He doesn’t see Bambam for two whole hours afterwards. When the older of the two comes back, Yugyeom is just finishing up his Calculus homework and is contemplating going to go get takeout, because his hangover isn’t quite as bad anymore and he really, really craves fries. When Bambam comes back, he opens the door slowly, almost hesitantly, and he’s so quiet that Yugyeom doesn’t even notice he’s entered until the door shuts behind him. At the sound of the door, his head shoots up, and he thinks Bambam looks a bit like a deer in the headlights, unsure of what to do next. They stay like that for a moment, Bambam standing by the door and Yugyeom turned around in the slightest in his desk chair, before Bambam clears his throat.

“So, uh, you and Youngjae, huh? I can’t say I saw it coming.” Yugyeom winces and shakes his head, desperately wanting Bambam to understand.

“That’s not it. We were drunk. It would be like me saying you and Jungkook were a thing now.” Bambam flushes and looks away.

“I- I only started dancing with him because I thought you’d gotten tired of dancing with me, and he seemed like my type.” He sighs suddenly and flops onto one of the beds. “You don’t have to lie to me though, Yugyeom. I mean, now that I think about it, you guys are together a lot, and I guess you kind of fit each other.”

“Kunpimook,” his best friend looks up, surprised at the use of his real name, “Really, it’s not what you think. We’re still just friends. We just decided to drink and dance away our problems last night and I guess we managed to get ourselves another one.” Bambam was squinting at him, like he did when he was trying to figure something out for himself. Yugyeom wants to get mad at him, because he never said anything about Bambam’s flings. He’d caught Bambam and Jackson making out only months ago and never said anything about it. He’d never said anything about the fact that Bambam spent the night with Mark and came back with hickies. He’d never said or done anything, so what gave Bambam the right to pry into his business?

“I was just surprised… You never seemed to be interested in flings.” Yugyeom gives him a face, finally allowing himself to actually be angry at Bambam for once.

“I wasn’t aware that I had to check in with you.” Bambam sits up suddenly, eyes wide at the tone in Yugyeom’s voice. “I never ask you about the guys you get with, but as soon as I get with someone, you have to know? You have to say something?” He sighs as he stands, and it’s both angry and heartbroken. “Don’t act like you actually give a about me, not when all you want is attention. Don’t let me get my hopes up that you actually care. Let me live without having to think about you for once, Kunpimook. Since you never seem to think about me unless you need someone to cry to or play video games with.” Bambam’s just sitting there, staring at him in shock, and Yugyeom realizes that this is the first time he’s ever actually been mad at Bambam, the first time he’s voiced how angry he was feeling. And then he realized that he’d basically just voiced how he felt about Bambam, how he craved Bambam’s attention more than Bambam craved everyone else’s.

So he does the only thing he can think of to do: he runs. He turns tail and escapes the small confides of the room he shares with the man he’s been in love with since he met him in high school. He didn’t know what to do, everything just seemed like it was falling down around him and the tension that had been relieved the night before was creeping back into his sore shoulders. Somehow, he finds himself at a café, and he tells himself that he’ll just get lunch and calm down before heading back. He’ll tell Bambam that he was just feeling weird after what happened and Jackson had put him on edge.

He feels better after he’s ordered a sandwich and his second cup of coffee for the day, this time something sweeter. He’s in the middle of texting Jackson, who’s whining about what happened earlier that morning, when someone calls his name. When he looks up, he’s met with Jungkook’s handsome smile.

“Yugyeom, hey. Mind if I sit with you? It just got busy because it’s the lunch rush and I can’t find a place to sit. You know how I am.” Yugyeom, despite the fact that this was the guy who’d been dancing with the object of his affections last night, can’t tell Jungkook no, and he motions to the seat in front of him.

“Sure, go ahead and sit down.” Jungkook sends him a grateful smile that makes him look younger than usual and sits down gracefully. Yugyeom takes a sip of his coffee as Jungkook begins to eat his own sandwich and wonders if he should say anything or not. He’s still trying to decide when Jungkook starts talking.

“So, in case you were wondering, I didn’t do anything with Bambam last night.” Yugyeom blushes and looks down at the table, suddenly feeling shy, like he had back in high school. It was weird.

