"i'm in a crisis," yoongi says, slamming his palms flat against the table. namjoon, who was in the middle of scrolling through his instagram feed and shoving a piece of olive bread into his mouth, looks up from his phone.

"that's hardly news," he says, "haven't you been in a state of constant crisis since august?"

"no." then, "yes. but this is a crisis on top of a crisis, and i need you to hear me out and then tell me i'm an idiot for overthinking."

"i'm going to start charging you money for these therapy sessions," namjoon muses. yoongi scoffs.

"i've listened to plenty of your meltdowns. that time, back when you and jin were doing it, when you panicked and forced me to give you blowjob tips? still haunts me. you still owe me for that."

"it wasn't that bad," namjoon says reluctantly.

" with demonstrations."

namjoon makes a face.

"got it. free therapy sessions for life." he puts his phone down, and gives yoongi a look. "what's the matter?"

"i," yoongi starts, and pauses. he licks his lips, stares at namjoon intensely. "he."

"take your time," namjoon says calmly, "i know forming full sentences can be difficult."

yoongi feels his ears heating up. he straightens up swiftly.

"never mind. i changed my mind. good talk, see you later."

"hold on," namjoon calls before he can walk out of the kitchen. yoongi turns back around, and namjoon tips his chair back on two legs in a way that makes yoongi very nervous because it has led to him breaking multiple chairs and dislocating a shoulder in the past. he reaches at the counter behind him, and miraculously swings back to the table without injury and slamming an entire basket of bread on the table. "sit down. have some bread. tell me what's wrong."

"did jin smuggle this out of the restaurant," yoongi asks, staring down at the bread blankly.

"it's his restaurant, pretty sure he can do what he wants," namjoon shrugs. "this is about jungkook, right?"

yoongi considers between leaving and grabbing a fistful of bread and then leaving, but in the end, plops down into a chair, slouching over the table. he picks up a piece of bread and nibbles on it, staring at the english words on namjoon's shirt front vacantly.

"he's killing me," he says. he can vaguely see namjoon furrowing his brow.

"listen, if this is about how great the sex you're having is," namjoon says, "i'm happy for you, but i really don't need to hear about -"

"it's not about that." yoongi pauses. "although, that's definitely a factor and contributing to my early demise. but that's like, a whole other issue and i'll talk to you about it some other time."

"i'd rather you didn't," namjoon says. yoongi doesn't acknowledge that comment.

"he's killing me," he says again, "he - he does this thing in the morning, when he's leaving for work. he kisses my cheek in the softest, most tender way imaginable, like he's trying not to wake me up, but doesn't want to leave without kissing me goodbye either - and sometimes i pretend to be sleeping because otherwise i'd do something really fucking embarrassing, like not let him get out of the bed before i've told him in excruciating detail when and how i fell in love with him."

"and that would be bad?"

"we've barely started, namjoon," yoongi says, frowning down at the piece of bread while tearing at it absentmindedly. "and i want to be careful, i want to fucking - see what i'm doing, but it's really fucking hard when i'm going two hundred miles per hour and can't handle getting kissed on the cheek every morning. what the fuck. is this normal? am i dying?"

"hyung," namjoon says, and yoongi's not looking at him, but he sounds amused. "you're just really fucking in love."

yoongi lets his forehead connect with the surface of the table with a thunk.

"this is the part where you call me an idiot and tell me to just tell him i'm in love with him," he says.

"i don't think you should," namjoon says. yoongi lifts his head to look up at him. he clarifies, "if you're not ready, i mean. he isn't going to run away, hyung. even if you wait a little bit longer. even if you told him today."

"hmm," yoongi says, and sucks on his bottom lip. "it's just - i feel like i've been thrown in at the deep end. or more like the middle of the fucking sea."

namjoon drums his fingers against the tabletop.

"you know... even if you were in the middle of the sea, i don't think you should be so terrified of it. because... let's say when you were with kihyun, you were in shallow waters. you were up to your neck in it. this might sound like i'm saying you weren't really in love with him, but it's not what i'm saying. i'm just saying it's a different type of love. so maybe you were more in control of things with your head above the water and your feet on the ground, maybe it was easier to breathe, you could - see what you were doing, like you said. but it's not about easy, you know? maybe it's about learning to sink and let the water fully engulf you. not thinking of it as something hostile that's trying to drown you, but as something that coexists with you."

"there are all kinds of weird-looking sea monsters at the bottom of the deep sea, though," yoongi says, naturally deciding to be annoying at the end of namjoon's impressive and poetic sea analog. "there are megalodon."

"megalodon are extinct," namjoon says, his fingers interlaced in front of the bottom half of his face, and yoongi wonders how thin his patience can stretch.

"tae says there's a possibility they aren't."

"that - that wasn't my point. my point is - aren't you much happier now, in deep waters? it's obvious, to me at least, it's radiating off you. don't worry about whether it's normal to fall in love so fast. maybe it just means you found your soulmate."

soulmate, huh, yoongi thinks. someone asked him, he's pretty sure, some years ago, if he believed in soulmates, and he remembers saying the piano is his soulmate. how very him of him to give an answer like that. but now the piano has jungkook sitting at it, and yoongi thinks... that if someone were to tell him that the reason jungkook felt so familiar from the first moment was because they'd already met in a past lifetime, yoongi wouldn't think it completely ridiculous.

"are you aware you're smiling while disemboweling a piece of bread," namjoon asks. "i swear, everyone in this house has been acting weird lately."

"everyone?"

"taehyung woke me up at like six in the morning to ask me if i've 'seen it'. jin-hyung thought he was an intruder and hit me with a desk lamp. yes, me, not taehyung. like, he wasn't even aiming at tae, he just grabbed a lamp off the nightstand and swung it at my head, what's that about? i'm surprised you didn't wake up, we were all screaming very loudly."

"'seen it'? seen what?"

"fuck if i know. the stephen king horror classic? the infinite void of despair? his dick? the answer to all of those is, unfortunately, yes." namjoon tilts his head. "is there anything else you need to vent about?"

"so, the other day, we had sex against the wall, and he held me up the entire time..." yoongi ducks a piece of bread that comes flying at him, and snickers as namjoon pulls a pained face. he gets up, and considers for a moment, scratching behind his ear. "when are you at the studio? monday? i'll bring you dinner."

it's his way of saying, thanks for listening. again. namjoon perks up.

"bring me apple juice, too," he says, "i'm always out."

yoongi rolls his eyes.

"you know you're single-handedly keeping the apple juice industry thriving?"

"i don't know what you're talking about," namjoon says, picking up his phone again. "hey, how's the song coming along?"

"oh, yeah, that was a mistake," yoongi says, stuffing the last piece of bread into his mouth. "the lyrics jungkook wrote are beautiful and it's going to sound amazing and i'm going to be crying on the stage in front of him and the whole bar."

"can't wait," namjoon says genuinely.

when jungkook comes home hours later, yoongi can tell it's him without turning around on the piano stool, the way he can usually tell all of them apart but not really explain how he does it because it's such a subconscious process. he hears jungkook say hi to namjoon and seokjin in the kitchen; they exchange a couple of words that drown under the cascading run. yoongi keeps playing as jungkook puts his bag down somewhere nearby, and a moment later fingers brush at his shoulders. they're replaced by jungkook's chin, his hands falling down yoongi's sides, to his waist, where they stay gently.

