They don't talk much.

They never have. Taehyung doesn't like thinking about his life enough to waste his breath on things no one can change, and maybe it's the same for Jimin. His breath seems more precious to him than most, the way he holds it sometimes. (It's precious to Taehyung too, but he doesn't like thinking about that either.)

It's been that way for as long as they've known each other. Even when surrounded by other students, Jimin seemed so lonely that Taehyung led him to their classroom in the hopes that he might see him smile. And of course he has, by now, but it's not enough. Jimin's laughter doesn't sound false or empty, but it feels incomplete. Preoccupied. His every movement is still so measured. Hoseok hyung always has to remind him to relax when they dance; he doesn't realize how deeply rooted that tension really is. But Taehyung knows what it means to be afraid of letting go.

Of course, Jimin has come a long way over the course of the two years or so they've known one another. They all have, but he especially has come to care about all of them in a way Taehyung knows none of their families do, from the way none of them talk about home like it's something they actually have. Home is an illusion at best, a nightmare at worst. By contrast, Jimin feels warm and real and there, but he doesn't say a lot. He just is.

It's because they don't talk, or can't, that Taehyung tries something else instead.

This is the first and only time he's touched alcohol, just to see through his father's eyes—just so he can drink too much and throw it all back up and never touch it again—and this is the impulse he has. Taehyung hates it, hates himself and the world and everyone in it. Except Jimin, the only one who stayed behind to stargaze tonight; Jimin, his constant, his confidant, another reason to hold on.

He still doesn't say much with those full lips, but they're cold and soft and taken aback, just like the rest of him, after Taehyung turns to press his own against them on a whim. It's only after a shocked pause that Jimin jerks his head back and demands, "Are you drunk?"

Taehyung can't decipher his tone, but he thinks he must be in trouble, so he just sits back and grins the way he always does when he hopes, rather than thinks, that everything will be all right. "Yeah," he says, holding up one of the empty bottles. (He'll get the shit beaten out of him as soon as his father finds out he took some of his stock, but if he's still drunk, he won't feel it, and if he's hungover, he'll have bigger problems on his hands. Win-win.)

"Drunk enough that you won't remember this?"

It takes a moment for the meaning of Jimin's swift soft words to click—why isn't he shouting at him, shoving him, running away and never looking back?—and a moment more for Taehyung to actually consider the question. If this is anything like his dreams, he won't be able to forget even if he wants to. "No."

Jimin nods and says nothing, like always. And Taehyung can't read his face. It isn't just the darkness; it's his way of shutting down, rejecting everything in the outside world, reflecting only on secret thoughts that do not surface in his expression. Until—

"Why'd you do that?"

Though Jimin is the one to break the silence, he seems almost as surprised to hear his own voice as Taehyung is. He doesn't even sound accusatory. Not really. Just curious, a little reproachful, maybe more for the suddenness than the act itself. That's his real question, then. Not whether Taehyung is drunk, but why he kissed him.

Taehyung doesn't know how to answer that to Jimin's satisfaction. His tone isn't giving him the slightest hint as to what kind of response he's looking for. So Taehyung tells the truth instead, as straight he can when his thoughts are still so crooked. "I just felt like it."

"Because you're drunk."

There's the suspicion, the blame. It makes Taehyung angry for reasons he does not fully understand, but he tries to keep a level head even as the ground tilts under him. "N-no." He's almost convinced it's a lie until his tongue stumbles over his denial, and then the truth hits him like the alcohol all over again.

He would have wanted this anyway. He just never would have found the guts to do it.

Because Taehyung likes Jimin. His gentle purring voice. His measured thoughts. How his eyes disappear when he smiles. How he dances like he's channeling a spirit—maybe his own, so long abandoned. How he looks when he thinks no one's watching: contemplative, almost sad, like he's trying to remember something, or maybe trying to forget; like he's always weighing something in his head. The strength he doesn't know he has. Jimin.

Taehyung doesn't know when it started, only that he doesn't want it to stop. And also that what he wants doesn't matter at all.

