in and out, Hoseok’s velvet walls tightening around him, getting his cock excited all over again at what it’ll get to feel for itself in a moment.
“Good,” Hoseok groans after a long, sticky minute, bracing a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder and squeezing. For a moment, Yoongi thinks he means good as in that’s good. Then, Hoseok swats at Yoongi’s arm and makes a tight, insistent sound in the back of his throat, and Yoongi realizes he means hurry up, I’m good.
Satisfied with how open, how eager Hoseok’s pretty pussy is, Yoongi slips his fingers out and curls them around his dick, pumping twice to slick it up. He fumbles for his bag at the edge of the couch, messy fingers rooting around until the finds the edge of a condom and yanks out to tear the top off and shake it out, rolling it over his dick in one practiced motion. Never let it be said that he doesn’t know how to work quick when it counts.
Hoseok doesn’t actually wait for him to readjust, to slip forward and press inside. He takes matters into his own hands, shifting, replacing Yoongi’s fingers with his own and guiding him exactly where he wants him. He drops his hips low, evil teasing. Sticky-hot folds kissing the tragically-sheated head of Yoongi’s cock, an aching reminder of how good it would feel to go in bare. It only lasts for a moment. Neither of them have the self control nor stamina tonight to drag it out too long. The point is pleasure, and they’re hurdling there at record speed.
When Hoseok sinks down, Yoongi throws his head to the back of the couch and takes in a lungful of air that he holds. Even breathing would be a distracting from the clenching, silken, slippery heat swallowing him. Yoongi wants to feel every inch of himself disappearing into Hoseok, wants to appreciate each contraction as his body adjusts.
“Oh, fuck,” Hoseok groans. His eyes are shut, pretty lashes sweeping the tops of his flushed cheeks. He looks a little lost in it, rolling his hips experimentally and pulling another moan from Yoongi. “So good. So–big.”
Knowing Hoseok’s eyes are closed, Yoongi allows himself a small smile. At least Hoseok isn’t pretending they don’t fit together just right just because they don’t get along anymore. Yoongi’s dick is still big, and Hoseok’s still the best he’s ever been inside, and when they find their rhythm together, it’s always been delicious.
“Like that?” Yoongi asks, moving his own hips, working to push up into Hoseok a little. He braces one hand on his waist and brings the other to his chin, stroking down his neck to his avian collarbones and back up again. “So pretty for me.”
Hoseok only whimpers. His fingernails are biting into Yoongi’s shoulder, the sting of it hitting his skin just right where Hoseok continues to roll, gentle, gentle, building into something more. When he starts to lift up, Yoongi helps him, a guiding hand staying planted on his hip, though he’s sure Hoseok gets enough thigh-focused fitness in that he’s probably not fighting to get through this. He doesn’t look like he’s struggling. He looks gorgeous, all too at ease riding Yoongi’s dick. God, it’s like they do this all the time. It’s too easy, too comfortable. Yoongi can fucking relax like this, enjoy it as it unfolds. And trust, it’s unfolding. He wants all of Hoseok, every hot inch of skin, every bead of sweat, wants his tongue down his throat. To satisfy himself, he leans in and mouths at Hoseok’s neck, pulling a shaky breath from him. Chest rising and falling against Yoongi’s, air harder to come by the more they push themselves. His skin tastes like salt and fruit, pear and sticky honey soaking Yoongi through. Yoongi sucks at him, not quite kissing, but careful not to bite. Omegas are sensitive about their throats, that sensitive spot where a mating mark would go. And beyond that, Yoongi is sure Hoseok has clients who don’t want him walking on set with a blot of a hickey staining his skin like a wine spill. So Yoongi stays gentle, careful, pressing close enough to wind an arm around Hoseok’s waist and start to lift him through it. Up and down, up and down, moving like music.
Christ, he’s so tight, the things he can do are beyond Yoongi. Is this a Pilates thing? Pelvic strength training? There’s a name for that, Yoongi is pretty sure. Now doesn’t feel like the right time to ask, but he’s certainly getting a hands-on lesson on their effectiveness.
“Oh, fuck,” Hoseok slips forward, arms winding around Yoongi’s neck. He must be getting close. He’s losing that pristine composure of his, losing his rhythm too. “Yoongi, fuck, oh my god.”
Yoongi responds with a grunt, squeezing Hoseok closer, shifting him up and down with renewed vigor. He might not train for much, but his arms won’t fail him when it comes to bouncing an omega this gorgeous on his dick. Besides, Hoseok weighs next to nothing. He’s so slim that if Yoongi got to take a look at him from the side right now, he could probably see the outline of his own dick in–
Thunk thunk thunk.
