Work Text:
- Intro: Resistance
Jimin was trying to remember when it happened the first time – that tightening of his chest, the exaggerated heartbeat. Was it pre-debut? He had been working on his solo piece in No More Dream, over and over. Perfecting a scowl that was a ridiculous cover for who he was deep down. He wanted to be what everyone wanted him to be so much: tough, muscled, hot. An idol who could rise to the magnetism of everyone else in the group.
Go your own way
Even if you live a day
Do something
Put weakness away
Jimin-ssi, Jungkook texts: We are downstairs waiting for you.
He tears up, just a bit, as he remembers that specific exhaustion. The sheer physical demands of getting ready to perform on top of burying himself under this persona – he was lost in his choreography when SUGA moved past him. Yoongi’s hand landed in the small of Jimin’s back and pushed off, so slightly, as he stepped around him to get into position for a reset.
Jimin felt then what he would feel thousands of times over hundreds of days – in the dorm, on airplanes, hotels, even onstage. A band forming across his chest as though someone was tying him down, his heart booming against the band, and then a prickly rush of sweat beading over his body.
Hoseok’s text comes in next: Everyone is ready. Come on!
Yoongi didn’t know. Nobody did. Jimin was proud of this. Everyone imagined him vulnerable and transparent but he had kept this most precious marble of truth to himself. The wild affections he threw around the group, his openness, his emphasis on love and expressing emotions – all of that was real. It was part and parcel of who he was. And at the same time, it provided perfect cover for the most terrifying truth of his life. He was in love with Min Yoongi.
How could he not be? First of all, genius:
This room is too small
To contain my dreams
But landing over the bed
This is the safest place
Whether it’s sadness or happiness or any other feeling
This place just accepts it all
Sometimes this room becomes a trashcan of feelings
But it holds me
Another thing people failed to take into account about Jimin – he was not just exacting about his own abilities and performances. He was passionate about people who drove themselves to their limits, whose appetite for their art was ravenous. This described everyone in BTS, of course. But Yoongi’s version of it – how tightly he held himself. How singularly he pursued his music. It took up every inch of him, and then finally spilled over and out into the world, onto the stage, filling a stadium. Jimin could come close to orgasm just thinking about it – and about Yoongi filling him. He wanted to be the receptacle for all that Yoongi held in and held apart, a place of solace and relief that no one else saw or felt. Not the other members. Not ARMY. Just Jimin.
Pretending not to be lonely, pretending not to be in pain
Pointlessly pretending to be okay
Pointlessly pretending to be strong
Don’t climb over the wall I’ve built in front of me
I’m the island in this vast ocean, don’t abandon me
Namjoon’s text came in next: We’re going ahead to the party. See you there.
It was getting harder and harder to hide. Over the years, Jimin had experienced his hunger for Yoongi in so many different ways. Early on, it was confusing and panic-inducing. But that had given way to a kind of stealth deliciousness. In years three and four of their work together, Jimin would become aroused by something simple Yoongi did – fix his collar during a photoshoot, sit close to him at a VLive, order for him at a restaurant, and desire would wash over him like a secret bath of delirium. But now, seven years in, having watched Yoongi date and leave two different women, wanting him felt like a curse, a weight he would never get out from under. And his fellow members were beginning to notice the grating edge he was so often perched on.
Because of you, I’m becoming ruined
I wanna stop, I don’t want you anymore
I can’t do it, this sucks
Please don’t give me any excuses
Tae texted: You can’t be late. Hyung will be upset.
Hyung will be upset. Tae had become so much better at showing up on time. How funny this was – him prodding Jimin to be on time for Yoongi’s birthday party! Jimin had almost, almost confided in Tae during this wrecked year of confinement and cancelled concert dates. Maybe it was the year without ARMY that was finally going to break Jimin. Absent the constant connection to fans and the overwhelming infusion of love he received in live performance, Jimin’s need for Yoongi had grown outsized, monstrous.
- Fighting!
They’d fought earlier. Jimin hated fighting with him. And on his birthday. Yoongi had left the dorm and been away all day in the aftermath but kept checking in with everyone else. Jimin had heard Jin and Namjoon variously reporting on Yoongi as “shopping” and “hanging with Kihyun.”
