“The planets are named after Roman Gods right?” on Taehyung’s latest adventure, he had traded a history grad student his Greek Cookbook for one on Roman gods.

“Yes,” Hoseok answered. He was reading the newspaper.

“Mars is the red planet, red like blood, blood is spilled during wars. Mars was the Roman god of war,” Taehyung mumbled, “What are some characteristics of Mercury?”

“It has the fastest orbit around the sun.”

“Mercury was the messenger of the gods, had wings on his ankle, was really fast. Okay, what about Pluto?”

Hoseok refrained from saying that Pluto wasn’t a planet, “It’s cold, dead, there are no signs of life on it.”

“God of the underworld, dead planet. Makes sense. What about Venus?”

“Venus, you can’t see the surface, the atmosphere is a haze of clouds that block the surface.”

“What else?”

Hoseok looked at Taehyung laying down on the floor, his eyes boring into the book. “Well,” he continued, “it’s the hottest planet. When we land rovers on the surface they rarely survive past the hour. It’s also the planet with the closest size to Earth’s.”

Taehyung hummed, “Venus is very aptly named.”

Hoseok sat down next to him, Taehyung curled closer and rested his head on Hoseok’s lap. “Why do you say that?” Hoseok asked.

“Venus was the goddess of love. Love is passionate, intense, it heats up your body and makes your heart race a thousand miles a minute,” Taehyung continued staring at the page, “But it burns you know? Like if you love someone, and they don’t love you back, it breaks you. And you can see it, love is something intangible, but you know it exists, like Venus’s surface. You don’t see it, but you know it’s a solid planet. It’s the most accurately named planet.”

Hoseok nodded, he threaded his fingers through Taehyung’s hair, “You do realize they didn’t know these things when they named the planet.”

Taehyung looked up, finally, and smiled, his eyes disappearing into black crescents, “then someone made a lucky guess.”

“Lucky guess, huh?” Hoseok began tickling Taehyung sides. Taehyung laughed and protested but once free, he retaliated. They war ended when Taehyung’s touches went from harsh tickles to soft lingering and Hoseok’s hand threaded through his hair. Sun bleached hair, tongue pouty lips, wary eyes, Taehyung gazed up at Hoseok. He swallowed. Taehyung leaned in, closing the short distance between them.

Hoseok wondered if Taehyung knew what affects he had. How when they went walking, everyone would stare at him. Hoseok would grip his hand tighter when he saw those stares. He wondered if Taehyung knew what affect Taehyung had on him. How his heart would race a mile a minute when they were close. How easy it was to sleep when Taehyung was warm in his arms. Or how he would finally himself returning home from work, smiling and thinking to himself, no one should be this happy on a Tuesday.

Or how, when they were tangled up together, Hosoek’s body would heat up with every whine Taehyung made. How he would bite Hoseok’s lip when he felt they weren’t working fast enough. The worst was when Taehyung would grip his forearms, he only did that when he was desperate. Hoseok would comply to any need, as long as Taehyung would press thumbs on the planets on Hoseok’s arms.

Now, whenever Taehyung grips his forearm, Hoseok would find himself inexplicably aroused. All because of that damn Kim Taehyung.

~~

Hoseok ran into Yoongi’s work area and slammed his hand down on the table, interrupting Yoongi’s calculations.

“Look!”

Yoongi grabbed the post card Hoseok left on the desk, “What am I looking at?”

He saw a photo of ducks, wearing bowties, waddling through what looked like a hotel lobby.

“It was in my mailbox this morning,” Hoseok beamed, “Taehyung sent it to me.”

Yoongi flipped the card over, in messy handwriting it read They wouldn’t let me walk the ducks. I had to wash dishes instead. Followed by a frowning face, signed Taehyung.

“How do I know this is real?”

“That’s his signature.”

“How do I know you didn’t send this to yourself to prove your imaginary boyfriend exists?”

Yoongi laughed when Hosoek slapped his arm. It didn’t matter if Yoongi thought it was fake, because Hoseok knew. He knew that Taehyung thought about him even when he was in a different state. The thought had Hoseok smiling at his desktop all week.

~~

Hoseok securely wrapped the scarf around Taehyung’s neck. “Is that better?” he asked.

Taehyung groaned.