Yoongi jerks his head to the door. Who the fuck–?
“Hyung,” Jeongguk’s familiar little lisp comes through the wood all muffled, that honorific he chooses to use even in English. The habits of their home country die hard. “Why’s the door locked?”
Hoseok falters, slowing for a moment, but Yoongi lifts him again, petting his thigh with his free hand. “S’okay, it’s fine,” he mumbles, only loud enough for the two of them. “Ignore him.” Louder—and very much resenting having to do it—Yoongi raises his voice for Jeongguk’s sake. “Just–changing,” he calls. “Come back in a minute?”
“What? I’ve already seen you naked, who cares about that? I lost my vape, can you check in there?”
“In—a second,” Yoongi grits out. For better or for worse, Hoseok listened when Yoongi told him to ignore Jeongguk. He’s still riding Yoongi, and with the unrestrained intensity of someone chasing the finish line, not so much clenching as he is milking. Fucking Kegels, that’s what they’re called. And he’s doing them on Yoongi’s dick. And Yoongi is seriously, actually going to–
“Fuck, oh, fuck, Yoongi, fuck,” Hoseok gasps in a whisper. The hand on Yoongi’s shoulder slips around, coming to his hair and tangling there, tugging his head back. His breath is coming in gasps. His stomach is rippling, tightening and spasming.
“Hyung!” It sounds like Jeongguk is stamping his foot. “Can you just open the door?”
“Yoongi, I’m gonna–”
Yoongi has the clarity to slap his hand over Hoseok’s mouth, clamping down to abort the drawn-out moan that escapes—or tries to escape him. His breath is hot and desperate against Yoongi’s fingers, riding through his orgasm, dragging Yoongi closer to that all-consuming edge and he wants it, he wants it so fucking bad right now, wants it with Hoseok, wants to break and fall into this.
“Hyung, if you–”
“Jeongguk!” Yoongi turns and shouts, patience cracking along with his self control. “I’m fucking someone!”
He’s met with silence, and thank fucking god for that. Yoongi all but shoves Hoseok off of him in his urgency to pull out before he pops a knot. He rocks into his own fist, squeezing only once before his knot swells and his orgasm slams into him like the goddamn A Train. He’s both vaguely aware and vaguely grateful of Hoseok’s hands pushing his way, two palms, warm bordering on hot, jerking him off through it. Their breathing matches, equally winded but satiated. Yoongi’s burning from crown to toe, and he kind of wants to kick Jeongguk Jeon, but the buzz under his skin is so good that he can’t find it in him to be mad. At least, not yet.
He brushes Hoseok’s helping hands away the moment that soft pressure rubs up on overstimulation, and lets his head fall onto the back of the couch, closing his eyes and searching for cooler air than the muggy, scent-soaked bubble they created. “Shit,” he pants. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Hoseok shifts like he’s shrugging. “Better than knotting me.”
Yoongi wrinkles his nose. He meant Jeongguk, but he supposes he could’ve been gentler, dragging Hoseok off of him. Except, not really, because if he’d hesitated for even a second, he’d be locked inside him right now, dick still pulsing. The condom is starting to feel sticky in the worst of ways, all spent and dirty. Much like Yoongi himself.
Hoseok, of course, still looks radiant.
He rolls forward, getting to his feet, and Yoongi opens his eyes. Fucking radiant indeed. He’s reaching for his underwear, stepping into them like he just got out of the shower instead of having just gotten fucked.
Yoongi sighs, peeling the condom off and reaching for the box of tissues on the side table. He really doesn’t want to get up right now, but he’d be such an asshole to not even offer to help Hoseok get out of here. “Do you need…someone to walk you home?”
“No,” Hoseok replies. He doesn’t even sound breathless anymore, snapped back like a fucking rubber band. He’s walking right to the corner where he left his jeans, belt and bag, legs not even shaky. Clearly, not Yoongi’s best performance. If they had a bed, if they hadn’t gotten interrupted, Hoseok wouldn’t be able to stand right now. “Tae and I will get a cab.”
Yoongi hums his acknowledgement. There’s two of them. They have a plan. He doesn’t need to butt in, a chivalrous alpha determined to be the hero of the night. “Scent blocker,” he suggests. No cabbie, no one at all, in all honesty, deserves to smell Hoseok like this, all riled up and dripping with the lingering scent of his own orgasm, and Yoongi smeared all over him. Anyone who walks by him tonight will think he’s taken. Claimed. Yoongi pictures Namjoon catching a whiff of him as he passes by the bar on the way out. He’ll know exactly who it is lingering on Hoseok’s skin.
