Bargain (Not Met) (JungHope)

Interlude - Morning Pondering

Hoseok woke up to Jungkook's body heat encasing his entire back, having become the demon's little spoon during his slumber.

It was odd, he mused in his sleepy haze. The demon started off as a shadow that barely made any impact on the world, and now, here he was, marking his presence in heaved breaths and radiating the undeniable warmth of a living creature.

"Kook," he croaked out into the air, apartment hushed from the pale daylight.

He earned a whiney moan in reply.

"Can I ask you something?" Hoseok continued, unperturbed by the incoherent response.

Jungkook pressed closer, limbs entangling themselves with Hoseok's, lips flush against the crook of his neck. "Shoot," he muttered into the tender skin, breath fanning out in heated moisture.

Hoseok wanted to shove the demon off, demand that he respected a little thing called "personal space", but sleep lingered in his muscles, and his mind lulled itself into a placid state from Jungkook's comforting warmth. He shifted further against Jungkook's chest, back curling into the demon's caging heat.

"What memories have you remembered?" he finally asked. It was something that loitered in the back of his mind, never making itself aware until that moment since last night made the curiosity all the more relevant.

He earned a more lucid state of response: a muttered groan and a leveled yawn.

"...d'ya mean...?" Jungkook murmured groggily into his nape after a few moments of deep, content breathing.

Hoseok huffed and rolled around to face the demon, forehead pressed into the crown of Jungkook's head. "That day at the coffee shop, when I asked you if you've ever needed a pick-me-up, you said that you did." He paused and listened to the quiet huffs of air that passed through Jungkook's immobile lips before continuing on. "What was it? What got your spirits up when you were alive, Kook?"

He hadn't meant to, but the question came out soft and coaxing instead of persistent and nosy like he had intended it to. He wanted to aggravate the demon out of his bed with the slight off-chance of earning an answer to one of his thousands of questions.

Coddling a demon into speaking of his past was not on Hoseok's list of things-to-do that morning.

Jungkook grunted, alerting Hoseok that he hadn't fallen back asleep, and heaved a breath to begin his expectant tale.

"It was...dancing," he answered simply, the sentence guttural and murmured.

Hoseok waited, expected more—like a backstory, one he'd provided to explain his coffee addiction. But when Jungkook simply went back to nuzzling his nose close to his chest, Hoseok realized that the demon was finished telling his "tale".

Hoseok huffed and carded his fingers through Jungkook's hair, marveled at its silky feel. He jolted and flinched every time Jungkook's breath tickled the underlining of his jaw, nestled his collarbone.

"What're you doing?" Hoseok eventually huffed, moving just far enough away to get a clear view of Jungkook's face.

Jungkook gave him a displeased look, lips tugged down into a frown and eyes staring up at him with annoyance. "Admiring my mark," he replied simply, as though rubbing his face in Hoseok's neck wasn't at all odd.

Hoseok craned his neck and grazed the approximant area that Jungkook had placed his mark. He felt that the welted area had expanded over time, and he imagined just how much more noticeable it'll be; wondered if the tears of fallen angels would still be as inky black as when he last saw them.

"Why'd it grow?" he mumbled. He wasn't actually expecting an answer for that question, either, but his mouth-to-filter wasn't fully operating yet, sleep heavy on his mind.

"Maybe you're starting to fall for Taehyung," Jungkook teased.

Hoseok brought his gaze from where it had been wandering the bare walls of his bedroom and snapped it down toward Jungkook. The demon offered a broad grin that turned his eyes into gentle crescents, a product of being well-rested and swollen-faced.

Hoseok huffed and pushed his weight onto his elbows, towering over Jungkook's curled form with a note of defiance. "As if," he scoffed while kicking the cover off his legs. "Anyways, I have to get ready for work, so..."

He trailed off and gave Jungkook a pointed look. He was mildly surprised that the demon hadn't already bolted, what with him being clad in only boxers.

Jungkook raised his brows in return, a puzzled puckering of his lips making its appearance. "Yeah? Go ahead, then." He flopped back down onto the mattress and shoved Hoseok's pillow underneath his head. "I'm sleeping in."

Hoseok felt mildly irritated at the way the demon treated his bed like it was his own, but he ultimately decided that he'd already wasted enough time that could've been used to prepare for work.

With a rousing stretch of his back, arms taut above his head, Hoseok crawled over Jungkook's torso with a passing graze of his fingertips along the demon's biceps. Hoseok felt Jungkook shiver under his touch, and he laughed as he watched the demon tug the covers up to his chin.

Hoseok shuffled and grumbled as he made his way to the bathroom for his shower. The scalding water was the final factor to keep the sleep-induced daze away, a hiss of recognition echoing past Hoseok's parted lips and into the blissfully empty bathroom. He wrapped his uneventful shower up with a hard scrub of his body and hair.

Hair drenched and dripping, a towel wrapped tight around his waist, Hoseok shuffled his way back to his bedroom and mentally calculated how far behind schedule he would be if he made his own coffee that morning. He arrived with the conclusion of just going to his usual coffee shop and instantly trudged over to his wardrobe.

The sharp clearing of someone's throat startled him from his morning routine.

He turned toward his bed—where Jungkook still laid—and felt a grin spread across his lips when he noticed the pointed flush in the demon's cheeks.

"It's my bedroom," he taunted, wriggling his hips teasingly. "If you have a problem, feel free to leave."

Jungkook positively scowled at his words, but Hoseok felt a sense of elation when his eyes lowered to the traitorously low-hanging towel around his hips. "You're getting the carpet wet," Jungkook muttered in weak-willed retaliation.

Hoseok snorted. "Well, it's not like I have all the time in the world, Kook; I've gotta pick and choose my priorities, and being completely dry is not one of them."

Jungkook huffed and muttered something underneath his breath, something a tad too soft for Hoseok's ears, before sliding off the edge of the bed. Hoseok watched, mildly perplexed, as the demon's eyes raked over his body before he finally took his leave from the bedroom.

Hoseok blinked.

And then shrugged the occurrence off, turning back toward his wardrobe with research on the mind.

A/N - hopekook crumbs. btw, i'm updating this every other day now that i've got the entire story pre-written and ready to edit.