Summary: Two times Hoseok failed at apologizing and one time he succeded.

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Has the dearest reader ever met someone and felt the uncontrollable urge to just buy them a toaster for their bathtub? Because that was precisely how Min Yoongi felt when he first came face to face with Jung Hoseok. Yoongi buried that thought, since he wasn’t about to waste brain energy on someone he would barely see (how hard could it be to ignore your downstairs neighbour's entire existence? Hard) much less interact with.

Little did Yoongi know that fate could be compared to a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. Somehow Yoongi’s fate waiters kept on bringing Jung Hoseok to him, which left him seriously considering complaining to the manager (which most certainly would only worsen his situation).

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(18:47 - Monday) Hoeseok:

Hi there

Look,

I’m sorry

How about we just forget what’s happened ever happened and we go back to having fun like we did in the karaoke?

(20:35) Hoeseok:

Still waiting for your reply...

Oh come on...what happened simply wasn’t my fault...how did you expect me not to look into the flash drive?

[Block Hoeseok? Blocked contacts will no longer be able to message you.]

[You have successfully blocked user Hoeseok]

Mistakes are made easily in the moment. Apologies are not.

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[Tuesday]

A full day of classes, of working on remastering some songs on the studio and of a part-time job brought an extra tired-of-humans Yoongi back home after midnight to find someone sitting in front of his door. The person was resting their head on their knees, which were being hugged by their arms, leaving only a mop of jet black hair to be seen. Said person startled awake upon hearing Yoongi’s steps approaching and the keys jiggling.

Jung. ing. Hoseok. Of course.

Hoseok got up so fast to get out of Yoongi’s way to the keyhole that he almost tripped on a squared tupperware that was lying by his feet. Yoongi made a point to ignore the other's presence entirely, but he couldn’t stop his morbid curiosity while Hoseok bent down to grab the box.

“How long have you been here?” Yoongi questioned while opening the door.

“Long enough” the tone in which that was said made Yoongi raise one of his eyebrows in a clear sign of non-amusement “You have really crazy hours, huh?” Hoseok’s tone had reversed back to a more nonchalant one, while he inclined his body to rest his right shoulder against the door frame.

Yoongi decided to not acknowledge Hoseok’s tentative of being friendly, wanting to see him struggle since Yoongi had already noticed how hard it was for his neighbour to be ignored when trying to be friendly.

Getting the keys out of the keyhole and pushing the door of the apartment open, Yoongi had almost decided to act in real life just as he had in their chat (he could think of beneficial uses for the block-a-person technology of the White Christmas episode of Black Mirror), but on the last minute, Yoongi decided to be a little more aggressive (aka, he decided to be his normal self).

“At least you respected my closed door and didn't break into my apartment. Character development already” The smile on his lips was a feral one (and not the good kind of feral).

Hoseok huffed and mumbled something under his breath that Yoongi didn’t quite get, but that sounded strangely like “”

“These are for you” Hoseok said as he uncovered the tupperware. There were cookies that spelled 'I was wrong' with smiley faces on each letter and even a sunflower-shaped cookie.

Taking one look at the cookies and another at the man standing by the side of his door, Yoongi became angrier than he had already been. The er couldn't even admit his mistakes out loud?! !

“I'll pass. I'm on a strict coffee diet.”

“I'm sorry, okay?” Hoseok heaved “See? I said I'm sorry...what more do you want from me?”

"Oh, I don't know” Yoongi took a pause to pretend he was thinking “Maybe the other half of the apology where you are actually sorry when you say you're sorry? Or for you to at least be enough of a man to say out loud that what you did was wrong? Take your pick"

The sound of the door slamming on Hoseok’s face felt like the finest type of music to Yoongi’s ears.

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[Wednesday]

“You look like an open autopsy, hyung” came a teasing voice from higher than the table level were Yoongi’s head rested.

Yoongi could have pretended not to hear it, he had his headphones on after all, but Cinderella singing A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes wasn’t loud enough to be heard by outside sources (precisely as planned by Yoongi). Therefore he resorted to his immediate usual response, which was to argue right back at the kiddo, so that’s exactly what he did.

“Top of the morning to you too.” He infused those few words with as much poison as he could, perfectly aware that by now the kiddo could read when he was being serious or not, thus not being affected in the least by the venom in his tone.