The thought tastes so good it pushes up a smile that Yoongi has to rush to swallow before Hoseok can catch sight of it.
“Obviously,” Hoseok replies, shoving a hand in his bag and emerging with a little blocker spray bottle adorned with coconuts. It smells a little even from over here, all tropical and synthetic, shattering the bubble and making Yoongi’s finicky alpha prickle. “I don’t go anywhere unprepared.”
“Of course you don’t.”
The look Hoseok shoots Yoongi reads for only a second with such genuine hurt that it steals Yoongi’s breath away. Then he blinks, and that raw emotion is gone, replaced with a scowl. “Why do you say everything to me like an insult?”
“I don’t,” Yoongi replies. It’s true. “Why do you take it like an insult.”
Hoseok says nothing to that. He pulls his jeans up, and shoves his belt into his bag instead of threading it around his waist. He turns, one hand on the door’s deadbolt. “You should know, I regret it already.”
“Great,” Yoongi replies. The rest of the joint he left on that tray is calling to him, sweet, sweet voice begging to put him to sleep. “So do I.”
It’s a good thing Hoseok walks out without saying anything else, or Yoongi might have caved and told him that was a lie.
The back of the cab is airless and hot, but Hoseok doesn’t want to crack a window. He doesn’t want to move at all. He had too much to drink, made too many bad decisions, and he’s put himself on house arrest right here on Taehyung’s shoulder, arm wrapped around his arm to keep himself grounded.
“Taehyung,” he mumbles, lips brushing the coarse, embroidered lettering on Taehyung’s sleeve.
“Yeah?” Taehyung hums. His hand lands on Hoseok’s hair, combing it with the love only a best friend can have for their pathetic, drunken friend. He doesn’t have to ask what kind of mistakes Hoseok made tonight. Hoseok knows he can tell just by the position they’re in right now, though at least Hoseok waited for them to get in the car before his composure cracked and he melted with all the guilt and regret of a supermodel who just broke their diet and binged their way through a half-cake and a box of donuts.
Hoseok isn’t that type of model, but he certainly overindulged this weekend. Felt like the right time for it. If there was Namjoon, there could be Yoongi. Tomorrow–today, actually, it must be past midnight–is Sunday. A day of…rest. Reset. Right? It’s a fresh start. He’s not his Friday and Saturday night, he’s whatever comes after.
“Hoseok?” Taehyung prompts, and Hoseok realizes he never finished what he started. “What were you going to say?”
Hoseok turns his head and nuzzles into Taehyung’s bicep. He smells like coffee grounds and ginger, like Hoseok’s comfort. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Just that…I think I’m gonna make better decisions from now on.”
“Okay, Hotteok,” Taehyung hums, nickname of choice slipping out as it so often does. He doesn’t sound particularly bothered by managing Hoseok in this state. They’ve seen too much together since the birth of their friendship in high school to get caught up on the small stuff. They got good pictures tonight, and Hoseok didn’t do anything awful where anyone could see it. If there’s no PR crisis, there’s no crisis at all. “That sounds great. I bet you will.”
Hoseok closes his eyes.
New diet starts now.
The first time it happens is two weeks after Hoseok’s vow of self-improvement. He can say with pride that he did follow his promise to make better choices. He’s been alpha sober since that night. He started a juice cleanse the next morning, ran it for three days, left him feeling detoxed and shiny. He did yoga on the little balcony at their apartment, mat nestled between Taehyung’s flower pots. He cooked at the house every night instead of eating out, saved money and spent time with Taehyung instead of tucking himself in his room with his Doordash and a drama running on his laptop.
He’s been good. Really good.
But he feels like shit.
No, seriously, it’s not a lingering guilt thing. He physically feels like shit. It must be acid reflux or something, he can feel it burning in his throat. It makes no sense, he ate over an hour before his class, the same way he always does. Since he has to contort himself all over the place, it’s best not to teach on a full belly. He also ate one of the same meals he’s kept on his breakfast rotation since–well, forever. It’s nothing that bugs him, he knows that beyond any trace of doubt. It’s good stuff, gut healthy, digestion friendly. A slice of sourdough bread, two soft-boiled eggs with everything bagel seasoning, a spoonful of kimchi for probiotics, and a little cup of yogurt with the last of his strawberries diced into it.
