—————
He’s drunk enough to come forward about it, finally. 7 beers and more than a few k-pop girl group songs in, he just spills it all to his friends.
Taehyung puts his drink on the table, folds his arms, utterly betrayed.
“What— you mean to tell me you’ve never been an ally?”
Yoongi just watches him with sharp eyes, sipping on his whisky in the corner of the karaoke booth, magnetic playing in the background.
“No I— I am. It’s just my roommate. I don’t know why, I have selective homophobia towards my roommate.”
“Selective homophobia.” Yoongi drawls with a slow nod. “Sounds legit.”
“Yeah, like, I don’t mind seeing other guys together but Jimin and Dongwon just get on my nerves.”
“Is that cause they’re gay or just cause you want to be home alone?” Taehyung asks. “Cause those are completely different things.”
“No I know.” He bites the inside of his cheek, ashamed to be in the spotlight here, microphone still in hand. “I don’t mind sharing the apartment but as soon as I see them together I want to slam the door.”
Taehyung’s gasp is louder than the music.
“That’s a hate crime.”
“I know.” He groans, puts his head in his hands. “I feel so bad, I want to be normal around them but god I can’t stand Dongwon.”
“Wow, I can’t believe I raised you.” Taehyung speaks into the mic. “Where did I mess up?”
“Just Dongwon?”
Yoongi’s question makes him look up.
“What?”
“You said you can’t stand Dongwon.” Yoongi repeats. “What about Jimin?”
Jeongguk blinks a few times, a flash of Jimin’s eye smile comes to mind, sends a warmth right through his veins.
“Jimin.. I’m more like, scared of him? Like whenever we’re alone I want to run away.”
A silence follows, except for Taehyung quietly singing this time I want you you you you like it’s magnetic—
“Huh..” Yoongi looks down at his drink. “Is he hot?”
Jeongguk tenses up a little.
What kind of question is that?
“Aren’t you dating?” He shoots back. “That Namjoon guy?”
“Yeah, I just want to know, do you think he’s hot?”
“Do I think he’s hot?”
“Uhu.”
“I mean..” He pictures Jimin in his pikachu shirt, in the morning when his blonde hair is a mess, eyes puffy, cheeks rosy. Then he shrugs. “Yeah, he’s good-looking.”
“Is he good-looking, or is he hot?” Taehyung asks, voice coming through the speakers. “There’s a difference.”
Both Yoongi and Taehyung’s eyes are on him, good cop and bad cop right there, interrogating him.
“He’s— uh.. I guess he’s hot.” His eyebrows knit together then. “Why does this matter?”
His two friends exchange a look, then Taehyung subtly puts his microphone down, folds his hands on the table.
From interrogation to therapy.
“When you’re alone with Jimin, you don’t get annoyed?”
Taehyung asks.
Didn’t he already answer this?
“Uh.. no, just scared. That’s what phobia stands for right?”
“Are you scared around him all the time or—“
“No, I mean I don’t run away when I see him.” He’s not that bad. “But he wants to have Friday movie nights together, you know? And last time I couldn’t even watch the show cause he was all close to me.”
He casts his gaze down right after, afraid of judgement. It’s so insane to not even be able to tolerate a guy’s touch cause of his homophobia. He feels vile just saying it to his friends.
The silence is so loud he can’t bring himself to look up, he just taps his fingers on the mic on the beat of the song.
“Are you more scared, or are you more nervous?”
Wow, Taehyung is going hard on the nuances today.
He looks up, not sure why it really matters.
“I guess nervous?”
Yoongi and Taehyung both nod slowly, completely and utterly focused on him.
“What’s going on? You’re both giving me a look.”
“Nothing.” Taehyung shrugs, though the corner of his mouth curls up. “Let me ask something else.. are you particularly annoyed when Dongwon and Jimin kiss?”
“I mean, yeah, but that’s like, the essence of homophobia.“
“Have you ever imagined kissing Jimin?”
Yoongi asks then, unprompted.
His mind goes blank for a second, and only now does he get what they’re both on about.
Heat rushes to his cheeks instantly.
“I— I’m not— I’m not into Jimin.”
Taehyung huffs out a breath.
“Your flushed face says otherwise.”
“I’ve had like a million beers.”
“Have you ever imagined kissing Jimin yes or no?”
Yoongi asks straight into the microphone, then holds it out for him.
He just stares back, cheeks glowing, jaw dropped a little.
