Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

And I'd give up forever to touch you

'Cause I know that you feel me somehow

6 Months Ago

“Hoseok-ah, I don’t want to do this.” Yoongi sighs. A pair of pants hit him in the face and he lets them fall to the floor in a soft heap.

“Put those on.” Hoseok instructs, pointing at the pants and diving back into Yoongi’s closet. “Do you have ANY shirts that actually fit you?”

“That’s rich coming from you.” Yoongi mutters, but grabs the jeans off the floor and pulls them on anyway. “And did you not hear me when I said I didn’t want to do this?” 

“Oh I heard you, all 800 times.” Hoseok keeps rummaging through his closet. “And I’ve ignored you, all 800 times. Here, this one-” He holds out a black sweater with distressed details, and after a moment of thought grabs Yoongi’s ancient leather jacket off the closet’s peg and thrusts it at him too. “And this.” 

“Am I trying to look edgy?” Yoongi asks, quirking an eyebrow. He had bought that jacket years ago, when he dressed solely in clothes he thought would make him look badass. Now he’s more concerned with being comfortable than how people perceive him, and his therapist would call that growth. Of course, all the oversized clothes open him up to comments from Taehyung like ‘it’s like you’re a kitten trying to make yourself look bigger, Hyung’. Hoseok shakes the leather jacket in his grip and Yoongi reluctantly takes it. “Does Namjoon’s brother go for the emo style?”

“Actually Jin-Hyung tends to go for pastels. He wears a lot of pink.” Hoseok says. Yoongi’s other eyebrow goes up as well. “So I think the contrast would be appreciated. Don’t want to seem like you’re trying too hard.”

“I bought this leather jacket specifically because I was trying too hard.” Yoongi points out, thinking back to that Min Yoongi, the posturing and picking fights and desperate need to prove himself somehow. He might have even still been going by Gloss, and hadn’t that been an inspired choice. 

“I mean you don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard to appeal to him , specifically.” Hoseok clarifies, throwing himself back on Yoongi’s bed with a bounce now that his work as an outfit consultant was done. 

“How could I be?” Yoongi asks, voice muffled by the sweater. He tugs it down over his head and levels Hoseok with his most unimpressed look. “I don’t even know what the guy looks like.” 

Once he realized that Yoongi had somehow managed to not see any photos of his boyfriend’s older brother, Hoseok hadn’t let Yoongi stalk this “Jin” on any and all social media. Yoongi had tried, but Hoseok hadn’t budged. Namjoon had likewise been sworn to secrecy, and was unfortunately mostly immune to Yoongi’s glare after years of working together. 

“Blind dates make it more interesting.” Hoseok insists, which Yoongi vehemently disagrees with. “And I can say with absolute certainty that you’ll like Jin. I think you two… would compliment each other. Metaphorically.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Yoongi says, stubborn. He sits down next to Hoseok with a small huff. “Listen, Hobi…” He takes a breath. He’s said this a few times already, but feels it bears repeating. “You know that since you and Namjoonie are so happily coupled doesn’t mean that I have to be, right?” 

“Hyung, I swear I just think you’ll like him.” Hoseok says, completely earnest. Yoongi looks at his hands. “I know you’re not lonely, or, or incomplete or whatever. You are a strong, independent music producer who don’t need no man.” Yoongi huffs a laugh despite himself and Hoseok nudges his shoulder with his own. “But you have to admit they’re nice to have.” 

Yoongi huffs again, still looking at his hands. He can’t lie to himself and say Hoseok is wrong. He hadn’t had a serious relationship in a few years, since college, but he’s always been a little bit more of a romantic than he cares to admit. Except that he likes his work and he likes being able to stay ridiculous hours at the studio and he likes the calming silence of his apartment. 

So what if there are some nights when the calming silence turns to suffocating and lonely? So what if he sometimes sees the easy love that flows between his paired-off friends and wants it for himself? So what? It’s only human to want someone like that. But the logistics of finding that someone are daunting, and so much work, and Yoongi is mostly happy alone.

“Mostly happy” is just fine with Yoongi. It’s great, really. There was a time he never believed he’d even be a little happy. “Mostly happy” is a victory. But his friends have always made it their goal to get that happiness meter to capacity, mixed blessing as that is. So that’s how they get to tonight, with Yoongi being prodded into a nice outfit for a blind date with Namjoon’s older brother. 

He finally looks up at Hoseok, who is smiling encouragingly at him. “You promise that you and Namjoon aren’t going to be hiding in a booth and spying on us, right?” He asks. Hoseok gasps in mock affront. 

“Min Yoongi! I would never!” Hoseok exclaims. “How dare you suggest such a thing! I can’t believe you’d attack my character in this way.” 

“You promise that Taehyung and Jimin won’t be hiding in a booth and spying on us, right ?” Yoongi nudges. 

“I can’t control what they do.” Hoseok avoids the question, then jolts in surprise as his phone starts to buzz in his pocket. “Oh hold on, it’s Namjoonie, hey baby-” A worried crease appears in his forehead as Yoongi hears a distinctly frantic Namjoon on the other end. He leans forward, straining to hear. “Oh my god, is he okay? Uh-huh. Shit, don’t worry, I’m on my way. He’ll be okay, Joon-ah, alright? Which hospital are you going to? Okay. I’ll be right there.” 

Hoseok’s face is pinched with worry as he hangs up. He takes a deep, shuddering breath then pulls it together before turning to Yoongi. 

“Hyung, we’re going to have to postpone that date.” 

Now 

Yoongi’s in the zone, hunched over at his desk, headphones on as he fiddles endlessly with the bridge of a track. The coffee to his left has long gone cold but he hasn’t reached for it in hours, too focused on clicking and arranging. He doesn’t realize how long it’s been since he moved until Namjoon taps him on the shoulder, and his neck makes an audible crack as he turns around. Both of them wince at the sound. Yoongi slides off his headphones.

“Hey, what’s up, Joon-ah?” He asks. 

“Did- did that hurt?” Namjoon responds, looking mildly concerned. Yoongi sighs. 

“It’s fine, I just need to stretch more like Hoseok keeps saying. What did you want?” Yoongi prompts again. He’s already starting to itch to return to his bad posture and finish the damn track he’s working on. 

“I just wanted to share this listing with you,” Namjoon thrusts a sheaf of papers at Yoongi. It’s a real estate listing, a nice apartment in Hapjeong. It looks bright, sunlight streaming in and reflecting off of cream colored walls. One bedroom, decently sized living room, kitchen. “It just came on the market, and you know real estate in Seoul– it’ll be gone quick. So, uh, you should snap it up, yeah?” 

Yoongi furrows his brow as he reads through more information about the apartment. The end of his current lease is creeping closer and closer, and he’s been idly searching for a new place for a few weeks, with nothing catching his eye. He’s surprised that Namjoon managed to find this place, which he has to admit is pretty much exactly what he wants. It’s bright, spacious, and even has some decorative elements– though Yoongi would have to change that central lighting fixture. 

He realizes Namjoon is hovering a bit, expression falling a bit more with each second of silence. 