“Sorry, hyung” the younger chuckled without actually sounding sorry at all. Yoongi noticed how much more sincere this small fit of laughter was in comparison to the smile with which he was greeted. That information was stored for later when Yoongi would make the kiddo talk. “How are you?”

“I don’t know.” he mumbled, resting the weight of his head on his hand “I haven’t decided if I need to drink my weight in coffee or sleep for a week.”

“Coffee sounds easier considering that we are already at a coffee shop” the kiddo said while dropping his bag on the ground, putting a box on the table and taking off his coat before sitting down.

“Yeah, but I have to pay for it” Yoongi replied (as if he didn’t pay for coffee at least 4 different times a day).

“True” the brunette considered while rummaging through the box, but not showing the contents to Yoongi.

“ing capitalism can’t let me breathe for a ing second” Yoongi grumbled as he got up to grab his double espresso with extra dose of caffeine and the kiddo’s sugary excuse of a coffee.

“I want a mocha today, hyung.” The kiddo said without turning his head to Yoongi’s direction, which almost prompted the elder into going on a full rant about how he wasn’t going to pay for the kid’s breakfast (as if he hadn’t been doing exactly that for the past weeks). Before he could, the kiddo continued “But there’s no need to buy lamb-lamb for us today, hyung. I got you something special” He said wiggling his eyebrows and pointing at the box.

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Yoongi was an only child, who was raised in an environment where showing emotions was considered weak. Maybe because his parents were always working and when they were home they were just too tired to not be emotionally constipated. Either way, his family had always put more importance in doing than in talking. They showed love and affection through acts of disguised kindness, like getting his favorite dessert, but leaving it in the fridge without telling him anything only for him to discover it almost by accident a day or two later.

Unfortunately that also meant that when they fought, they never apologized - just acted like nothing was wrong until things went back to normal, which would happen any moment between a day, a week or a month after said hypothetical fight.

Yoongi always hated it, always wanted his parents to just own up to their mistakes and ing say sorry, how hard could that be?! But he was molded the same way and had only started to manage to break the mold when he met Namjoon. He felt safe and not judged with sharing his emotions with his best friend...oddly enough he also felt the same way with the kiddo with whom he’s been steadily having breakfast for the last month or so.

Yoongi, dare he say it, somewhat even started liking the kiddo pretty much right away. Or at the very least, he didn't dislike him on the spot. Every time they had breakfast together, they would talk freely and every time the kiddo would win a little more space in Yoongi’s secretly big and warm heart.

Well, if he was being truthful, Yoongi did have some small negative feelings for the kid in the beginning. The thing was, Min Yoongi’s number 1 priority was his sleep. He would stay in bed until he had about 5 minutes to take a shower, brush his teeth and get dressed up to run all the way to Blooming Day, grab his coffee and his lamb-lamb and rush to his lectures to luckily be only 20 minutes late.

That was not his fault though. It was common knowledge that Yoongi’s always been semi-dead in the mornings and that he didn’t care too much about being a perfect student and getting to his classes on time (professors don’t keep attendance anyways, not for lectures - only for lab hours and those were in the afternoons). He started going to the café earlier solely to guarantee that his lamb-lamb would not be stolen by the starry eyed younger demon.

Never has Yoongi won against the kiddo’s matinal body and after an embarrassing small amount of time, Yoongi had grown so fond of the little devil, that he even (gasp!) started feeling happy about waking up early to have breakfast with him. His professors thought it was extremely suspicious that he started getting to class even before the right time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

(The amount of life pondering a person can do while waiting for coffee is truly astonishing. Don’t you think so, my cherished reader?)

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Yoongi had finally gotten the warm drinks back to their table and sat in front of the kiddo.

“Ta-da!” said the younger opening the box and turning it to Yoongi so he could see a perfect set of cookies staring back at him.

"When did you have time to buy these?"

"I didn't buy them, hyung" the kiddo said as if it were obvious "They're homemade" he said with a proud smile.

“Did you make these?” the music major could try to deny it as much as he wanted, but there were stars in his eyes upon looking at the baked goods and their varying shapes (random letters, cats, squirrels, trees, stars and suns).

“No. It was my bestie. I told him he should enter Bake Off, but he refused, so he’s basically wasting away his cookie powers” the kiddo said as he munched down on 3 cookies at a time "He stress bakes and he’s a perfectionist, so he gave me all the cookies that didn’t look 100% perfect. He was trying to apologise to our neighbor...ya’know...my mentor"

“Don’t you mean your crush?” Yoongi couldn’t help but tease the younger and was endlessly endeared when he saw the tips of the kiddo’s ears burning red and him covering them on the spot.