Hoseok laughed, “That’s what you getting for coming in January.”

“I wanted to be the first thing you saw this year, I didn’t know Wyoming would be so cold,” Taehyung huffed.

“Why do you think no one lives here,” Hoseok’s opened the passenger door to his Honda.

“Because on the map, Wyoming is a square and doesn’t have a football team,” Taehyung ducked into car.

Hoseok shook his head and climbed into the driver’s seat.

This morning, Hoseok had woken up to black hair, long eyelashes and pink lips. He pulled Taehyung, startling the younger man awake, and peppered his face with kisses. Taehyung protested, but his shoves had no strength. The morning was spent recounting Taehyung’s adventures in Colorado, that’s where he dyed his hair, and desperate touches. It more than made up for Yoongi’s terrible Christmas party.

Technically it was Hoseok’s day off since the University was still on winter break, but this was the first time Taehyung was visiting him during his vacation. Taehyung had never seen the labs before, and Hoseok had never had someone to show off their high powered telescope too. Well, there were the high school tour groups, but those kids were brats who only cared about rovers and rocket ships.

The drive to the observatory was slow, the roads were covered in ice, but Hoseok insisted on the trip. After some persuasion, Taehyung agreed to go. “I’ve never seen you so excited.”

“This is my research Taehyung, why wouldn’t I be excited?”

“I wish you would be half as enthusiastic with me.”

That’s because when you come to my house I’m relieved. It means that you haven’t grown bored of me yet, and found some reason to come back. Instead of wasting energy shouting, I would rather use it to hold you, and love you, so that hopefully you’ll keep returning again and again.

But Hoseok didn’t say that.

Hoseok stretched his arm across the space between and held on to Taehyung’s hand and threaded their fingers together. Taehyung tightened his grip, Hoseok smiled.

They trip was spent in silence, Hoseok carefully maneuvered through the ice on the road, and finally they arrived.

“It’s huge,” Taehyung remarked, cheeks tinted pink and breath coming out in small white puffs.

Hoseok grabbed his hand again, “Wait until you see the inside.”

It was colder inside, but still impressive.  Inside the silver dome was the two and a half meter telescope mounted on a giant stand.

“Because of the snow, we can’t open up the dome. The humidity can damage the telescope.”

“What does it see?”

“It tracks whatever we tell it to, there are three computers connected to it. One is here and two are in the other building. You send commands through the desktop computer and this baby tracks it. For example, I study white dwarfs, so if I want to look at Sirius B, I type in the location to the desktop, the desktop sends it to the supercomputer, the supercomputer sends it to WIRO and WIRO moves to see the star,” Hoseok explained, “if you look here you can see how it moves.”

“It’s huge,” Taehyung half whispered.

“Yeah, it is,” Hoseok stared up at the telescope.

He broke out of his trance when he felt Taehyung rest against his shoulder. “You were gone Hobi,” he teased.

“Sorry.”

“Chasing stars.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok half laughed, “Come on, let’s look at some photos.”

Hoseok showed the galleries of photos the telescope took, and the ones they borrowed from the Hubble. He explained galaxies, and white dwarves, and red giants, and smiled when Taehyung stared bright eyed at the screen, commenting on the colors and lights.

It was below zero degrees Fahrenheit, but they were warm.

~~

Hoseok isn’t naïve. He doesn’t think he’s special.

Taehyung slept with him after one date. He probably does that with every stranger with a warm bed and the promise of food.

But one day, he met someone who knew Taehyung.

It was a coincidence really. Hoseok was walking downtown for once, he remembered the surprise bus trip he and Taehyung shared, and found an art festival happening around him. On the pavement, students were drawing impossible art with chalk. Hoseok began talking to one of them, a kid with a cigarette dangling from his lips who was drawing a large red and gold foo dog.

“They’re for luck,” the kid explained, “for those who need it.”

“Everyone needs it,” Hoseok smiled.

The kid’s name was Jungkook, a street artist who dropped out of college during his second year.

“It was suffocating me. All the structure and rules were clouding me, I couldn’t concentrate at all. My parents, you know the kind, overbearing Asian ones, they wanted me to go to law school and become a judge. They wanted their son, Jeon Jungkook, to be the first Korean judge on the American Supreme Court,” he lit another cigarette.