“I— no. I mean—“
“Have you stared at his lips?” Taehyung raises a brow. “Or his ass?”
“N—“
He cuts himself off, hears Jimin’s voice echo in his head from last Friday.
You’re looking at my lips while saying that
A set of plush, full lips flash before his eyes, puffy, soft pink, Cupid’s bow almost faded..
Huh..
He remembers them with a suspicious level of detail.
When he snaps out of it, Taehyung and Yoongi are staring right at him, not even saying a thing but the look on their faces speak loud enough.
He runs both his hands through his hair, grabs the strands, panicked chuckle leaving his lips.
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah.” Yoongi clinks his glass against his beer on the table. “Welcome to the other side. You selective homophobe.”
—————————
After that, Taehyung insisted on singing all the coming out songs known to mankind, for some reason the first Pokemon theme was part of that too, right after Diana Ross, priorities.
So it’s no wonder he’s completely hungover the next day, he might have tried the drink to forget method— it doesn’t work. He’s pretty sure all people who drink to forget are just drinking to drink.
No, when he wakes up the first thing on his mind next to a terrible headache is: I am into guys and I have a crush on Jimin.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if Jimin wasn’t taken.
Maybe he should just have sticked to selective homophobia, then he wouldn’t have to confront himself with all these stupid thoughts.
Because when Friday comes rolling around he dreads it even more than before.
If it was selective homophobia, sure, this would suck too. He’d constantly be on edge as not to say something offensive, he’d want to run every other second.
But now. Now he knows that when Jimin smiles at him it’s not fear, it’s nerves that eat him alive. When Jimin sits down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, it’s not that he zones out cause he can’t take it, but he gets so flustered he just blanks.
This is a morally terrible thing, spending friday nights with Jimin when he’s aware he has a crush. When he’s aware Jimin is taken. Ideally, he should just cancel the whole Friday anime night thing, but alas, he is selfish.
Also, it’s not even that deep of a crush. He’s only known Jimin a month or so, and he’s only just now found out he’s into guys too, so, he can probably, you know, work his way around his feelings.
He has no plans of breaking Jimin and Dongwon up. They’re a good couple, so he’ll just have to suck it up, establish the friendship, and get on with his life.
Which all sounds very doable until it’s Friday and they’re sat next to each other on the couch and Jimin is wearing a loose black shirt and underwear.
Yes, that is his whole outfit.
And yes, Jimin often wears just underwear around the house. So the shirt is already an add-on, but still.
“You should change into pyjamas too.” Jimin says, already on his way to the couch. “Way more comfy.”
Jeongguk’s eyes magnetically pull toward Jimin’s bare thighs, and oh
Yeah, he gets his newfound kink now. For the past weeks he’s been way more into thigh fucking videos, never knew the cause but this clears it up.
He clears his throat as he beelines to his room, changes into pyjamas with glowing cheeks.
It’s gonna be fine.
He can absolutely do this.
He takes a deep breath, shakes his head and just clears his mind, goes into the living room like it’s any other day, sits down next to Jimin and tries to imagine what it was like the first month of living together.
Carefree, just friends.
The first thing Jimin does is wrap a blanket around the both of them, a little green fleece blanket he bought some time ago, since the house ‘needed’ it.
“Kind of feels like we’re an old married couple.” Jimin snorts. “I even made tea instead of drinks.”
Jeongguk whips his head towards Jimin, met by that pretty eye smile, and fuck— warmth spreads through his chest instantly.
Jimin is so kind. Made him tea, bought the snacks, got them a little blanket, already changed the mood lighting to a soft orange, the perfect setup for anime night.
God— he’s so fucking jealous Dongwon has already bagged this man.
“Yeah.”
He says. Didn’t need to say it. He cringes at himself.
What ‘yeah?’
Jimin doesn’t even notice, just clicks play on the anime they started some time ago. Jeongguk has no idea what it’s about, none of the previous episodes have registered, he was in fight or flight, the selective homophobia had him good.
Now it’s different.
He’s extremely aware of how close they are sitting, purposely left some space between them this time, so Jimin can’t snuggle up to him.
Preferably he’d have made a pillow fort, but that would have raised questions.
As always, about 5 minutes in, Jimin turns to him instead.
“You’re not really watching, are you?”
“Huh?”
“The past few Fridays, you’ve been all distracted.” Jimin says, small smile on his lips as he cradles his teacup. “Don’t like the anime?”