“Wow, this is really nice. You kinda did my work for me here.” Yoongi says with a smile, and Namjoon’s lips quirk up at the corners but he still looks vaguely sad. Yoongi’s at a loss for what he could have done, then realizes what day of the week it is. “Ah, it’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

A slightly sullen nod. 

“Are you off to see Jin?” Yoongi asks. 

Another nod. 

Yoongi can’t help but feel a little guilty about Namjoon’s big brother. It isn’t his fault, not even a little bit, but, well– he’d been on the way to a blind date with Yoongi . While going through an intersection, another driver ran the red and plowed straight into Jin. The car was totaled, and Jin has been in a coma for the near six months since. Namjoon goes to see him at the hospital every Wednesday and Saturday, talking to him, waiting for him to wake up. 

At this point, empty platitudes don’t help. Yoongi can’t count how many times Namjoon’s been told some variation of “I’m sure he’ll wake up soon” or “Your brother is very strong, he’ll pull through.”

“I’m reading him Marukami.” Namjoon says, with that melancholy-tinged smile. “I kept badgering him to read it before but he never got around to it. Now he doesn’t really have a choice, so I’m making him listen.” 

“Which one?” 

“We’re halfway through Kafka on the Shore.” 

Yoongi nods. “Starting with the classics.”

“Yeah. Though while I’m reading aloud to him I can’t help but think that he’d probably hate it.” Namjoon comments. He fiddles with the strap of his bag, gestures back down at the real estate listing. “You really should see that place. It’s nice.” He waves once, throws his helmet on, and then he’s gone. 

Yoongi slides his headphones back on, but clicks out of Cubase and types in the link to the real estate website.  

Yoongi shoos his friends away after all the heavy boxes and furniture are in, finding it’s easier to dictate where everything goes when he just has to direct himself. He’s very particular about where things go and how they’re arranged, and though he hates to leave everything unpacked, he calls it quits after he puts all the boxes in the rooms where their contents will need to end up. He wipes the sweat that’s gathered on his forehead off with his sleeve and falls into the couch. 

Above his head, the lighting fixture taunts him. It’s not… ugly, per se, but it doesn’t have an energy that matches the rest of the space. It seems like everything else was updated but this lighting fixture, and Yoongi stares at it until the lights leave a pink and yellow imprint on his lids when he closes his eyes. The colors swirl in his vision as he blinks them back open, so he almost doesn’t notice the man. 

The first thing that registers is tall, and dark hair , and handsome, and then finally holy shit someone broke into my apartment. As that last thought finally filters in fully, Yoongi starts yelling. The stranger starts to yell in tandem, both of them making sort of wordless, loud, surprised sounds. 

“What are you doing in my apartment?” Yoongi shouts. 

“I should be asking you that!” The man shouts back. He’s got on a large pink hoodie and jeans, and Yoongi notices house slippers on his feet. He certainly looks at home. “This is my apartment!” 

“It is not!” 

“It most definitely is!” They’re both still shouting, the man doing a great job of acting indignant and slightly shrill. 

“Does this look like your stuff?” Yoongi gestures to all the boxes around him. 

“Wha–” The man narrows his eyes as he scans the room around him, seemingly for the first time. Yoongi’s got to hand it to him, the commitment to the bit is admirable. Most robbers wouldn’t use this creative a tactic. “No, actually!” 

“Exactly! Because it’s my apartment!” 

“Apartment 313?” 

“Yes!” 

“It’s mine. I’ve lived here for a year.” The man crosses his arms stubbornly, mouth setting in a firm line, and shit his lips are full. Yoongi slaps himself mentally for being horny for a home invader. They glare at each other for a moment, then the man uncrosses his arms and takes a determined step forward– 

–Yoongi throws a couch cushion at him. It’s not his proudest moment.

That’s overshadowed, however, by the fact that the couch cushion flies right through the man. Suddenly Yoongi has a whole other problem on his hands. He shrieks again and vaults himself over the back of the couch, because holy shit there’s a ghost in his new apartment. The ghost, to his credit, is just looking down at his chest where the pillow had flown through in stunned silence.

“Well that’s never happened before.” He mutters, apparently giving up on shouting. 

Yoongi peers over the top of the couch. The ghost is now experimentally poking at his own chest, eyes wide. It seems solid when he does it, but now that Yoongi’s focusing there’s a slight blur around his edges. Like a light leak in a film camera. 

“Not to be rude but, aren’t you supposed to go to the light or whatever?” Yoongi prompts.

The ghost snaps his gaze to meet Yoongi’s, one perfect and straight eyebrow raised. He gestures to the lighting fixture overhead with a large, sarcastic wave of his hand. 

“What light? The chandelier?” 

“I don’t know, all the movies say you’re supposed to see a light when you die–”

“I’m not dead.” The ghost insists. Which, okay. Denial. Still in the first stage. Yoongi hopes they can maybe speed run the other four, selfish as that is, because he really doesn’t think he can break a lease because of a ghost. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I am not dead.” 

Yoongi grabs another couch cushion and throws it too. The ghost raises his hands to try to catch it, but it passes right through them and flies out the other side of his body. It hits the floor with a soft whump . 

“That was uncalled for.” The ghost says dryly. “Also wait– how was that not rude?” 

“What?”

“You said ‘not to be rude’ but then you literally told me to leave? How is that not rude.”

“You’re a ghost in my apartment.” 

“Yes, and isn’t that a horrible revelation for me? Don’t I get any sympathy?” The bluster and indignance seem to be coming back now. The ghost man starts to huff again, pouting. His hands go to his hips and Yoongi’s attention is unfortunately drawn to how tiny his waist is. Being horny for a robber was one thing, but now he’s horny for a ghost? This time Yoongi mentally punches himself right in the face. 

“I’m sorry for your…loss of… life.” Yoongi grimaces. The ghost arches an eyebrow at him. 

“Really? That’s what you went with?” 

“This may surprise you, but I’ve never talked to a dead person before.” Yoongi shoots back. 

“Have you talked to a living person before? Your manners are deplorable. You haven’t even introduced yourself!” 

“My name is Min Yoongi.” Yoongi says with a small bow. “Please take care of me.” 

“Okay, how do you know I’m older than you?” The ghost asks. “Rude.”

“You’re dead, so I’m just assuming you’re older.” 

“I’m not dead.” The ghost insists again. Yoongi wordlessly gestures to the two cushions he’d thrown. The ghost sighs and waves a hand. “Fine, fine. There is some evidence to point to the fact that I may be a bit ghostly at the moment. But still. I’m ‘92.” 

“Ha! I’m ‘93. You are older than me.” 

“Damnit.” 

“Do I call you ghost-hyung?” Yoongi asks, just to be a shit. He’s starting to enjoy this, just a little bit. Maybe it’s the exhaustion setting in, making him slap happy, but he’s always liked a little chaos. The ghost fixes him with a stare that could be called withering. 

“My name is Kim Seokjin.” There’s something vaguely familiar about the name, but Yoongi figures it’s a popular one. “I don’t recall saying we could be on a hyung basis.”

“Sorry, ghost -ssi. ” Yoongi says, punctuating it with a more sarcastic bow of his head.  

“That’s ghost- nim to you.” Seokjin retorts, crossing his arms, and oh this is fun. 