“It’s not- He- I mean- Shut up, hyung!” the kid pouted for a second before forcing a cookie on Yoongi’s mouth, who chew a bit before speaking again.

“If you introduced us" Yoongi's train of thought was almost lost when he bit down and felt an explosion of peanut butter in his mouth which prompted him to unabashedly moan. "I'd marry your best friend on the stop solely based on how good these cookies are and then you wouldn’t have to get all jealous about him interacting with your crush”

The judging stare and the accompanied set of nervous chuckles that left the younger's mouth didn't bother Yoongi, but he had an image to maintain.

"Hey! I'm still your hyung! Where’s the respect?!"

They ate and drank in relative silence for a bit until Yoongi just couldn’t take it any longer.

“Do you really have to keep making those noises? He was fake annoyed at best.

"Well, yeah. High quality coffee is a ual experience for me. And don’t talk to me like you weren't just and proposing to my bestie Seokie a few minutes ago because of how good his cookies were." The kid slurped the rest of his mocha, setting the cup down a bit stronger than needed "Now, hyung, why are you more stressed than normal?” the kiddo went from joking and kidding around to perceptive in a 3.5.

"Ah, it's nothing...just this in my building." Yoongi felt like he was caught red handed. His poker face and his dismissive words usually worked on getting people to not want to talk anymore. Clearly his powers didn't work on the younger for he looked like he was waiting for Yoongi to continue "He went through my personal stuff, but hasn’t been able to person-up enough to apologize like a proper human and I had just started to think that he wasn’t the worst specimen of said species"

"Hyung!" there was a warning coated around the younger's voice and his face was red with anger "Just tell me his name and leave the rest to me"

"And what exactly will you do, kiddo?" Yoongi had to laugh at how serious the kid was taking this situation.

"I dunno." For a moment there, he was uncertain "Can I just punch him in the face?"

"Nah, he ain't worth you possibly getting suspended or something" Yoongi dismissed.

"What if I just break his nose a little?" the kiddo sounded almost hopeful.

"Forget it, kiddo...he'll get what he deserves sooner or later."

"Do you doubt my strength?!" The other slammed his hands on the table and got up, disrupting the other patrons and earning a mean look from Jongdae - which all went unnoticed for he whisper shouted next "Cause I COULD SMASH ANYTHING! BUILDINGS! MOUNTAINS!"

“Could you smash the bad feelings that constantly haunt me and make feel sleepless in Seoul?” Maybe Yoongi shouldn’t have picked up Namjoon’s tendencies of making self-deprecating jokes. Maybe.

The brunette furrowed his brows, scrunched his eyes and nose, pressed his lips so close they were nothing but a thin pink line, in such a serious expression that Yoongi was left speechless, for he had thought the kiddo would just make fun of his grumpy grandpa .

As fast as all those face features came by, they disappeared as the younger raised his hand with his index finger point up in the universal sign of ‘A-ha! I found a solution’.

Yoongi saw that same finger coming closer and closer to his face, going cross-eyed and head empty trying to figure out what the other was trying to do, until said finger pressed the tip of his nose in while the kid emitted a loud “Boop!” and proceeded to giggle wholeheartedly.

Yoongi pretended to be mad for exactly 0.01 seconds, but the way the kid’s shoulders shook while he held on to his ears (truly his most expressive body part aside from his eyes) trying to contain his laughing fit was too contagious for the elder not to laugh along as well.

Yoongi was helplessly soft and endeared by this boy. In his heart, he already had established a big brother’s approach towards him. He would make sure to always be there for the younger like they were blood related.

"Why does God only do that to good people?! First my bestie gets shut down by my crush (he admitted out loud, no turning back!)...which I still don’t understand cause hyung is just the epitome of a perfect human, how could he be so mean to Seokie-hyung?!” The kiddo paused, clearly conflicted between standing his ground by his friend’s side and trying to make sense of his crush’s poor behaviour. “and now someone has made you lose sleep out of anger...yeah hyung, you should do something about the bags under your eyes. Anyways. And I can’t even do anything about the people that made you both feel bad. How's that fair?!" by the end of his little uninterrupted speech, the kiddo was huffing and puffing like the wolf in the 3 little piglets story.

Yoongi was endeared by the outrage born out of concern of the younger.

