Hate With Benefits | Jikook

Chapter Twenty Eight • Quid Pro Quo

For those who wanted more Taegi, here ya go! (buckle up)

Mild sexual content ahead

Yoongi isn't certain if he's still trapped in a dream or if the faint voice he hears is just in his head; a figment of his vivid imagination playing tricks on him, but there is something sweetly familiar in those deep, resounding words that cut through the waning ringing in his ears.

When his eyes flutter open, the first thing he realizes is that he's not alone.

"Oh, you're up, finally. I was starting to get worried."

Taehyung's breathy voice filters through the nauseating ache that still lingers in Yoongi's body as he gradually comes to. He feels frail as the world begins to slip back into focus, turning his head and blinking bleary eyes against the lights in the room. When he shifts he notices he's lying in a sheen of his own sweat, the leather of a somewhat familiar couch sticking to his body.

"Where..." He begins to ask, but his voice is weak and breaks off easily.

"My place," Taehyung answers in a calm, even tone that distracts Yoongi from the throbbing of his own pulse in his head.

He glances around and clears his throat. "You brought me here?" Taehyung gives a single nod. "Why?"

An incredulous scoff escapes the blond's lips. "You just straight up fainted in my car, what else was I supposed to do?" It's only when Taehyung extends his hand towards him that Yoongi realizes he's offering him a steaming mug, and shakily accepts it into his cold hands. "It's chamomile tea, good for colds."

"I don't have a cold," he mutters. The taste is perfectly bitter when he carefully sips the liquid just over the rim, but the temperature makes him wince a little. He no longer feels the urge to throw up, at the very least. "Too hot," he hisses. Still, his eyes drift shut in the next swallow, the burning tingle in the tip of his tongue a welcome change from the cold that's been wearing him out nearly all day. When his eyes fleet listlessly over his surroundings once more, he notices the small plate sitting on the table, a pair of bagels staring right back at him, taunting the rumble of his stomach. He feels his entire body contract at the sugary scent that assaults his senses, and promptly disregards the food.

"Well, I'd ask what's up with you so I could get you what you really need to feel better, but something tells me you'd just make up another lie to try to make me go away, so..."

Yoongi snaps his gaze up at him. Taehyung stands with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression somewhere between smug and apprehensive. He feels a prickle of guilt low in his stomach.

"You knew I was lying?"

"You're wearing long sleeves and sweatpants in the middle of summer, it doesn't take a genius to see it, hyung," the younger says flatly, offering half a smile. "And I've witnessed Jimin battling with an eating disorder long enough to see the signs."

The words hit Yoongi with a jolt like an electric shock.

"I don't have an eating disorder," he says with a tone of finality that is far too defensive, too obvious. But he doesn't have an eating disorder, that's not why he...

"I'm not saying you do. I'm saying I'm not too terrible at picking up on the little things."

He grows tense as Taehyung slips into the space next to him, his tender gaze nearly overthrowing all of Yoongi's logical thinking. The urge to press closer evades his mind with frightening emergence; wonders if his heart would stutter at the touch of his palm, if his own hands would disobey the rational half of his brain and graze the skin under the black shirt clinging to Taehyung's lean frame, rising to find the curve of his waist.