Yoongi points at Seokjin. “So you admit you’re a ghost.” 

“And you’re a brat. Glad we’ve got this covered.” 

Opening his mouth to respond, a yawn forces its way out instead. Bedtime, then. Yoongi straightens, cracks his neck, and ignores Seokjin’s wince at the sound. Yoongi hears him asking if that hurts as he pads off towards his bedroom, ignoring the question. The room is still mostly boxes but the bedframe and mattress are assembled, so all he really has to do to make an acceptable sleeping space is drag the duvet out of the box and burrow into it. It occurs to him that ghosts can probably walk through walls, so closing and locking the door will most likely do nothing if Seokjin wants to get in. He goes back out, feeling eyes on him, and digs through a box marked ‘kitchen’ until he finds the salt shaker. 

He’s about to tip salt out onto the floor in front of the door, when Seokjin speaks up in a baleful tone. “That really won’t be necessary.” Yoongi freezes. Seokjin is giving him a withering stare. “What am I, a snail? Goodnight, Yoongi-ssi.” 

“Uh. Goodnight, Seokjin-ssi.” Yoongi responds, setting the salt down on the counter and retreating to his room. He locks the door behind him just for the principle of the thing, the ‘click’ like a punctuation mark at the end of this odd night. 

It’s weird to talk to a ghost in a hoodie. Yoongi always pictures ghosts like a mul gwishin or something, long hair and a dripping hanbok. Not wearing soft pink cotton and house slippers shaped like what looks like an alpaca. 

It really would be strange, he supposes, to one day have someone tell you you’re a ghost. He probably was a bit more indelicate than he should have been, but this is the kind of information that can’t really be given gently. Seokjin being ‘92 too, only a year older than Yoongi… you don’t expect that. The denial makes more sense than he had given Seokjin credit for. If the tables were turned, how would Yoongi react? He lets himself imagine for a second, a pillow flying through his own chest. A stranger in a space that was his. In your 20s, everyone always tells you that you still have your whole life ahead of you. If that was suddenly ripped away– he would almost certainly lash out at first. Seokjin shouted but Yoongi would yell , hurl some insults. He’s not as angry as he used to be but sometimes he feels it simmering below the surface, and this is the kind of thing that would make it bubble over.

After he’s done lamenting his lost ambitions, Yoongi thinks that really he’d just want his friends to be okay. They all deserve the world and more, but he’d settle for them just being happy. Not being too sad at his memory, or hiding pain inside. With friends like his, who have all been up each other’s asses for years, he thinks they’d manage. They’d hold each other up until they could stand again and move on together. 

It’s a strange mental spot to drift off to sleep with. Yoongi feels oddly wistful and melancholy. It’s been a long time since his introspection took that kind of emotional turn, and he’s not sure he likes it so much. He huffs and turns onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Talking to Seokjin had kind of been fun at the end there, how had he gone and made himself sad? It was such a weird situation that Yoongi didn’t know what else to do besides make jokes, but Seokjin was making them too. So maybe they both use deflection and humor to cope. Maybe Seokjin was trying not to think about his own lost ambitions, or the people that might be missing him. 

The next morning Yoongi almost forgets. There’s just a little lingering sadness like a fog in the corner of his mind, but other than that the hot ghost in his apartment feels like a dream born out of exhaustion and moving stress. Like his own personal Jacob Marley or something. A much sexier and slightly tragic Jacob Marley. 

He slides his feet into his slippers and shuffles from the bedroom and into the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee once he rummages through the right box and finds the beans. He stands there and waits for the smell to bring him back to life, turning to lean against the counter. It’s too early to be completely upright. The sounds of the percolator fill the apartment.

“Did you make enough to share?” A voice asks as Yoongi starts to pour, and he almost drops his mug. A small scream may escape his mouth but there are no witnesses, aside from the fucking ghost who is seated at his kitchen table and apparently was not a dream. 

Seokjin looks just as good in the daylight, which Yoongi somehow wasn’t expecting. He’d always thought of ghosts as something relegated strictly to darkness, but in the daylight he can see that Seokjin’s hair is a fluffy warm brown that curls gently over his forehead. There’s a subtle pink to his cheeks and a shine to his lips, which are, yep, still extremely full. Yoongi swallows thickly and shifts his gaze. Seokjin is still wearing that same pink hoodie and ripped jeans, so it seems like ghosts can’t change clothes. If Yoongi ever writes a book on the supernatural, he’ll have to include that.

This isn’t normal. He doesn’t know what he was thinking last night, fucking bantering with Seokjin, but seeing a ghost isn’t normal. Yoongi has questioned his mental state many times in his life, but this is a new one. So he does what he always does–

He calls Namjoon.

The phone picks up after a few rings, and Yoongi doesn’t even let Namjoon say hi before he says “Namjoon-ah, I think I’m going crazy.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Seokjin furrow his brow and mouth something that looks like ‘namjoon-ah’. 

“Good morning, hyung.” Namjoon responds calmly. “Can you elaborate, please?” 

“I’m uh, seeing someone.” Yoongi tries, now staring at Seokjin as he gets up from the table and comes closer to Yoongi. Is he trying to eavesdrop? 

“I don’t know how to tell you this Yoongi-hyung, but you’ve been seeing a therapist for years.” Namjoon says, amusement coloring his voice.

“Not what I meant, asshole.” Yoongi hisses. Seokjin is close enough now that Yoongi would be able to feel his breath if he had it. It’s slightly distracting– his eyes are warmer up close, a deep brown with hints of gold. They sparkle in the morning sunlight even with the ever-so slight transparency of his form. They’re narrowed and his head is tilted to one side, definitely listening. 

“What did you mean?” Namjoon responds. Seokjin’s (pretty, pretty) eyes light up in recognition.  

“Joonie?” Seokjin asks. He looks hopeful somehow. 

All at once, the puzzle pieces click into place. Kim Seokjin. Seok jin . Namjoon’s older brother Jin. The one that Yoongi was going to be set up with, six months ago. The one currently in a coma. 

When Yoongi wondered who was missing Seokjin, he didn’t think that person would be so close to home. 

“Shit.” Yoongi curses, fingers fumbling with the phone. 

“Hyung?” Namjoon sounds actually concerned now. “What did you mean?”

“I gotta go, Joon-ah. Talk later.” 

“Hyung–”

Click.

“You know my brother?” Seokjin asks, confirming Yoongi’s panicked thoughts. 

“I work with him.” Yoongi responds weakly. It’s a massive oversimplification of he and Namjoon’s relationship, but it’ll do at the moment. Seokjin’s eyes widen. 

“Ooohh, you’re that Yoongi.” The phone in Yoongi’s hands starts to buzz, Namjoon’s contact photo flashing on the screen. He declines the call. “Might as well call me hyung, then.”

“Yep, that’s me. And uhh... you’re right hyung, you’re not dead.” Seokjin perks up.

“I knew it!” 

“You’re in a coma.” Yoongi adds. Seokjin’s smile drops. 

“What?” 

“Uhh…” Yoongi gestures to the table. “You wanna sit down again?” 