"hey," jungkook whispers, voice soft and breathy in his ear. yoongi plays to the end of the page and stops there.

"hey." he reaches up to card his fingers through jungkook's soft hair, to caress his cheek with his thumb, still cool from the air outside. jungkook nuzzles into his shoulder. "long day?"

"kind of." he's been taking more shifts recently, and it's very jungkook to not complain even though he's clearly tired. yoongi hopes he knows he can; that no one will think he's ungrateful or inconsiderate. the bookstore is not what he wants to do for the rest of his life, but he insists on working more before applying to art school to take care of the costs himself, and although yoongi sort of wants to tell him to stop being so stubborn about it and just follow his dream already, let them help him, he can understand that it's important to him to do this on his own all the way.

"tell me about it?" yoongi asks.

"later," jungkook says, and hugs his middle more firmly. "is this for tonight's gig?"

yoongi hums. "a restaurant downtown."

"are you going to wear the tux?"

"i am," yoongi confirms, a smile pulling at his lips. "you like me in a tux?"

"i like you in anything." yoongi feels his lips briefly on his neck. he adds, "or nothing."

"obviously," yoongi huffs out a laugh. jungkook removes one hand from yoongi's stomach to reach past him and play a tiny bit of what yoongi was just playing. he makes a mistake at the end, but it's still very impressive considering he did it by ear. "have you been taking secret piano lessons?"

"nah," jungkook says, "i've just watched you a lot, hyung."

yoongi turns his upper body, and jungkook moves away a bit, making room. yoongi tips his face up; jungkook gets the hint, and presses his lips to yoongi's in a soft, close-mouthed kiss. yoongi will never understand how he can simultaneously feel so lost, clueless, and so at home.

"i can teach you properly, if you want," yoongi offers.

"i'd like that," jungkook murmurs.

the restaurant gig is yoongi's only one this week, but it pays about as well as two nights at the house of cards would, and now he can make time for the song he showed jungkook on christmas eve and then had to forget about for a while because of other priorities like making money and paying bills. when he comes home late at night, jungkook's already sleeping, carelessly only half under the covers, and yoongi gets undressed quietly, washes up quickly, slips into bed, tucking them both in.

"aaw," jungkook mumbles without even opening his eyes, curling into yoongi's chest, "didn't get a chance to appreciate the tux."

"i'm not going to sleep in it, kook," yoongi snorts quietly, smoothing a hand against the back of his neck. "i'll wear it again, just for you."

jungkook just makes a sleepy sound. yoongi's heart is loud in the silence. he closes his eyes, tries to think of it not as drowning but as sinking on purpose.

/

"i'm sure you're all wondering why i've gathered you here today," taehyung starts solemnly.

"no shit, tae," yoongi says, unimpressed, "i thought we'd already established after years of living together that this bathroom is not big enough for six people."

"i thought long and hard about it, and trust me, this is the best and safest place to have this conversation," taehyung reasons, "our bedroom is obviously not safe as we're about to see, yoongi and jungkookie's bedroom door doesn't have a functioning lock -"

"the lock works fine," yoongi raises an eyebrow. taehyung fixes them both with a blank stare.

"then would you fucking mind using it when you're deciding to engage in some light woohoo in the morning."

"woohoo," yoongi repeats flatly, "seriously?"

"that was one time," jungkook mumbles next to yoongi.

"well, thank you, knowing enough about your sex life to be able to say you don't usually have morning sex definitely doesn't make me uncomfortable."

"not that," jungkook says without missing a beat. "we do that all the time. i meant that you only walked in on us that one time."

seokjin fake-coughs loudly for several seconds in an attempt to mask his laughter. yoongi bows his head to make his grin less obvious, and doesn't do a very good job.

"tae," namjoon sighs, slapping seokjin on the back a few times, "why the fuck are we here?"

all of them - minus hoseok, who seems to be the only one who doesn't have the day off - are, indeed, crammed into the downstairs bathroom. yoongi and jungkook are huddled in the tub, their backs against the wall, jungkook's long legs crossed at the ankles and knees to his chest, yoongi with his legs dangling over the edge. seokjin has namjoon in a back hug by the door, which taehyung insisted on locking, and jimin's leaning his butt against the sink, his arms crossed. all five pairs of eyes trained at taehyung, who's holding his laptop, for some reason.

something weird is about to go down, but something weird goes down daily in this house, so yoongi barely batted an eye when taehyung decisively ushered them into the bathroom, only voicing a couple of complaints about being ripped away mid-songwriting. it's been less than a full day since namjoon mentioned taehyung acting weird, and yoongi figures this probably has something to do with that. he'd been working in the living room, because upstairs the windows are open, filling the space with brisk january air. this is due to paint fumes, because jungkook is finally painting their bedroom door. next to yoongi, he's wearing his paint-covered white tee, his fingers stained various colors, and a short stripe of candy apple red on his jaw. it's a familiar sight, and one that yoongi loves. he thinks jungkook looks the most comfortable covered in paint; happier, too, after a long week of not having time to paint.

"okay, so. i recently installed a surveillance system in our bedroom for two reasons," taehyung says, then shoos namjoon and seokjin out of the way so he can set his laptop on the toilet seat. "one, because i'm still interested in finding out what hobi does, unlike some of us who have been too distracted lately." he broadly gestures at yoongi and jungkook without taking his eyes off the laptop screen. "and two, to keep an eye on clown activity."

"clown activity," seokjin repeats, looking sort of amazed and amused at the same time, "of course there's going to be a lot of clown activity, it's your room."

"a surveillance system?" yoongi frowns, making an effort to care more about the conversation than how the red paint looks on jungkook.

"this is weird," namjoon contributes.

"you're the clown," seokjin clarifies, in case it wasn't clear enough, looking down at taehyung.

"by installing a surveillance system he means recording with the built-in camera of his laptop," jimin explains calmly, and that makes a lot more sense.

"can't everyone tell when the camera's on, though?" namjoon asks.

"please, namjoon, i'm not an amateur," taehyung scoffs, "i stuck a piece of gum over the light. alright, gather around, gentlemen. you two in the tub."

yoongi has no desire to get out of the tub, but when jungkook gets up and offers yoongi his hand, yoongi is not going to not take it. gathering around is easier said than done, because there are, well, six of them. taehyung kneels in front of the laptop and the rest of them hover behind him.

"what i'm about to show you may disturb you," taehyung says, sounding like a voiceover in a crime documentary. the pixel-y freeze-frame shows a dim bedroom, and it's little more than abstract shapes and shadows. "it may also prompt you to say, shit, taehyung, you were right all along, i was so wrong to doubt you -"

"what's disturbing is the quality of this recording," yoongi says, "is this going to be like that time you took a picture of a chair and tried to pass it as evidence?"

"you're all laughing now, but wait until you see this ," taehyung says as he jabs his finger at the space bar forcefully, and the video starts to roll.

"what is that?" seokjin asks, squinting at the screen. even yoongi leans closer.

"oh. that would be me working out," taehyung says, "let me fast-forward."

"do you always work out naked?" jungkook asks with some mixture of disgust and curiosity.