The silence is not unexpected, but it is too much for Taehyung to bear, so he shatters it like a bottle. "I can prove it," he says, wincing at the sound of the voice that doesn't feel like his own anymore. "From now on, I'll kiss you all the time." Even drunk, he knows he can't make good on that promise, but he has to make it anyway, a bold declaration destined to fall by the wayside. (Just like whatever this might become.)

Jimin shakes his head. "I don't want you to kiss me all the time."

"Sometimes?" Taehyung's voice sounds hopeful to his own ears, childish, slurred.

"Maybe. It depends on how you do it." Jimin speaks slowly, his voice lingering over the syllables like an echo, like a part of him isn't all here. That isn't anything new, but it isn't always this obvious. Ever since Taehyung first met Jimin, keeping to himself and drifting through the school hallways like a ghost, it's felt like a part of him is missing. Whatever's been stolen, Taehyung wishes the thief would give it back.

He can't say why, but the thought sparks a better idea in his head. "Then you kiss me next time." That sounds good, leaving Jimin in control of him, of this. That way it won't be all his fault when they fall apart. "So I know how I… how I should."

"I don't know how. I've only thought about it." Jimin's answer is cool, almost dismissive, but he might be a little pink. It's hard to tell in this light.

"Thought about kissing me?"

"Thought about kissing at all." Jimin's tone is firm, almost defensive, sharp like a retort. But there isn't the sense of finality in his words the way there is when he means end of discussion, so Taehyung doesn't feel like he was too far off the mark. More like if Jimin were to kiss anyone, it would be Taehyung. Even the thought makes him warm, but whatever he does next, he has to ask something first.

"You haven't kissed anyone before?"

"You have?"

Taehyung hums hoarsely in affirmation, but then hesitates. His kisses were invariably the results of forbidden variants of tag, except for one ill-advised, hastily made decision to run away and marry some girl who had disappeared years ago. How long has it been since she's crossed his mind? It makes him wonder if he'll forget Jimin so easily when he inevitably moves on. "Yeah. But… not like that."

Jimin looks skeptical. "Drunk?"

"Deep." That isn't what Taehyung means, and he grimaces at the discrepancy. Translating his own thoughts into language others can understand has always been hard enough even without the alcohol making his head pound. He means deep like the river they can't see, like the night sky they're watching as though to find answers there, like the books Namjoon hyung reads. Not deep like…

"That wasn't deep." Jimin glances at Taehyung sideways, curiosity edged with wariness. He's trying to smother the glint in his eyes, but Taehyung can see it too well. It matches their nerves jangling together in harmony, somewhere between excitement and fear of themselves and each other. A distraction, the problem and solution in one.

"Show me what is?" The words come out jumbled and land like a question.

Jimin makes a vague sort of noise that might be disgust and hands Taehyung something that smells of mint. A stick of gum. It must have been in Jimin's pocket, if it's this warm—softened by his heat, just like Taehyung himself—and he barely remembers to take off the wrapper before popping the gum into his mouth. Turning to reposition himself, he loses his balance and falls into Jimin the way he's been falling into Jimin all along, only this time the ground catches them.

They both freeze, and then they both relax.

The mint is so overpowering that Jimin might as well taste like nothing anymore, like what he says. Taehyung can't explain why that frustrates him, but it makes him dive deeper to chase the truth behind the veil, holding Jimin to the ground as he does so. But the feeling, sharp as it was before, vanishes as he recognizes that Jimin's breathing has gotten shallow.

It takes a moment for Taehyung's body to catch up with his mind, and when he finally manages to pull back, he realizes that his hand is pressing against Jimin's throat. He doesn't seem to mind, smiling vaguely at nothing with faraway eyes, but Taehyung still has to convince his fingers to let go, and cannot meet Jimin's eyes once he does. "S-sorry."

But Jimin takes his wrist, almost cutting off his words. "Do it again." His voice is faint, but decisive, and in his glittering eyes Taehyung recognizes the hungry desperation of someone cut off in the middle of an epiphany. Someone whose thoughts had almost formed a complete picture before it splintered in the wake of an interruption.

Rather than respond in words, Taehyung moves his hand back to the same spot on Jimin's throat and tightens his grip slightly. The only reason he knows his own strength is because he has to, but his control has slipped; that's what alcohol is for. Even so, he makes sure not to hold too tightly, because Jimin needs to breathe at least a little.