A breakfast that has never once done him wrong, until now.
“Keeping your chin dropped down to your chest, supporting your neck with your right hand,” Hoseok says, swallowing with the urgency that can only come from feeling the slow, sour tang of bile creeping up towards his mouth. “Continue to pump, two, three, four five, two, three, four, five. Spine relaxed, core engaged make sure you’re not–not arching your back off the mat.”
Hoseok’s stomach lurches. Jesus. He can’t throw up while leading a class. He’d never be able to get over that. He risks tipping his head to one side, giving his group a quick glance. This is the advanced bodyweight class, most of them are here every week. They rarely have questions or need guidance, and they’re not likely to fall into chaos or injure themselves if he disappears for one moment.
His stomach clenches, confirming that he doesn’t have a choice.
He lowers his neck onto the mat, relaxing out of his form, and rolls up. It takes everything to keep his voice light and cordial, calm like he can’t taste vomit on the back of his tongue. “You’ll have to excuse me for one second,” he says, gearing up to lie between his teeth. “I think I have an eyelash in my eye. I’ll be right back.”
Hoseok barely, barely makes it to the staff bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him without even slamming the lock into place before he falls onto the toilet, catching himself on the bowl and purging the contents of his stomach.
The second time it happens, he’s coming home from his Thursday evening class. The train made him queasy, which puzzled him because he’s not prone to motion sickness. But he didn’t refill his water bottle before his class began, and maybe he’s a little dehydrated and in need of dinner. Though the idea of a meal right now makes his stomach turn.
He unlocks the door, and the moment it swings open, he’s met with hot rush of food smell. It’s all greasy and garlicky, filling his nose and mouth with no reprieve.
“Hi, hyung,” Jeongguk calls from the kitchen. Usually, Hoseok finds it endearing how he often refers to his Korean-speaking elders as hyung, though they usually only ever converse in English. Now though, he’s too concerned with pressing the back of his hand to his mouth to quell the sudden urge to retch. “Tae is in the shower, we were going to do a movie tonight. Wanna join?”
“Uh, yeah,” Hoseok chokes back, dropping his bag and shuffling into the kitchen. It’s one of those Trader Joe’s pasta sauces, and one of their tortellini varieties simmering in the pan Jeongguk is tending to. As far as frequent house guests go, he’s a great one, always up for the tast of handling their meals, but just this once Hoseok wishes he’d chosen literally anything else to cook. “Sure. Just–uh, I should shower too.”
A cold, cold one preferably, something to shock him out of his own nausea. He reaches for the cabinet where he keeps their glasses, leaning near the stove in doing so, and makes the mistake of breathing in. It’s all cheese and garlic and sour tomato with greasy butter. Things he loves, but have decided to poison him today. The kind of lingering motion sickness you only get from the New York Subway.
Hoseok can’t help it.
He curls at the waist, slamming a hand over his mouth while he swallows a gag, but it only makes everything worse. He has the wherewithal to reach for the trashcan and drag it close to him like a lifeline before his willpower gives out, and he throws up. The same stomach clenching, throat burning kind of vomiting that took him out of class a week ago.
What the actual hell is wrong with him?
He’s never doing that damn juice cleanse again, he should have stuck with the one he usually does. All the damn celery ate his intestinal lining or something. Fuck.
Somewhere overhead, Jeongguk clears his throat. “I can, uh…I can make you something else if you don’t want pasta.”
The third time, Hoseok’s on the balcony rolling through a quick morning Vinyasa flow, when the urge hits him again.
This time, he doesn’t make it inside. He lets go right into Taehyung’s Chrysanthemum pot, splattering the delicate leaves with what he can only assume is the remnants of last night’s dinner, because he hasn’t had breakfast yet. Just a mug of green tea and his supplements.
Those are in there too.
When he straightens up, trying to decide if he should try to conceal his mess or relent and confess his sins, he finds Taehyung already behind him. Leaning in the doorway with his eyebrow cocked to high heaven, and his lips pursed into a skeptical pout.
“That’s the third time in two weeks.”
Hoseok looks up at him. He’s retreated to his mat, on his hands and knees, trying not to gag over the lingering sour taste wrecking his mouth. “What?”
“Third time,” Taehyung repeats. “You told me you got food poisoning at your class the other day. A week later, Jeongguk tells me you threw up while he was making dinner. Now, you’re defiling my Chrysanthemums.”