"you were right, this is pretty disturbing," namjoon says.

"why would i wear clothes in the privacy of my own room," taehyung replies, unfazed, "they'd just get sweaty."

jungkook gives taehyung a long look, like he's trying to decide whether he's serious or not. yoongi nudges at his shoulder.

"definitely not thinking about you working out naked," he mumbles, low enough for only jungkook to hear, looking at him from the corner of his eye.

"gross, yoongi," jimin says anyway, making a face. jungkook sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, and grins.

"did it freeze?" namjoon asks, frowning.

"no, that's me lying face-down on the floor for about five minutes after doing three push-ups," taehyung says. "hold on, let me find... okay, here. watch closely."

yoongi tries to focus on the gritty picture and not on jungkook's fingers drawing featherlike patterns on his lower back. suddenly jungkook's fingers stop, and slide off yoongi as he inhales audibly.

"holy shit, someone's really there," jungkook says. yoongi can make out the shape of a person in the doorway; it's difficult to say anything about their build or clothing because it's essentially just black against more black. earlier, the video showed jimin and taehyung getting into the monstrosity of a bed which is three queen-sized beds pushed together - one of their walls is really just all bed - and yoongi assumes they are currently sleeping, though the laptop camera is positioned in a way that cuts the beds out.

the shadowy figure moves further into the room, slowly, in a sort of strange, unsteady and jerky manner, which makes it look like a low budget horror film but is probably just the bad quality of the video. it moves across the room, towards where the closets are, and disappears from the shot.

"wow, this quality really is crappy," yoongi says, "how can you tell it's a clown and not an ordinary murderer?"

"we wouldn't be alive if it was an ordinary murderer," jimin points out.

"what jimin said. also this ," taehyung says, and hits the pause. they lean closer, shoulders and elbows and heads knocking together as they struggle to make sense of the shapes on the screen.

"it's a shoe," seokjin says. he's not wrong. the figure is making its way back to the door, and is barely standing in a narrow stripe of moonlight that illuminates a single shoe, and not much else.

"that's a clown shoe," taehyung insists, tapping at the screen with his index finger. "there's someone in our room, and i'm telling you, it's the fucking clown. i was right, just admit it. also? i found this."

they watch, holding their breath, as taehyung pulls something out of his back pocket. he holds it up, dangles it in the air in front of him. the silence stretches on for a few more seconds.

"trash," yoongi concludes.

"it's a popped balloon ," taehyung says intensely, waving the limp, pink piece of rubber around vehemently. "it's a dead balloon animal. it's obviously a threat. it's the clown equivalent of mailing out a severed finger."

"let me get this straight," seokjin says slowly, "a clown has been coming into your room for over half a year, and he's... threatening you?"

"and that's not all," taehyung says hotly, like he's a desperate salesman on a shopping channel. he reaches into his other back pocket, takes out - a fistful of crumpled confetti, throwing it up into the air. he keeps steady eye contact with seokjin as the multicolored pieces fall mostly on himself.

"what is happening right now," seokjin whispers.

"it's evidence number three," taehyung says, "i've found confetti in our bedroom, in the stairs, even by the front door on multiple occasions."

"isn't that from new year's?" yoongi asks, and gets a piece of confetti shoved right under his nose.

"no, the texture's different, feel it," taehyung says. there's a slightly crazed look in his eyes. jimin uncrosses his arms, crouches down, leveling with taehyung, and licks his lips.

"you good?" he asks bluntly.

"what do you think ?" taehyung huffs, jabbing a finger at the freeze-frame. "the demonic murder clown is real. how are you not freaked out? you were right there sleeping when this happened."

"it's carrying something," jungkook points out, "it took something from the room. what is it?"

"clothes?" seokjin says, squinting at the picture. "are those hoseok's awful weed sweatpants? oh."

yoongi can tell from the collective inhale that most people in the room make the connection at the same time.

"taehyung," namjoon says stiffly, "hoseok wasn't in the room, was he?"

"no, this is from two nights ago, he had a night shift at wherev-" taehyung gasps softly. "are you saying -"

"yeah," namjoon says.

"- the clown killed hobi and stole his clothes?"

"- no," namjoon says, and looks down at taehyung for a long time.

"why on earth would the clown steal his pot leaf sweatpants," seokjin wonders. "and we saw hobi this morning. when's the last time you slept?"

yoongi can't fucking believe this, not only is taehyung's clown actually real, but -

"hobi's the fucking clown," he blurts, unable to hold onto it any longer, "hoseok is the clown you've been seeing in your room, which means we figured out what his job is, which means we won."

he spins around to bump his fist against jungkook's - it feels appropriate, because it's what they did months ago when they agreed to find hoseok out - and then, in the heat of the moment, also grabs him by the shirt collar, drags him down, and kisses the shit out of him. a canon of faint groans echoes around the bathroom.

"you really like beating hoseok, huh," jungkook grins against his lips, prettily flushed.

"he does," namjoon sighs, "board game nights are a disaster when those two are on opposite teams."

"board game nights are a disaster either way," seokjin rolls his eyes. "remember when taehyung tried to get a restraining order against namjoon because he lost at monopoly?"

"beating hoseok is fucking great," yoongi confirms, "it's better than..." he scrunches his nose. "i was going to say sex, but that's really not true, because sex with you is -"

"i swear to god, yoongi, if you don't stop talking," jimin interrupts loudly.

"what the fuck," taehyung says suddenly, attracting everyone's attention; yoongi had sort of forgotten he was there because he was so quiet, merely staring emptily at the laptop screen.

"how did you not consider that hoseok might be the clown, honestly," yoongi comments. this earns him a deadly glare.

"did you consider that he might be the clown?" taehyung snarls. "no, you didn't."

"i didn't consider that there might be a clown," yoongi says.

"this probably isn't his only job, though," jungkook muses, "he must have a full-time job, and this is just something he does sometimes for extra cash."

"very true," yoongi nods.

"listen, isn't this kind of good?" namjoon says to taehyung tentatively. "you weren't hallucinating, and no one's trying to kill you, either, since it's just hobi -"

"you could say he got... clowned on," seokjin says, and yoongi thinks that if taehyung were to pounce on him for that comment, personally he probably wouldn't try to stop him. taehyung doesn't, however. he just rises from the floor sort of ominously calmly.

"good, yes," he says, "oh, this is good. great, even. i'm going to make sure he regrets ever stepping a clown shoe into our room. i'm going to stand at his bedside in a clown costume every night for the rest of his life."

taehyung's taking out his phone, and whether it is to online shop a full adult-sized clown costume or to tell hoseok "i know what you did" like it's a nineties horror classic, yoongi knows they can't have him do that.

"stop him!" he yells, and immediately jungkook slaps the phone out of taehyung's hand. jimin drops down to catch it into his palm before it hits the floor.

"you guys are like a single organism, what the fuck," seokjin marvels.

"that was an incredibly fast drop, jimin," namjoon compliments.

"it's the years of slutdropping at the nightingale," jimin says, tucking taehyung's phone into his back pocket.

"listen to me," yoongi says as taehyung makes a frustrated noise, "let's be smart about this. if we tell him we know he's the clown, he's just going to bring up the fact that he has another job, and make us admit we don't know what it is. you can have your revenge after we expose him."

