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The café was full of life, couples grabbing an early dinner, friends catching up, university students sipping at coffees to keep their seats. The obnoxiously colored clock, situated right in front of him, read ten minutes over six. They’d planned to meet at six. Jungkook had kept the habit of never showing up on time, at least.
Yoongi’s brain whirred through possibilities, despite having considered all of them a hundred times before. Maybe more. He kept catching his brain drifting to scenarios he never planned on happening, things he planned to keep in the private recesses of his mind.
The bell on the café entrance rang as the door opened, and from his position Yoongi could see who it was. He looked just as heartbreaking as always. His hair tousled in a careful suggestion of being totally natural, his clothes unassuming but so eye catching. He ambled over to the counter, getting a coffee for himself. After receiving it, he turned around.
Yoongi raised a hand in tentative greeting as he saw Jungkook’s gaze sweeping the café, presumably looking for him, unless he’d made plans with another person at the same café.
Their eyes met as Jungkook finally found him, immediately making his way over to the small table in the corner. He reached the table, standing for a second, eyes fixed on Yoongi. He always had this way of making the person he was looking at feel like the only one in the room. Maybe it was just Yoongi.
He finally sat down. Yoongi opened his mouth to speak, a simple hello, but Jungkook beat him to it. “I missed you, hyung.”
Well, there’s not much he could say to that. “I saw you two days ago, Jungkookie.” His smile was a bit sad, maybe, didn’t really reach his eyes, but there wasn’t a lot to be happy about with the two of them.
Jungkook looked down for a second, lips pressing into a line. “Before that. You know I mean the two years before that. I missed you.”
And Yoongi knew he shouldn’t, knew that it’s hypocritical of him, but he couldn’t help himself. “Doesn’t really seem like you did.”
Jungkook rose to the bait, just like he always did. They really were way too similar. His brows set in a familiar irritated manner. “Yeah, cause you sat around waiting for me, didn’t you?”
“No. No, I guess I didn’t. Sorry, that was unfair.” He took a deep breath in. “And it was unfair of me the other day, what I started.”
He looked confused for a split second, before catching on to what Yoongi meant. “No, it wasn’t. If you hadn’t, then I would have. You know that. It’s shitty of us, but it’s true.”
Jungkook had always had such earnest eyes, so much sincerity in them that sometimes it felt like it would start pooling up in front of him where he stood. This was such an odd situation, one where the appropriate term would be illicit, or traitorous. Not sincere. And yet, looking at Jungkook, Yoongi could only see the boy he had grown up with. Tumultuous, and loving, and always up for a fight. A well never running dry of his capacity to care.
“It was wrong. To do that. Don’t you think so?” Yoongi waited with baited breath after saying the sentence. It could lead the conversation down two vastly different paths, both of which he had told himself he would deal with as they came.
It felt like an entire eternity passed between them, with Jungkook looking into his eyes, before he got his answer. A shrug.
“It was.” There was a glint in his eyes. “I would do it again right here, though.”
Yoongi’s pulse quickened, heart racing. He should have expected it, in fairness to Jungkook. He had been more than eager two nights ago.
“I would too.” At that, he felt his sense of conscience return as he looked down for a second, gathering his thoughts before speaking again. “I wouldn’t break up with Jae, though. You should know that.”
Jungkook’s hand flexed on his cup. “An affair, really? You aren’t even married yet.”
“But I will be. To Jae. And no matter what you may think, I do love him.”
“You’d do that to someone you loved?”
“Like you wouldn’t? You’ve been dating Mirae for a long time, but you fucked me in your apartment the other day, didn’t you?” Yoongi looked him in the eyes.
Jungkook faltered for a second, his composure slipping as he looked away, hand running through his hair. “You know why.”
Yoongi sighed. He put his hand forward on the table, waiting for Jungkook to take it like he had a thousand times before. “I do. Fuck, trust me I know. And I tried, you know? When I went to the party that night, I knew you’d be there, but I had absolutely no idea that would happen. I wouldn’t have gone if I did.”
He got an unimpressed look from Jungkook in response, but a tattooed hand slipped into his. “Is that supposed to make me want to fuck you again? Hearing that you’d have run from the possibility if you knew you had it?”
Yoongi knew they were just having a conversation but every move felt heightened. Every word carried a possibility he had been craving for years.
“No, I wanted to cheat on my loving fiancé, actually.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you feel bad about this? I feel like its gnawing at me.”
Jungkook leaned back in his chair. He looked good. Yoongi knew and he knew as well. “I do. But I don’t see a point in feeling guilty when it doesn’t mean anything.”
A second passed. Another. His heart felt like it sank in his chest like a stone in still water. It didn’t mean anything to him? Yoongi knew it was morally corrupt of him but he had wanted for- he didn’t even know what. Just not for it to mean nothing to Jungkook. His dismay must have shown clear on his face, because Jungkook’s attitude suddenly changed.
He bent forward again, hand tightening around his own which had gone lax. “Not like that.” He squeezed his hand again. “Not like that. It meant everything. The guilt is what means nothing. I’m not going to stop. Not if you let me. That’s what makes it worthless.”