Yoongi explains in fits and starts, about how he was on the way to a blind date that Namjoon had set up when a car hit him in a head-on collision after running the red. How for the last six months, he’d been lying in a coma at Samsung Hospital. How Namjoon, wanting to be a good brother, goes to see him twice every week. And how Namjoon, apparently wanting to be a good friend too, gave Yoongi the real estate listing for what was clearly his brother’s old apartment without telling Yoongi. 

He leaves out the part that it was Yoongi he was supposed to meet. The knowledge settles like a lead weight in his stomach.

Seokjin listens with a pinched look on his face, lips pursed and brows furrowed even further than before. He doesn’t interrupt. His hands fidget in his lap as if he wants to hold something for comfort, like the way Yoongi’s own hands are wrapped around his mug, but he physically can’t. Finally, when Yoongi trails off, Seokjin comments. 

“Six months.” He’s not meeting Yoongi’s eyes. “Wow.”

“Are you, uh, are you okay?” Yoongi asks. 

“Well no,” Seokjin says dryly. “I’m in a coma.” 

Yoongi starts to laugh in spite of himself, feeling so uncomfortable that it has to leave his body somehow. Then both he and Jin are laughing, the desperate kind of laughter where nothing is funny but you just can’t stop. Yoongi’s stomach hurts with the force of it. Seokjin’s laughter is squeaky and tapers into more gasps than sound, and Yoongi thinks that if ghosts could cry there would be tears in his eyes. 

“Fuck.” Seokjin gasps. “What the fuck.”

It’s not a question, and Yoongi doesn’t answer. He tries to calm himself down by drumming a discordant beat on his coffee cup before he manages to still his fingers. In the sudden silence, the knocks on the door can be heard easily.

“Hyung!” Namjoon calls through the door. “Let me in!”

“Fuck.” Seokjin repeats. Yoongi stares at the door in something akin to terror. 

“Yeah.”

The knocks turn into pounding, so Yoongi gets up and takes a deep breath before opening the door. Namjoon’s arm is poised for another knock and Yoongi has to physically reach up and grab it before Namjoon hits him in the face.

“What, Joon-ah?”

“You worried me, hyung. That was kind of a weird phone call.” Namjoon breathes, stepping by Yoongi and toeing his shoes off. “What did you mean by ‘you’re seeing someone?’” 

“Uhhh…” Yoongi says, eloquently, because if Namjoon straightens up he’s going to see what Yoongi meant. His brother, the same one hooked up to monitors and IVs and all sorts of things in a hospital bed, sitting at Yoongi’s kitchen table. Seokjin, for his part, looks like he’s accepted this. Instead of the vaguely ill expression he wore just a second ago, he’s moving his bangs around on his forehead and adjusting his hoodie. 

“Hyung?” Namjoon repeats, finally digging out the correct pair of house slippers from the box they’d placed next to the shoe rack with a small victorious noise. He slips them on and stands to his full height, and any second now he’s going to see– “Oh, you haven’t had your coffee yet. You’re probably barely awake, huh?” 

What? 

Namjoon’s gaze passes right through Seokjin, focusing instead on the cup of coffee left at Yoongi’s seat. It’s still steaming, and Namjoon’s right, still mostly full. Yoongi must have forgotten to drink it while he was telling Seokjin what was going on. Seokjin is staring at his brother, face expectant but settling into something more like an impassive mask. Namjoon strides forward and for a second Yoongi thinks he’s going to reach right through his brother, thinks that sight might break something in him a little, but instead Namjoon swerves and goes around the table to grab the cup instead of stretching for it. Probably safer that way, Namjoon is cautious with dishware after years of experience. Not once does he look at Seokjin, or give any indication that he knows his brother is here, and fuck is Yoongi really going crazy? 

“Namjoon-ah.” Seokjin exhales. The neutral expression has shifted just a little, eyes wider and suspiciously shiny, mouth turned down at the corners ever so slightly. 

It’s the most quiet devastation Yoongi has ever seen. 

Namjoon just walks past and gently shoves the coffee into Yoongi’s hands. He’s still got some concern on his face, masked in cheer. Yoongi mechanically takes a sip and tries to shake himself out of this. He’s being weird, he’s being obviously weird. It’s just that he can’t tear his eyes away from Seokjin, who’s still staring at Namjoon’s back as if willing his brother to look at him. He takes another sip, too big this time, and chokes. Namjoon pounds him on the back. 

“Yah, Namjoon-ah.” He rasps once he’s stopped coughing. His eyes water at the corners but at least now he’s not looking at Seokjin and that expression on his face. “You didn’t have to come all this way. Hyung was just being silly.”

“What did you mean you were seeing someone?” 

“Just that I’ve been on a few dates with a guy.” Yoongi lies, and oh this is one that will come back to bite him, he just knows it. The relieved smile that spreads across Namjoon’s face confirms that. 

“Aw, hyung. When you said you were going crazy– you really like this guy, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin intones from behind Namjoon. He rests his head on one hand, cocking it to the side, and smiles with a closed mouth. It’s a bitter thing. “You must really like this guy you’re seeing!” 

Oblivious to the sardonic commentary, Namjoon continues. “Hobi is going to be so happy when I tell him you found someone!” 

Fuck. There it is, already biting him. Hoseok will be happy for Yoongi, and he’ll want to meet this new boyfriend, and then he’ll be so disappointed when the lie is revealed. Yoongi can already see the little triangle frown on his face. He hates disappointing Hoseok. It’s worse than any time he’s ever disappointed his parents, or his boss, or literally anyone else. And how is he going to explain this one? ‘I’m sorry I lied to you Hoseok, it’s just the ghost of your boyfriend’s comatose brother is haunting me, and I panicked?’ 

Yeah, that’s just not going to work.

Yoongi wracks his brain for an excuse to make Namjoon leave. It’s Sunday, so there’s no work to get to.The apartment needs to be set up, but Namjoon is infuriatingly considerate and would definitely want to help. The fake boyfriend is honestly the best option. He’ll dig himself into an even deeper hole than he already has, but it can’t really be helped. He grabs the shovel.

“We’ve actually got a date in about an hour, so Joon-ah, I’m sorry, but get out of my house.” Yoongi says, mustering up a convincing enough smile. 

“It’s not even ten o’clock yet, do you like this guy enough to go to brunch? ” Namjoon asks, incredulous. “Oh, Hobi’s not going to believe this.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi groans. Extremely subtly, he ushers Namjoon backwards towards the door. Seokjin is watching in thinly veiled amusement. “I don’t like to get up early, I get it. What’s wrong with liking my sleep?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Namjoon stumbles a bit in haste as he toes his slippers off and puts his shoes back on. “I’m just surprised someone is changing your nocturnal schedule. How long have you been seeing this guy?” 

“Not long,” Yoongi resolutely won’t meet Namjoon’s eyes. With any luck this will come off as embarrassment rather than falsehood. He scrubs a hand through his still sleep-rumpled hair to play up the illusion of nerves. “Just uh… he really left an impression.”  

Namjoon coos and reaches out to pinch Yoongi’s cheek, which really does make them burn, and Yoongi swats his hand away with fond irritation he doesn’t even have to fake. The expression on Namjoon’s face is roughly the same as when he looks at a particularly tiny sea creature, eyes wide and glittering and pleased. Yoongi has so many regrets. He swallows them all and manages to feign a cheerful wave, then sags against the door as soon as it shuts. 