This had helped everyone fulfill the final, complex requirements of their health-department approved party, collecting final testing results and vaccination reports, and generally getting amped up about the guest list while Jimin hid in his room, miserable.
Of course, Hobi had noticed. I’m worried about you, he said. And Jimin realized the edges of his secret were fraying. I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to do something. You’re going to make yourself sick.
He’d gotten up early, or to be more accurate, had not slept at all the night before. The hours approaching Yoongi’s birthday felt loud and sticky with despair. He finally went into the kitchen at about 4am, only to find Yoongi sitting there in the dark, drinking.
Hy-yung… Jimin had said. What are you doing?
What does it look like? Yoongi had growled, slurry.
I… I couldn’t sleep, Jimin said. He knew Yoongi sometimes drank alone on the road when he couldn’t sleep. Or when his anxiety was getting the best of him. Jimin settled down next to him on a stool at the counter. Are you alright?
Why wouldn’t I be alright? That growl again. Jimin could feel the heat of Yoongi’s anger rising off of him, filling the air between them. What did Yoongi have to be angry about? He wasn’t carrying seven years of useless, bottled-up feelings around. He wasn’t disowning himself and everything that mattered to him for the good of the group every day.
Why do you think I need you or your help when I’m just fine sitting here by myself? Jimin felt like a match had been lit on very short fuse inside him. You’re always looking for something to fix.
Fuck you! Jimin shouted. Drink yourself into a coma if you like! It’s YOUR life, right?
Yoongi sat up straight, stricken. His mouth fell open a bit.
Well, enjoy your fucking life and fuck me for caring about you! I’ll stop! IMMEDIATELY.
Jimin pushed back from the counter and stormed away. The shock in Yoongi’s eyes made him burn with a kind of vengeful joy for several minutes as he burrowed himself into his bed, the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. And then he cried.
- Revelation
A notification lights up his phone, and that band on his chest squeezes his breath from him: Where are you?
Here, Hyung. (Breathe, Jimin, he tells himself, breathe.) Home. Where are you?
I’m here. Hold on.
Here? Not at the party? Jimin pulls himself up in bed, rifles his hair. He tries to shake off the look of someone who has been curled up under a wadded comforter all day. Suddenly Yoongi is at his door. Jimin puts a brightness in his voice that is very well-practiced.
C’mon in Hyung, I’m just getting ready.
Yoongi opens the door and seems – well, he’s not angry anymore. And he’s definitely sober. Jimin is about to stand up and make a show of getting dressed, but it’s too late, Yoongi settles next to him on the bed. He does that thing that literally kills Jimin – he avoids eye contact while leaning just slightly toward him.
We need to talk, he says, his voice soft.
Jimin starts to stand because the gentleness in Yoongi’s voice is getting him hard and he’s terrified. He says: We’re going to be late, Hyung. Everyone has already left.
But he thinks: Does he know? How could he know? Yoongi grabs his hand, holds him fast to the bed.
Jimin-ah, Yoongi says. And Jimin can hear it. For the first time. He recognizes it: longing. It lights his body up like a torch. It can’t be true.
So miserable
The world thinks that we have the whole world
Dreamed of big house, big cars, big rings
Even if I have everything I want
I feel empty right now, that strange feeling you get
Once you’ve achieved everything
Jimin’s vision sort of telescopes and he can see multiplying versions of himself, moments upon moments, all over the world, where he is fighting himself, squashing one unruly feeling after the next – for the good of the group, for the fans, for some future everyone is invested in that can’t possibly include this. This sound in Yoongi’s voice.
And then there is no sound because Yoongi moves his hand from Jimin’s hand up to his face and cups his chin. He traces the delicate line of his jaw and trails around to the back of Jimin’s neck. He leans closer.
