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When Yoongi first touches Jimin, it is nothing more than a clammy hand accidentally brushing against his during a dinner with the rest of their unnamed group.
He apologizes, and Jimin tries to think nothing of it.
(Yoongi offers his last pieces of chicken to Jimin, claiming a full stomach, and Jimin ends up replaying that moment in his mind for five days and five nights.)
❀❀❀
The second time he touches Jimin, it’s when Seokjin is curled up in the corner of the practice room with his arms around his knees and his face hiding behind them. He’s asleep, tear tracks on his face, and his breathing sounds like he’d been crying even though they had left him there over night because I need to be perfect for our debut and I make too many mistakes. Just leave me behind . And Namjoon, (Rap Monster, derived from Runch Randa, which Jimin thinks isn’t redundant at all and is rather confusing), goes over to shake him awake.
Then Namjoon pats Seokjin’s flushed cheek and his eyes shoot open.
There’s a stunned moment in which Seokjin stares at Namjoon and then reaches out to touch his forearm.
(The stunned moment includes a whispered “ oh holy shit” in English from Jeongguk, and Jimin agrees.)
Before their stunned eyes, Seokjin’s cheek blooms a single white rose and Namjoon’s forearm bares a stem that looks more like a weed than what is the beginning of a flower.
Yoongi stumbles, sleepy or confounded or simply really fucking stunned, and grasps Jimin’s bare shoulder. His hand is warm this time around.
Rough. Warm. Dry. A little bit big, and a little bit sweaty.
“Monday mornings are fuckin’ insane,” he utters to Jimin, apparently not as enthusiastic about the whole ordeal as one screaming Jung Hoseok.
Jimin doesn’t forget to care about the way his shoulder warmed substantially. “You can say that again.”
Yoongi snorts, “Monday mornings are fuckin’ insane, Jimin-ah .”
What happens afterwards is that Seokjin complains to Namjoon about the placement of their flowers for weeks afterwards, and it doesn’t end until Namjoon gets over his existential crisis and kisses him quiet. Taehyung says it was gross. Jimin, however, says it was sweet.
❀❀❀
Countless touches later, and Jimin is clueless. He finds it normal. There’s something comforting about the relaxation he finds in Yoongi resting his forehead against his shoulder or thigh or nape of his neck without there being the foreboding flowers that could potentially ruin their careers.
But sometimes it’s not comforting.
Sometimes it’s suffocating. Sometimes it feels like Jimin is falling in love with someone who will never love him back. Sometimes Yoongi gets stressed and tired and sometimes he snaps at Jimin, sometimes he hides his eyes behind rubbing palms to fight off tears, sometimes he can’t finish a song and all those sleepless nights are suddenly for naught even though they definitely weren’t and no, hyung, you’re not talentless. Hyung, you’re not worthless.
Sometimes , only sometimes, Jimin will rub Yoongi’s back through his shirt and wonder if maybe in those vulnerable moments, sunflowers or tigerlilies or forget-me-nots would bloom on Yoongi’s pale skin had he been rubbing under his shirt.
They don’t. They won’t. Flowers don’t bloom for boys who love people they aren’t supposed to.
(Forget that he hopes for a sunlight patch of skin. Forget that it was considered rude to touch another person’s skin, and that Jimin really didn’t mind the thought of Yoongi brushing his fingers against his skin just to see what could have happened. Forget that Jimin’s mother didn’t get flowers. Forget that Jimin’s father told him to never stop looking for stems under his skin, and that his yellow tulips looked so wonderful against a love that wasn’t fated to be true.)
❀❀❀
“Hey, Jiminnie,” Yoongi whispers one night, voice hoarse from constant use. Promotions are taxing, and Jimin has had a headache for five days. “Are you alright?”
Judging by the shadows under his make-up-less face, Jimin should be asking that question. The tightness in Yoongi’s back isn’t a good sign, but having eyes that see only napping and snacking isn’t a recipe for sharp observation skills.
He shrugs, “I’m okay. Really, really really really tired, though, hyung.”