“Why do I need to know this?” Jungkook shrugs, all nonchalant.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him. I’m pretty sure everyone saw last night. Apparently, he just wanted to dance with me to get you jealous. Then you left with that other guy and he got frustrated and asked if we could get some more drinks. I took him home, but he passed out before we could do anything, not like I would have done anything to him in that state anyway.” He studies Yugyeom with that look on his face that Jaebum and Jinyoung have sometimes, like they’re thinking hard about something they’re just beginning to understand. “I thought you’d just want to know.” He shrugs again and takes another bite of his sandwich, leaving Yugyeom to look back down at his own sandwich.

“Thanks,” he mutters after a moment, taking a sip of his coffee afterwards and refusing to look up. But he knows Jungkook is smiling because the kid ing glows. He gives it another moment before looking back up. “So how are things with Taehyung going?” Now Jungkook’s the one suddenly blushing and looking away, and Yugyeom smiles, enjoying the sudden change in power.

-

He spends more than an hour talking to Jungkook before they both have to leave because they’ve been hanging around way too long and both of them have to do (when Yugyeom says he has things to do, Jungkook says “you have Bambam to do” and Yugyeom throws a napkin at him before bringing up Taehyung again). He’s on his way back to the dorms when he finally checks his texts from Jackson again, except now there’s texts from Jaebum, Jinyoung, and Mark too. And they all say about the same thing.

“What did you do to Bambam? He’s crying and he won’t go back to his dorm.” Yugyeom mentally curses, and wishes life was easier. Now that Bambam was crying, he was suddenly feeling guilty for telling him how he’d really been feeling. Maybe it would have been better for him to just lie and put on a smile. He’s thinking about calling Jungkook and asking if he can crash with him when his phone rings. It’s Youngjae.

“Where are you? You need to get yourself back here, because if I hear Bambam say that you hate him and I can have you one more time I’m going to scream.”

“Hello to you too, Youngjae. What the hell is even happening?” He can hear Youngjae roll his eyes.

“Bambam is crying, he has been for like an hour. I’m pretty sure you’ve been informed through the rest of the guys already. As happy as I am that you guys are finally getting your feelings out there, I don’t like watching other people cry and I swear I’m going to cry pretty soon if you don’t come fix this.”

“How am I supposed to fix it if I’m the one who made him cry in the first place?” There’s a groan of frustration, and he can hear Jaebum saying something in the background.

“Yugyeom, just get your back here before I come drag you here. I can’t stand it when people cry, at least think about me.” Yugyeom can see the dorm now, and he swallows thickly.

“Fine. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“He’s in Mark and Jackson’s room. Aaand now he’s saying something about me already having you whipped. Feels like déjà vu, you’d better hurry.”

“I will, okay?” The line goes dead, and Yugyeom stuffs the phone into his pocket with a sigh. He has no idea what he’s in for when he gets there, and that scares him.

-

I turns out he’s in for a run. As soon as he steps out of the elevator, Youngjae grabs him and drags him away towards Mark and Jackson’s dorm on the end, right next to Jaebum and Youngjae’s.

“I already showed him a picture of the guy I’m actually interested in, but he’s not believing me. Maybe you being here will help.”

“I doubt it. Also, when do I get to see this guy? Is he one of the ones from last night?” Youngjae shakes his head.

“The only thing you get from that is that I haven’t showed you a picture of him. Yeah, he was there. You’ll know him when I show you later, right now we have bigger problems on our hands.” As they near the room, Yugyeom can hear Jaebum’s voice, muffled by the walls. It turns out, when they open the door, that he’s just talking really loudly. When the two of them step in, Youngjae had already let go of Yugyeom’s wrist just in case, the room goes silent. Bambam doesn’t even sniffle when they lock gazes, although his eyes are red and swollen from crying and he has a pile of tissues by the bed. Suddenly, he looks away and hides his face, the tips of his ears turning red. Jinyoung makes a sound from where he’s seated next to him.

“Can you not? He came over here because you were crying, because he was worried about you, so can the two of you stop avoiding your problems and talk it out like the adults you are?” Jinyoung’s advice is good, in Yugyeom’s opinion, and he takes a tentative step towards Bambam, who peeks at him from between his fingers. Yugyeom’s heart skips when he notices that his nails still have bits of blue on them from when he had let Yugyeom paint them less than a week ago (for a dare, of course).