Hoseok shoots the flowers a deeply guilty look. “Sorry.”
“Hotteok. It’s not the plants I’m worried about. It’s you.”
“Me?” Hoseok pushes himself into a sitting position, dragging his arm across his slippery mouth. “Why? I’m fine. Just a stomach bug thing, I probably picked it up on the subway.”
“Don’t you think I’d have it too?”
“I dunno. Maybe your immune system is better fortified than mine is.” Even as he says it, it feels like flaky logic. He and Taehyung are known for getting sick as a package deal. Hell, if Jeongguk gets sick, it’s a sure thing Taehyung will pick it up and pass it onto Hoseok in a matter of days. They share everything, even viral infection.
“Hoseok.” Taehyung looks supremely unimpressed. Even…suspicious?
“What?”
Taehyung shakes his head, and spins lazily on his heel, ducking back to the apartment. Hoseok doesn’t move. That’s the kind of exit that suggest he’ll be coming right back, and frankly Hoseok doesn’t feel much like standing anyways. He’s a little lightheaded, actually. He probably should have had water along with his tea before rolling out his mat.
A moment later, Hoseok hears the telltale sound of Taehyung’s slippers on the hardwood floors, and the screen door slides open further so Taehyung can step out.
“Here, I think you might need all of these.”
Like the savior he is, he passes Hoseok mouthwash lifted straight from their bathroom, a bottle of water, a stick of gum, and…
Hoseok looks up sharply, finger closing around the cold, white plastic in his hand. Clearblue. Clear results. “No. What? You’re reading into it too much. I’m not–I mean, I’m obviously not–why did you have these on hand?”
“Because I let my alpha knot me every other night and I got bored of walking around the corner to buy a two-pack, so I grabbed bulk last time I was there. Figured we could share. And clearly, we need to.”
“We don’t,” Hoseok replies. His strength is returning to him in the form of defiance, and he pushes onto his feet, gathering the rest of Taehyung’s offerings to haul with him.
“Why don’t you just take it to rule it out then?” Taehyung insists, turning to trail after Hoseok into the living room. “There’s no harm in it.”
“It’s a waste of time,” Hoseok says firmly. “And plastic.”
“The plastic is already in use, might as well pee on it too.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Hoseok unwraps the gum and pops it into his mouth. Mmm. Spearmint and bile.
“If you weren’t at least a little bit worried, you’d just take it for the hell of taking it.”
Hoseok freezes. That’s just–that’s not fair. Backing Hoseok into a corner is what he’s doing. That’s some real reverse psychology underhanded trickiness. He narrows his eyes. Contrary to looking smug at having gotten through to him, Taehyung only looks concerned. Hoseok smacks the water bottle and the mouthwash down onto the side table and shakes the test at Taehyung. “It’s only to prove you wrong,” he says, wrinkling his nose.
“Great.” Taehyung’s shoulders soften slightly. “I love being wrong.”
Hoseok turns down the hallway and kicks into the bathroom, knocking the door shut behind him. At least he doesn’t have to wait forever to need to pee. It happens automatically like his bladder is Bluetooth connecting to the toilet, which is supremely helpful. He sets the stick on the edge of the tub when he’s finished, and smacks a timer on his Apple Watch, settling on the floor against the wall to wait out.
He isn’t going to watch.
It would only stress him out for no good reason.
He’s just going to…sit here, and do a little breathework. Yeah. He didn’t finish his flow. He’ll go back to it after this, have a little water, a little mouthwash, get on with his morning. He isn’t going to waste a perfectly good day off lingering on this.
His watch begins to vibrate. He smacks off the alarm, and pushes up to peek at the loathed piece of plastic waiting to be waved in Taehyung’s face as evidence of overthinking.
His stomach drops.
Two lines. But two lines is–?
Hoseok grabs the stick, flipping it around so he can read the text. There’s a handy little graphic waiting for him there. One line, not pregnant. Two lines, pregnant.
Two lines. Two fucking lines.
And the worst part, the most audacious part, is that it isn’t faint. It isn’t a wispy, dubious second line, it isn’t a “well…it could be” sort of line. It’s a bright, fucking neon, ugly, glaring blue set of lines, about as corporeal and undeniable as the edge of the tub beneath it.
Hoseok shuts his eyes, willing one of them to disappear. When he opens again, he swears they’re etched even deeper onto that white background than they were a moment ago, staring back at him. Boring a hole into his soul.
“Oh. Shit.”
Hoseok pitches over the side of the bath tub and throws up.