“I feel that,” Yoongi nods, and then shifts to gets closer to Jimin in their stuffed-full van. He pats his shoulder. “Hyung will let you rest.”
Jimin doesn’t blush. “Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t,” he says.
He falls asleep like that, leaned against Yoongi’s jacket-clad shoulder in mid-July, overheated and trying incredibly hard to ignore Yoongi’s hand on his thigh.
❀❀❀
Namjoon says HwaYangYeonHwa will make them internationally famous.
Yoongi says that’s bullshit, and he tells Jimin that much. He says that Namjoon is using false-bravado to ignore the uncertainty resting on their shoulders, and that I Need U needs more goddamn work, and that “The Most Beautiful Moment In Life” doesn’t exist. Of course, he says this while he’s stressed and sitting on the floor of their dimly lit studio with a bottle of some weird American alcohol they smuggled over the border but never drank, so Jimin takes the words with a grain of salt.
He offers Jimin a shot, grin crooked. “Let’s forget our worries, yeah? We don’t need fuckin’ overly happy fuckin’ members who can speak three goddamn languages- who the hell speaks three languages anyway?”
“Namjoon-hyung does,” Jimin helpfully points out, taking the bottle. He sips. Makes a face. “Ew.”
“‘Ew’ is right, Jiminnie,” Yoongi says, nodding sagely. He takes the bottle back, and makes the exact same face Jimin made when he takes a shot.
“Hyung, don’t you think you shouldn’t be drinking?” Jimin asks suddenly, giving his head a tilt.
Yoongi pouts his lips. “Probably,” he slurs, “but then I wouldn’t be able to do...” and he stumbles to his feet, having trailed off into a cliffhanger sentence. Jimin is about to ask do what? but then Yoongi’s reaching down and gripping Jimin’s hands to bring him into a standing position, only to push him against the wall (gently, Jimin swears) and lean in close close close , “this.”
Their noses bump together somewhat painfully the first time. Jimin sucks in a shocked breath and Yoongi only chuckles, mumbling sorry into Jimin’s mouth the second successful time.
Jimin’s everywhere feels like it’s frozen, and it takes a few seconds for his mouth to respond to Yoongi’s insistent kisses.
Yoongi kisses are a stark contrast to the way he does literally everything else. He kisses softly, warmly; so unlike his spit-fire rapping and straight-forward way of speaking. His lips feel soft even though they look chapped and maybe Jimin is a bit biased, but he’ll blame it on the soju he’s tasting in Yoongi’s mouth and the hands running down to the hem of his shirt. Dipping beneath to touch his hot skin.
Jimin wonders if soulmate flowers can bloom all over the entire body, because he’ll gladly become a garden if Yoongi will never stop touching him like this.
❀❀❀
(“You’re very drunk,” he stutters.
“You’re very fuckin’ beautiful,” Yoongi replies, “so just let me, darlin’.”)
❀❀❀
Jimin has seen Yoongi a grand total of five times within seven days, which is a feat considering that they live together.
He supposes he can’t complain. Not when Yoongi is the backbone of their new album, and that when the last time he heard Yoongi talk, he sounded like someone took sandpaper to his throat in an attempt to ruin his vocal cords. Even then Yoongi had given an eyesmile, accentuated by deep eyebags (no doubt a result of staying up too late, stressing).
On the eighth night, he finds Yoongi as he’s walking out of the dance studio, sitting on the floor of their quiet company hallway. Jimin offers to walk home with him and maybe buy something to drink on their way, and Yoongi agrees.
It’s fine. It’s always fine when he’s with Yoongi.
It’s just not as fine as it usually is, because Yoongi isn’t saying a word and Jimin is beginning to understand the term dead silence after years of wondering when anything would slow down enough for it to become silent.
They feel, for a moment, like fame doesn’t exist. Like maybe HYYH won’t be happening. Jimin imagines the idea of finding a rose on campus in some university and enjoys it.
(But he forgets that fame is crushing.)
Yoongi collapses halfway to their dorm.
He falls into a crouch that looks more defeated than exhausted, and Jimin flusters worriedly before dropping into a squat next to him. He kind of hovers his hand around, asking stupid shit like oh my god, are you okay? when, obviously, Yoongi is not okay.