"no, yoongi," namjoon interjects, "we don't condone taking revenge here. come on, we're civilized people."

"are we, though," yoongi questions, making a face, "we're gathered into a bathroom that's too small for us and one of us has been sneaking around dressed as a clown."

"there's no house rule against revenge," taehyung challenges. namjoon raises his long arm so fast he almost elbows seokjin in the face.

"house meeting! i call house meeting concerning the issue of house rules."

"you can't just call a house meeting every time someone disagrees with you!" taehyung takes a step towards namjoon, but is held back by jimin's fist in the back of his t-shirt.

"there's no house rule that regulates calling house meetings," namjoon argues back, and jesus fucking christ, it's becoming a full-blown bathroom fight. yoongi has better things to do than partake in a bathroom brawl in his own fucking house. seokjin lets out a series of "ooh"s with varying pitch and tone, and draws into a corner to dodge namjoon's flying limbs as he tends to lose all control over those when he gets passionate.

"calm the fuck down everyone," yoongi raises his voice. "hold hands! just hold hands, people."

a hand slips into his, fingers between his own. yoongi looks up, and finds jungkook looking at him unexpectedly warmly and intimately.

"oh," he says softly.

"how the fuck are you two having a moment right now?" jimin asks incredulously. he's clinging to taehyung's back with both of his arms around his midriff. "we're like, seconds away from a very pathetic fist fight here. tae, if you don't hold yoongi's hand right now -"

two minutes later finds them standing around in the tiny bathroom in a misshapen circle with their hands linked like they're some sort of a clown worshipping cult. yoongi wonders briefly how they would explain this to a random person walking in. sometimes you just have to hold hands with five of your closest friends in a bathroom, he supposes.

"namjoon will stop calling house meetings every time someone disagrees with him and taehyung won't plunge us all into a vicious cycle of revenge." seokjin casts pointed looks at the men on either side of him. "cool? cool."

"just a small revenge," taehyung bargains, "like twenty-five percent revenge."

"what the hell does that even mean," namjoon asks.

"you'll see," taehyung says ominously.

"i have to pee," jimin says, "so unless you want to see that, get out."

none of them wants to see that.

/

afterwards, they gather around the coffee table with taehyung's laptop for an investigating session. taehyung says the only other time hoseok's on the video he's on the phone, which might not be awfully helpful because the quality of the audio is shit, but it's their only clue. taehyung finds the correct part, lets the video roll, and turns the volume to the max.

"what is he saying," seokjin mumbles, brow furrowed in concentration.

"did he say he's going to the bank?" jungkook asks, puzzled.

"i think he said 'spank'," yoongi says, and goes quiet. they stare at each other for a brief moment as hoseok continues to describe something very indecent in the background. then everyone surges forward at the same time to slam the laptop's lid down.

"so. it was that kind of a phone call," namjoon says into the silence with sort of a dead look in his eyes.

"i didn't even know he was seeing someone," seokjin says in disbelief, "why do we literally know nothing about him? what the fuck?"

jimin groans with his whole chest and throws himself down on the table.

"so that's it. we have no clues. it's over for us. it's been months and he hasn't slipped once. he's won. we might as well admit - ufh. " he lifts his head and the couch pillow yoongi hurled at him rolls to the floor.

"don't ever say that to me," yoongi says, pointing an index finger at him, "i'd rather die than admit shit to him. i'll contact his great-great-grandma if i have to."

"i draw the line at spiritism," seokjin says coolly. "i'm not fucking with ghosts."

"let's not lose focus, guys," namjoon claps his hands twice. "what can we rule out?"

"anything involving cars and driving," yoongi offers, "you know, with the way he drives like he never got his license?" he pauses. "...did he get his license?"

"oh, god," jimin says, making a horrified face, "i've ridden with him like a hundred times."

"what if that's also to throw us off?" taehyung says intensely, leaning forward with the kind of look in his eyes that yoongi knows to mean he's going full conspiracy mode. "can we trust anything? is his entire person fabricated? is his name even hoseok?"

"let's not... exaggerate," namjoon sighs, "i don't think he knew about us not knowing what he does until august last year. i think he's just genuinely a shitty driver."

"you mentioned the mall dance battle incident," jungkook muses on yoongi's left side, "could it be something to do with dance?"

"nah," yoongi says, "afterwards, he said, 'i should do this professionally'. which means it's just a hobby."

"jimin's right about us having no clues," namjoon says, running a hand through his brown hair, "there's no point in sitting here taking shots in the dark. let's take more time, maybe try to get something out of him when he gets home. and tae, don't... oh, come on, jimin, did you give him his phone back?"

"no," jimin says, while taehyung very openly thumbs at his phone.

"don't tell him you know, tae," namjoon says, "no revenge."

taehyung looks up.

"seventy-five percent no revenge," he says, then gets up and scurries away before namjoon can stop him. namjoon yelps, no, tae, and hurries after him, bumping his knee on the coffee table as he goes.

the rest of them scatter more slowly. jungkook stands up, stretches with his arms above his head, and yoongi doesn't hide the fact that he's staring because he doesn't need to anymore. not that he was ever particularly successful in hiding it.

"i'll get back to painting," jungkook murmurs, then squats back down before leaving, tips forward to softly peck yoongi's cheek, the way he does in the morning and whenever they part, and yoongi's so fucking weak for it. namjoon knows this thanks to yoongi's minor breakdown at the kitchen table yesterday, and yoongi's pretty sure jungkook knows, too, and likes seeing yoongi blush and drop things. "come up soon?"

"after i finish this song, babe," yoongi smiles, brushing his thumb against jungkook's pouty lower lip.

"aren't you usually a fast finisher, yoongi," jimin's godforsaken voice comes from across the table.

"why are you still here," yoongi groans.

"wow. i live here," jimin says, leaning his jaw on his closed fist. "you two, however, should consider getting a room."

"consider this," yoongi says, flipping him off. jungkook chuckles as he removes himself from the idle squabble.

/

"so, that time we tried to tail him... in november? remember that?"

so yoongi finished fast, ha-ha, the double entendre is hilarious - the final version of the song sits on top of the keyboard. yoongi played it in its entirety while jungkook painted to see if there's anything he'd like to change about it, but jungkook liked it how it is. now it only needs to be played, practiced, and yoongi is looking forward to sitting at the piano with jungkook, spending hours like that.

the windows are closed again, but it's still chilly up here, and yoongi came with a mug of hot chocolate and a threat to warm jungkook up himself if he didn't wear something warm. jungkook commented that it sounded like the opposite of a threat, but wore a flannel over his t-shirt, anyway.

yoongi sits cross-legged on the floor with jungkook, stealing sips of the hot chocolate, and letting jungkook use the inside of his arm as a sketchpad to test colors on as he mixes paints and meticulously searches for the right shades. the door, right now, is painted like the night sky, with a rough version of the brown piano in the snow that takes up the lower half, climbs up the sides, and falls from the top of the door.

"how could i forget , " yoongi says truthfully. in many ways, it was one of the most hellish days of his life. he remembers the tension being almost unbearable that day. "we were terrible at it."

jungkook leans down to apply more white to his palette, and yoongi watches his mouth stretch into a grin, his eyes glinting.