“So,” Seokjin begins after a brief pause. “What are we going to do?”

Yoongi’s eyes fly open. “What do you mean what are we going to do?” 

“Well I doubt you want a roommate,” Seokjin muses, stalking over to him and reaching a hand out like he’s going to pull Yoongi up. Yoongi narrows his eyes and Seokjin giggles, high and squeaky. “Sorry, worth a shot. And, I don’t think after that display that you’d be good at lying to my brother long term. So we need to do something to get me back to my body.”

“How do I know that I’m not just imagining you?” It’s a good question. Namjoon couldn’t see or hear him. There’s no other evidence aside from Yoongi’s senses. Maybe he’s lost it. Maybe he should tell his therapist about this. It does seem hasty to worry her over visual and auditory hallucinations though. Is it strange to hope that something does turn out to be a ghost? “Tell me something only the real Kim Seokjin would know.” 

“How would that help? You know nothing about the real me. You couldn’t confirm.” Seokjin responds drily. 

“Good point.” Yoongi concedes. “Oh! I got it. Do you have an instagram?” 

“Yes.” Seokjin tilts his head. “But I don’t really use it, I never got the hang of it. Why?” 

“I’ve never seen a picture of you. If I can confirm this is actually what you look like, it would make it a bit more convincing that your… spirit, or whatever is really here.” 

“How have you never seen a picture of me? Namjoon has never shown you one? He should have dozens, framed, in his studio and his home. I’m offended.” Seokjin complains, pouting. His lips have really got to stop distracting Yoongi. 

Aside from one anniversary photo from a trip to Malta and a string of polaroids stuck to the fridge with colorful magnets (Hoseok’s doing), the only thing on Namjoon’s walls are various paintings and prints. His pride and joy is a commissioned piece of his favorite bonsai, though he insists that it’s not his favorite and he loves them all equally. Yoongi thinks that if you only had a painting made of one of them, it’s clearly your favorite. On social media Namjoon only ever posts candid photos of himself that Hoseok takes, or photos of the art museums they frequent. There’s no family photos of any kind, just a carefully curated feed with the same lighting filter over everything. 

“I guess you don’t fit into Namjoon’s color palette.” Yoongi says with a shrug.

“Yah!” Seokjin squawks indignantly. “I fit every color palette.” He sniffs.  

“What’s your username?” Yoongi asks, pulling up the app on his phone. His own is, admittedly, quite bare. There’s only a few vacation photos and a selca from the studio or two. 

“It’s just ‘Jin’.” Seokjin answers. Yoongi looks up with a raised brow. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, just Jin.” 

“I could have seen you so easily,” Yoongi mutters, typing in the characters and pressing “search”. All the fuss about not getting to know Seokjin’s full name or appearance before the date and his handle was just his nickname all along. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

The page loads, and staring back at him from the screen is undeniably the ghost in front of him. Most of the photos are selcas, showing a cycle of hair colors, but there’s no mistaking the kind eyes beneath a strong brow, the lush lips. Scattered in between the selcas are a number of food pictures, and Yoongi remembers that Namjoon said Seokjin was a chef. 

“Okay, so you’re probably not a hallucination.” Yoongi admits. “Or ghost catfishing me.” 

“So what are we going to do?” Seokjin repeats.

“I’m going back to bed.” Yoongi says simply. It’s still early, it’s a Sunday. Moving strained his old shoulder injury and there's a dull undercurrent of pain running through it. He can shut the curtains and go back to sleep and avoid thinking about all of… this, whatever it is, for a little bit longer. 

“It’s daytime.” 

“It’s a weekend.” 

“It really would take somebody special to get you to become a morning person, wouldn’t it?” Seokjin shakes his head and pouts some more. “I can’t believe I’m not enough for you. I’m supernaturally handsome.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t watch me sleep, Edward Cullen.” Yoongi grumbles, stalking towards the bedroom.

“Okay, that metaphor is flawed. If anything, I’m Patrick Swayze.” Comes the shouted retort. “And don’t worry. You’re not my type!” 

“You’re not mine, either!” Yoongi shouts back, whirling around as he shuts the door.

It’s a blatant lie.

Seokjin’s petulant “Well, good!” is muffled through the wood of the door. Yoongi collapses onto his mattress with an exaggerated groan and burrows into the blanket. Despite the day’s stressful start, sleep drags him back down. He goes willingly.

“Hey.” He hears, some time later. “Hey. Yoongi. Wake up.” He cracks one eye open, and Seokjin is crouched awkwardly next to the bed, face very close to his own. “Why aren’t I your type?” 

Throwing pillows at Seokjin is getting to be a theme.

Chapter Text

You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be

And I don't want to go home right now

Yoongi emerges from his room for good about two hours later, the sun high enough in the sky that he can’t avoid the day any longer. The prospect of putting together the apartment isn’t thrilling, but it is necessary. He goes to get the percolator started again and considers where to begin. The living room will be the easiest, the couch already in its place. From there it’s only the matter of getting the TV stand and coffee table set up and finding a suitable spot for his keyboard, which is currently propped against the wall in a little too precarious a manner for his liking. 

The TV stand comes together easily. It’s a nice dark wood, sleek and modern to match his coffee table. Yoongi puts his turntable on the lower shelf and slides his crate of records next to it. 

“You don’t have any game consoles?” Seokjin’s voice comes from behind him. Yoongi definitely doesn’t jump or yell, and if it comes down to it, there’s no proof. It’s all hearsay.

“No,” he responds, turning around. Seokjin looks disappointed, more than judgmental. 

“Boring.” He huffs.

“I entertain myself in other ways,” Yoongi says, then immediately grimaces. Seokjin’s lips curve into a delighted little “u” shape, and Yoongi points a warning finger at him. “Don’t say it.” 

“Okay but you know what that sounded like-” 

“I meant piano.” 

“Oh!” Seokjin brightens. “That’s right, you make music too. Will you write me a song? I’ve been trying to get Namjoonie to for years.” 

“Hmm,” Yoongi taps a finger against his chin, feigning thought. “No.” 

“Oh, come on , Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin pouts. “Think of the material you have to work with! A dashing specter,” he waggles his eyebrows. “A haunting figure, I mean– it writes itself.” 

“No.” Yoongi repeats. 

The problem is, Yoongi thinks that night, after fielding Seokjin’s comments about his interior design and lack of anything “interesting or fun” for the remainder of the day– the problem is that Seokjin isn’t wrong. Yoongi could probably write a good song about this. He’s of the belief that he could probably write a decent song about anything, his studio isn’t called Genius Lab for nothing, but he could write something good about Seokjin. The ghost that won’t leave him alone, stirring up guilt, confusion, annoyance, and a myriad of other feelings. 

And okay, Seokjin is attractive. Very. It was literally the second thing that Yoongi noticed about him. He’s just about every wet dream Yoongi’s subconscious wasn’t creative enough to come up with. Ignoring his face, which is very difficult to do, the rest of him is just as beautiful. When he puts his hands on his hips and cinches the baggy hoodie closer to his body (for lack of a better term), Yoongi can tell his waist is tiny despite his broad shoulders. Yoongi isn’t small, no matter what his friends like to say, but Seokjin makes him feel just a little bit like he is. The horny part of his mind kind of likes it. 

