Chapter Text
Jungkook wakes up at 6:17 a.m. with all the certainty of a man who has remembered something terrible.
For one glorious second, he’s confused. He only hears the strange, distant hum of a refrigerator that does not sound at all like his old one. Then he feels the weight of his blanket, soft on top of him. The mattress is a little bit different, but probably because he has not yet built the bedframe. Then, only after realizing that the room smells far too much like cardboard and fresh paint, does he remember just why the mattress is on the floor.
He keeps his eyes closed.
Then it hits.
New apartment.
Moving day.
Wrong door.
The attempted breaking and entering.
Jungkook rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.
“Oh my god,” he says softly, and to absolutely nobody.
The ceiling offers him no sympathy.
Which is fair. If Jungkook were the ceiling, he wouldn’t sympathize with him either.
He drags both hands down his face, then immediately makes the mistake of replaying his interactions with Yoongi.
But not the normal parts. Not the parts where he’d apologized. Not even the part where Yoongi had been surprisingly nice about the whole thing.
No, instead his traitorous brain chooses to focus exclusively on the exact moment he’d attempted the key a second time. The second time. As if his first attempt had been merely a warm-up. As if he had looked at the situation, had the rational thought that this may not be his door if the key isn’t working, and decided you know what this needs? Commitment.
Jungkook brings his pillow to his face and groans into it because there is absolutely no recovery from this. None at all.
He’ll have to move.
Again.
Maybe to another city. Possibly another country.
He’ll have to tell everyone that he just enjoys adventure. Nobody- sans Taehyung, Jimin, and Yoongi- will ever need to know the truth.
Jungkook’s phone buzzes on the nightstand. There are five messages in the group chat before Jungkook can even unlock his screen.
Tae > Jimin, Me
6:19AM
good morning
did you survive your first night living
Jimin > Me, Tae
6:19AM
you mean his first night living alone
right?
Tae > Me, Jimin
6:19AM
same thing
Jungkook stares at his phone before replying.
Me > Jimin, Tae
6:19AM
i hate both of you
just btw
Tae > Me, Jimin
6:20AM
oh no
something happened
Jimin > Me, Tae
6:20AM
what happened, kook?
Jungkook debates lying. For almost a full three seconds.
Unfortunately, Taehyung and Jimin have known Jungkook for far too long. They’ll know something is wrong within seconds.
Me > Jimin, Tae
6:20AM
i tried breaking into my neighbors apartment
Jimin > Me, Tae
6:21AM
…
jungkook, we know
we were THERE
Me > Jimin, Tae
6:21AM
i KNOW
i’m just REMEMBERING it
i’m embarrassed
i’m going to have to live out the remainder of my days hiding in my apartment
until i can speak japanese fluently enough to leave the country
Jungkook throws his phone onto the mattress. He’s not sure that Jimin and Taehyung, people who don’t suffer from Jungkook’s particularly embarrassing form of anxiety, will understand how you can get secondhand embarrassment from your past self.
He doesn’t touch his phone until ten minutes later, after brushing his teeth and making his coffee.
There are forty-three new messages.
Tae > Me, Jimin
6:29AM
he probably doesn’t actually think you were trying to rob him though, right?
Jungkook doesn’t answer.
The apartment looks different on day two.
Less like a collection of boxes and more like evidence. Evidence that he’s finally left his old life behind. Evidence that he’s finally making decisions for himself. Jimin would call that progress. Jungkook doesn’t feel like it is.
Jungkook stands in the middle of the living room holding a mug of coffee and turns slowly in a circle.
The couch is where it's supposed to be.
The television is where it's supposed to be.
The plants survived transportation.
Well, mostly. One of them looks emotionally compromised.
Jungkook relates to it.
The boxes, however, have multiplied. He's almost certain of it. There had been fewer yesterday.
Not significantly fewer. Just enough that he feels gaslit by the universe itself.
Maybe apartments reproduce belongings when left unattended.
That seems as likely as any other explanation.
He sets his coffee down and starts opening things.
The first box contains books.
Normal.
The second contains kitchen supplies.
Reasonable.
The third contains just one winter scarf, a phone charger that Jungkook was not aware that he owned, three oven mitts that do not match one another, a screwdriver, and a bottle of shampoo that is at least one year expired.
Jungkook stares.
What kind of system had he been operating under?
Who packed this? Was it him?
That feels unlikely.
And yet, there’s no one else to blame.
"Interesting," he mutters.
The box remains silent.
Coward.
The morning passes like that.
Unpacking, rearranging, finding increasingly concerning examples of his own organizational decisions.
At one point he discovers an entire set of bath towels packed with Christmas decorations.
In another he finds six forks in a box labeled IMPORTANT.
There are no important things inside. Only forks.
Jungkook doesn't remember making any of these choices.
Which feels like a problem.
He also finds a box labeled BEDROOM/MAYBE, which turns out to contain no bedroom items and several things that could only be described as kitchen-adjacent if someone were trying to be extremely generous. A colander. Two mugs. A half-used roll of parchment paper. The waist pack that he uses while running. One single chopstick.
Not a pair of chopsticks.
Just one.
Jungkook holds it up and stares at it. He wonders if this is some sort of omen.
Around noon, he opens a box marked KITCHEN.
Inside is a charcuterie board. A very expensive charcuterie board.
Jungkook stares at it, then picks it up, then stares harder.
