"We really shouldn't keep doing this."

The words are as insubstantial as the breeze of the voice that scatters them out to the waiting winds, and they come off as nothing more than idle brooding—because no one in the world could call Yoongi's tone serious, his attitude anything but gloriously sated.

They're sprawled out on Yoongi's mattress, blanket tangled around their feet—Yoongi keeps the heat on ridiculously high so even the sharp bite on winter is lost on their naked bodies—and Jungkook is tracing nonsensical patterns into the hollow of Yoongi's collarbone with the hand he has around him as he wonders at the lightness of the truth so expressed. He's always thought truth—truth— far weightier than the flimsy institution of lies, but right now it just glosses over both of them like the touch of a whip—pain in the offing, but so, so seductive in the moment. He's not left to ponder this over for long, however, because Yoongi's started petting at his chest and it's taking all he has to not purr like a cat.

It's that shift in movement which concentrates the flutes of late-evening light streaming in through the window glass to illuminate in stark relief the raised white scores on Yoongi's arm. It's been so many times—and Yoongi's determination to completely ignore them notwithstanding, they strike him fresh every time. Make him uncomfortable in ways he can't even think, let alone begin to define. It's like those half-healed wounds are slashed right across every single stray caricature he's ever fought to capture Yoongi in—like he knows they aren't perfect and never will be again.

"We could just leave."

If Jungkook had been shooting for the same lackadaisical style as Yoongi's, the fervent energy of his tone, heavy with implication as it is, belies him in an instant. It's not feasible—of course it's not feasible, it's downright stupid is what it is. But hey, Jungkook feels drained from the inside out, sweat still cooling on his skin—and he's allowed a little fancy, he thinks, before the embers of the contamination spark again from nothingness.

And it's really a testament to how far gone Yoongi is right now, that all he does is curl up closer to Jungkook, nodding sleepily.

"Yeah."

It's unholy, the temptation of this soft-cornered Yoongi with his eyes of drowned lust and his clinging embrace all laid out front, and Jungkook has a hard time believing that he can't just gather up and fly with it, that not everything is as simple as taking Yoongi's hand and whispering run. No, it's utter madness, a different blend from his usual, but equally assuming and dangerous. And something stupid like I want to save you is on the tip of his tongue, but he beats it down in favor of averting his eyes from what he doesn't want to see—the evidence of absolute, cowering humanity; for fear it'll reach into some dark, forbidden place and draw out its like from within himself.

He must have tensed, or shuddered, or something, then, because in a split second he feels the tilt of Yoongi's neck as he turns it upwards, no doubt now privy to some measure of Jungkook's thoughts and seeking confirmation by way of scrutinizing his expression. It's blank—so Jungkook prays to all hell even as he knows that Yoongi's—even this Yoongi's—sharp gaze misses little and overlooks even less. But it's done, now—the bitter slides molasses-slow down Jungkook's throat as Yoongi, with deliberation, reaches to draw the coverlet around them both. And really, Jungkook feels frustration rising like black tide in his chest. It's a weird, itchy feeling—as much at Yoongi's action as at his equal, opposite, inexplicable reaction. Like something nasty he ate, the foul taste won't leave his mouth—at what, he dares not think. Doesn't want to venture into the whole complex equation of the why. Why Yoongi guards whatever it is so jealously, keeping his all suspended in the balance, why the way to him is paved with thistles and cut-glass.

And why it bothers Jungkook at all.

That last one makes him want to curl up against the invasive internal questioning—the bank statement of his own investment up against this recipe for disaster. Because I hate you is so much easier to say thanI care, and discontent so much easier to hide than reverence—and Jungkook wants to draw the gray areas about himself like a protective blanket. They keep him from venturing too far into the treacherous waters of admission, keep him from hurtling down the slippery slope of introspection.

"If it's you, then it'll be the saving of me."

Yoongi says it like it's more to himself, like it's something slow and deferential and not meant to be voiced. But Jungkook grasps the strains of it where they're suspended in the empty air, and it's like some heady perfume as he breathes them in, turning to insubstantial, intangible vapor every last one of the reservations that keep him tethered to reality even as he's visited with the sick knowledge that the fall down the rabbit hole is a long one—and that he's long since passed the brink.

But the magic of free fall is never seeing the end.

So while he has illusion—and really, the thought of himself thriving on it is laughable to the minuscule portion that remains of his sanity—but while he has the thrill of those words shivering down his spine, while he has that sure, sinuous power of savior, he can let that blanket slip, gather about his feet on the floor.

And he knows—he knows—that this is no more than a drug, a high, that it's going to leave him shivering and miserable and wretched on the the floor, it's so, so difficult to care when Yoongi's grip on him tightens like murder as if in the know of every insidious premonition of his.

