#yoontaeseok

It takes until about halfway through the evening for Yoongi to realize this is a date-date.

And that probably makes him a massive idiot but whatever. How was he supposed to know? They’ve invited him out to do stuff plenty of times before. He’s gone out with them plenty of times before. But never…gone out, right? Crap have the other outings been dates too? There’s no way. Right? He can’t possibly be that dense.

And now it’s been a solid thirty seconds since Hoseok stopped talking, since he’d said thanks for actually saying yes, TaeTae was really nervous you might reject him. Which, okay, whatever, Tae gets nervous sometimes. He messes up his words and he’s not always clear but Yoongi’s never rejected him before so why would it be a concern now? But then he’d followed up with, he’s had a crush on you forever and he thought I’d be mad, it was really cute!

And…silence. Yoongi’s been processing. Coming to realizations. (Sort of. Okay Hoseok basically flat-out said this was a date but it still counts as a realization.) But still he has no idea what the hell to say. Is he supposed to say something?

“Uhh…” He’s definitely supposed to say something better than that. So he laughs quietly, watches Taehyung over Hoseok’s shoulder, several feet off chatting up a woman in line behind him and grinning brighter than the sun at the baby in her arms. “Um. Hobi–”

“Oh. You didn’t…Shit, did he not…” Hoseok sighs, shoulders slumping. “Dammit Tae. He didn’t tell you.”

“No, he didn’t,” Yoongi says. “He has a crush on me?”

“Mm.”

“And you’re…not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?” Hoseok looks downright offended by the implication. “You’re not ugly. He could do worse.”

“I am so fucking lost right now.” His gaze drifts back to Taehyung, now walking toward them again and clutching two snow cones in one hand with his face practically buried in the third in his other hand.

Taehyung is precious and adorable and also incredibly handsome. But these are thoughts Yoongi doesn’t allow himself to think. Taehyung has Hoseok, he’s had Hoseok since they were all in high school. Probably before that, considering how enamoured Taehyung had been of Hoseok in elementary school. They’re a permanent duo; no one mentions one without the other. Their relationship is enviable and maybe it aids in Yoongi’s impossibly high dating standards.  He wants what they have. Everyone he knows wants what they have.

What they have is soft and sweet and gentle but he knows there are hard edges to them, times when it’s not so gentle and not so soft and Yoongi definitely does not allow himself to think about those. He sees the scratches and bites and bruises, mostly on Taehyung, and he elects not to focus on them. Not in any publicly acceptable capacity.

He really wants what they have.

But not once over the years has he considered Taehyung liked him. Taehyung’s just as clingy and silly and warm with everyone. He doesn’t treat Yoongi any differently. It’s just how Taehyung is. Although well now that he thinks about it, maybe Taehyung does drift to him most often outside of Hoseok. Maybe Taehyung’s fingers linger a little longer on Yoongi’s skin. Maybe he’d chalked it up to wishful thinking.

“Banana is the worst flavor, hyung,” Taehyung says as he holds a snow cone out to Yoongi. The tip of his nose is stained red, as are his lips, and Yoongi focuses on his cone instead. “So I got you raspberry instead.”

“You can’t just change people’s orders, TaeTae,” Hoseok chuckles. Taehyung may as well be sitting in Hoseok’s lap. There’s a brief tussle as Hoseok tries to take a bite from Taehyung’s cone rather than his own, but it ends with Hoseok as the victor. As usual. “Maybe he doesn’t want raspberry.”

“Raspberry’s fine,” Yoongi says.

Taehyung gives a satisfied hum and feeds more of his strawberry cone to Hoseok. It’s hot out, way hotter than September should be. Why is no one else complaining about the heat? It’s stifling.

“What are we riding next?” Hoseok asks as he starts to play in Taehyung’s strawberry blond hair. “And by we I mean you two because I’m not going on anything that takes me off the ground.”

“I want to ride the one with the–” Taehyung stops and gestures with his free hand, wiggling it around.

“Himalaya?” Hoseok and Yoongi say at the same time. Taehyung smiles so widely his face might actually break.

“Hey, after this–do you maybe want to come back to our place?” Hoseok asks.

Yoongi really cannot understand why no one’s whining about the fact that the air is now at least seven hundred degrees. He can hardly breathe, it’s so stifling. Not breathing means not talking, and all he can do is think about every question in there that Hoseok didn’t ask, not directly, that he’d be answering anyway.