"got a breakfast date out of you, though," he muses. yoongi worries his bottom lip for a while.

"i almost kissed you, that day. like, twice." jungkook looks up at him, an open, soft expression on his face. it makes yoongi want to tell him anything. "there were lots of times i almost kissed you."

"yeah?" jungkook says quietly, a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. "like when?"

too many to count, yoongi almost says. he licks his lips.

"the first time you came to watch me play at the bar. the second time. the third time." the stripe of red paint is still there on his jaw. there's red above his collarbone, a dark blue smudge next to his ear. all the colors sort of remind yoongi of new year's, how he looked under the fireworks. jungkook watches him quietly, his knee barely touching yoongi's, paintbrush still in his hand. yoongi thinks that this should be embarrassing, but it's not. it's at least a little bit better than grabbing him in the morning and going on a ramble about how much he loves him. "most mornings when you slept in my bed and did that pouty thing you do when you wake up. those times at the bookstore when we sat behind the erotica novels during your break."

jungkook bites his bottom lip to suppress his grin.

"because no one ever comes there," he mumbles. casts his eyelashes down, then looks back at yoongi. "well, i would've kissed you back. all those times."

looks like he's saying, me, too, already back then. yoongi hums, quietly, inches closer. his heart doing that steady thump thump thump, so familiar by now. jungkook leans in, the softest little smile on his face. yoongi cups his face with one hand, brings their lips together. jungkook's lips part under his, his paint-covered fingers coming up to yoongi's neck, probably leaving smudges. yoongi's other hand, the one attached to the arm with the color scheme on it, settles onto his leg, travels slowly up his thigh. deep waters, yoongi thinks suddenly. maybe it was always supposed to feel like this; jungkook is from the sea, after all. it's like he brought it with him, caught yoongi under a tidal wave.

"ah," jungkook says, pulling back a little, "we were talking about hobi-hyung."

"fuck that guy," yoongi says into his mouth. jungkook laughs, and yoongi smiles, pressing a final kiss to his bottom lip before separating. "yeah, the day we tailed him, and he stopped to talk to someone, he was probably talking about a birthday gig or something."

"he sounded like a fucking assassin," jungkook says incredulously, "but he was talking about... clowning."

"he could still be an assassin, too," yoongi shrugs, his fingers drawing abstract patterns on jungkook's thigh, then slipping underneath the hem of his shirt, just enough to brush at the bare skin above his waistband. "we don't know yet. do you have to finish that right now?"

jungkook blinks. his eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly.

"are you turned on?"

"not because of hoseok and clowns, god," yoongi says, making a pained face that makes jungkook's mouth curl into a grin. "but because - you -"

"i what?" jungkook asks, teasing, but there's also a soft edge to his voice. his thumb ghosts over yoongi's exposed collarbone.

"first of all, i'm usually some percent turned on around you," yoongi tells him matter-of-factly, "and second of all, do you have any idea how good you look covered in paint? you look really fucking good. in case you didn't know."

"i figured, with the way you like to stare at me when i'm painting," jungkook says gleefully, laughs when yoongi murmurs, shut up. he raises the paintbrush, and quickly pokes yoongi on the cheek with it.

"hey," yoongi protests.

"looks good on you, too," jungkook murmurs, smiling in that specific way that makes a single dimple appear on his cheek. yoongi's heart stumbles a bit. he doesn't get a chance to lean in for a kiss, because jungkook grabs his jaw and angles his face to the side. "oh. that's the exact shade of blue i was looking for."

"are you serious," yoongi breathes out a laugh, and apparently jungkook is not entirely serious, or at least the discovery is not the most important thing on his mind right now, because the next second he's in yoongi's lap, kissing him full on the mouth. yoongi makes an appreciative sound, hooks an arm around jungkook's neck, lets himself tip backwards under jungkook's weight until his back hits the floor. jungkook slides his hands under yoongi's shirt, up his sides, and yoongi sighs, arches into his touch.

"you should take this off, it'll get dirty with paint," jungkook mumbles against his lips.

"you just want to get me naked."

"you got me there." jungkook grins, nips at yoongi's bottom lip, before pushing himself up. he straddles yoongi's waist, sits back on his thighs. he looks down at yoongi with a light flush on his face, and biting his bottom lip briefly, begins to shrug off the flannel. yoongi's fingers curl into the thighs on either side of him, then climb up to the narrow waist as jungkook shucks off the piece of clothing. oh, fucking hell.

"this, too, baby," yoongi urges, fingers skittering up a toned stomach, lifting the t-shirt. jungkook makes a small noise, pulls the shirt over his head. yoongi splays his fingers against his ribs, scraping his teeth against his bottom lip as he takes him in, appreciates how fucking gorgeous and hot he is, how perfect he looks like this, and yoongi might already be half-hard just thinking about jungkook riding him; the first time he did, it was so much and so good yoongi was honestly sure he was going to die, and he was exceptionally fine with it.

yoongi's hands fall to jungkook's waist again. he meets his dark eyes, opens his mouth.

"house meeting!" namjoon bellows downstairs. yoongi stares at jungkook in a state of utter disbelief. jungkook blinks, his fingers on yoongi's stomach going still. for a short moment, yoongi thinks they can just ignore him, but then there's the unmistakable rumble of footsteps in the stairs and he remembers god hasn't been on his side since that time in middle school when he accidentally poured milk before his cereal.

"i'm going to kill him dead," yoongi whispers seriously while maintaining eye contact with jungkook. jungkook licks his lips, and looks like he's not sure whether he wants to laugh or cry. a moment later, their door is being severely pummeled.

"house meeting!" namjoon yells again, his voice shriller now.

"we're busy!" yoongi yells back, turning his face towards the door.

"it's an emergency," namjoon says, a little bit strained. "are you fenorking?"

"are we... are we what?" jungkook asks, genuinely confused.

"can someone in this house please say 'fuck' like a real person for once?" yoongi pleads, pained on all levels. jungkook shifts suddenly, like he almost loses his balance but catches himself. yoongi looks up at him, and he's looking back at yoongi like he just realized something.

"did you lock the door?"

yoongi did not, in fact, lock the door, which becomes evident a second later when namjoon pushes it open, takes all of two steps into the room, freezes once he takes in yoongi on his back on the floor and jungkook, shirtless, on top of him, and promptly turns back around.

"oh my god, you are fenorking," he yelps, "why didn't you say so? you really don't lock your door very often, do you?" he spins around once more to give them an incredulous look. "is this all you do?"

"apparently, we also 'woohoo'," yoongi says calmly. namjoon makes an unidentifiable sound from the back of his throat.

"just get your asses downstairs," he concludes in a despairing tone, and closes the door behind him a bit roughly. yoongi lets his arms flop to his sides and lets out the hearty groan of a man who's just been deprived of some great sex with his gorgeous as hell boyfriend. getting interrupted is neither new nor surprising; it happens all the time, and yoongi literally did not expect anything else, not with the house swarming with people whose conceptions of privacy and personal space are underwhelming at best - and yoongi would die for these people any day without hesitation, but to put it bluntly, he'd also like to fuck his boyfriend in peace.

but their living situation was never ideal for dating and it's not like they planned for this to happen, anyway. it's not like yoongi meant to fall in love with the boy jimin and taehyung picked up off the street one rainy summer night in august. but it happened. things just happened, and despite complications and having to sacrifice things like shower sex and loud sex and sometimes just sex, despite the ever-present fear of drowning, yoongi is so fucking happy right now. happy that things just happened.

jungkook laughs breathlessly, takes his weight off yoongi's thighs, hovers over him with hands on either side of his head.