The thing is huge.
Beautiful, probably.
It’s definitely made of some kind of fancy wood.
It looks like the sort of object people post on social media beside carefully arranged grapes.
Jungkook has never arranged grapes- not once in his life.
He cannot remember buying this.
He stands there for nearly 5 minutes trying to understand before he finally remembers.
"Oh."
Right.
The apartment-warming party.
It hadn’t been his idea, naturally. Jungkook avoids any event with the word “party” in it out of pure survival instinct. The charcuterie board hadn’t been his idea either, but someone had insisted that they needed one.
For entertaining, they’d said. This place is so beautiful. I’m sure you’ll be hosting all of the time.
Jungkook can’t remember using it afterward. Not even once.
He sets it carefully on the counter.
Despite the podcast he has playing on his phone, the kitchen suddenly feels very quiet.
It’s not a sad quiet, not really. It’s just strange.
It feels like he’s finding proof of the previous version of himself. Someone who he doesn’t entirely recognize as him.
Jungkook puts the board in a box he’s going to relabel from IMPORTANT to DONATE, and they part ways without resolving anything.
At three o'clock, Jungkook decides he needs cookies.
Because there is still the matter of his neighbor.
And because if he doesn't bring some kind of apology offering soon, he's going to think about it forever.
This is not an exaggeration, by the way. Some people are capable of moving on.
And Jungkook once remembered a mildly awkward interaction with a cashier for six years.
The ingredients are already unpacked.
The sugar takes twenty minutes to locate and the vanilla takes thirty, but he does find them.
At one point he finds himself standing in the kitchen holding measuring cups and questioning every decision that has led him here.
This is what anxiety is, probably.
Standing in a strange apartment making apology cookies for a man you've spoken to exactly twice because your brain has decided this is the only path toward redemption.
Reasonable. Totally reasonable.
The first batch burns.
The second batch is edible, but Jungkook is worried about showing up with mediocre apology cookies so he has to remake them.
The third batch is actually good.
Jungkook stares at them with cautious optimism, then sends a picture to the group chat.
Me > Jimin, Tae
5:01PM
proof of life
Tae > Jimin, Me
5:03PM
those are…
apology cookies?
Me > Jimin, Tae
5:03PM
how do you know that
Tae > Me, Jimin
5:04PM
bc
you only bake when you’re stressed out
and i know that the whole hot neighbor break in debacle
has you stressed tf out
Jimin > Me, Tae
5:04PM
they look good
Me > Jimin, Tae
5:04PM
THANK YOU
finally someone around here who respects me
Tae > Me, Jimin
5:05PM
i respect you
just not always your decisions to stress urself out
Jungkook mutes the chat. For not stressing himself out reasons.
By six o’clock, Jungkook has successfully convinced himself not to deliver the cookies.
Then he convinced himself he should. Then convinced himself he shouldn’t. Then should. Then shouldn’t.
The tray sits on the counter while Jungkook circles it like a nervous vulture.
He knows that this is ridiculous. They’re just cookies. People give cookies to their neighbors so often that it’s practically a trope in and of itself.
Eventually, he shoves a dozen of them into a container before he can change his mind again, then heads into the hallway.
The walk takes approximately four seconds.
Jungkook still manages to rehearse seven different versions of the interaction. Every last one of them sounds strange.
He settles on honesty. Or at least as much honesty as his pride can handle.
Which is how he ends up standing outside of Yoongi’s apartment holding cookies like a peace offering and wondering whether or not it’s too late to fake his own death.
It probably is. Unfortunately.
Jungkook stares at Yoongi’s door.
The door stares back.
Somehow, Jungkook feels like the door is winning. He thinks it’s incredibly unfair.
Because it’s just a door. Just a normal door.
A normal apartment door that has somehow become the face of some of the most humiliating twenty-four hours of Jungkook’s life, yes.
But still. Just a door.
He shifts the container of cookies into his other hand. Then back again. Then Jungkook immediately regrets switching because now he’s shuffling around suspiciously in the hallway and anyone who sees him right now will probably think that he’s up to no good.
No one is even around to see him look suspicious.
Well… Except for Yoongi.
Who may somehow feel the force of Jungkook’s awkwardness through the door and come open it up at any second.
Jungkook raises his hand before he can talk himself out of it. Again.
He knocks on the door once, and for one brief, glorious moment, Jungkook feels relief because there is no answer.
Maybe Yoongi isn’t home. Maybe he’s got his headphones in with music playing too loudly. Maybe Jungkook can just leave the cookies right outside Yoongi’s apartment and sneak away-
The lock clicks.
Jungkook nearly drops the container when the door opens.
Yoongi is standing there in a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants and looking so thoroughly unbothered that Jungkook can’t help but become uncomfortably aware that he has spent the past ten minutes mentally preparing for the conversation and approximately zero minutes preparing for the reality of an actual (hot) human answering the door.
“Hi,” Jungkook says.
Okay, cool. That’s normal. That’s an excellent start by Jungkook’s standard.
Yoongi looks at him.
Then at the container.
Then back at Jungkook.
Jungkook swallows.
“Is this a second break-in attempt?”
Jungkook closes his eyes. “Oh my god.”
There’s a small pause. Jungkook does not open his eyes to see what kind of face Yoongi is making.
“Bold choice,” Yoongi adds, dryly. “Bringing supplies and all this time.”