Yoongi shakes himself. That’s Namjoon’s brother . But Namjoon tried to set the two of you up, Horny Yoongi chimes back in. He’s a fucking ghost, Yoongi reminds himself. Horny Yoongi sighs. You got me there. 

He stares up at the ceiling, watching the shadows creep along the wall and hoping that Seokjin can’t turn into one of them. He keeps his hand firmly out of his pants, just in case. 

Monday morning dawns bright and clear, and Yoongi gets ready for work bleary and unfocused. Autopilot drives him until he’s pulling his shoes on at the door and movement catches his eye. Seokjin is sitting on the couch, waving goodbye with a small smile on his face. Yoongi pauses, cocks his head, and then waves back. As the door shuts behind him, he hears Seokjin call, “Have a good day at work, Yoongi-yah.”

When he gets home, hours past sunset, Seokjin is still there, because of course he is. It catches Yoongi off-guard nonetheless, just as in the morning. He’s not used to having someone waiting for him. When he walks in the door and turns the light on, Seokjin greets him while his eyes blink rapidly in the sudden brightness. 

“You work late, huh?” Seokjin asks. 

“It varies, but yeah, mostly.” Yoongi nods. “Weird hours.” 

“I get it, I used to work restaurant kitchen hours.” Seokjin explains. Yoongi pulls some potatoes and zucchini out and starts to cut them into neat rounds. If the slices are a bit more even than they would be if he was not cooking under the eye of a chef, no one has to know. 

“I tend to get caught up in my projects.” He says, sliding the veggies into a broth-filled pot. “Time gets away from me a lot.” 

“I see why you and Namjoonie are such good friends.” Seokjin comments. He gestures towards the jjigae bubbling away on the burner. “Is that doenjang?”

“Mm-hmm.” Yoongi hums. 

“Is it almost DONE-jang?” Seokjin asks. Yoongi blinks. Seokjin is biting his full bottom lip to keep from laughing, but the mirth is clear in his eyes. 

“No.” Yoongi responds simply, then turns back to the soup. He hears Seokjin giggle once. 

“Make sure to eat well, Yoongi-yah.”

On Tuesday Yoongi works from home so that when delivery men come to drop off the new light fixture, he’s there to answer the door. Most of the day he spends wearing his most noise-cancelling headphones, the ones that Hoseok calls his ‘fuck off’ headphones. Seokjin tries to talk to him for a while, Yoongi seeing him out of the corner of his eye with his mouth moving, but gives up when Yoongi clearly can’t hear what he’s saying. 

“Are you busy writing my song?” he asks when Yoongi finally takes his headphones off and pushes back from his keyboard. 

“Yep,” Yoongi answers flatly. “It’s going to be amazing.” 

“As it should be.” Seokjin answers, playing along. “I will accept nothing less than perfection.” 

Yoongi hums noncommittally and grabs a pair of scissors to slice the box containing the new light open. It’s not as much of a chandelier as the current one, much more minimalist and modern to fit Yoongi’s preferred aesthetic. He likes clean lines, nothing fussy, just a good color palette and natural texture. This light is made of cool silver metal in a curving oval, a nice contrast to all of his dark wood furniture. 

“Is that really what you’re going with?” Seokjin comments as Yoongi is balanced on a ladder installing the light. “What’s wrong with the old one?” 

“I didn’t like it.” Yoongi explains. 

“Well I don’t like that one,” Seokjin gripes, pouting. 

“You don’t pay the rent anymore.” Yoongi counters, flicking the new light on. It looks good, fits the room well. He nods in satisfaction and slides his headphones back on. 

After about an hour, his concentration lapses on the song he’s working on for some new boy group’s debut. Seokjin is standing near the window, bathed in the light of the setting sun. He’s not doing anything, zoned out while staring at the sky outside. His warm brown hair glows almost gold. His face is relaxed, not stretched into any of the exaggerated expressions he pulls when talking. At rest his mouth is soft and curves slightly upward at the edges, and his eyes are large and round. 

Yoongi has thought a lot of things about Seokjin’s appearance, mostly about how he’s sexy. But now, in a quiet moment awash with the golden hour, all he can think is that Seokjin is beautiful .  

He opens a new file on Cubase. 

On Wednesday, Yoongi watches Hoseok press an uncharacteristically subdued kiss to Namjoon’s cheek and wordlessly tuck the book sticking partially out of his messenger bag safely inside. He waves as Namjoon cycles off towards the hospital, takes a deep breath and lets it out gustily, then turns back to Yoongi with as wide and dimpled a smile as ever. When he asks about how Yoongi’s boyfriend is doing, Yoongi’s mouth feels full of sand and he can’t answer.

This slow kind of loss is weighing on his friends, and Yoongi feels it like a lead coat around his own shoulders. He slouches all the way back home to his ghost. 

When Yoongi flicks the lights on, Seokjin is sitting on the couch like an angry parent waiting for the child out past curfew. Yoongi feels too heavy to even flinch. As Yoongi toes off his shoes at the door, Seokjin crosses his arms and levels him with a disgruntled pout. 

“You couldn’t even leave a lamp on–” 

“Namjoon is reading you Murakami right now.” Yoongi interrupts. Seokjin’s expression turns to confusion. 

“O…kay?”

Yoongi drops onto the couch next to Seokjin. There’s no indent on the other cushion where Seokjin’s thigh rests. Yoongi feels heavy, heavy, heavy. 

“He’s been reading it to you for weeks. You’re halfway through Kafka on the Shore.” 

“Ah,” Seokjin says. “I’ve already read that one, actually. Namjoon wouldn’t stop talking about it, so I finally read it for him. But then I hated it, and didn’t have the heart to tell him.”  

In spite of himself, Yoongi snorts. The weight lightens, just a little bit. “He actually said the same thing last week. That he can’t help thinking that you would probably hate it. You should tell him, when you wake up, that he was right.”

“When.”

“What?”

Seokjin is smiling softly. “You said ‘when’ I wake up. Does that mean you’ll actually help me now?” 

Yoongi pauses. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what I’ll do, but. I’ll try.” He expects some sort of pageantry, some showy gloating or something, but instead Seokjin just looks relieved. “What have you tried so far?”

“Mostly I’ve just wished. Really hard.” Seokjin shrugs. Yoongi waits to see if he’s kidding, but Seokjin doesn’t laugh. 

“I am shocked that that hasn’t worked.” 

“You know Yoongi-chi, I sense your sarcasm and I don’t appreciate it.” 

“Yoongi-chi? What is that?”

“It’s you.” Now that more teasing smile is curling up the corner of Seokjin’s mouth. Yoongi wonders how it already feels familiar.

“No it’s not, it’s nothing.” 

“It’s genius, actually, and it’s you.” 

Yoongi is properly laughing now, the weight dissipating even more with each giggle he can’t suppress. “My studio is called Genius Lab, I think I would know genius–” 

“Then you agree! Splendid!” Seokjin interrupts, giggles beginning to spill from his own mouth. “Now Yoongi-chi, pray tell, what is your genius idea if not wishing really hard?” 

