You climbed into Yoongi's black car a little awkwardly, legs pressed together tightly and hands sandwiched between your thighs in order to fight off the chill from your concrete building and the outside. Noticing this Yoongi reached forward and turned up the heat a little.
"You should feel a little warmer in a minute," he assured you gently before maneuvering away from the curb to join the main roads in your part of town.
"Thank you," you mumbled quietly and he glanced in your direction.
"Actually, I should be thanking you. I know that Jimin probably warmed you to keep away from me but... you're giving me a chance to explain myself."
"Should I not?"
"I'm glad you are, most people would listen to their best friend," he shrugged as he pulled into a spot in front of your colleges local diner.
A strangely popular location you acknowledged.
"Well he's not given me much reason to listen to him as of late," you mumbled and he gave you an almost sad look before exiting the vehicle; it was as if he didn't believe you deserved to go through what you did yesterday evening.
While you pondered on that particular look he gave you, he came to open your door for you, he smiled sweetly and held his hand out to help you out of the car. You blushed while he helped you out and then interlaced your fingers as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Have you eaten?" He asked tentatively as he lead you across the small sandy carpark to the neon light building.
"No, not yet," you shook your head and he smiled brightly when he held the door open for you.
"Perfect." Yoongi lead you both to a booth with a view of the carpark and handed you a menu from the end of the table. "Get whatever you're hungry for, darling."
You looked at him for a moment to see how serious he was but considering he was completely enthralled by the contents of his own menu, you figured he meant it and wasn't just saying it to be polite. Still though, you kept your eyes to something a little cheaper; it wasn't your money so you felt bad spending it.
"Good evening, you guys ready to— oh, Yoongi? Could've text you were coming, you know?" You looked up at the waiter when he replaced his scripted sentence with something way more informal.
"My bad, it was last minute," he told the guy who looked to be a few years older. You grew shy and fiddled with your sleeves in your lap. You didn't bother listening into their conversation until you heard your name. "This is my date, Yn."
You stared at Yoongi with wide eyes while he looked back with a gummy grin.
"It's nice to see this one bring a girl here, the closest he's gotten is our mom," the older guy laughed and it was reminiscent of Yoongi's. You chuckled at the boys expense until he was blushing and half-heartedly shoving, who you now knew was, his brother away.
"Dude, stop," he deadpanned and you bit back your grin.
"Okay, okay! Sorry, what can I get you guys?" Yoongi glanced skyward before looking at you to let you answer first.
"Can I have a glass of water and some Mac n cheese?" You asked politely and your waiter nodded while scribbling the order down, next he tuned to Yoongi and waited for his order.
"Uhm, I'll have a cheese burger and a coke, get us a coffee and a hot chocolate too thanks."
Once his brother left, Yoongi took your menu and put it back in the holder along with his.
"You still look a little cold so I figured you'd like something hot," he explained lowly and you blushed.
"You remembered I like hot chocolate?"
"Well yeah, you always got one from the machine when we practiced. Especially this time of year," he was right. You'd always grab a hot chocolate from the machines in your rec center after practice.
"It was just something I remember seeing you do," he explained and you pulled your lips into you smile while nodding. He looked insanely nervous and it was cute, you liked it.
"So, this is a date, huh?" You asked cheekily after you were brought your hot drinks.
Yoongi's cheeks warmed once again and he tried to hide the fact by focusing on the sugar packet he tore open to pour into his drink.
"That kind of just slipped out," he answered sheepishly and he almost got away with it until you caught his mumble. "If this were a date I'd take you somewhere special."
"Like where?" You asked curiously before sipping your drink.
"Huh?"
"Where would you take me if we were going on a real date?" The question seemed to catch Yoongi by surprise and he took a moment to catch up.
"Oh." He paused and hen gave you an easy smile. "Well what kind of things do you like?"
"I like spontaneity, I'm an animal lover and I like the outdoors." You thought a little longer, "I have a sweet tooth and I'll try anything once," you finalized your answer with a nod and he gazed at you fondly.
"Perfect, that makes my ideal date to take you on easy," you giggled at his sudden confidence and decided to feed into it a little.
"Oh, it does? Why's that?" You sat forward a little and held your head in your palm, patiently awaiting his response.
"I'd take you to the little cabin my family own in the mountains, we have horses there so I'd let you meet them both. Coco would probably let you ride her too, then I'd cook us dinner and you could help me make cupcakes because I have a feeling those are your favourites and I suck at baking." He grinned at you while scratching the back of his neck and you blushed.
You didn't expect that kind of answer, it sounded like he'd genuinely thought about it and what would make you happy.
"I think I'd like a date like that," you told him quietly and he suddenly looked up.
"Let me take you next weekend. I think it would be nice," he chuckled and then held his hands up to show his innocence. "I promise I won't try anything, unless you want me to," he winked and your cheeks reddened.
"Here you go, one Mac n cheese and one cheese burger," Yoongi's brother returned with your food and you thanked him before he left to tend to the other patrons.
You took a moment to look around and you noticed that most of the tables on this cold Sunday evening were made up of groups of students studying for the upcoming week of classes or talking animatedly about the weekend.
You wondered if Yoongi had brought you here for a reason or if it was just coincidental. He must have known it would have been full of people you both went to school with, even his brother worked here, it couldn't have been unplanned. But with the way he dedicated his attention to his burger you stopped thinking about it, seeing Yoongi smile so brightly around his mouthful was a much better distraction.
Over dinner, Yoongi asked about your family and how you'd been since last seeing each other. You told him you'd been okay and that you had just decided to focus on school and helping your family with their bookstore until you moved a little further away from home in order to be more independent.