Jungkook peeks one eye open. “They’re cookies.”
“I don’t know,” Yoongi hums. “They could be tools.”
“Tools for what?” Jungkook squawks, which he can admit is not his finest moment.
“Whatever it is that you were trying to do to my poor lock yesterday.”
Jungkook stares at him.
Yoongi cracks a small smile.
“I’m here to apologize.”
Yoongi nods once. “That tracks.”
Jungkook’s almost afraid to ask. He’s even more afraid to not know every single thought that anyone has ever had about him, though. “What tracks?”
“The cookies.”
“Oh.”
Jungkook lifts the container a little. “They’re apology cookies.”
Yoongi does that little half smile thing again. “Honestly, that’s a very specific genre of cookie. What goes into an apology cookie?”
“These ones are chocolate chip, with half a cup of shame, one stick of lack of pride, and just a dash of embarrassment,” Jungkook says. “Though I don’t usually bake guilt cookies, so who knows if that’s the normal kind for an apology.”
“Just today, then?”
“Hopefully my last time ever,” Jungkook nods.
Yoongi huffs out a laugh. “That’s optimistic.”
Jungkook exhales through his nose, pouting a little. “You’re making fun of me again.”
“Little bit.”
“I haven’t even done anything!”
Yoongi glances meaningfully toward his doorknob.
“Okay, that’s fair,” Jungkook admits, staring intently at Yoongi. “But that’s why I brought the apology cookies.”
Yoongi stares back.
Nothing in his face changes except, maybe, the smallest quirk at the corner of his mouth.
Then Yoongi reaches out.
For one completely unbearable second, Jungkook thinks that Yoongi might brush against his fingers when he takes the container, which is ridiculous for several reasons.
The first reason being that normal adults exchange objects all of the time without one of them attaching imaginary emotional significance to it. The second reason being that Jungkook is currently standing in the hallway wearing socks with cartoon tigers on them and holding baked goods as an apology for his accidental criminal behavior.
There’s really nothing romantic about this.
Well. Probably.
Yoongi takes the container carefully, fingers wrapping around the side instead of touching Jungkook’s.
Which is good. Great. Ideal, even.
Jungkook is so relieved yet immediately disappointed, which is both deeply embarrassing and actively none of his business to think about.
“Thanks,” Yoongi says.
“You’re welcome,” Jungkook responds, almost too fast.
Okay, Jungkook tells himself. All done! Transaction complete!
The cookies have been delivered. His apologies have been received. His reputation has now possibly improved from active threat to strange, but harmless. Jungkook can leave now. He should leave now. This is the obvious end to their interaction.
Jungkook does not leave.
Yoongi does not close the door either.
Instead, he looks down at the container, like he’s actually considering asking something about the cookies. Then he glances back up at Jungkook. “You baked these today?”
Jungkook blinks. “Um, yeah.”
“All three batches?”
Jungkook’s soul exits his body for the second time in twenty-four hours.
He stares at Yoongi.
Yoongi stares back.
“How on Earth could you know that there were three batches?” Jungkook practically whines.
Yoongi does that small smile thing again. “You have flour on your cheek and you smell a little bit like smoke.”
Jungkook’s mouth falls open.
That is- Well, first of all, kind of humiliating. He can’t believe that he’s had flour on his cheek for this entire interaction and Yoongi didn’t bother to mention it until now. Second of all, it’s rude, because how dare Yoongi suggest that Jungkook is a bad stress baker? And third of all, maybe a little impressive. But Jungkook refuses to acknowledge that because he is too busy being offended.
“I do not smell like smoke.”
Yoongi’s eyes flick down over him, quick and assessing, then back to his face. “Your sleeve does.”
Jungkook immediately lifts his arm and sniffs his own sweatshirt. Which is a terrible thing to do in front of another person, so naturally, the exact thing his body chooses to do before his brain can stop it.
It does smell faintly like smoke.
“Oh my god,” Jungkook mutters.
Yoongi looks painfully close to laughing. “Burned the first batch?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Second batch?”
Jungkook narrows his eyes. “Why are you interrogating me?”
“Curious.”
That’s it. Just curious. Said in the same low, dry voice that Yoongi has used for everything else. Like curiosity is a perfectly normal thing to have about the baking failures of your new criminal neighbor.
Jungkook should not like it.
He likes it a very normal amount.
“The second batch was fine,” he says, because apparently he has decided to participate in this interrogation. “Techincally.”
“Technically?”
“It was edible.”
“Low standard.”
“It wasn’t apology worthy,” Jungkook says before he can stop himself.
Yoongi’s eyebrows lift slightly. “There’s a standard?”
“Obviously.”
“For apology cookies?”
“Yes.”
Yoongi hums. “Explain.”
Jungkook blinks again.
Because he has the strangest feeling that he’s being led somewhere. Not necessarily in a bad way. More like in the same way that Taehyung leads conversations when he’s trying to get gossip without admitting that he’s trying to get gossip.
Except… Yoongi doesn’t look like someone hunting for gossip. Yoongi just looks like he has all of the time in the world to stand in his doorway and ask Jungkook about the ethics of baked remorse.
Which is worse than Taehyung’s gossip-hunting.
Well. Probably.