“Some people are only alive because murder is frowned upon." He said petting the younger's arm "At least in times of peace.”

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That morning they spent a lot more time at the café. So much so that the kiddo was late for his classes and as all freshman, whose dreams have yet to be crushed by the inhumane rhythm of college, he was visibly wanting to run out of Blooming Day but not waiting to be rude to his hyung.

"Kiddo." Yoongi held on to the younger's arm, looked into his eyes and made a dramatic pause before asking "Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I’ll have to perform this song in front of my mentor...and I don’t know if I’ve made the right choice” he said playing with his cuticles.

“Nice. Serenading your crush seems effective”. Maybe the kiddo was smarter than he looked (the way the younger choked on his own saliva was proof of the opposite).

“Oh, and there are assignments that I still have to print and hand in today...that’s important too, I guess”

He was clearly trying to divert attention and for once Yoongi felt benevolent enough to allow it to happen, countering with a question he’d been meaning to ask for quite some time now, but that somehow, always slipped out of his mind.

“What’s your name?"

To his utter surprise, the kid's eyes grew larger than saucers before he opened his mouth with a serious look on his face.

"I thought we were going to do no-names until one of us suddenly died and the eulogy would be fixed to the cafe’s information wall, only for the oblivious and still alive one to take a look at it and start crying because they couldn’t even attend the funeral"

"Geez! Didn’t know you had such a dramatically creative mind"

"The wanting-to-die-drama comes from you, hyung. And the creativity, I think is a symptom of being exposed to Tae-hyung"

Yoongi huffed at that, but didn't refute the statement, after all, if he were to be transformed into an American diva, he would probably become Lana Del Rey (or worse).

"You didn’t tell me your name though. It's okay if you don't want to tell me, I just thought it was already time to know the name of the friend with whom I share my breakfast with. I'm Yoongi, by the way" An honest gummy smile appeared in the elder's face making the younger audibly coo - which made Yoongi wipe the smile away from his face (he was the lord of darkness, for goodness sake!)

"Jungkook, but call me Kook" the bunny smile that appeared on the kiddo’s- on Jungkook’s face was so big that it looked like it was gonna split in half.

"Alright, Kook-ah. Say thank you to your best friend for me. The cookies were delicious. Now run along to your crush...I mean, to class. Of course"

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Groceries shopping has always been something that Yoongi. It used to give him anxiety with the many options of the same products there were to be bought. That haunted him for many years, until his broken bank account decided to stick to buying the cheapest brand there was for whatever it was he wanted to buy that day. Time and money efficient. He could be in and out of the supermarket within 20 minutes...were it not for Namjoon.

Kim Namjoon loved groceries shopping. He loved to peruse through every single aisle (even the ones he was surely not going to buy anything from), loved to check the labels of the products, loved the organic section of the fresh fruits and vegetables area, loved to make impossible calculations of which brand of toilet paper was going to be the most cost efficient one, loved to just sit at the small café inside the supermarket and people watch for hours on end.

Yoongi was never going to say anything against his friend’s habit thought; he knew that during Namjoon’s dark times, spending time at markets was the only thing that would make him get out of bed and have some sort of human contact.

Keeping their groceries shopping tradition was one thing Yoongi was happy about. He thought he would lose those weekly hours spent with his best friend when Namjoon moved out to a complete different building farther away from campus.

Namjoon even tried to get used to the supermarket closest to his new home, but it just didn’t have the same amount of memories attached to it, which led him to call Yoongi on a Saturday morning (warnings of imminent death were blaring) to complain about ‘Which type of establishment doesn’t keep the tomato sauce close to the pasta section?! This is plain madness!’ for two hours.

After that they resumed meeting at their supermarket on Wednesdays evening, when they were both free.

On that particular evening, Yoongi was sitting on a bench in front of the store, drinking his 5th cup of coffee of the day.

“Hey, hyung” Namjoon called, getting down from his bike and moving to park it near the entrance. While he rummaged through his backpack, he asked “Do you have any bags? I forgot to bring my eco ones”

“The only bags I have are the ones under my eyes and they’re specifically designed to carry the burden of my existence” Yoongi didn’t even blink, giving his answer and getting up from the bench to move closer to Namjoon, who was struggling to lock his bike.

A bit of silence later came Namjoon’s answer “A simple no would have sufficed”.