Jimin-ah, Yoongi says. And inside his name, Jimin can hear the depth of Yoongi’s loneliness. He parts his lips and Yoongi enters him slowly. Jimin can feel himself start to cry and cum at the same time. Yoongi’s tongue laps at all of the strain and shame he’s harbored over seven years of wanting and waiting. He sucks on Jimin’s tongue and moves his hand down to his pants, stroking him with what feels like criminal tenderness. Jimin roars up and over what feels like some forbidden, far edge of himself, while Yoongi pets him. He’s completely in his hands, at his mercy.
That’s right, Baby, he says, pulling away and looking Jimin straight in the eye. Cum to me.
- Interlude: Get it Together
He hadn’t passed out exactly. He thought of all the times he’d read a fan comment on his Vlive: I am deceased. When he came back to himself, utterly soiled, Yoongi had laid them both in the bed, side by side, face to face. He couldn’t get his breathing to steady. The whole room had a pulse.
We have to pull ourselves together for the party, Yoongi said, gently moving Jimin’s hair out of his eyes.
Jimin moaned and pushed his face into Yoongi’s neck. Oppa, he said. I can’t. They all – everyone will see me like this.
I want everyone to see. Everyone needs to know you are mine now. Especially Jungkook. So, go clean up and put on something really soft and pretty for me.
The gravelly possessiveness in his voice made Jimin’s cock stir again. He had fantasized about Yoongi addressing him this way, like he owned him, so many times.
But this was more – like he was going to take care of him: simplify everything with his blunt certainties. Bind him tightly against all of the swirling demands and crushes and seekers around him. Jimin’s overwhelm gave way to the desire to rise to Yoongi’s need for him, to respond. He sat up in the bed.
I know just the thing, Hyung. He cleared the tenuousness from his throat. To celebrate you appropriately.
- Drive
It’s just a short drive. Jimin feels like the membranes on his cells have broken down and his body is just a mass of fluid, sluicing around inside a crepe-thin skin container. Like all it would take is for Yoongi to blow on him and he’d be a pool of liquid on the floor of the limousine. Blow on him – he needs to stop thinking. Stop associating. Stop. They’ve taken cars – just the two of them -- so many times before. In the last year, he’s imagined himself turning to Yoongi aggressively, grabbing him at the neck of his hoodie or by the lapels of a post-photoshoot silk shirt and just going for it. He’s talked shit about himself in his head the whole way home: What’s wrong with you Jimin? You tell everyone else to express themselves and you’re a fucking COWARD. What is the worst thing that could happen? And always, when he got to that part, to the neighborhood of after-whatever-he-thought-he-might-do – kiss him? Confess? Fold himself into Yoongi’s lap and just let go? The worst thing that could happen always reared up at him, hard. The group. Their lives together. Everything they’d worked for. It could all be destroyed. This could break them up or break the company.
His breath hitches as they pull up to the restaurant and he feels Yoongi’s hand, so warm and sure and already wrapped around his, tighten.
- You in Danger
They were really, really late. Yoongi could see that everyone was a little put out as he stepped into the private VIP lounge at Jungsik, but they were also all a little lit, and he was the guest of honor, so…
Don’t mind us, Yoongi-ah! shouted Seokjin waving his arms wildly at the crowded and perfectly appointed room, we organized all of this for someone else!
It really was quite amazing. Yoongi could see at a glance that his friends had gathered the kind of crowd he could handle: not too large, and filled with respected colleagues and artists he admired. Tuxedoed, masked waiters were passing trays of exquisite tiny food sculptures. The amber-lit room’s only long, flower-strewn table held a massive cake replica of Gyeongbokgung Palace at its center. There was even a hanbok-clad Yoongi Prince sitting on a tiny throne.
I, um, wow…
Taehyung ran up and threw his arms around him. Happy birthday, Hyung! And then they were all on him, one after another. Yoongi would normally have shrugged everyone off but he wanted to hold their attention long enough to give Jimin a minute to compose himself.
Jungkook stepped over to him and handed him a cup of soju. Here, Hyung. Time to catch up!
As he took the cup, Jimin stepped into the room, and the maknae seemed to lose his breath. Jimin was at his ethereal best -- in on an off-white see-through tunic that draped his body like velvety cream. It fell long in the front, spilling over bright, white wide-legged silk pants, but was cropped high at the sides so Jimin’s dancer’s waist and sharp hip bones were exposed. Yoongi licked his lips as Jungkook pulled himself together.
