Chapter Text
Hoseok inwardly cursed the cloud of animatedly gossiping tourists that seemed incapable of walking faster than a snail’s pace and not taking up the entire hallway. He clutched at the strap of his backpack, fingers digging into the fabric as he zigzagged backwards and forwards, trying to find a weakness in the solid wall of foreigners babbling to each other in their native tongue.
But the second he escaped the confinement of the tunnel and broke into the open airport space, he started running with his rusty old suitcase squeaking in protest behind him. He was almost there.
There were a thousand faces before him, a forest of mismatched bodies in a wide assortment of colours and clothes, but he was only searching for one. He ploughed forwards, muttering hurried apologies if his shoulder connected with another, his head turning this way and that as he scanned the fleshy corn field for a single pair of eyes.
“Hyung!”
He turned instantly, his mind honing in on that voice he had craved to hear for so, so long. His gaze fixed on the figure pin-balling its way through oblivious passengers to get to him. His fingers loosened their grip on the handle of his suitcase, his backpack was tossed to the floor and he spread his arms just in time to catch the boy that flew into him with a squeal of joy.
They stood there, bodies entwined and fingers curled into each other’s clothes, as the world kept moving around them, oblivious in their blissful euphoria. At long last, Hoseok pulled back to survey that toothy smile that, until now, had only been a photograph taped to his wall.
“Let me look at you,” he ordered, tutting at the petulant whine the boy made as hands clasped his face and twisted his head this way and that so he could be inspected from every angle. “You’re skinny,” he observed with distaste and his subject rolled his eyes.
“I’ve put on weight!”
“Not enough.”
“Hyung!”
“What?”
“I missed you.”
Hoseok faltered in his physical examination and raised his gaze to meet the puppy dog eyes that sparkled with unshed tears of happiness. He let out an amused huff and pulled his baby in for another hug, ruffling the messy mop of hair that sat atop his head.
“I missed you, too, Tae.”
Somebody cleared their throat awkwardly from beside them and Hoseok drew away from his brother to turn to the unrecognisable figure that stood patiently awaiting his own greeting.
“Holy shit, Kook,” he gaped, jaw dropping to the floor as he reached out to envelope another piece of his heart in his arms. “You’re huge.”
“Yeah,” Tae nodded, his face split in a proud grin, bringing his hand up to nudge the boy’s chin. “And he’s handsome, too.”
Jungkook scoffed, turning his attention back to Hoseok who had already started conducting his next inspection. A low whistle fluttered from between his lips as his hands traced the outline of muscles bulging along Jungkook’s arms.
“Are you on steroids?” he suddenly snapped, eyes narrowing, but the kid just giggled. The sound was so familiar but coming from a body that had changed so much, it had Hoseok’s head spinning.
“You both look so good. And you’re both taller than me so that sucks. And you had better be getting amazingly good grades if you’ve still got time to go to the gym and get a body like that and – JEON JUNGKOOK, IS THAT A HICKEY?”
Surrounding pedestrians turned their heads with mixed expressions of irritation and amusement at the sudden outburst and Jungkook’s ears blossomed into a brilliant red as he pulled his hood up to hide the mouth-shaped bruise on the side of his neck.
“Hyung …” he whined in protest but Hoseok was already ranting.
“You had better not be having sex, Jeon Jungkook. You’re sixteen years old. I co-raised you better than this. I thought we’d already agreed that neither you or Tae are having a relationship of any kind until either you’re both thirty or I’m a black belt in taekwondo.”
His angry-parent eyes flickered between Tae and Jungkook and his experienced-parent mind did not miss the way both of them were looking at anything but each other, dull flushes already creeping up their necks. He made the connection within three seconds.
“You two …” he spluttered, eyes rallying between both faces. “Holy shit … I … Kook, does your brother know?”
“Yes!” Jungkook sighed in exasperation. “And he’s accepted it.”
Hoseok stepped away from them, folding his arms over his chest and reducing his eyes to snake-like slits. He took pleasure in the way his prey squirmed uncomfortably in front of him, glancing at one another shiftily and shuffling from foot to foot.
“I don’t know which one of you to give the ‘you hurt him, you die’ speech to.”
Taehyung gasped, clasping his fists to his chest and contorting his face into an expression of exaggerated horror. “My own brother …”
“Top 10 anime betrayals,” Jungkook sniggered, raising his hands in mock surrender when Hoseok pointed a warning finger at his face.
Then he started laughing. He shook his head at their bewilderment as he retrieved his rucksack from the floor and threw it at Taehyung before slinging an arm around Jungkook’s shoulders and starting the steady plod towards the exit.
There would be time to question them later. For now, he was simply happy to finally be back on familiar soil. And he wasn’t particularly keen on having the safe-sex talk with Tae either.