“Well,” Jungkook says, shifting from side to side a little. “If you’re giving someone cookies as an apology, they can’t just be fine. Fine cookies are regular cookies. Apology cookies have to be good enough that the person receiving them thinks ‘okay, maybe this guy isn’t completely hopeless’.”
Yoongi glances at his doorknob.
Jungkook points at him immediately. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to!”
“I was just thinking,” Yoongi defends.
Jungkook pouts. “That’s worse.”
Yoongi’s mouth ticks upward.
Again, it’s small. It’s just barely. But it’s there.
And Jungkook sees it because his brain has apparently decided that monitoring Min Yoongi’s microscopic facial expressions is now a necessary survival skill.
“Hopeless is strong,” Yoongi says finally.
Jungkook folds his arms, then immediately unfolds them because it feels too defensive. Then he regrets everything because now he doesn’t know what on Earth he’s supposed to do with his hands. “Thank you?”
“I said strong. Not wrong.”
Jungkook makes a wounded noise.
Yoongi actually laughs this time, and it changes his face completely.
It’s not dramatic. Yoongi does not seem like a person who allows for dramatic things to happen to his face without express written permission. But… something shifts. His eyes soften at the corners. His mouth loosens a little. He looks younger for half of a second, less like the hot, intimidating neighbor who Jungkook finds fascinating and more like a real person standing barefoot just inside his apartment door with a container of chocolate chip cookies in his hands.
Jungkook’s brain, traitorous and unhelpful, immediately whispers Oh.
He tells it to shut up.
It does not.
“Anyway,” Jungkook says, because if he does not move the conversation along he may start openly examining Yoongi’s face like a creep. “They should be good. This third batch, I mean. I wouldn’t bring you bad cookies.”
“Because of the standard.”
“Exactly.”
Yoongi nods once, solemn. “I appreciate your commitment to the process.”
“Thank you. Finally, someone respects me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Jungkook sighs. “You’re difficult.”
“So I’ve been told.”
There’s something in the way he says it. Not defensive. Not exactly. Just familiar, like he has heard it enough times that the words have worn a groove into him. Jungkook catches it, or thinks he does, and then immediately feels strange for catching it at all.
He does not know Yoongi well enough to notice that kind of thing.
Except, apparently, he does.
Or maybe he’s just projecting because he has a very unfortunate habit of noticing people’s tiny changes in tone and then building entire emotional theories out of them.
That’s probably it.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jungkook says quickly.
Yoongi looks at him.
Jungkook looks back.
Then realizes, with a delayed but horrifying clarity, that he has apologized for implying Yoongi is difficult by being difficult himself.
Great.
Amazing.
He’s doing so well.
Yoongi studies him for a second, expression unreadable again. Then, quietly, he says, “I know.”
Jungkook stops.
Just for half a breath.
It shouldn’t feel like anything. It’s two words. Two very normal words. People say I know all the time. It’s not a grand gesture. It’s not even a particularly interesting sentence.
But something about how easily Yoongi says it makes Jungkook’s chest loosen in a way he didn’t ask for.
Like Yoongi had not assumed the worst of him.
Like Yoongi had looked at the awkward tangle of Jungkook’s words and understood the shape underneath them anyway.
Jungkook clears his throat.
“Good,” he says, eloquently.
Yoongi glances past him toward Jungkook’s door. “You get unpacked?”
The question is so normal that it takes Jungkook a second to adjust to it. He hadn’t been expecting the conversation to go on this long, let alone for Yoongi to ask him non-cookie related questions.
“Um,” he says. “Depends on your definition of unpacked.”
“Things are out of boxes?”
“Some things.”
“Boxes are empty?”
“Some boxes.”
“You know where your bowls are?”
Jungkook’s face falls.
Yoongi tilts his head.
Jungkook points vaguely toward his apartment. “That feels targeted.”
“Is it?”
“I have one bowl.”
“One?”
“One confirmed bowl. There may be others, but they have not yet revealed themselves.”
Yoongi looks at him for one long second.
Then, very seriously, he says, “Maybe they’re with the important forks.”
Jungkook’s entire body goes still.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “First of all, how dare you.”
Yoongi’s mouth twitches.
“Second of all,” Jungkook continues. “I did not tell you about the important forks.”
“You posted a picture.”
Jungkook freezes.
Oh.
Right.
He had posted a picture of the box to his story earlier because at the time it had seemed funny in a safely detached, audience-of-people-who-already-know-him way. Six forks in a box labeled IMPORTANT, captioned this feels ominous.
He had not considered-
“You follow me?”
The words come out before Jungkook can stop them.
The hallway immediately becomes about twelve degrees hotter.
Yoongi blinks once.
Not like he’s embarrassed, exactly. More like Jungkook has pointed out something he didn’t expect to have pointed out. There is a tiny pause. Brief. Almost nothing.
But Jungkook sees that too.
Unfortunately.
“You followed me first,” Yoongi says.
“I-” Jungkook stops. “I did?”
Yoongi looks at him.
Jungkook remembers, with sudden and total devastation, that last night after the takeout incident, while lying on his mattress on the floor and very firmly not thinking about Yoongi, he had looked up the building’s tagged location on Instagram. For practical reasons. Neighborly reasons. He had found Yoongi’s profile because Yoongi had commented on a photo from the tiny coffee shop around the corner, and then Jungkook had clicked.
Only clicked.
Then maybe followed.
By accident.
Possibly.
Probably while half-asleep.