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It's the perfect situation, Jungkook thinks—he's got Yoongi on the desk, caged between his arms, and the deer-in-headlights expression on his face is a thing of beauty. Their faces are hovering dangerously close together, and he knows what it would look like if anyone were to walk in right now. But this new kind of not caring he has on right now like a flamboyant brand to carry discounts the possibility in favor of the way Yoongi looks at him, half-cornered and half of that indefatigable spirit of challenge that never fails to get Jungkook's blood up. And he thinks that consequences are a small price to pay for having Yoongi like this in his home territory. He always seems to burn a little brighter, shine a little more brilliant when he's forcefully arguing his interpretation of the literature he loves, conducting the language of nuance. It makes the slender tendons on his neck stand out, the hollows of his collarbones and the color in his pale skin to deepen in a way that makes Jungkook itch to reach for his sketchbook. Many a rueful thought of Jungkook's has gone into thinking that the magic of Shakespeare and Milton and Keats is all but wasted on himself whilst it is Yoongi with his translucent hands and imperious eyes that declaims them.

"Jungkook..." Maybe Yoongi's read some stray thought off Jungkook's manner—or, much more plausibly, Jungkook tells the uncomfortable squirming in his gut, the risk of their position is coming home to him in a variety of ways that Jungkook's thought of and felt and crushed in the same reckless breath. Because really, he knows even as that shell of tainted ice crusts around him, makes it difficult to move or speak or even breathe, that he'd felt it crack just a little bit when the corners of Yoongi's lips had quirked up at Jungkook's place in the attendance roster— and that it'd happened again at Yoongi's expression when Jungkook had made a particularly intelligent answer later in class.

So here they are. And in all honesty, Jungkook thinks he's made an arguable case for himself when he finds himself considering it a criminal offence to keep his hands (and lips andtongue) off Yoongi—and himself deserving of some sort of Nobel prize for restraint for having managed it this long.

He leans forward, then, fully intending to remedy the pressing hollow in his chest, the withdrawal tremors in hands with his dose of pernicious Yoongi, intending to touch, kiss—he doesn't even know, but Yoongi leans back and away.

"I'm serious, Jungkook. I don't want to do this here—it's your education on the line, and my job."

Come to think of it, Jungkook believes Yoongi deserves certification too—for his acting skills, that is. Because while his forbidding frown and his resolute articulation would've convinced anyone who had spent lesser time studying every dip and lilt of his manner, all the don't wants in the world can't disguise his ever-so erratic breathing—or the dilation of his pupils and the hitch in pulse where Jungkook moves his hand to cup his neck.

"I don't think you care about that any more than I do."

Or about this shitty town or anyone here and you'd leave here in a heartbeat even with me, Jungkook wants to add, moving his other hand to rest over where he knows Yoongi's heart is beating out an irregular rhythm, easily as beautiful music as any of the classical pieces he can coax from the piano. When Yoongi makes no answer to that, just looking down—all flutter of charcoal eyelashes and high color— Jungkook considers the battle won. Withdrawing the hand over his heart to brace it on the desk behind them, he closes the distance between them. The one hand at his neck he keeps there, because the wild escalation of Yoongi's pulse at the first brush of their lips sends as much of a thrill through him as the touch itself.

He kisses Yoongi carefully, expecting the rigid tension in his body—wanting to turn him soft and pliable under his hands by the time he's done with it.

Yoongi, of course, thinks different.

The grip around his shoulders catches him by surprise, almost, in its strength. He's not given a breath of surprise—half a gasp is barely out of his mouth before Yoongi's pulling him in, kissing back with a thorough vengeance of the kind that chips away at the wretched remnants of Jungkook's sanity. He's scared, almost, of the intense press of their lips, of the way Yoongi's tongue invades his mouth, blazing a trail of minty, spicy aftertaste. And while his thought is attacked, his reserves crumbled, the realization that Yoongi giveswhen he so chooses, gives his all, italics and refrain a mere brush against the propensity of it, stands clear and cold as an icicle which refuses to melt between the heat of their bodies.

Somehow, that sudden shard of cold makes Jungkook's hand stall its passage where it's creeping down Yoongi's waist. It makes him wince away, almost, at the too-hot fingers pressing cigarette burns into the knobs of his spine, flinch at the sharp jut of hip that seems to tear right through the skin. It's all he can do, then, to steady his grip—putting some distance between them as gently as he can. But fuck him, when Yoongi's face looks like it does when he gets a clear view of it, flushed lips swollen and stained some dark color which has no other name but sex, chest heaving and eyes dark, he's sorely, sinfully tempted to dive right back in and stake claim to everything laid out in front of him.

Before he knows it, the thought of taking Yoongi, making a mess of him right in the here and now has given way to action and the tail-end of the temptation finds the distance between them diminishing so that their lips almost, almost brush again. And it takes everything—every single ounce of all Jungkook has—to turn the kiss just waiting at the breach of his resolve into a whisper.

"Ever been on a midnight drive, hyung?"

He leaves until the last exhale has escaped his lips to wonder whether this—the kiss—or that—his impulsive words which had tumbled out of his mouth like a plea—really had anything to choose between them in terms of damage.