“What was the last push?”

Jungkook smiled, “I drove south for Spring Break, and there I met Kim Taehyung. God Hoseok he was beautiful, like a Michaelangelo sculpture come to life. I fell in love with the guy. I told him everything about school, my parents, lawyers, and how all I wanted to do was draw forever. Then he asked, why don’t you? I told him it was because of my parents. Then he reminded me that I was a legal adult, and that I could do what I want, whatever makes me happy.”

Hoseok could see Taehyung lying down with a lazy smile on his face saying that. Hoseok smiled, “That’s good advice. Do you still keep in touch?”

“Nope. Three crazy weeks in Florida. Never saw or heard from him again.”

Hoseok stayed silent. He didn’t mention the postcards that Taehyung has started to send him, or the emails from random addresses with his photos attached, and he certainly didn’t tell him about how every time Taehyung gets bored of one place, he returns to Hoseok’s house and stays for a month or more.

Jungkook blew out a puff of smoke, “I was in love with the guy. But you can’t trap wind in a bamboo cage.”

No, you can’t. But you can keep a bird in a metal one. And if you treat it nicely, and leave the cage unlocked, the bird will fly in and out freely.

That was the first time Hoseok thought of the beautiful possibility of a maybe.

~~

Hoseok was lying down on the couch, reading the newspaper. His fingers carded through Taehyung’s hair.

“It is the star to ev’ry wandering bark,” Taehyung recited from his book of Shakespeare sonnets, “Do you know what that means?”

“Sure I do. Dogs say bark right?

“Dumbbutt. A bark is a ship. Before there were GPSs sailors used maps and compasses, and when they didn’t have maps they would use stars. Polaris was always north, so they knew how to get home just by following the star.”

“Thank god we have Google maps now.”

“You’re just like them, Hobi. Always chasing after stars.”

“What about you? What do you chase?”

Taehyung smiled, “Adventure.”

He put down his book and climbed onto Hoseok’s lap. Hoseok got the message and ditched the newspaper.

~~

Taehyung had been travelling in and out of Hoseok’s house for six years. Granted, the times he would stay were starting to become longer than the times he would leave, but the house was still too empty when he wasn’t in it.

“Go on a date with a sane person,” was Yoongi’s advice when Hoseok would complain.

“Nope. The house is mine and Taehyung’s, even when he doesn’t pay rent.”

“You’re delusional Hoseok,” Yoongi said while shifting through a broken meteorite, “If he hasn’t moved in yet, do you really think he will?”

“One of these days he will,” Hoseok answered. He heard chirping through the window.

“No he won’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life waiting for someone who only goes to you when it’s convenient for him.”

“He’s always here during the winter, that’s not convenient for him.”

“All he’s doing is hiding from the snow.”

The chirping got louder.

“Hoseok as your friend, I think you should get rid of him. The next time he shows up at your door or leave, and never come back. Damn it birds shut up!”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“For once in your life, grow a spine and do what’s best for you.” Yoongi continued sifting through the sample.

Hoseok stared down at his microscope, contemplating Yoongi’s words.

~~

To be honest, Hoseok was prepared to give Taehyung the stay or leave speech, he really was. He wrote it down, listed all of the reasons why it was beneficial for them to live together, practiced it in front of the mirror, he was ready. Except that the next time he heard Taehyung was through a shaky voicemail left on his cellphone from his landline. And when Hoseok finally got home, he was welcomed with an armful crying Taehyung.

“She’s gone. Hobi, she’s gone!” Taehyung cried into his shoulder.

Hoseok held him tighter. The speech can wait.

They woke up tangled in each other, Hoseok wiped the tears from Taehyung’s face.

“Taehyung, who’s gone?”

Taehyung curled further into him, “My sister.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet?”

That’s okay. Because Hoseok would be there to comfort him.

He took the week off from work, he had built up enough sick days in case of an emergency.

They spent it watching movies, watching the night sky, walking around the seemingly endless field behind Hoseok’s house, and playing with Hoseok’s new canary.

“His name is Orion.”

“Of course it is,” Taehyung smiled, he whistled at the bird, the bird sang back.

He didn’t ask when  Hoseok bought it. And if Taehyung noticed that the color of the feathers were an eerily similar shade of gold as his own hair, he didn’t mention it.