“Oh,” Jungkook says.
Yoongi says nothing.
Jungkook feels heat rushing up his neck. “That was- I mean, I wasn’t stalking you.”
Yoongi looks down at the cookies.
Then back up.
Jungkook closes his eyes. “Please forget I said that.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can. People forget things all the time.”
“Not attempted burglary and stalking within just two days.”
“I wasn’t stalking.”
“You said it.”
“I said I wasn’t.”
“You brought it up.”
Jungkook opens his eyes just enough to glare. “You’re enjoying this again.”
“A little.”
“I’m going to have to move.”
“You just got here.”
“And yet I have already made enough mistakes for a full lease term.”
Yoongi’s gaze stays on him, steady and bright with that barely contained amusement. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think you were stalking me.”
Jungkook exhales. “Great. Thank you.”
“I did think that you were bad at doors, though.”
Jungkook glares.
Yoongi’s smile appears for real this time.
Still small. Still quiet.
But there.
Jungkook hates how much he wants to earn another one.
He also hates that he thinks earn. Like Yoongi’s smile is some kind of reward system that his brain has decided to participate in without his consent.
This is a disaster.
A handsome, soft-voiced, quietly funny disaster.
“I followed you back because of the forks,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook stares at him. “You followed me back because of the forks.”
“They seemed important.”
“They were not important!”
“You labeled them.”
“I know that, but I don’t know why!”
Yoongi leans his shoulder against the doorframe, the container of cookies held loosely in both hands now. It makes him look less like Jungkook interrupted him and more like he has settled in. Like they are not standing in a hallway. Like this is something that they normally do.
They do not normally do this.
This is the first time they have done this.
Second, maybe, if Jungkook counts last night.
He should not count last night.
(He is absolutely counting last night.)
“Took me two months to unpack everything when I moved in,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook’s attention snaps back to him. “Really?”
“Mm.”
“You seem like you’d be efficient.”
Yoongi gives him a look. “Based on what?”
Jungkook opens his mouth.
Closes it.
That is a very dangerous question because the honest answer is based on the fact that Min Yoongi looks like someone who would know where all his bowls are, which is both too revealing and possibly insane.
“You have organized energy,” Jungkook says finally.
Yoongi’s eyebrows lift slightly.
Jungkook hears himself and grimaces. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I was wondering.”
“It made sense in my head.”
“Did it?”
“Briefly.”
Yoongi huffs out another laugh.
Jungkook mentally puts that into the Important box with the forks and immediately regrets the metaphor.
“I had a box in my bedroom for almost a year,” Yoongi adds.
Jungkook perks up despite himself. “A year?”
“Maybe longer.”
“What was in it?”
“No idea.”
Jungkook waits.
Yoongi gives no further explanation.
“You never opened it?”
Yoongi doesn’t answer him.
“Hyung.”
The word slips out without permission.
Jungkook only realizes he’s said it after it lands between them and Yoongi stills.
The tension in his body isn’t obvious. Anyone else might have missed it. But Jungkook is, unfortunately, already paying too much attention, so he sees the tiny pause. The way Yoongi’s fingers flex once against the cookie container. The way his eyes flicker across Jungkook’s face before settling again.
Jungkook’s stomach does something deeply unhelpful.
“I mean,” Jungkook says immediately, because panic is apparently his first language. “Sorry. I didn’t- I just meant that’s insane. Respectfully.”
Yoongi looks at him for another second.
Then he says, “It was mostly cables.”
Jungkook blinks. “What?”
“The box.”
“Oh.” Jungkook’s brain attempts to reboot. “You did open it.”
“Eventually.”
“You let me think you never opened it.”
“I said I had no idea what was in it.”
“That was misleading.”
“You assumed.”
“You implied.”
“I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
Yoongi’s expression stays perfectly neutral, which somehow makes Jungkook want to laugh more.
“This is what I mean,” Jungkook says. “Difficult.”
Yoongi shrugs one shoulder. “You’re still here.”
That shuts Jungkook up.
Instantly.
Not because it’s flirtatious.
It’s not.
Probably.
It is just an observation. A true observation. Jungkook is, in fact, still standing here. In the hallway. In front of Yoongi’s apartment. Having already completed the stated purpose of his visit several minutes ago.
He could leave.
He has not.
Yoongi could close the door.
He also has not.
Something warm and nervous curls low in Jungkook’s stomach.
He laughs, but it comes out a little thin. “I’m being polite.”
“Mm.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I think you’re trying.”
Jungkook looks at him, and that one lands differently too.
Because Yoongi could be making fun of him. And maybe he is, a little. But there’s something gentler under it. Something that takes the sting out before it has a chance to settle.
Jungkook scratches at the back of his neck. “That obvious?”
“Little bit.”
“Great.”
“It’s not bad.”
Jungkook glances down the hallway like someone might appear and save him from having to respond to sincerity. Nobody does. Useless building.
“Feels bad sometimes,” he admits before he can stop himself.
Yoongi doesn’t say anything right away.
The silence that follows is different from the other ones. Less awkward. Less empty. Yoongi is just looking at him, quiet and steady, like he has no intention of rushing Jungkook out of the sentence he accidentally started.
Jungkook hates that a little.
Not because it feels bad.
Because it doesn’t.
Because it feels so unexpectedly easy that he has no idea what to do with it.