"it's probably to do with hobi-hyung," he says, his own disappointment bleeding through in his voice.

"i don't want anything to do with hobi right now," yoongi says, "i want to do you."

jungkook laughs above him, and yoongi smiles, too. reaches up to cup jungkook's face, pulls him down for a kiss, or two, or three.

"do me later, hyung," jungkook murmurs against his lips, and then he's already rolled off yoongi, pulling his shirt back on, leaving him sort of breathless as he tends to. yoongi thinks about taking him somewhere, somewhere nice and peaceful and maybe even romantic, but that's something to plan another time.

turns out it doesn't even fucking have to do with hoseok.

the laptop on the coffee table has been switched to namjoon's, and yoongi stares at it, then looks up at namjoon, who's standing behind it with his arms crossed.

"i can't believe you right now," he says darkly.

"you wanted to show us your porn?" jimin asks as he and taehyung make their way to the armchair.

" no, " namjoon says, dropping his arms to his sides. "this isn't my - i just opened it a moment ago - you know what, whatever. who downloaded porn on my computer?"

"is this a trick question?" taehyung asks. "it was you, wasn't it?"

"i thought we respected women in this household, namjoon," jimin says airily.

"i respect women," namjoon says fervently, his voice about an octave higher than usually, his face turning a weird shade of red, "you can respect women and still watch porn, and i'm fully aware of how misogynistic the industry is -"

"you said it was an emergency," yoongi says, and gestures to the laptop on which a bunch of naked ladies, all very charming young women, yoongi's sure, are demonstrating the act of deepthroating a large dick. "this is not an emergency. also, you've clearly got your bases covered. why did you need me to tell you how to blow seokjin? why did you make me go through that?"

"you did that?" seokjin snorts, choosing the exact right moment to turn up and join yoongi and jungkook on the couch. "i'm weirdly touched."

"that was confidential," namjoon glowers. yoongi just shrugs. "it's an emergency because now my laptop is frozen and won't stop suggesting i check out a site that's full of horny scandinavian sluts who are dying to fuck me."

"beautiful," seokjin says, "your own words?"

namjoon lets out a suffering groan.

"no, it's what this fucking pop-up says. it won't go away, not even when i turn it off. it just comes right back the moment i click on anything."

"i think as the only two people in this house who have sex regularly, you can rule us out," yoongi says, gesturing between himself and jungkook. "we don't need that kinda stuff."

"hell yeah," jungkook mumbles, and yoongi turns to high-five him before casually hooking an arm over the backrest.

"will you ever stop reminding us of the fact that at any given moment you could be banging on the other side of our wall?" jimin groans.

"unlikely," yoongi says.

"what kind of porn was it?" taehyung asks. "that'll tell us who it was."

"you all know... each other's preferences like that?" jungkook asks.

"you learn shit in two years," yoongi says wearily, "shit you never wanted to learn."

"everyone knows yoongi's into muscles and roughhousing," jimin says, "especially these days."

"jimin has a daddy kink," yoongi snaps. jimin gasps.

"i do not," he says, narrowing his eyes. "that was one time, and i didn't even like it."

"guys," namjoon says exasperatedly, "i fucking beg of you, please forget my earlier question. what i want to know is can anyone fix this?"

"let me see." jungkook detaches himself from yoongi's side, and leans forward. yoongi can't quite see what he's doing, can hear the quiet tap of keys. after a moment, he looks up. "well, it didn't unfreeze, but the pop-up changed into one that's suggesting older dominatrixes? i don't know if that's helpful?"

"it is. good job," yoongi says, rubbing his lower back. namjoon is standing with his head drooping, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"so no one knows how to fix this?"

"i know," seokjin says, and then toes at yoongi's thigh. "yoongi has IT support on speed dial."

"tch," yoongi says, but lifts his ass off the couch to inch his phone out of his back pocket, anyway. with the line already ringing, he turns to give namjoon a look. "actually, why am i doing this? it's your damn laptop."

namjoon just stares him dead in the eye, and gives him a passive-aggressive thumbs up that screams payback for making their blowjob conversation public knowledge.

"don't tell them it's a porn virus," he advices.

yoongi sighs, pulls his feet up on the couch. jungkook angles himself towards yoongi, leans his head on his knee, watching him sideways, and yoongi reaches out to play with the piercing on his earlobe as the line rings. he tugs at the silver hoop, smiles when jungkook scrunches his nose.

"IT support services, how can i help you?" comes an overly friendly customer service voice. yoongi withdraws his hand, and jungkook straightens up, leans a shoulder against the cushions instead. yoongi vaguely registers him joining the ongoing conversation about one thing or the other.

"yeah, hey, my friend downloaded porn to his computer, and now it's got some kind of a virus on it," yoongi says, ignoring namjoon's groan. there's a weird clanking sound on the phone, like something dropping - then a hiss, someone saying something under their breath. yoongi frowns. "excuse me?"

"all our technicians are busy at the moment," comes the voice, somewhat stilted, this time, "i will place you on hold."

"aren't you a technician?" yoongi asks. there's no answer, the person on the phone just breathes a certain way; but weirdly enough, that's what makes something click, makes him think, wait a fucking minute. can it fucking be. "hoseok?"

the quiet conversation in the room comes to an abrupt stop, and yoongi can practically hear mouths falling open around him. the line is silent for a moment. then,

"this is not hoseok."

"then who is this?" yoongi asks, a grin starting to pull at the corners of his mouth. there's another pause, and yoongi waits patiently, suddenly in no hurry at all, enjoying every second of this. namjoon, his eyebrows raised so high they basically disappear into his hairline, mouths, hoseok?

"this is... your conscience."

"uh-huh," yoongi says, unbothered, "my conscience has been dead for years, i know you're lying."

"well i fucking revived so i could tell you to fuck off," hoseok grumbles. yoongi grins wide.

"hey, guys, it's our friend hoseok, the tech support guy," he says, taking the phone off his ear and activating speakerphone, "which we have known this entire time."

"i'm sure you have," hoseok says dryly, a delightful contrast with how happy everyone currently looks. taehyung is making a victorious face that's disturbingly orgasmic, while jimin is already fully engaged in a silent victory dance.

"yep, from day one," seokjin says. "the other day i was thinking, wow, it's so nice that hoseok is in tech support, in case, you know, something like this happens."

"can you help with the computer?" namjoon asks. hoseok sighs, a loud, raspy sound in the speaker.

"just fucking turn it off and back on again."

"this is bad customer service," yoongi says, having the time of his life. "can i speak to your manager?"

"i'm gonna get fucking fired because of you guys," hoseok says irritably.

"good thing you have another job to fall back on, then," taehyung says, springing up from his seat and taking a couple of quick strides to the phone. he leans down, grabs yoongi's wrist, brings the phone so close to his face that his lips are touching the speaker. says, loudly, "AS THE FUCKING CLOWN THAT'S BEEN SHOWING UP IN OUR ROOM."