In the fourth month, Taehyung talked willingly.

“Emily was the youngest, the only child born from my mom and my dad. My bio dad left when my mom was pregnant, and my mom remarried before I started making memories. My brothers and I had too big of an age difference, they felt more like cousins than brothers. Emily and I- we grew up together.”

“What was she like?” Hoseok asked.

“She was sunshine, she was always smiling. She burned easily, that’s what she gets for having an Irish dad and Korean mom. But she loved being outside so her cheeks were always red.

You know how my dad was a soldier, we were always moving. She was my best friend, the only one who lived in all of those cities with me. The years before I graduated high school, we lived on an American base in Germany. My dad wanted to travel everywhere since he would be retiring soon. My mom hated those three years,” he smiled, “but Emily loved them. We went to Ireland, England, France, Italy, all the popular places. Then we went to the more obscure ones.”

Taehyung pulled something out of his pocket and placed it in Hoseok’s hand, a coin with a hole in it that was tied on a leather string. “She made that. It’s a Danish five kroner coin. She said it was too pretty to be used as money. She loved beautiful things, she was always getting lost in Art museums, or burying herself in books of poetry. She got a bachelor’s degree in English and was teaching at a high school in Oregon.”

Taehyung got quiet. Hoseok wrapped an arm around Taehyung and turned the coin in one hand. “I went to San Francisco for the first time in four years. And the first thing my mom does is slap me. She shouted and asked why I did I get there now? Why wasn’t I there four months ago? There was a shooting at her high school, and she stopped a bullet to protect her kids.”

Taehyung began crying, he curled further into Hoseok.

“She was my little sister, she was supposed to outlive us all.”

Hoseok didn’t know how to act in moments like this. So he hugged Taehyung, and his hair, and offered all of the comfort he could give. Taehyung cried himself to sleep that night. And many other nights after that. But Hoseok was always there.

Even when he had work he was there.

He would lock himself in one of the bathroom stalls and call his phone, he left silly messages, complained about work, made up stories.

And when he was home, he would kiss Taehyung all of the time. Taehyung would lay down on the couch and Hoseok would kiss his forehead. Or they would watch a movie, hands interlocked, and Hoseok would kiss the back of Taehyung’s hand. But when Hoseok kissed Taehyung’s wrist, that’s when Taehyung’s face would turn red with embarrassment.

One morning, Taehyung tried to make omelettes, tried.

“How could you up this much?” Hoseok laughed as he peeled egg from the ceiling.

“I was trying to flip it like those chefs on the cooking shows do,” Taehyung laughed as we swept tomatoes from the floor.”

“Seriously,” Hoseok laughed harder, so hard he fell of the chair.

Taehyung was smiling more. It was slow but he was healing. And he was becoming more ‘touchy feely’. Taehyung had always been clingy, he would hang off shoulders, grip arms, play at torsos, but now he was grabbing onto Hoseok more often.  When they went shopping, when Hoseok was driving, when they were lying down looking up at the stars.

Hoseok did coax him into going to the bar one afternoon. They ran into Yoongi there. Yoongi was so surprised that Taehyung was a real person that he called Nam Joon, and Nam Joon brought Seokjin, and they all met Taehyung. He had one hand gripped on Hoseok’s forearm the whole time. But when they drove back home, he was smiling.

“Your friends are great,” he whispered into Hoseok’s neck.

Hoseok got lulled into a false sense security when they reached the ninth month and Taehyung hadn’t left yet. But before the tenth ended, Taehyung slipped away once again.

AN: Hoseok works at WIRO it's a giant Infared telescope. Here's a tour of it. Why WIRO? Bc I wanted the setting to be one of those obscure widwestern states and Wyoming is actually the least populated state in all of the USA.  No people= no polution = perfect for star gazing. In this story, Hoseok does his graduate school work there and just never leaves. 

The hotel Taehyung sent a postcard from is the Peabody hotel in Memphis Tennessee. They are famous for marching ducks to and from the fountain in the lobby

Foo dog statues, Foo dog drawings Jungkook is very talented is he can make that out of chalk.

Danish five kroner coins are pretty and big enough to make a cool necklace.

Next part will be the last part, now I have to finish that paper I've been procrastinating on.