He clears his throat and looks somewhere over Yoongi’s shoulder. That is a mistake.
Because from this angle, he can see more of Yoongi’s apartment than he could before.
Not much of it, really. Just the edge of a dark couch. A low table with two mugs on it, one empty and one half-full. A pair of headphones resting beside an open notebook. There are books stacked in uneven towers near the wall and a guitar case leaning in the corner, scuffed around the edges like it actually gets used. The space is tidy, but not sterile. It’s lived in. Soft around the edges.
Not what Jungkook expected.
But honestly, he doesn’t know what he expected.
Something more severe, maybe. A black leather couch and nothing else. A single chair facing a blank wall. A home that matched Yoongi’s unreadable face.
Instead, there’s a blanket falling off the arm of the couch and a plant on the windowsill that looks somehow worse than Jungkook’s emotionally compromised plant. Which is impressive.
Jungkook looks at it.
Yoongi follows his gaze.
“That plant came like that,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook points at it. “Like dying?”
“Dramatic.”
“It’s leaning sideways.”
“It has character.”
“It has no will to live.”
Yoongi’s mouth twitches. “It’s resilient.”
“It’s one breeze away from becoming compost.”
“I’ll let it know you said that.”
Jungkook laughs, startled and bright, before he can stop himself.
Yoongi looks at him when he does.
Actually looks.
Only for a second. Maybe less. But his gaze drops to Jungkook’s mouth and returns so quickly that Jungkook would have missed it if he were a normal person with normal levels of awareness.
He is not.
Unfortunately, he is himself.
And now he has to stand here with the knowledge that Min Yoongi may or may not have looked at his mouth.
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Jungkook imagined it. Maybe this is what happens when you spend an entire day alone with boxes and emotional baggage. You start hallucinating meaningful eye movement from your neighbor.
Reasonable.
Totally reasonable.
“Anyway,” Jungkook says, voice cracking slightly on the second syllable, which is humiliating. “Your plant is brave.”
“I’ll pass that along too.”
“Please don’t mention me by name.”
“It already knows.”
Jungkook stares.
Yoongi shrugs again. “Small apartment.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“No.”
Jungkook bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too widely, because that feels dangerous. Like if he lets himself smile too much, Yoongi will know something.
What, exactly, Yoongi would know is unclear.
Maybe that Jungkook is extremely susceptible to deadpan plant-related humor.
Honestly, a devastating personal weakness.
Yoongi shifts slightly, and Jungkook notices, finally, that there are black headphones resting around his neck. He must have had them there the entire time, tucked half under the collar of his shirt, the cord disappearing into his pocket.
“Oh,” Jungkook says before he can stop himself. “Sorry. Were you working?”
Yoongi looks down like he forgot the headphones existed. “Kind of.”
“Oh.” Jungkook immediately straightens. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can- I should go. You have the cookies. I completed the apology mission.”
“Apology mission.”
“Yeah. Side quest. Very low reward, high stress.”
“What’s the reward?”
“Not being hated by my neighbor.”
Yoongi looks at him.
Jungkook looks back.
Then Yoongi says, very plainly, “I don’t hate you.”
Jungkook’s heart does something so abrupt and stupid that he nearly drops it.
“Oh,” he says.
It comes out softer than intended.
Yoongi’s expression doesn’t change much, but his gaze stays steady. There’s no performance in it. No teasing. Just a correction, simple and immediate, like he did not want Jungkook carrying the wrong information any longer than necessary.
Jungkook doesn’t know what to do with that.
Naturally, his brain chooses humor as its emergency exit.
“Good,” he says. “That would’ve been awkward. Since we live four seconds apart.”
“Four?”
“I timed it for my own emotional stability.”
Yoongi’s mouth twitches again. “That seems accurate.”
Jungkook breathes out a laugh and feels some of the tension loosen from his shoulders.
Not all of it. But some.
“What do you do?” he asks, because the headphones are still there and because he is curious and because apparently his mouth is determined to make this conversation continue even if he has no plan for surviving it.
Yoongi’s eyes flicker with something that might be surprise.
Not bad surprise.
Just surprise.
“Music,” he says.
Jungkook waits, because that cannot possibly be the whole answer.
Yoongi says nothing else.
Of course.
“Okay,” Jungkook says slowly. “Mysterious.”
Yoongi blinks. “What?”
“You can’t just say music.”
“I can.”
“You can, but it’s not helpful.”
“You asked what I do.”
“And you answered like a LinkedIn profile I’d think was fake if I saw it in the wild.”
Yoongi stares at him.
For one terrible second, Jungkook thinks maybe that joke did not land.
Then Yoongi laughs.
Not a huff this time. Not a tiny almost-smile.
A real laugh.
Still quiet, because it’s Yoongi, but unmistakable. It slips out of him like it caught him off guard too, and Jungkook feels something ridiculous and triumphant spark in his chest.
Made him do it again, his brain says.
Jungkook is beginning to worry that his brain is not on his side.
“Production,” Yoongi says after a moment, like Jungkook has earned a second word. “Mostly.”
“Music production?”
“Mm.”
“That’s cool.”
Yoongi’s expression closes slightly, not cold, just self-conscious in a way Jungkook would not have expected. “It’s work.”
“Most cool things are.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It was sincere.”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” Jungkook says, then adds, because apparently he cannot help himself. “Mostly.”
Yoongi’s gaze sharpens with amusement.