In those years, Yoongi told you that he had buckled down on his producing and frequented an underground club that hosted rap battles, most of which he'd boastfully told you he'd won.
You really had forgotten how good it felt to be around this boy. You wondered if you'd made a mistake not keeping in contact but you were happy to be where you are now.
Once you were both done Yoongi ordered two more hot drinks to go and then he lead you back to the car. You realized then that you were yet to talk about the real problems but it made sense that Yoongi didn't want to do it somewhere so crowded.
"Where are we going?" You asked anxiously and he leaned forward to point to a close by mountain.
"Up there, it's a nice place to chat," you nodded and watched the dark foliage pass by until the car came to a stop at a clearing.
Again, Yoongi got out on his side and rounded the car to open the door for you, after you were stood beside him he leaned in to take the to-go cups and motioned for you to follow him to the hood of the car.
"I like to come up here at night when I can't sleep and need to just relax," he explained while helping you onto the bonnet of his car.
"I can see why, it's beautiful up here," you said lowly, watching the tendrils of your breath accumulate right under your nose until you breathed them back in and your eyes focused on the twinkling lights of the city.
The quiet of the night made the scenery that much more beautiful and you turned to look at Yoongi who was already watching your reaction. You grew shy and thanked the heavens that it probably wasn't light enough to see your blush.
"So, I guess there's some explaining to do, huh?" You nodded and folded your arms over your chest in order to warm your hands up under your armpits.
"Yeah, there is," you agreed and he took a moment to order his thoughts. Before he started, he passed you your hot chocolate and you warmed your hands up on the paper cup.
"You deserve to know the truth Yn. Which means I won't lie to keep you happy, but I will be here to help make it better if you let me." You readied yourself for the heartache that was inevitable at this point and waited for Yoongi to continue. "Jimin doesn't feel about you the same way you do about him. He's a complete idiot but I don't think he sees the way you look at him."
Neither of you looked at each other, you kept your gaze on the cup in your lap and out of your peripheral vision you could see Yoongi was looking at the city.
"I remember seeing your face when we'd leave practice together— it would always light up when you saw Jimin's car waiting to pick you up and you just always had this sparkle in your eyes when you spoke about him. It kind of hurt to be honest because that's exactly how I felt about you."
You lifted your head to look at the blonde beside you, but you didn't say anything for fear of making him realize what he was saying. After a short break to let the words settle he continued.
"I don't think he would have told you but I asked him if you guys were dating all of those years ago because I wanted to ask you out. Even though I was in my freshman year of college and you were still a junior—" he sighed. "I don't know, I just always wanted to be around you and you didn't even seem to notice, ironic, huh?" His chuckled died down and you realized it sounded sad.
"I'm sorry," you whispered but you felt him shake his head.
"Don't be, I didn't exactly make my feelings obvious, I didn't even get a chance to."
"Why not?"
"Jimin told me to stay away from you, said he was figuring out his feelings and out of respect I stayed back."
You took a moment to think back on before you left your team. The reason being that you just stopped enjoying the sport, because Yoongi stopped playing it with you. The after practice practices stopped, he stopped making you his first pick during friendly games, he stopped smiling in your direction before throwing you the ball.
After that the game stopped being fun. Now you knew the reason behind that was your own best friend and it stung. He inadvertently took away something you loved.
"Then a few weeks later I caught him hooking up with a girl at the frat. When I confronted him about it and told him I was going to speak to you, we fought and then the next day the captain said you'd quit the team."
What a horrible coincidence of timing; if you had stayed just one practice longer your life could have been completely different.
"I wanted to look for you but I couldn't find you anywhere online and eventually I gave up and things went back to how they were before I met you," he sounded saddened by that and so were you; life did eventually just go back to a normal before Yoongi was in it for you too.
"Jimin hooks up with girls all the time, more now that he's in college. He never told you and I don't know if it's because he doesn't know you're in love with him and just doesn't see a need to or because he doesn't want to be the one to break your heart. The idiot's good at hiding them and keeping the girls quiet, I'll give him that—" you felt sick to your stomach thinking about all the girls your best friend had kissed, all the girls he had taken to his room and done God knows what with, so you quickly changed the subject to another biting question.
"Who's Amy?" You croaked.
"Amy?" He parroted and you nodded before bringing your rabidly cooling hot chocolate to your lips. "Amy was Jimin's first girlfriend," he explained quietly.
You felt shards of glass tearing up your heart but you didn't let it show, you remained quiet so that he'd finish his explanation.
"Things where good between the pair until they had a fight at a party we held. Me and Amy where in the same History class so we were a little closer than she was with the other guys and when she came to me crying I took her up to my room to calm her down but we were both drunk and things escalated. She told me she'd broken up with Jimin and I believed her."
You swallowed thickly and moved your eyes to Yoongi's hands which he nervously fiddled with. Feeling bad for him you put your cup down and took his hands in yours. He seemed a little shocked by the gesture but he sent you a grateful smile nonetheless and squeezed your hand in return.
"Jimin found out and blamed you."
"I don't blame him, I should never have slept with her but it just kind of happened." He sighed and then you felt the weight of his head on your shoulder. "She ended up going back to America because she was called horrible stuff and for that, Jimin never forgave me. That's my track record with girls so I don't blame him for wanting me to stay away from you, I guess even if he doesn't love you romantically he still loves you as a best friend and doesn't want me to hurt you."
"Would you hurt me?" The question left your lips before you even had a moment to think about it and while you panicked, Yoongi interlaced your fingers and shook his head against your shoulder.
"I'd give you the world," he whispered and you rest your head on his while his response hung in the air.