Yoongi squeezed his eyes shut, taming the mess of swelling emotions in his chest. “Why?” Their hands were wound together so tight he could feel nails pressing into his palm. Whether they were his or Jungkook’s was anyone’s guess.
“Because- because you came into my life when I was sixteen and it’s been you ever since. Because no matter how many times we break up, we always end up knocking on each other’s door when the time comes. And sure, we don’t work. Not that I agree with that, but according to you, we don’t work. And that’s okay with me. Not everything has to be caged in with a label.” Jungkook pauses for a breath, eyes looking imploringly into his own. “I don’t even think we can be. What are you to me? My ex? My best friend? The love of my life? They’re all true but none of them fit. So, I don’t mind it like this.”
“Like what?” Yoongi’s breath is shaky as he draws it in, his lungs feeling constricted and overinflated at once.
“Like this. We can see each other and we can love each other. And you and I can both go home at the end of our days to our safe and healthy relationships. For a while. But you’re kidding yourself if you think that anything you have with Jae- or whatever the fuck his name is- could ever even come close to us. I know Mirae and I don’t. I’m okay with her, happy even. But I’m never content unless I’m with you. And I know its wrong but I’m willing to let go of any morality to have you. Even just like this.”
Everything seems stock still, the entire universe holding its breath. Stars dying, and galaxies colliding and the Earth’s spinning. It all becomes so small. Everything else seems so small when he acknowledges what they have.
“Me too.” Yoongi brought his other hand to cover Jungkook’s. “You’re the love of my life too, Jungkookie.”
He gets a smile in response, watery eyes and perennially pink cheeks, “I know. That’s the best part of having you. I always know.”
There were tears forming in his own eyes. “Even when we fight? And years go by? When we’re in different countries, and dating other people? When we get toxic because we’re too codependent? When we get toxic because we’re too caught up in each other to think of anyone else?”
“Especially then. Because we always choose each other, when it comes down to it. Don’t we?”
Yoongi laughs shakily. “I might get married to someone else next year, Jungkook. That’s not choosing you.”
Jungkook’s eyes, always so expressive, have a stubborn sheen to them. “You won’t. I’ll kidnap you straight from the altar if you actually try to go through with it.” He’s joking, of course he is, but there’s some extent of truth to it. Yoongi knows that by doing this, he’s inviting Jungkook back into his life, no matter how much he pretends otherwise. And he knows what that means.
The last time they had broken up had been a huge fight. Yoongi had gone to a bar night with some colleagues and a guy, a boy really, a trainee, had hit on him. Persistently. He had done it before too, and Yoongi had shared with his boyfriend, knowing that he would like to be told in the opposite case too. Yoongi didn’t blame him, those kids barely ever got a chance to have any release from their grueling schedule. He hadn’t encouraged any advances, though, he stood by that. Then, Jungkook had called and been angry that he wasn’t home by midnight, eventually, he had heard the kid’s voice in the background and immediately shut the phone.
When Yoongi had gotten home that night, one of his nice bottles of whiskey had been shattered on the floor, the brown liquid left to seep into the rug. Their place smelled like a distillery. What had ensued was a fight like none they’d had before. At one point, Yoongi really thought Jungkook would pick up the glass on the ground and kill both of them. They had slept in each other’s arms after the exhaustion took them.
In the morning, Yoongi had cleaned the place up, written a note and left, knowing he could never leave once he looked into those eyes.
What did it say about him, then, that he was so desperate to have it all back? The fights, the jealousy from both sides, he knew he wasn’t innocent either in any of it.
When he had met Jae, he knew it would never last. He was too gentle. Kook was also gentle, but he could be mean. Yoongi had loved that about him. It had lasted, though. Upwards of a year and a half. It had kept going, and Jae had kept treating him kindly. Yoongi did love him. As much as he could love anyone who wasn’t Jungkook, he did love him. It still wasn’t enough though.
Not to withstand the temptation. When they had met at the party the other night, it had taken an hour before they were leaving the place. Mirae had been there, but she was staying the night with her friend. Jungkook had taken him home, he still lived at their old place. He had fucked him holding him up against the wall, and then again in bed. It had given Yoongi a perverse sense of satisfaction to know that no matter how many times Mirae fucked Jungkook in that bed, it would never be enough to remove his imprint from it.
They had barely talked, preferring to kiss. Yoongi didn’t have anything to say either. He couldn’t honestly say he had thought of Jae even once during that night. That said a lot about him. It said a lot about how Jungkook had this way of sucking him up in his gravity. A black hole that took him in eight years ago and never quite let him go again.
Today, Yoongi had wondered what Jungkook would say. How he’d deal with the situation. He had thought of it so many times, even before they had met again. In most scenarios, they had come to the conclusion that had been drawn in reality. It would be a waste of time to pretend otherwise. He knew Jae and Mirae wouldn’t stay in their lives long, but he wanted to draw things out to their natural conclusion. Not till marriage, he had known Jungkook wouldn’t actually let him tie himself to another man legally even when he had said ‘yes’ to the proposal. Of course he wouldn’t.
Now, Jungkook was sitting there in front of him in reality. Not in the confines of his mind. He was beautiful. And he was there. He always would be. Yoongi stood up, not letting go of his hand. “Take me home?”