Tell Me Without Telling Me || Sope

Chapter Forty-Three

For awhile he dozes himself, periodically heaving himself away from the curtains of sleep hanging over him. At first, he can't remember why he's doing this. He should just sleep if he needs to. Yoongi's asleep. Namjoon might be asleep too. He doesn't know what time it is anymore, but it comes to him eventually and he lifts a hand that feels heavy as a rock to find his phone. 

Seokjin picks up on the fifth ring. "Hey, Hoseok-ah. What's the tea?"

"The what?" Hoseok mumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"You know, the tea, the gossip, the dirt—news, Hoseok-ah, what's been going on? Have you got a cold? You sound like you have a cold—how did you get a cold in the summer? Isn't it boiling over there? The weather forecast said you could fry an egg on the pavement."

"Why'd you know the weather over here?" Hoseok asks, bemused and too tired to think back on the other things Seokjin asked.

"I keep tabs on it. Korea is my home country, after all, it wouldn't be right if I didn't. It's very unpatriotic not to check the weather."

"You don't check the weather to be a good patriot. That's ridiculous."

"It is," Seokjin concedes airily, "but that's what I do. What can I say? I'm just the best." He sighs.

Hoseok laughs softly. "Sure."

"Don't 'sure' me. Seriously, what's up with your voice?"

"My voice? I've been sleeping."

"It's barely four in the afternoon there," Seokjin says, somehow managing to sound indignant over this fact.

Hoseok snorts. "You know the time too? What don't you know?"

"The colour of your underwear, the secrets of time and space, how to make a perfect first pancake. The usual things. Why were you sleeping?"

"I was tired," Hoseok says, stifling a yawn. "It's been a long day."

"Really? Longer than usual?"

"Yeah. My underwear's black."

"It's a little bit gay to tell your bro the colour of your underwear."

Hoseok hmms, heart sinking ever so slightly. "True."

"Although," Seokjin muses, "it might have been gayer of me to bring up the colour of your underwear in the first place. Funny, that, isn't it? Very gay indeed."

"I think it takes more than talking about underwear to make you gay," Hoseok says, trying not to let the defensiveness bleed into his voice.

"Of course it does," Seokjin says seriously. "You have to like... balls and stuff."

Hoseok giggles. "I wouldn't have known that otherwise. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm a treasure trove of gay knowledge."

"Yeah, you sound like an expert."

"Well..." Seokjin says, loudly and almost uncertainly, "I wouldn't call myself an expert, I'm pretty new to this gay thing if you want the honest truth. It's one hell of a thing to discover."

Hoseok glances over at Yoongi's sleeping form. Yoongi's face is turned towards him, one cheek smushed against the pillow. "Yeah, it is. Y-you'll get there, though. I said some dumb stuff when I first met everyone. It... took awhile to not be stupid."

"Did you just call me stupid?"

"Hyung..."

"Okay, fine, subject change. What made this day so long?"