"jesus, tae, i almost went deaf," hoseok complains. "fine, i'm the clown. that was fun while it lasted, i guess."

"i'm going to kick your ass, hoseok," taehyung says hotly, "i'm going to pound your ass so hard. prepare your ass, because it's about to get pounded."

"don't say that," namjoon says quietly with a haunted look on his face, but taehyung just carries on.

"i can't believe you would let me think i'm being hunted for sport by a murder clown. my own blood and family. how could you?"

"well, you see, i was going to tell you it was me," hoseok says, "but then i didn't because it was hilarious. i acknowledge i caused you some stress in these past months, but it's not like i was purposely doing it to scare you. my schedule was just really packed those days, didn't have time to change. and at least it took your mind off your horrible coffee shop job, didn't it?"

"don't pretend you were thinking about my horrible coffee shop job," taehyung growls. yoongi pries his hand off his wrist before taehyung can do permanent damage and render him jobless. jimin comes to usher a seething taehyung back down.

"since you all so clearly know what i do for a living," hoseok says, "i'm sure you also know these aren't my only jobs and i also work a third one?"

"goodbye," yoongi says, and hangs up. namjoon stares at the phone with a defeated expression on his face.

"my laptop's still frozen."

"i need a recording of hoseok saying 'fine, i'm the clown'," seokjin muses.

"is he bluffing?" jimin frowns, looking at the faces around the room. "about the third job? he's bluffing, right?"

"this is like a boss battle where the boss keeps revealing a new skill whenever you're about to kill him," jungkook whispers, staring at something somewhere far away.

"shut up, you nerd," yoongi says affectionately, and turns to the rest of them. "i said it was some IT thing. it was the first thing i suggested last year, and no one believed me."

"yeah, because usually it's hobi who infects our computers with viruses," jimin huffs, while taehyung mutters, now you know how it feels when no one believes you. "he has to be bluffing about the third job."

"i don't know," namjoon says slowly, "he's gone a lot, so i wouldn't be surprised if he worked three jobs."

"and how are we supposed to figure it out? his two jobs are already way different from one another," jimin says, starting to sound angry. "i wanna contact his great-great-grandma."

"we're not resorting to spiritism!" seokjin shrieks.

"i'm resorting to spiritism!" jimin jumps up from his seat.

"why would his great-great-grandma even know what he does," namjoon starts, and gets shushed by both seokjin and jimin who look like they're on the brink of throwing hands.

"this is tearing us apart!" yoongi screams, because it seems like the moment for someone to theatrically scream that, and it's not like he's contributing in any other way.

"oh. oh!" jungkook sits up so fast he nearly flies right into the coffee table. "i know! guys, i know what he does."

seokjin's got his fist in jimin's shirt, but everyone quiets down and turns to stare at jungkook, who begins to explain so fast his words get jumbled in places, his eyes wide with excitement.

"taehyung's hidden cam, right? the descriptive, dirty phone calls? the fact that he's not seeing anyone to any of our knowledge? those weren't personal calls, they were work calls. he's a phone sex operator."

there's a silence.

" yes," yoongi says, launches himself at jungkook, effectively tackling him to the couch, planting at least five kisses on his face, and simultaneously, the noise level in the living room explodes.

"i hate that he's a computer fixing phone sex clown, and all i'm thinking is that it makes sense," namjoon says.

"his resumé must look wild," seokjin comments, and yoongi can't tell if someone's fighting again or just celebrating because the noises could be either or and he's currently embarrassing his boyfriend in front of all their friends by kissing his cheeks while jungkook laughs and squirms.

"is that allowed?" jimin is asking loudly. "do we allow that?"

for once, yoongi decides to take mercy on him, gets up off jungkook, makes a quick round shaking everyone's hands.

"mystery fucking solved, good job everyone, special thanks to namjoon for living in the early 2000s and still downloading his porn instead of watching it on pornhub like everyone else," he rattles off, ignoring the riled look namjoon shoots him. lastly, he grabs jungkook's hand, pulls him up. "now if you'll excuse us, jungkook and i are going to have victory sex upstairs."

"i'm going to kick your fucking ass, yoongi, honestly ," jimin says.

they don't, however, and maybe that's weird, given how they left things unfinished earlier, but it's also not. that particular moment is gone, anyway, it's cold up here, and jungkook still looks good with paint on him but yoongi can appreciate that without getting his dick out despite what everyone seems to think. they make out on the bed for a while and then end up huddled under two blankets in the chilly room, face to face, talking about random things and then about less random things like the song and the upcoming house of cards performance. yoongi's fingers underneath jungkook's shirt, tracing patterns on his ribs, and this is good, too.

"two weeks? isn't that too soon? we haven't even practiced yet."

"it's not too soon," yoongi murmurs, "we have plenty of time to practice. and you know the melody. you know the words."

yoongi's melody. jungkook's words. initially, jungkook didn't think he could write the lyrics - you're the songwriter, not me, i'll just sing it - but yoongi encouraged him, saying, you paint pictures. so, this time, too, paint a picture. with words instead of a brush and paints.

and what jungkook came up with was simple, genuine and beautiful, and yoongi arranged it into two verses, a bridge and a chorus. it's about drifting at sea, finding home. and love, jungkook had told him the first time yoongi played him the melody. and that's what he wrote about.

"do you get nervous?" jungkook asks, fingers playing idly on yoongi's collarbones. "when you perform? or are you so used to it already that it's just another day at work?"

"i get nervous every single time," yoongi tells him, "it gets easier, playing in front of a crowd - but i'll never not get nervous beforehand. there's a moment, during every performance, where you sort of... fall into it." he props his head up on an elbow, settles a palm on the dip of jungkook's waist. it fits there like a puzzle piece. "you forget about the people watching, and it's just you and the piano and the music that flows between you. that's how it is for me, at least."

jungkook hums.

"yeah... i can see that. whenever you play. it's like you're in your own world... it's like, i don't know. you're witnessing something very private happening. it's hard to look away, really."

"funny," yoongi teases, reaching up to pinch his cheek, "you were making fun of me for staring at you when you paint, but seems like it works both ways."

"i never said it didn't," jungkook laughs quietly, turning his face into the pillow, but yoongi can still see the rosy pink on his cheeks. god fucking dammit, he's so fucking fond. he dips his head down, brushes his lips against his temple.

"what i was saying is... it's okay to be nervous, but don't be scared. i'm right there with you."

"i know," jungkook says, and then shoves his cold nose into the nook of yoongi's neck, cackling as yoongi yelps and makes a feeble attempt to throw him off of him.

/

"you can let me out, guys. i promise i'm civil."

"you tried to jump hobi just a minute ago," namjoon says, stuffing the doorknob he detached from the inside of the bathroom door into his back pocket. "this is for your safety."

"yeah, he needs all the safety he can get," taehyung grumbles on the other side of the door. there's a single muffled thud accentuating his words as he slams a fist against the door and pretty much renders his promise to be civil meaningless.

"i meant your safety," namjoon says. "hobi would kick your ass, let's be honest here."

"i have resilience and sharp nails," taehyung says. jimin, perched on the bottom stair, makes a face.