“Um, can we talk about this? But like, not here?” Mark is watching them, and he reminds Yugyeom of a worried father. If he wasn’t so nervous, he’d find it funny. “Back in our dorm?”

“You can tell me that you hate me here just fine,” Bambam mumbles, causing Yugyeom to groan and take the last few steps towards him so he can take him by the arms and pull him up.

“I don’t hate you, stupid. And I’m not going to talk about my feelings for you in front of all our friends, so come on.” Bambam looks reluctantly manhandled, but he stands and follows Yugyeom out the door, whining the whole way back to their dorm. Behind them, Yugyeom can hear Jackson saying something about ‘stupid young love’ and he feels better when Youngjae tells him to ‘shut up and be happy Bambam wasn’t crying anymore’.

When the door to their dorm is closed behind them, Yugyeom turns to look down at Bambam, who’s pouting up at him and honestly looks like a little kid who just let go of a balloon. He wants to smile at the look, or laugh because Bambam looks so ing cute all the time, but neither of those things would be appropriate, so he doesn’t. Instead, he begins to talk.

“Where did you get the idea that I hated you?” Bambam sniffs, arms crossed as he sits on his bed. Yugyeom sits beside him and waits for his answer.

“Well, because you sounded really pissed. I thought my teasing and trying to make you jealous had finally gone too far. I was scared you were in love with Youngjae and would want to switch roommates to be with him.” He’s still wearing his cute angry face, but Yugyeom can see his eyes glistening and he knows it’s real.

“I’d never hate you. Maybe, for once, your teasing did go too far, but I got mad at you because I never asked you once about what you did during the nights you didn’t come back to the dorm, and the one time I do it, and with someone you know, no less, you’re all over me. I guess I thought it wasn’t fair, especially since I love you and you never seemed to have interest in me other than in a friendly way.” Bambam’s eyes are comically wide again, and he’s staring up at Yugyeom with his mouth open slightly. It makes Yugyeom want to kiss him, although he refrains because he isn’t sure that would be the best thing to do in the situation.

“But I’ve been trying to get you jealous for years! You never seemed to care!”

“I cared, but I didn’t want to ruin our friendship if you weren’t interested in me! You never hinted at any sort of attraction!” Bambam is still staring, and then he’s laughing, and Yugyeom really doesn’t know what to do with him anymore.

“Oh my god, we’re both so stupid. I can’t believe neither of us said anything and just let it drag on.” What he’d said finally starts to click with Yugyeom, and then he’s staring, the beginnings of a smile forming on his face.

“So what you’re saying is that we feel the same way about each other?”

“I’d hope so, otherwise this would get really awkward and there would be a lot of ‘no-homo’ to be added.” Yugyeom laughs, mostly out of relief, and pulls his best friend turned something more into a hug. Bambam’s arms snake around him and squeeze tightly, like Bambam is afraid that he’ll disappear at any moment. And although Yugyeom really, really want to kiss him, he decides the hug was a long time coming, and buries his head in Bambam’s hair, content to enjoy the feeling of warmth spreading over his chest.

-

“So, you’re not allowed to do anything with Youngjae anymore.”

“I told you, we were drunk. If we’re going to talk about that, I’m not letting you anywhere near Jackson and Mark.”

“You don’t have to worry about them anymore, I’m pretty sure they’re pretty content with each other right now.”

“You don’t have to worry about Youngjae either; he’s been on my to get with you since I expressed interest in high school.”

“But it was just last night that you guys had .”

“It was heartbroken drunk , it doesn’t count.”

“Youngjae’s heartbroken?”

“Hmm… Do you know a guy named Hoseok?”

“The one that Youngjae showed me a picture of?”

“I knew he was the one. Heh, wait until I tell him I’ve figured it out.”

“Well, it’s better him than Jackson.”

“You just answered your own question about Youngjae being heartbroken, you know.”

“True…”

“See? Nothing to worry about.”

“… I’m still not allowing you to touch anyone but me for a while.”

“I’ll agree if you only touch me in return.”

“Okay, deal. Now give me a kiss.”

So here you go everyone, the last chapter. People seemed to want it, so I posted it. I hope you enjoyed this story~