Yoongi thinks, trying to get himself back in check. He schools his expression into a thoughtful one, but small breathy laughs break through every now and again. Seokjin is still beaming, cheeks pink and glowy and looking so tangible that Yoongi has the bizarre desire to poke one. His chest is light, light, light. 

“Uhh, okay. Here’s something. Have you tried to leave the apartment?” 

Seokjin narrows his eyes exaggeratedly. “I see what you’re doing. You’re just trying to get me to leave, aren't you?” 

“I mean, yes.” Yoongi says. “You leaving is actually the goal here.” 

“I suppose that’s true.” Seokjin admits. Then he furrows his brow again, all theatrics, and points one finger at Yoongi’s chest. It’s long and slightly crooked, not straightening out all the way. “But you’re on thin fucking ice.”

“Well maybe if you physically go to your body you can just, I don’t know, slip back in?” 

“Physically might be the wrong wording there.” Seokjin says. 

“You know what I mean.” Yoongi gestures towards the door. “Maybe just, try to see if you can walk down the hall or something.” 

Seokjin shrugs and gets up. It’s a weird cognitive dissonance, seeing someone stand and not feeling the weight shift that you know you should. Yoongi watches Seokjin move to the door, and pause. He stands there kind of awkwardly, hands twitching at his sides in an aborted movement. One foot lifts, then returns to the ground after a slight pause. There’s nothing but anticipatory silence for a long moment. Eventually, Seokjin sighs and turns back to Yoongi. 

“Could you open the door for me? I don’t think I can make myself walk through it.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Yoongi shuffles over to the door and pulls it open, feeling grateful that none of his neighbors are out in the hallway. He stands out of the way and stuffs his hands in his pockets. Seokjin inhales, deep and slow, then steps through the door.

The way it happens is like watching a DVD glitch right in front of you. One second Seokjin is standing in the hallway, walking towards the elevator bank, then the next he’s jumped backwards and is standing in the doorway again. Yoongi watches him place his foot out of the door again, get three strides out, and then he’s standing back where he started once more. A record skipping in time. Seokjin loops twice more before finally he manages to stop his foot from falling outside of the apartment and instead stands, bent over and panting, in the doorway. 

“Okay so we can mark a ‘no’ on the leaving the apartment thing.” Yoongi comments after a moment. Seokjin looks up at him from where he’s still resting against his knees with a withering stare. “We’ll try something else tomorrow.” 

They don’t try something else tomorrow. Instead, Yoongi puts netflix on the TV and starts a drama playing. By the time he gets home from work, Seokjin is halfway through and spends the time it takes Yoongi to make himself some dinner recounting everything that has happened so far.  He tells Yoongi about the too-contrived love triangle and cheesy dialogue, acting out scenes that were particularly egregious. Yoongi hides a grin by hastily shoving a spoonful of fried rice into his mouth and promptly burning his tongue. 

“If this one is so bad I can put a different one on tomorrow, hyung.” Yoongi offers. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Seokjin sniffs. “I need to see which middlingly handsome man the lead picks.” 

They spend the rest of the night watching two more episodes of the drama, making disparaging comments occasionally. It’s as bad as Seokjin said. The actors do their best with the script they’re given, but the plot doesn’t give them too much to work with. The OST isn’t even that good, with lyrics something generic about how ‘you must be my fate’. The beat is out of sync with the thirteen angle changes of the leads staring at each other in loaded silence. 

“I think she’ll choose the childhood friend.” Seokjin decides as the ‘next time on’ screen plays some stupidly dramatic scenes that Yoongi won’t be watching. “What do you think?” 

“I think you should watch the rest without me.” Yoongi says.

He does, while Yoongi is at work on Friday. By the time Yoongi gets back, the TV is stuck on the netflix home screen and Seokjin is laying on the couch staring at the light fixture above. 

“You know, I’ve been looking at this light for about two hours now,” Seokjin starts. He props himself up on his elbows and looks over at Yoongi.  “And I have to say. I still don’t like it.” 

Yoongi chooses to ignore that comment, toeing off his shoes and stepping into his slippers.

“I just don’t see why you had to change it,” Seokjin gripes. “The old one was de light ful.” 

Yoongi sighs through his nose, but assumes that if he doesn’t acknowledge the pun then Seokjin will let it go, like the last one. 

“Did you hear me, Yoongi-chi? I said the old one was deLIGHTful.” 

So Yoongi assumed wrong.

“Believe it or not, I got it.” He deadpans. Seokjin starts laughing loud and squeaky. It’s not a good pun, not at all, but Seokjin takes true… well, delight . Yoongi still won’t laugh though. 

“Also I’ve thought of another idea we could try.” Seokjin adds, once his giggles have died down.

“Oh yeah? What is it?” He asks. 

“I was thinking maybe you could scare me.” Seokjin says. Yoongi furrows his brow. 

“What?” 

“You know, like maybe if I get a big enough shock I’ll just wake up. Like when you fall in a dream, or when you have hiccups.” 

It’s not a bad idea. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but nothing about this situation really does, so Yoongi is willing to try anything. There’s only one problem. “How am I supposed to scare you?”

“I don’t know, you think of something.” Seokjin waves a hand. “You can’t tell me how, or it won’t scare me. I’ll be expecting it. Now. Do you want to know how the drama ended?” 

On Saturday morning Yoongi tries to scare Seokjin by asking if he wants to hear what Yoongi is working on. When he agrees excitedly, Yoongi presses play on a recorded track of loud screaming and mentally apologizes to his neighbors. Seokjin’s eyes go wide and he stumbles backwards, tripping over nothing and falling through the coffee table. Unfortunately, he doesn’t disappear and wake up in a hospital bed, back in his body where he belongs. 

On Sunday, after a week of having a spectral roommate, Yoongi decides they need more ideas and calls his dongsaengs. Not Namjoon or Hoseok– they still think he’s got a new boyfriend that he’s too shy to introduce them to, and he’s going to let that music play on a bit longer before he faces it. Instead he calls his far more chaotic pair of maknaes, which is really a sign that the situation is truly dire. 

“Okay, this is going to sound crazy,” Yoongi starts. 

“Aww, hyung.” Yoongi can hear the shit eating grin in Jimin’s voice. “It’s sweet to think you ever sound sane.”

“Chim,” Taehyung’s deep voice, slightly muffled, comes down the line. “I think he’s serious about this one. We shouldn’t tease him.”

“Sorry, baby.” Jimin responds. “Sorry, hyung. What’s crazy?”

“Okay, so you know how Namjoon’s brother is in a coma,” Yoongi is acutely aware of said brother’s eyes on him as he says this. It would be fantastic if he could be a more discreet nosy ghost. Jimin hums an affirmative. “Well, I’m pretty sure the apartment he suggested to me was Seokjin’s, because I’ve been seeing his ghost.” 

“Not a ghost.” Seokjin insists in a mutter.

“Does that really count as a ghost?” Jimin asks thoughtfully. “I mean, if Seokjin is not technically dead?” 

“ Thank you.” Seokjin says emphatically. “Someone gets it.”

“Will you stop listening to my conversations?” Yoongi gripes. 