“Oh.” He looks at the screen, then shakes his head. “No— it’s— no. It’s good fun, it takes a while for me to get into it.”
“Yeah?” Jimin tilts his head, doesn’t seem convinced, then his eyes narrow a little. “Are you dating someone? Cause if you want Fridays off—“
“No— no I’m not dating anyone.” He waves his hand. “Really, just takes a while, I’ll get into it.”
“We can watch something else too,” Jimin proposes, already grabs the remote. “If you’re more into other genres.”
God, he’s so overly caring and kind.
He takes the remote from Jimin’s hands, the fleeting warmth of their fingers touching sends a jolt through his body.
“It’s fine.” He repeats, puts the remote next to him. “I like this one.”
It’s unfortunate that right that moment, characters kiss on screen. Kind of like when you’re young and watching a cool anime, but the moment you show your friend it’s some weird fanservice moment with anime tiddies all over your screen.
Yeah.
He can’t look away— not that the animation is all that good but there’s certainly.. tongue.
Most anime kisses don’t show tongue but for some reason this one goes all out. Strings of saliva and all, high-pitched moans, you’d think they’ve put on hentai.
His cheeks burn up considerably, and he just bites his tongue, hopes for the scene to pass quickly.
When it finally does, he exhales, didn’t even notice he was holding his breath.
“Wow.. you’re right.” Jimin says with a teasing undertone. “You got into that pretty quickly.”
Jeongguk whips his head towards him, shame prickling under his skin.
The corner of Jimin’s mouth is pulled into this small smirk, eyes glinting knowingly.
“No— no sorry I— I hadn’t expected— I was just shocked.”
“Uhu..” Jimin drawls out with a slow nod. “Didn’t think my roommate was a pervert.”
“That’s not— I’m not a pervert, I was just embarrassed that scene came right after I said I liked it.”
“Mmh, is that why you’re all flushed?”
“Yes. This is a flush of shame, not of—“
“Never watched hentai?”
Jimin’s question knocks all the air out of his lungs, and all he can do is stare at him completely defenceless, ears burning.
A chuckle falls from Jimin’s lips then, he hides his mouth behind his hand.
“Sorry, too far?”
Fuck.
His heartbeat picks up considerably.
“No— I mean— you can ask, I was just— I didn’t expect it.”
He stammers.
Jimin is a little flushed himself, or maybe he just naturally has that rosy glow on his cheeks— either way, he looks..
good.
“So you’ve watched it.”
Jimin concludes, smirk on his lips.
“Yeah, of course.” He tries to sound unaffected but his voice comes out all breathy. “What’s your point?”
“Nothing, just wanted to make you say it.”
Jimin shrugs, clearly enjoying this.
God, this guy, really.
“You’ve watched it too.”
He accuses Jimin, baselessly.
Jimin chuckles a little more.
“Yeah but I wasn’t just watching that kiss on screen like I haven’t gotten laid in months.”
Now that—
that’s a direct attack.
“I’ve gotten laid.”
“Yeah?” Jimin quirks a brow. “When?”
“Wednesday.” He lies straight through his teeth. “When you weren’t home.”
“Wednesday 2 months ago maybe.”
Slander.
He can’t even argue, just makes an offended noise, an overly accentuated “hmpf”
It makes Jimin laugh.
“Ah— Jeongguk, you’re so adorable sometimes.”
Adorable.
He cringes at the word.
Nothing greater than being called adorable.
“You know, I can have less dates here, if you wanna bring someone home.”Jimin proposes, the quirk of his brow entirely too hot to handle. “Or maybe a double date?”
Oh no.
Not double date.
He’d rather be a third wheel to Jimin and Dongwon’s date than bring someone else.
“That would be kind of fun huh? I actually know a girl who’s totally your type.”
Jimin’s eyes light up like this is the best idea he’s had all night and fuck, Jeongguk is still on hentai.
“I’m not really into—“
“Let me show you.”
Jimin is already on his phone, scrolling through his contacts, then he shows him her profile picture.
And..
Yeah, she’s pretty.
But Jimin looking at him right now, eyes shimmering with glee, that excitement sparkling all around him..
He snaps out of it.
Jimin is taken.
This might be a good idea, maybe this will help him get over the whole Jimin thing.
So he nods a few times.
“Yeah.. sure, if she’s down we can do that.”
“Oh great.” Jimin is grinning from ear to ear as he sends her a message. “This is gonna be so much fun.”