Jungkook grins before he can stop himself.
Bad.
Dangerous.
Extremely bad and dangerous.
“What about you?” Yoongi asks.
Jungkook blinks. “Me?”
“You said you start work Monday.”
Jungkook did not tell him that today.
He must have said it last night.
Yoongi remembered.
That does not mean anything. It’s basic conversational memory. People remember things. Jungkook remembers plenty of things about people he has no romantic interest in. Like the fact that Jimin hates cooked carrots but likes carrot cake, or that Taehyung once cried over a dog food commercial and then tried to claim it was allergies, or that the cashier at the convenience store near his old apartment had a tattoo of a lemon behind her ear.
Okay, maybe Jungkook remembers too many things.
Still.
It does not mean anything.
“Yeah,” he says. “New job. Graphic design. Kind of. Technically I’ll be doing some video work too.”
Yoongi tilts his head. “Technically?”
“It’s one of those roles where the title is one thing and then the actual job is like seven jobs wearing a trench coat.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yeah?”
“Music,” he says simply.
Jungkook laughs again.
Yoongi’s gaze lingers.
Jungkook absolutely does not know what to do with that.
“So you make things,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook feels weirdly exposed by the wording. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, yes. I make things. It just sounds more important when you say it like that.”
“It is important.”
Jungkook’s throat goes a little tight.
It is such a simple thing to say. It is not even personal, technically. Yoongi could mean it generally. Creating things is important. Art is important. Design is important. Fine.
Still.
There is something about hearing it here, in this ugly beige hallway, from someone who has known him for barely a day and yet says it with complete certainty, that makes Jungkook feel seen in a way he is not prepared to be seen.
He looks down at his socks.
The tigers stare back.
Traitors.
“Thanks,” he says, quieter than before.
Yoongi hums.
A door closes somewhere down the hall, the sound echoing faintly. Jungkook glances automatically in that direction, suddenly remembering that this is a public hallway and they are both just standing here, having some kind of doorway conversation like this is a normal Sunday evening thing.
Maybe it is.
Maybe this is how people become real neighbors.
Jungkook wouldn’t know. In his last building, most people avoided eye contact in the elevator like that was their job.
He looks back at Yoongi. “You should try one.”
“One what?”
“A cookie.”
Yoongi looks down at the container in his hands. “Right now?”
“Unless you’re saving them for a special occasion.”
“I was thinking more like evidence,” he says. “What if I have to file a police report?”
Jungkook groans. “You have to stop.”
“No.”
“Please?”
Yoongi considers him. “Maybe.”
“That means no.”
“It means maybe.”
“It absolutely means no.”
Yoongi opens the container.
Jungkook watches as he picks up one cookie, breaking off a small piece with his thumb. There is something weirdly intimate about watching someone eat food he made.
Which, again, is ridiculous, because people eat food all the time. The entire species is built around it. Still, Jungkook suddenly feels like he is being evaluated by a panel of judges, except the panel is one quiet man in gray sweatpants and the stakes are Jungkook’s entire sense of self.
Yoongi eats the piece.
Chews.
Says nothing.
Jungkook waits.
Yoongi continues to say nothing.
Jungkook’s left eye twitches. “Well?”
Yoongi looks at him. “Well what?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stand there with your whole face turned off.”
“My face is normal.”
“Your face is unreadable.”
Yoongi blinks. “That sounds like a you problem.”
“It is becoming one,” Jungkook mutters.
Yoongi finally looks down at the cookie, then back at Jungkook.
“They’re good.”
Jungkook deflates in relief so quickly it is probably visible from space.
“Really?”
“Mm.”
“Not just good for apology cookies?”
Yoongi takes another bite.
Jungkook watches his mouth for approximately half a second too long and immediately looks at the plant like the plant might protect him from himself.
It will not.
The plant can barely protect itself.
“Good-good,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook smiles.
He cannot help it.
It happens too fast, too fully, and by the time he realizes, Yoongi is already looking at him again.
Something shifts in Yoongi’s expression.
Only slightly.
Barely enough to count.
But Jungkook sees it anyway. The humor softens into something quieter. Something almost startled. Like Yoongi had not expected Jungkook to smile like that and now needs a second to recover from it.
Which is absurd.
Jungkook is the one who needs recovery time here. That is his role in this interaction. Yoongi cannot just start having reactions too. It disrupts the entire ecosystem that Jungkook has carefully crafted in his head.
“Good,” Jungkook says, because someone has to speak and apparently it must be him. “That’s good. Great. Successful apology.”
Yoongi looks down at the cookie again, like he’s buying himself a second.
Then he says, “Successful cookie, at least.”
Jungkook scoffs. “Wow.”
“What?”
“So the apology is still pending?”
“I’ll review it.”
“You’ll review it?”
“After the cookies.”
Jungkook points at him. “You are impossible.”
Yoongi’s eyes flick briefly to Jungkook’s finger, then back to his face. “You keep saying things like that.”
“Because you keep being impossible.”
“And yet.”
Jungkook’s brain supplies, You’re still here, before Yoongi can say it.
Yoongi does not say it this time.
He just looks at him.
Which is worse.
Somehow, impossibly worse.
Jungkook lowers his hand slowly.
“I should go,” he says, though it sounds unconvincing even to him.
Yoongi nods once.
Does not move.
