They dated for one year before Yoongi went and fucked it up.

He didn't have to ruin everything, but Yoongi has this annoying habit of self sabotage.

A nasty habit he's had for as long as he can remember where he can't allow himself to just accept that sometimes good things aren't too good to be true.

That sometimes happiness really is as simple as having someone who loves you and all you have to do is accept that love, giving it back in return.

But Jungkook just had so much love to give. Pure, genuine love and Yoongi didn't know what to do with it.

Didn't know how to accept the feelings themselves or that he was anywhere close to worthy for such affection from someone like Jungkook.

He'd never loved himself, not fully. Always thought himself an average person with average features and an average personality.

Nothing special.

Jungkook though. Jungkook is extraordinary in every sense.

He is younger than Yoongi by six years. Twenty-four to Yoongi's thirty.

He is energetic and so full of desire to get the most out of life.

Yoongi is complacent in every way and likes how his life is.

He has a fear of flying– a fear of doing anything out of his comfort zone really– and is perfectly content with his travel blogs to live vicariously through and his office job that offers a stable routine and order in his life.

Jungkook is a free spirit, his career as a photographer for a travel magazine taking him all over the country.

Jungkook loves to travel. Yoongi is terrified of leaving the city to go somewhere unfamiliar to him.

They were similar but also so different in so many ways and Yoongi would stew in his thoughts of holding Jungkook back by staying with him.

Jungkook could have anyone. Anyone at all and Yoongi had a hard time embracing that for some godforsaken reason Jungkook wanted him.

He always seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, always on edge as if expecting Jungkook to wake up one day and realize how plane Yoongi was.

Honestly, Yoongi's almost proud of himself for holding on as long as he did before pushing Jungkook away.

The end came when Jungkook brought up a freelance job offer he'd received to do a tour across the U.S. and part of Canada.

The job would take him away for twelve months.

With as much courage and strength as Yoongi could muster, he told Jungkook he should go. That it was an opportunity he'd be stupid not to take.

Jungkook stared at him in shock, hands fisted tightly at his sides as he went on to tell Yoongi that if he went he wanted Yoongi to consider going with him.

Yoongi said no and the fight that followed was loud. The loudest they'd ever had, words full of unspoken resentment on Jungkook's part that Yoongi never wanted to do anything and unshared feelings of inferiority on Yoongi's part.

It was ugly and hurtful and in the end, Jungkook left.

Left Yoongi's house and one month later, left the country.

Left Yoongi's life.

Yoongi spent the first three months after the break-up crying himself to sleep every night, struggling with the acceptance that he'd chosen this. That he'd made his bed and now had to lie in it.

They didn't talk at all while Jungkook was gone, Yoongi only ever getting indirect updates and hearing retold versions of the younger's experiences from his check-ins with one of their friends. Usually Jimin, Hoseok or Soekjin.

He'd send pictures in their group chat every once in a while. Was active on Instragram too, but he and Yoongi never talked; voice calls or texting.

By the time the job was over and Jungkook reappeared Yoongi thought that maybe he succeeded. That maybe he really had gotten over him.

But then Jungkook was fully back in the swing of things, hanging out with the rest of their group and Yoongi was seeing him multiple times per week because of it.

He couldn't keep the aching pain from coming back when he'd be forced to interact with him.

(It was an odd mix of dread and need when there was the prospect of seeing Jungkook those first couple of months after his return.)

They spoke to each other like they would an acquaintance. Polite and brief with no deeper topics than the weather or half-hearted comments about how work was going.

Yoongi despised it.

Once Jungkook was near it was impossible for his feelings not to come bubbling back to the surface.

Impossible for Yoongi to make sense of the mess inside of him. The brewing storm of love and pain he thought he had compressed and filed away where it could be forgotten.

It was a silly delusion that he'd thought himself strong enough to forget Jeon Jungkook.

He's much too special for Yoongi to be able to go and do such a thing as that.

.......

As it turns out, the "later" the two exes had referred to at the end of their most recent hook-up came much sooner than expected.

After frantic knocks had been pounded against Yoongi's apartment door, upon opening it, Yoongi was met with wild eyes glaring at him.

"You ruined my night," Jungkook gritted out as he brushes past Yoongi into his appartment.

Yoongi was utterly confused.

He hadn't seen Jungkook for days.

"How could I have ruined anything? I've been here," he stammers as he shuts the door and turns towards the younger.

"Taehyung and I were finally both free. After weeks of trying to find a good time for both of us we finally went out and-" his brows pinch in frustration, running a hand over his face.

Yoongi still doesn't understand.

But, all of that aside... Jungkook is dating?

Yoongi didn't know that, didn't really want to know, but he shakes off the shock of that news to ask what he's taking about.

"I still don't understand what I have to do with any of this. I haven't seen you since-"

"I wanted it to be you!" Jungkook raises his voice, eyes darting around the entryway, ruffling his hair in exasperation.

"W-what?" Yoongi gulps, wide eyes watching Jungkook closely.

"I couldn't even focus on anything he was saying!" He growls. "All I could think about was how I wanted it to be you across from me. You talking about your day. You smiling, talking enthusiastically with your hands the way you tend to do as you catch me up on what your favorite bloggers have been up to.

"Wanted it to be you who was telling me an 'interesting fact' no one but you would know about the habitat in which the fish of the day had originated from." Jungkook chuckles humorlessly. "I wanted you."

Yoongi gapes, floundering as he tries to process it all.

Jungkook continues, jaw clenching in anger.

"I had to leave dinner early. Made up some lame ass excuse just so I could come here."