Hoseok ran over to Jimin and ran his hands over his roommate’s chest, and down his sides, pinching the exposed flesh. Ooooooh, Jiminah. Someone is ready to celebrate!
Jimin flushed and it occurred to Yoongi that Hobi might suspect what it had taken Yoongi far too long to figure out.
Of course I am, Jimin said, and twirled out of J-Hope’s reach, fabric swirling and the deft, feminine lines of his torso sliding in and out of view.
And so the evening went. Music -- all of Yoongi’s favorites, a crush of actors, producers and other idols moving in and out of the gathering. One of Namjoon’s exes seemed to make a bid for reconnection. The choreographer Hobi had been seeing on the sly for about six months hung miserably on the edges of the group and eventually left. Jungkook and Tae sang and danced and drank far too much. Yoongi was glad there were no cameras, no tributes. He ate and drank more than usual -- his appetites freshly aroused.
Eventually the crowd thinned, and then it was just Bangtan, finishing off the desiccated cake, winding down before their cars would pull up to take them back to the dorm. Jimin danced a slow groove to Yoongi’s side, finally, looping fingers onto his belt. He was talking to Joon, about a producer they both admired, and Jimin locked an arm around Yoongi’s neck. Hyung, he whispered, dance with me.
Yoongi didn’t love dancing. I mean, he could handle the choreography. He enjoyed rising to the occasion in performance. But he felt ridiculous dancing at parties, exposed.
Jimin’s hand on his waistband drew him toward the empty center of the room and Yoongi moved away from Namjoon with a how can I resist shrug that he could see confused his dear friend. He turned to Jimin and put both hands on his bared hips. Jimin wrapped himself around Yoongi. Here was the moment he’d been imagining since they arrived.
The music seemed to penetrate Yoongi’s bones, as he and Jimin melded into a slow burn. Tae and Jungkook started to whoop and clap but very soon realized this wasn’t a show, or a joke for the birthday boy. Jimin threw his head back as Yoongi ground himself against him and the universe that was BTS tilted on its axis. Yoongi and Jimin were hooking up. Or, possibly, Jungkook thought, watching Jimin writhe against his Hyung, in very dangerous love.
- The Mo(u)rning
Jimin woke up in a place he’d dreamed of so often, and yet had never quite imagined. Yoongi’s naked body was draped over him, one leg nailing him to the bed, his thigh pulled up against Jimin’s hardening cock. He thought: I am never getting out of this bed. It’s never going to be more perfect than it is right now. Astonishing. Joyful. Without a single regret.
Yoongi’s mouth hung open just a tiny bit, entirely familiar. Jimin was relieved they had both been so exhausted after the party that little was said, little done when they finally crawled into Yoongi’s bed at 4 am. He remembered drifting off in an almost hallucinatory heat.
And now – reality was barreling toward them. Jimin thought it was possible that Yoongi might wake up, get dressed and dismiss him, dismiss everything that had happened last night, chalk it up to birthday madness. But everything he loved about Yoongi stacked up against those odds. Yoongi had a limited repertoire for emotion and connection. In public, he could appear rude and off-putting. But in the group, they knew just the opposite – because intimacy was rare for him, he treasured it. Each one of them, in their own way, in his own way. Revealing himself last night was shattering, intentional.
He was doing that thing now that Jimin had seen him do so often when they were on the road – talking in his sleep as he came awake. Always a bit urgently. The little oh of his mouth speaking him into consciousness.
Hyung… Jimin said. Yoongi mumbled something about a production schedule. I’m here. And Yoongi opened his eyes to the reality that Park Jimin was pinned under him, naked.
Jimin-ah… Jimin braced a bit for the shock of them, together, to sink in. But Yoongi just curled up on him. He moved his hands over Jimin with the terrible tenderness that had nearly slain him last night. He buried his face in Jimin’s neck and inhaled deeply. He nosed along the line of his collarbone and moved toward his mouth with his eyes closed. Jimin thought of the keening lament of one of their early fans: You are a dangerous man, Min Yoongi! I’m going to sue you! But then Yoongi’s tongue was working its way deep into Jimin’s mouth. Jimin opened himself and felt every other opening in his body relax, relent. How was this even possible?