Inhalation. Exhalation. The stillness of the night is broken only by the rise and fall of Jimin's chest. It's almost the same as ever, but the quality is different, halting, slower, in a way steadier, an echo of the pulse beneath Taehyung's fingers. His eyes are full of stars, or maybe they're stars themselves now, too. But they slide shut as Taehyung leans in to kiss him again.

Jimin's lips are slack, but they stir against Taehyung's automatically as he lets go. And then they're lost again, finding themselves in each other, trapped in a frozen moment that encompasses an eternity. But it's a beautiful trap, the bait well worth the net to come. Taehyung is content to kiss Jimin until the world comes crashing down around them.

Nothing happens, but still they must break away. Moving apart as though by one will, they exchange a faint and tired smile as they catch their breath. Taehyung is surprised that of the two of them, he's the one left panting.

"I thought it'd be more like drowning," says Jimin finally, his voice low in his throat.

Taehyung feels suddenly sober. This is much too important to let it slip through the cracks of his consciousness. "What was it like?"

From the length of the silence that follows, Taehyung does not expect an answer, so he is almost startled when Jimin murmurs, "Like breathing underwater in my dreams." It's the most he's ever said of his true self, comprised of those innermost thoughts and memories that can never truly make sense to anyone else. Neither they nor their other friends speak the language of dreams fluently enough to understand themselves, let alone each other. Even Taehyung would rather swallow his visions and let them burn him up slowly from the inside out than try to speak them aloud.

A question stirs Taehyung out of his messy thoughts, but the words don't make sense, and he forgets what Jimin asked almost as soon as he asks it. "What?"

From the way Jimin worries his lip, Taehyung half thinks he'll tell him never mind, but though he hesitates, he repeats himself. A little more slowly, this time, fidgeting with his hands, staring at the ground even though there's a sky full of stars right above them. "Can I see you?"

Taehyung frowns, confused. "You're looking at me."

Jimin shakes his head in an abrupt shudder, as if to shake off water, and Taehyung recognizes himself in that movement. It's what he wants to do sometimes too, more and more often these days and already once tonight, when his words and thoughts don't match. Taehyung almost apologizes. Jimin must not have realized the discrepancy until his response. "Your back."

There aren't enough words to say yes, so Taehyung removes his shirt and lets Jimin see everything he tries to hide. Maybe baring his body is symbolic of baring his heart, but he's not thinking like that in the moment. It's just that no one's ever asked him to show something like that before, and Taehyung can't say no to Jimin, doesn't want to say no. Jimin has heard it too often already.

"Can I touch you?"

The question is unexpected, even after the last, equally odd request, but Taehyung nods. If Jimin hadn't asked, Taehyung would have asked instead—begged him to reach out and touch him, make sure he's real, maybe make him real if it turns out he isn't.

Jimin knows something of pain, judging by the way he smooths his hands along Taehyung's bare back. They're cool and damp from nervous sweat, but gentle. Yet he doesn't try to handle him too delicately, which is more reassuring than he knows. Jimin is not petting him like some caged animal. He just touches him, true to what he asked, and does not flinch away when Taehyung tenses.

There is silence for a long time, more comfortable this time, less heavy than before. Jimin murmurs something that sounds like beautiful, but it might be the wind or the stars or Taehyung's own thoughts as he glances over at Jimin's face. Then the hands withdraw, but one of them slides into Taehyung's, trembling, and he interweaves their fingers automatically. Whether from cold or lingering nerves, togetherness will help.

They look up at the sky. It feels right, but Taehyung can feel the tension in Jimin's breathing, still there after all this time. He almost offers him something to drink, the only way he knows to ease it, but then Jimin turns to him suddenly and says, "Don't tell anyone." His voice is anxious, pleading, even now.

Taehyung stares at him, disarmed. This is a shelter they carved out for themselves in one another, just the two of them. Does he really think he could trade Jimin for anything? He smiles his square smile and squeezes Jimin's hand, feeling him relax slightly. "Never," murmurs Taehyung, and Jimin lets out an almost silent sigh of relief this time, resting his head on his shoulder like he's never had a place to rest it before. "This is ours."