Yoongi is stunned, cemented in his spot by Jungkook's frustrated words.

He wanted Yoongi to be the one he was on a date with? Why?

That... that can't be right. That doesn't make any sense.

"Kookie-" Yoongi begins but his words are cut off when Jungkook rushes to him.

Yoongi finds himself being turned around before he is walked back and pressed against the door in the same moment lips collide with his.

He's so surprised by how sudden it all happens that it takes him a beat for his brain to catch up before he melts against Jungkook just as he always does.

He tugs Jungkook in by his jacket, pulling him closer.

Their tongues swirl together, lips moving feverishly as Jungkook grabs at him.

It feels good, so good, just like it always does, but, Yoongi can't do this.

Jungkook growls deep in his chest when Yoongi pushes him back, breaking the kiss as Jungkook stumbles away.

"Wait," Yoongi says, his voice concerned. "We should talk-"

"I want to fuck," Jungkook snaps, stepping closer again. "I don't want to talk."

Yoongi's lips pull down into a frown as he turns his head away when Jungkook tries to kiss him again.

Jungkook clicks his tongue. "What? Is fucking suddenly not okay? Would it help if we do a few shots first so we can blame the sex on that?"

Yoongi shrinks in on himself, wrapping his arms around his body in a huff as he stares down at the floor, keeping silent.

"I know we haven't been drunk. At least, not as drunk as we pretend to be," Jungkook goes on, tone much more gentle as he watches Yoongi curling in on himself. "I've known for a while and I don't care.

"As pathetic as it sounds, I was just glad to be near you. To feel you and be with you again. That's what I want, hyung. That's all I'll ever want," he ends off, breathing hard.

Nearly all of his annoyance has gone away and he looks suddenly more scared. Almost panicked.

Yoongi's lip wobbles as his eyes prick with tears. His heart breaks a little all over again.

"So you just want to fuck then..."

He doesn't want to date. He just wants to keep sleeping together.

"No." Jungkook comments gently with a shaky exhale. "I don't."

The breath Yoongi had been holding leaves him in a rush.

He nearly flinches away when Jungkook reaches for his arm, gently pulling it away from where Yoongi had it wrapped around himself in order to take Yoongi's hand in his to lead him to the couch.

They sit side by side, enough space between them that they're not touching. When Yoongi looks up, he can see tears in Jungkook's eyes.

They're quiet for a few minutes, Yoongi studying Jungkook's face, his hands fidgeting.

"Hyung," Jungkook begins, voice careful. "I still have feelings for you."

There's a lump in Yoongi's throat, his already sore eyes beginning to burn again.

"Y-you have feelings for me?"

"Of course I do. I always have."

"Always?" Yoongi echoes.

"Feelings don't just go away," Jungkook mumbles. "I thought they did, thought mine did, until I saw you again. Then we... we hooked up and it all came flooding back."

"I don't understand," Yoongi says softly.

"Why would I be sleeping with you if I didn't still have feelings for you?" Jungkook challenges.

"I don't know. I thought maybe..." Yoongi shrugs, fiddles with his fingers. "I don't know about you but that first time, I really was drunk. Not too drunk to not remember or not know what was happening, but I was drunk.

"People sleep with their exes all the time when they're drunk. It doesn't always mean anything. At least not to both people..." he trails off and grimaces.

"It was a genuine drunken mistake the first time for me too," Jungkook comments softly. "But after that, not so much a mistake as a need."

"Yeah," Yoongi breathes, swallowing hard.

He chews on his lip, choosing his next words carefully before settling on just coming out with it.

"I still love you... I never stopped."

Jungkook pauses, seeming to gather himself together.

"If you never stopped loving me, why did you break up with me?"

It's a weighted question.

One Yoongi's thought about constantly for so long. The mistake he made that cost him so much happiness.

"I was breaking up with you before you broke up with me," Yoongi admits, feeling pitiful and small as he does so.

It sounds so ridiculous when said out loud. Jungkook agrees if the offended squawk he lets out is anything to go by.

"I didn't want to break up," Jungkook stares at him, pain clear on his face. "I didn't even want to leave in the first place!"

Yoongi blinks, eyes as big as saucers as he tries to make sense of Jungkook's words. "You what? You didn't want to go?"

"You had been distancing yourself for weeks before I got the offer. I didn't know why and I didn't know how to bring it up at the time," Jungkook continues, staring down at his hands. "I thought that maybe telling you about me potentially leaving would somehow spark something in you and you'd tell me not to go. That you would ask me to stay here with you. But you didn't."

Yoongi speaks before his mind can filter the words.

"You would have been stupid not to go."

Yoongi hugs himself tightly again, fingertips pressing harshly into his biceps, regretting the words immediately.

Even though he believes what he's just said with his whole heart, the look of hurt that washes over Jungkook's features makes his stomach twist and tighten uncomfortably.

Jungkook would have been stupid not to go. It's harsh, but it's true.

It would have been a mistake. A big one Yoongi knew Jungkook would end up resenting him for and-

"I would have been stupid to stay with the person I love most in the world instead of flying overseas to work alone for a year? Is that what you're saying?" Jungkook snaps, voice rough with anger.

The room suddenly feels too cold. Void of any of the heat that surrounded them minutes ago.

Oh. Oh.

Yoongi hadn't thought of it like that. Then again why would he have?

Yoongi didn't even consider that Jungkook was asking his opinion because he wanted Yoongi to tell him to stay.

Why would Jungkook stay for him? Why would he want him? Yoongi isn't special. Not like Jungkook is.

He's just... him.