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Namjoon had convinced Yoongi to drink some chamomile tea at the supermarket’s restaurant, before heading home, to counterbalance the amount of coffee he was sure the older had consumed during the day.

“I prevented a murder yesterday” Yoongi said between sips of his tea (he wasn’t evolved enough yet to admit that he liked the organic soothing beverage).

“Really?” Namjoon could be so naive “That’s amazing, hyung! How did you do it?"

“Self control.” Yoongi deadpanned.

“You say that like it was such a difficult task” Namjoon rolled his eyes.

“It was for me...do you know how killable that stupid is?!” Yoongi could feel the cold fingers of anger moving up towards his heart just by remembering the attempts of apology his of a neighbour had pulled on him.

“Oh! I see.” sometimes it was annoying when Namjoon used his I-know-something-you-don’t voice “The irritating dancing neighbor attacks again.”

“You guessed it” Yoongi raised his teacup up (pink finger sticking out).

“Never trust a man that can dance” both nodded at this sage piece of wisdom that had left Namjoon’s lips.

“That would have to find a way to undo his -ness if he would ever dream of interacting with me again” Yoongi seethed.

“But the thing is, hyung” there came the lone sage wisdom toned Namjoon again “The point of an apology is to repair the broken trust, not to fix the mistake. You expecting him to undo what he did is simply unrealistic”

Yoongi went silent for a bit, weighting his friend's words.

"Ugh! I hate it when you're right. Let's change topics"

"Sure" Namjoon wasn't much of a fan of teasing people and/or making them uncomfortable "I told you about my Glee Club project right?"

"Right" Yoongi sipped the last of his tea "You should change the name though. Copyright laws are a "

"Anyways" Namjoon proceeded "I'm kinda tutoring? these two guys? and I finally heard them sing today? and hyung! They were so good!" Namjoon had moved closer in his excitement "One of them is like this cute puppy that ate hallucinogenic mushrooms, but has such a smooth deep voice. And the other…" Namjoon seemed to be looking for the right words. "The other one. He sounds like a nightingale. I could hear him singing eternally".

There was a smile on both friends' face. For different reasons.

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[Thursday]

The human mind is always a wilderness of its own, even if most people try to delude themselves that they have control over it. Each mind has a different climate, wildlife, geography and instincts.

Every instinct in Yoongi’s mind was telling him to punch Jung Hoseok straight on his perfectly straight and shiny teeth for a variety of reasons.

#1- It was barely noon on Yoongi's free day when the other had rang the bell;

#2- All the stress Hoseok had previously created for him was already reason enough (+ waking Yoongi up before 3pm!) and;

#3- Hoseok wasn't smiling for once in his life and that was probably a bad omen.

"What do you want?" Yoongi asked. He'd normally not give anybody else anymore chances beyond the second one, but Namjoon and his words had a way of worming into Yoongi's brain and (ugh!) make him want to do better (ugh!!), be better (ugh!!!) or at least try (ugh?). Which wasn't to say Yoongi's no-bull personality wouldn't still be there.

Hoseok tried to smile, but it looked forced and wrong on his face.

"Smiles are supposed to be contagious." He sighed, dropping the smile and the happy pretence.

"Don’t worry, I’m vaccinated." Yoongi's patience was wearing thin by the second "What. Do. You. Want? And be careful with what you say to a blooming psychopath"

Hoseok looked at his shoes for a long while before sighing again "I wanted to apologize."

Nope. Namjoon would maybe be disappointed, but Yoongi tried. He just didn't want to hear anymore bull, which explained why he moved to close his door on Hoseok's face a second time in a week.

Only, Hoseok stopped him by putting his feet on the way of the door closing.

"Really apologize this time. Hear me out, please?" The dancer breathed in and out before he continued "I don’t have any excuse, because there are none. I felt ashamed for what I had done and my ego got the best of me and I tried to deny that I was guilty of anything and then I made it worse by apologizing again without any real feeling behind it. So...what I mean to say is that I take full responsibility for my actions. But I know there are no words to say how sorry I am that I invaded your privacy. All I can do is let you know that I am sorry...and that I’ve come to realize how unrequited my attentions to you are...so...I’ll stop bothering you. I’ll leave you alone. And...hmm...I’m sorry again."

Yoongi was relieved, yet stunned into silence as he watched the other's retreating back.

Author notes: No "kiddo" was harm in the making of this chapter. Shout out to anyone who got the Epik High reference during YoonKook's part.