Yoongi pulled back and propped himself up on one arm.
Well, he said, smiling his biggest cat smile, you caused a lot of trouble last night.
Jimin smacked him. Me! It’s always me! Yoongi-ah! He laughed but on the edge of it, longing crept into Jimin’s voice. He could feel himself starting to cry.
Yoongi gathered him. Baby, I’m sorry I… I’m sorry I took so long! You have every right to hate me.
Jimin curled into the spoon of Yoongi’s embrace. When, Hyung? How? How long have you known?
Ach. Yoongi hated these questions. He knew they were important. He knew he had to make some kind of sense of the way he had experienced Jimin over the years, and how Yoongi had come to recognize his own desire.
Well. In a way, I guess, I’ve known all along.
A terrible sound caught in Jimin’s throat. Yoongi held him tighter.
But… but! In another way, I didn’t know until yesterday. Jimin turned to him, eyes burning, listening with an intensity that Yoongi had always been drawn to. Jimin was never afraid of seeing.
I don’t do crushes like you do. I don’t have this little escalator of feelings, and ways of putting it all together into a story. All I know is that it usually takes me forever to get close to anyone, but there was something with you from the beginning. There was some kind of…opening. And I’m sorry, Jiminie, it just made me harder on you than everyone else. I didn’t like it.
Jimin thought back to all of the harsh and dismissive moments of their pre-debut days especially. And bit by bit, the fleeting moments of softness, of holding his gaze, his hand, a random, surprising conversation. When he thought about it this way, he could actually chart the slow, jagged path toward him that Yoongi had been making, all along.
I think my birthday…it made me look at myself and how I’ve been with the people that mean the most to me. I kept drinking -- thinking that it would sort me out and just help me sleep, but I just got angrier and angrier. I’m tired of holding everyone at arm’s length. It’s exhausting. I’m tired of pretending I have no feelings at all.
And me? Jimin whispered. I’m one of “everyone”?
You, Yoongi said, gathering him up, dragging his lips down the steps of his spine: You are everything.
Jimin shivered. He could barely choke out the question: So, what now?
I’m 28 years old. I’ve achieved every goal I’ve ever dreamed of…
He stopped abruptly and then they said, simultaneously, Well, the Grammy…! and broke into laughter.
What am I afraid of? If there’s anything my time with all of you has taught me – it’s that my fear never leads me to anything good. It’s risking everything that brought me – all of us – here. I’m a fool not to tell you…that I love you.
- Skit
Hobi: They’re here! Everyone look busy.
Jin: I am busy! They’re late.
Jungkook: I can’t unsee what I saw last night. WTF!
Tae: Let’s all just be happy for them.
Namjoon: SHHH! DON’T. SAY. ANYTHING!
Sound of door opening.
Tae: It’s Billboard’s #1 power couple!
Yoongi: Gah!
Jimin: (singing) Just let me looove youuuuuu!
Yoongi: Gah!
Jimin, Jungkook and Tae (harmonizing): Let me love, let me love you!
Yoongi: Let’s get to work!
J-Hope: Jiminah!!!!
Namjoon: Shit.
Jin: Well, that’s that then.
- Outro: The World
Jimin had done it in a simple, Earth-shaking tweet:
SUGA Hyung and I are happy to announce to ARMY that all of the love you have given us has grown the courage for us to reveal our love for each other. We are grateful to ARMYs everywhere! Still yours, always! #Fighting! #Serendipity
April 2021
Allkpop
It’s been two days since Park Jimin and Min Yoongi aka SUGA stunned the K-pop world and their devoted ARMY with the revelation of their relationship.
Reaction from across the globe was swift and largely positive, demonstrating the power of BTS and its ARMY to lead social and cultural change.
Yoonmin forever!
Is there nothing BTS won’t gift us?
Finally, I can shut down all of the JiKook shippers FOR GOOD.
OMG OMG OMG I just got my whole queer life!
I am deceased.