Jungkook also does not move.
There is now absolutely no question that both of them are failing at ending this conversation.
Jungkook is horrified by how nice that feels.
“Do you always work this late?” he asks, because apparently his body has rejected the concept of self-preservation.
Yoongi glances down at the headphones. “Usually.”
“Is that healthy?”
“No.”
Jungkook laughs. “At least you know.”
“I know a lot of things I ignore.”
“That’s the most relatable thing you’ve said.”
Yoongi’s mouth quirks again. “You?”
“Do I work late?”
“Do you ignore things you know you shouldn’t?”
Jungkook opens his mouth.
Closes it.
The honest answer is yes- constantly, aggressively, as a lifestyle. But that feels a little too revealing for a conversation with a man who is still technically holding evidence of Jungkook’s shame baking.
So he says, “Sometimes.”
Yoongi looks at him.
Jungkook narrows his eyes. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You have a very loud silence.”
That actually seems to amuse him. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
Jungkook snorts. “That didn’t sound even a little bit sincere.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Refreshing honesty.”
“I try.”
Jungkook smiles again, smaller this time.
Yoongi notices that too.
Jungkook knows because Yoongi’s gaze drops. Not to his mouth this time, exactly. More like his whole face, taking in the expression before Jungkook can tuck it away.
The thought arrives unwanted and alarming: Yoongi is paying attention. Not just tolerating him. Not just responding. Paying attention.
Jungkook immediately decides that this is too much information and must be locked in a mental box labeled DO NOT OPEN, which based on his current packing system means he will probably find it again in three months next to a single chopstick and an expired bottle of shampoo.
“Okay,” he says, taking a small step back. “I’m really going to go this time.”
Yoongi nods. “Okay.”
“Enjoy the cookies.”
“I will.”
“And please don’t die from them.”
“I’ll try.”
“That wasn’t comforting.”
“You’d know if I died. We live four seconds apart.”
Jungkook points at him again. “See, that was funny.”
Yoongi tilts his head. “Was it?”
“Don’t get smug.”
“I’m not.”
“You look a little smug.”
“This is just my face.”
“Your unreadable face.”
“My normal face.”
Jungkook laughs under his breath and turns toward his own apartment before he can say anything else. He makes it two steps before Yoongi speaks again.
“Jungkook.”
Jungkook stops so quickly it is actually embarrassing.
He turns around.
Yoongi is still leaning in the doorway, container in one hand, half-eaten cookie in the other. The hallway light catches on the dark strands of his hair and the pale line of his wrist where his sleeve has slipped down.
Jungkook notices all of that.
He wishes he noticed less.
“Yeah?”
Yoongi looks at him for a moment, like he’s deciding whether or not to say whatever he called him back for. Then he lifts the container slightly. “Thanks.”
Jungkook blinks.
“You already said that.”
“I’m saying it again.”
“Oh.”
Yoongi’s expression stays quiet. “For the cookies.”
“Right,” Jungkook says. “Yeah. Of course.”
A beat.
Then Yoongi adds, softer. “And for not just leaving them outside the door.”
Jungkook’s chest does something strange.
He looks at Yoongi.
Yoongi looks back.
There are at least three possible meanings to that sentence, and Jungkook’s brain, coward that it is, immediately chooses the least dangerous one.
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I thought anonymous hallway cookies might make the crime thing worse.”
Yoongi’s mouth curves, but his eyes stay on Jungkook’s face. “Probably.”
“Didn’t want to become a building-wide safety notice.”
“Considerate.”
“I do my best.”
“I can tell.”
Jungkook stops breathing again for a second.
Because that did not sound like teasing.
Not entirely.
It sounded warm. Still dry, still Yoongi, but warm underneath. Like he had noticed more than the cookies. More than the apologies. More than the awkwardness.
Like he had noticed the trying.
Jungkook, again, doesn’t know what to do with that.
He is really starting to resent how often Yoongi says simple things that make him feel like someone has opened a window somewhere inside him.
“Okay,” he says, because the alternative is standing here until he becomes part of the hallway architecture. “Goodnight, Yoongi-nim.”
The name feels new in his mouth.
It shouldn’t.
He said it yesterday, technically.
But this is different. This is not frantic introduction or embarrassed apology. This is deliberate. A choice. A small thing offered across the few feet between them.
Yoongi’s gaze flickers.
There.
There again.
That tiny pause.
Readers would notice it if this were a book, Jungkook thinks wildly. If someone were writing this down, that pause would mean something. It would be an italicized oh moment for sure.
Unfortunately, this is real life, and in real life Jungkook is not qualified and far too gay to interpret men who look like that while holding his cookies.
“Goodnight, Jungkook,” Yoongi says.
Jungkook turns around before his face can do anything incriminating and walks to his apartment.
The correct apartment.
Thank god.
He gets the door open on the first try, which feels like a personal victory, and steps inside. Then, because he is still himself and therefore cursed, he looks back once before closing it.
Yoongi is still there.
Not closing his own door.
Not yet.
Just standing in the doorway, watching Jungkook with an expression Jungkook cannot read but feels anyway, somehow, like the warmth from an oven after it has been turned off.
Jungkook’s hand tightens around his doorknob.
Yoongi lifts the cookie slightly, like a tiny salute.
Jungkook makes a noise that might be a laugh if anyone is being generous, then closes his door before he can combust in the hallway.