“So …” he started, not raising his gaze from the path ahead of him because he didn’t want to look at either of them during this particular conversation that needed to happen whether he liked it or not. “How’s Jin?”
The grins faded, the expressions hardened, the eyes darkened and Hoseok felt the air leaving Jungkook’s body as his entire posture seemed to deflate as he walked.
“You know … he’s … he’s hanging on.”
Hoseok nodded absently, tightening his grip on the maknae’s shoulders. He hadn’t wanted to burden the kid with the reminder of their hyung’s predicament but at the same time, he had two years’ worth of information to catch up on and from the look of his now-dramatically-aged dongsaengs, a lot had changed.
“I’ll go and see him after school later. But I really need some sleep,” he muttered before Taehyung started spewing some excited garble about the new internship he’d gotten with a photographer.
And Hoseok felt his mouth stretch wide once more as he reminded himself that he was back with his brother and his friends and Jin was hanging on and his babies were all grown up and dating each other and things were finally going to get better.
--------------------
Hoseok found himself staring at the school building for so long that it felt like the entire world faded out around him. The only things that existed were him and the recollections that came flooding through his mind like the visual proof of the structure in front of him had burst the dam in his memory.
“Do we need to leave you two alone?” Jungkook poked and Hoseok snapped out of his reverie to jab his elbow into the kid’s ribs.
“I just never thought I’d be so happy to be back at school,” he smirked, gouging at his eyes with the tip of his fingers.
“Don’t complain, hyung,” Jungkook whined hypocritically, slipping his arm through Taehyung’s. “You got to go to California and dance with that choreographer you’ve been banging on about since forever, which apparently made you so busy that you couldn’t even pick up the phone.”
“Yeah …” Hoseok muttered, the sight of the two’s interlocked arms hitching a curve to his lips. He was glad they hadn’t tried to hide it from him.
“You know, you’re tired from the flight,” Taehyung interjected, his brow creasing with concern. “You can go home and sleep. Nothing happens on the first day back anyway.”
But before Hoseok could retort, he caught sight of a bundle of arms and legs curled up on a bench with a pink little nose buried in a book. He gaped for several moments while he processed the dramatic adaptation in the physique of the boy he hadn’t laid eyes on for twenty-four months.
He cupped his hands either side of his mouth and bellowed at the top of his lungs, relishing in the way his voice echoed off the school’s stone walls. “SO SHOW ME!”
The response was instantaneous and just as perfect as he’d hoped it would be.
The little nose shot right out of the book with lightning speed and eyes zapped the hustle and bustle of students around him as he searched for the source of the honing call. The second he found it, he was hurling his novel aside and scrambling off the bench with a glorious, sunny grin plastered over his face.
Hoseok barely made it three steps forwards before he was hit with a body’s full force, eliciting a grunt from his throat at the sudden contact. Legs wrapped around his waist, arms encircled his neck and a beaming face loomed inches from his, eyes sparkling as the newcomer screeched right in his face. “I’LL SHOW YOU!”
“Oh …” Hoseok sighed as he set his koala back on his feet, cupping the adorably chubby cheeks that he had always found so deeply endearing and squeezing at the pouty lips. “I missed you, Mochi.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were already here?” Jimin scolded, swatting pathetically at his hyung’s chest as he turned his accusatory stare to Taehyung and Jungkook. “I would have come to meet you at the airport.”
“I got in at 3am this morning,” Hoseok responded as he levelled his hand on top of Jimin’s head and drew a straight line from the fluffy mop to the height of his own collarbones. “Why are you still so short? Are you eating enough protein?”
Jimin opened his mouth to respond but before he could form his gasp of mock horror, someone collided with his back and he staggered forwards, hands instinctively fisting in Hoseok’s jumper to stop himself from falling.
“Oi!” Hoseok yelled after the figure rapidly retreating towards the school doors. Their head was down and their face was hidden by the hood pulled as far forward as it would go but he still caught a glimpse of white blonde hair protruding from under the black fabric.
“Leave it …” Jimin hummed, straightening his ruffled jacket and fastening his fingers around Hoseok’s wrist. “It was just an accident.”
“It was rude is what it was.”
It took all of his self-control to push aside his protective – not possessive, Tae – instincts and turn his full attention back to Jimin as he placed his hands on the skinny shoulders.
“Chim,” he said with a deadly serious expression on his face. “Please confirm what I already know which is that you are ten times smarter than both of these two combined and therefore you are still a virgin.”
Jimin’s expression was torn between mortification at the deeply personal invasion of his privacy and smugness at the affronted looks on his younger friends’ faces. There was a moment where his mouth opened and shut like a goldfish before he abruptly turned around and started striding back towards the bench he’d left his book on.
“No comment.”
“PARK JIMIN!”