“Jimin,” he says, voice muffled by his arms. “ Fuck, Jimin, I need to tell you something.”
Something that feels a lot like his heart drops into his stomach. Jimin knows precisely what Yoongi is going to say. He’s going to go on about a song, about his family, or maybe even about global warming because he’s tired and it’s hot as hell outside. And Jimin will happily listen.
“Go on,” Jimin says.
“I’m...” Yoongi takes a deep breath, letting it out in a gasp that sounds more unstable and less like he’s about to talk about the weather. “Fuck, I’m...”
Jimin’s eyebrows raise. “ You’re?”
Dead silence.
“You’re- I’m- tired,” Yoongi stutters out. He gapes like a fish immediately afterwards, and Jimin has no clue as to why he felt the need to state something so obvious.
Jimin only shrugs, reaching forward to pet Yoongi’s bare neck comfortingly. “I am, too,” he says, standing up, “let’s go sleep.”
“Okay,” Yoongi says, and follows.
His hand lingers on the inside of Jimin’s wrist when they part ways in the hall.
❀❀❀
It’s a frenzy in their dorm when Jimin wakes up, hand curled in front of his forehead, to a teeny flower on the delicate skin of his wrist. It’s purple.
It’s wisteria. Purple and delicate, dangling from his bluest vein.
What happens next is that Hoseok drags Yoongi into their room to tell Jimin the news of a full-fledged big ass yellow flower on the nape of his neck, and drops to the floor in a heap of shit what the fuck when Jimin rubs his eyes in disbelief, flashing his own flower in the process.
Because their entire group is a mess of college-aged men, soon everyone is fighting to get into the room and Taehyung is screaming something about 100,000 won, shit damn I told you Jeongguk.
Yoongi, it seems, is having none of it, because within 60 seconds he’s outside the dorm and stomping down the hall.
But Jimin is having none of that because this has been #1 on his bucket list since his grandma showed him the matching daisies on her and her husband’s elbows, and fuck if the love of his life is going to try and brood about it.
“So, hyung,” he airily greets, startling Yoongi slightly when he plops onto the makeshift bench on their roof next to him, “what were you trying to tell me last night?”
Yoongi maintains the furrowed brow and grim set of mouth for perhaps ten seconds. “Nothing.” A smile snakes its way onto his face.
“You sure?”
He ruffles Jimin’s hair. “It’s nothing you don’t already know.”
❀❀❀
They have to hide it from the public.
(Of course they do.)
Namjoon and Seokjin had to, and it only makes sense that Yoongi and Jimin have to. Except that Jimin cries when his pretty wisteria is cut down to a mere stem barely sticking out of his skin, and Yoongi has to hold his hand throughout the whole ordeal.
(That’s not to say that fanaccounts don’t catch pictures. There are currently hundreds of high quality photos of both Yoongi and Jimin’s stems, and now what’s circulating the web is whether or not “Taekook” will end up with flowers, seeing as BTS was now known as the group made of soulmates. No wonder they all get on so well.)
But Jimin really really really loves his flowers and really really really loves Yoongi, so it’s okay if they’re a secret for a while. What really matters is that even though his mom was originally very bitter about having no flowers, she demands pictures when there’s even the slightest bit of a sprout, and proudly shows them to his dad and little brother.
What matters is that Yoongi gets a tattoo of yellow chrysanthemum on the side of his ring finger on their fourth anniversary, and tells him that it didn’t hurt a bit. (“Not as bad as cutting off my flowers,” he says, and even if Jimin hears Yoongi say he loves him on the daily, it is the singular sweetest thing he’s ever heard Yoongi utter.)
❀❀❀
On their seventh anniversary, Yoongi writes a song about flowers and Jimin learns that wisteria grows messily.
-
bonus:
( “Namjoon, why didn’t you put my flower somewhere inconspicuous like Yoongi and Jimin did? Joonie-, why do you insist on making my life hard?”
“ It’s not my fault! I didn’t even know we would be soulmates, why are you blaming me?”)