"oh, yeah, cut your nails, tae. at least your fucking toenails. you keep scratching me at night. they're like eagle talons."

"never," taehyung declares. "in fact, i'd claw my way out of here if it wasn't for jungkook's painting on the door. i can't ruin art. thank jungkook for your life, hoseok."

everyone turns to hoseok, who's sitting on the armrest of the armchair and eating a poptart, untoasted like a heathen, completely unbothered.

"thanks, kook," he says.

"no problem," jungkook says.

"guys, i'm serious," taehyung groans, "you know i don't deal well with isolation. i'm forced to listen to my own thoughts. the last time you left me alone for twelve hours i managed to connect the disbandment of jonas brothers to the extinction of dodo birds."

"that did happen," seokjin says, uncrossing his arms. "he made that whole bulletin board with the red string."

namjoon sighs.

"will you promise not to fight if i let you out?"

"i promise not to fight most people here," taehyung says.

"try again," namjoon says drily.

"fine," taehyung moans, "i won't fight. but i am going to stick to my right to twenty-five percent take revenge."

"look at the painting on the door, maybe it'll calm you down," hoseok suggests.

"it's the stormy one, that's not gonna help," yoongi remarks, drumming his fingers against his hips. "we locked him into the wrong bathroom."

eventually, namjoon lets taehyung out of the bathroom and the latter spends a good portion of the evening glaring at hoseok and muttering under his breath, even when they squeeze around the kitchen table to eat a late dinner.

"let me apologize. i'll make it up to you," hoseok promises solemnly, "i'll buy you food for a month. anything you want off the mcdonald's menu."

taehyung flings a piece of cucumber at him, and it escalates in seconds. it's taehyung's side of the table versus hoseok's side in what will later be known as The Second Great Food War, and yoongi whines loudly as hoseok elbows him dodging a flying vegetable. he meets eyes with jungkook, across from him, on the enemy side. jungkook blinks, wide-eyed, and then a grin curls his mouth. yoongi smiles back, an involuntary reaction, and gets a splatter of sauce on his cheek. jungkook has killer aim, but so does yoongi, and he may not condone wasting food but it doesn't stop him from hitting jungkook in the forehead with a piece of steamed eggplant.

seokjin, at the end of the table, tries to control the situation, until jimin steals a meatball off his plate to throw it at namjoon, which apparently is the last straw, and he dumps his whole glass of water on jimin. it's namjoon who eventually has enough. coincidentally, he's also the one with the most food on him. he stands up, knocking his chair over in the process, and yoongi feels a weird sense of contentment like balance has been restored to the world, since he by some miracle managed to escape gravity yesterday when they were talking in the kitchen. namjoon jabs a finger towards the door.

"taehyung and hoseok, penalty," he says, "two minutes outside."

"it's cold," taehyung complains.

"taehyung started it," hoseok says, but namjoon's hand on his shoulder is slightly threatening so he just sulks and flicks a last piece of tofu at taehyung before making an escape to the door. taehyung scrambles up, the cutlery on the table clattering, and sprints after him.

"you know they are going to be fighting it out in the snow in front of all our neighbors," yoongi raises an eyebrow as namjoon sits back down next to him.

"our neighbors have seen weirder shit during these two years," namjoon grunts.

"like you in your underwear knocking on their window asking to borrow their phone after you locked yourself out?" jimin suggests, and jungkook snorts so hard he spits water all over the table which literally does not matter given the state of things.

namjoon sighs with his entire body, and tips his face up towards the ceiling.

"you ever... look at your life, and wonder which of your choices led you where you are now?"

"all the time," seokjin says. "pass me the meatballs."

/

taehyung and hoseok are fine by the end of the evening. hoseok never holds grudges for long, and taehyung could be planning your demise one minute and then just decide he'll forgive you the next - although yoongi knows better than to completely trust him, and he thinks hoseok would be smart to watch his back for the next half a year or so. prank wars in this house are extremely unpredictable and tend to get out of hand. yoongi is not sure what happened in the snow but their neighbors didn't call the cops so it couldn't have been that bad.

"i was wondering about something," seokjin says once they've cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, cleaned themselves up, and hoseok has gotten namjoon's laptop working. they're lounging around in the living room; namjoon's in the shower, because he suffered the worst damage. "you're in IT support and the phone sex business... you ever mix those up?"

"you ever accidentally tell someone calling for phone sex to turn it off and back on again?" yoongi inquires lazily, comfy with his back against jungkook's chest, sharing a can of beer with him, although jungkook's not a big fan and claims it tastes like piss. then don't drink it, yoongi told him, but for some unfathomable reason jungkook does, anyway, and makes the same disgusted face after each sip without a fail. it probably doesn't need to be stated that yoongi considers it adorable, but. it's pretty adorable.

"oh, yeah, that's happened before," hoseok says, lowering his beer, "it's worse when it happens the other way around, though. when someone's telling you about their computer that won't run a virus scan and you've just finished a shift at the phone sex operator job and start asking them in a sexy voice if they want you to scan their viruses for them. it took a surprisingly long time until either of us realized anything's wrong."

jungkook whistles. "did they file a complaint?"

"hmm, no," hoseok says, "i went on two dates with her, though."

/

when yoongi feels jungkook's lips brush against his cheekbone, he doesn't pretend to be sleeping, this time. he grabs his wrist as jungkook's drawing away, pulls him back down. jungkook makes a surprised noise as he falls into yoongi's chest, and yoongi is quick to wrap his arms around his shoulders. he smells good, like soap and warmth, his hair tickling yoongi's face.

"oh," jungkook breathes against his neck, "good morning."

"morning," yoongi murmurs in a low, sleep-ridden voice, not opening his eyes, "you ever feel like you're sinking into the sea and you're sort of drowning and not drowning at the same time? but it's also sort of good and you're not scared because you know megalodon are extinct."

"what kind of a dream did you have," jungkook asks, amazed.

"dreamt of you," yoongi says into his hair. jungkook shifts, but it's only to settle on top of him more comfortably.

"that's just cheesy," jungkook whispers. yoongi feels his eyelashes flutter against his bare shoulder.

"it is," he agrees, fingers feathering across his shoulder blades, along his spine, like he's reading braille off his back.

"do you always wake up when i do that?" jungkook asks, sounding slightly sheepish. yoongi cracks his eyes open, finally.

"i like it when you do that," he says quietly. "i prefer it when you wake me up before you go, anyway."

"oh," jungkook says softly, almost inaudibly. their hearts hammering against each other disjointedly, and yoongi is lost and at home at the same time. not drowning but sinking, he thinks, and thinks he's learning. jungkook nuzzles his face into yoongi's neck. "hyung, i... really have to go."

"okay," yoongi breathes. his fingers ease their pressure, but linger, hesitate. "okay."

jungkook raises his head, props himself up on his forearms; they look at each other, and the words are stuck in his mouth, underneath his tongue. jungkook looks at him, and for a moment yoongi feels like they share the same thought; feels like everything's there on his face to be read like an open book, feels like he's reading the same thing off jungkook's.

in the end, neither of them says it. jungkook dips his head down, kisses him, tentative, slow, aching. yoongi keeps his eyes half open. he's not sure what makes it so different from their other kisses until now. but it's different.