“No.”  Seokjin replies simply. 

“Are you talking to Seokjin-ssi now?” Jimin gasps. 

“Yes.” Yoongi confirms. He ignores Jimin’s excited calls of ‘hello Seokjin-ssi’ and shuffles towards the kitchen, away from his spectral eavesdropper. “You’re taking this all surprisingly well. You don’t think I’m crazy?” 

“Hyung, we’ve been over this, I definitely think you’re crazy.” Yoongi rolls his eyes. “But not for this ghost thing. I’ll have you know that I’m very close with a psychic. My mind is very open.”

Yoongi furrows his brow. “Wha-” he begins, then thinks better of it. Literally anything goes when it comes to Jimin and Taehyung– Yoongi shouldn’t be surprised at this point. “Actually, no. You know what? That makes sense for you.” 

“I will take that as a compliment.” Jimin sounds proud. 

“It was a neutral statement.” Yoongi responds. 

“So, thank you, hyung.” Jimin continues, undeterred. “Just for that, I’ll bring over my psychic for you.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“No no, that might be a good idea.” Seokjin’s voice is suddenly much closer than before. Yoongi can’t stop himself from flinching in surprise, but manages to stop himself from screaming this time. Goddamn ghost feet not making any noise. This is why Yoongi has been afraid to jerk off anywhere but the shower for a week. “Maybe a psychic would be able to help.” 

“Okay,” Yoongi sighs. “Actually, Jimin… we’d really appreciate that.”

An excited shout comes from the other line before it goes dead. There’s a swirling feeling of trepidation in Yoongi’s gut. 

The door buzzer sounds after only an hour. 

“Jimin, I thought you were bringing a psychic.” Yoongi says slowly. 

“I did.” Jimin chirps. 

“This is your boyfriend.” Yoongi says, even slower, gesturing to Taehyung. Jimin just smiles blithely back. 

“Yes he is!” He confirms, delightedly. He shoots Taehyung a deeply adoring look, eyes happy shining crescents. Taehyung grins back, squeezing Jimin’s hand in both of his own. It’s disgusting, in Yoongi’s professional opinion.

“You should trust me, Yoongi-hyung. I’m really good at it.” Taehyung chimes in, turning his attention back to Yoongi. Jimin clings to Taehyung’s back, wrapped around his boyfriend like a limpet. When he nods, the sharp point of his chin digs into Taehyung’s shoulder. 

“Taehyungie is very in touch with the spirit world.” Jimin adds, and presses a kiss to Taehyung’s cheek with a smack.  

Yoongi is so very, very tired. “I’m sure he is, but if you aren’t going to take this seriously I think–“

“Oh wow.” Taehyung breathes, looking beyond Yoongi with very wide eyes. “Namjoon-hyung never said his brother was hot.” 

“You can see him?” Yoongi asks.

“He never said I was hot?” Seokjin demands. Taehyung ignores Yoongi’s question in favor of this one. 

“No, but don’t take it personally. You know Namjoon-hyung, he describes people more by their innards. Hot and sexy minds, or beautiful listeners.” Seokjin’s mouth stretches in a fond smile, and Yoongi’s own twitches at the corners. That is Namjoon. The night after Yoongi introduced him to Hoseok, he nursed a coffee for fifty minutes at the kitchen table as he described how Hoseok’s soul was as bright as the sun and he wanted to see what its light could make bloom. Besides a comment about his smile, not once did Namjoon say anything about finding Hoseok outwardly attractive. Taehyung continues. “But rest assured Jin-hyung, can I call you Jin-hyung?” 

“Something tells me you will anyway.” 

“Rest assured Jin-hyung, I’d climb you like a tree, and if Jiminie could see you too, he’d agree.” 

“Tae, I feel like this isn’t the time to hit on him.” Yoongi says. 

“No no, objectify me again please.” Seokjin says, gleeful. “It’s been so long.” 

“Gladly.” Taehyung nods, grinning widely in the boxy way he does when he’s really happy. Jimin squishes his cheeks and coos as Taehyung’s eyes rove up and down Seokjin again. “Your shoulder to waist ratio looks like a Dorito. A very sexy Dorito.”

Seokjin’s smile turns a little bit more confused. “Thank… you?” 

“You’re some real Honey Chili, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not.”

Taehyung whispers something to Jimin, who Yoongi realizes is only getting half of this conversation. Jimin ahh’s softly in understanding and looks in the direction that Taehyung points.

“It means you’re hot AND sweet, Seokjin-hyung.”

“Okay, I’m flattered again. Yoongi-yah here doesn’t give me nearly enough compliments about my impeccable form.” 

A blush floods Yoongi’s cheeks. If only Seokjin knew the things he thought about his impeccable form. The things that were going to be kept between him, the shower, and his right hand. Never to see the light of day. Seokjin haunts Yoongi in multiple ways. Taehyung squishes his fingers into Yoongi’s cheeks, aww ing loudly. 

“Our Yoongi-hyung is just shy.” He sing-songs. “I can tell he’s enamored.” 

Yoongi scowls and grabs Taehyung’s hands, yanking them away from his face. 

“Can you help or not?” 

Taehyung shrugs, letting his hands drop to his sides. “I don’t really know what I would do here. This is a different situation than I’m used to.” 

“What do you usually do?” 

“Well everyone always makes a big deal about unfinished business,” Taehyung says thoughtfully. “And the thing about unfinished business is that a lot of the time the ghost just can’t finish it. So most often, all I can do is just… talk to them. Help them get to the acceptance stage, so to speak. Give them as much closure as I can.” 

Yoongi watches Seokjin as Taehyung speaks. The changes in his facial expression are minute, but telling. The corners of his mouth tighten, downturning just slightly. His eyebrows set in a harder line. His fingers curl tighter into the material of his hoodie and Yoongi can’t tell if there’s the slightest tremble or if it’s a trick of the light. To anyone else, Seokjin seems fine. But Yoongi’s gotten familiar with the sweet resting expression he normally wears, and he can tell– Seokjin is scared. 

“But their bodies are dead.” Taehyung continues, unaware of the effect his words are having. He taps a finger to his head. “Your body is alive, with brain activity and everything. You have somewhere to get back to.” 

“Have you tried like… I don't know how it would work, like if you’d have to walk there or could get on a bus or something, but have you tried going to your body?” Jimin pipes up, looking in the direction of the bedroom door. Taehyung gently turns his head towards where Seokjin is actually standing. Seokjin opens his mouth to respond, then turns to Yoongi and nods towards him in cue. 

“Yeah, we tried that. He can’t leave the apartment, just gets kind of zapped right back here.” He explains. Taehyung hums. 

“Have you tried going with him, Yoongi-hyung?” He asks. “You’ve been thinking like Jin-hyung is haunting the place. But maybe he’s haunting the person .” 

“Why would I be haunting Yoongi?” Seokjin asks. “I didn’t even know him until a week ago.” 

Yoongi feels a sick swoop in his stomach. He knows why Seokjin would be haunting him. The blind date that never was, six months ago. The one that Seokjin was on his way to, the only reason he’s in the situation he’s in now. 

“Yeah, we’d never met,” Yoongi agrees, voice rough. Taehyung cocks his head and looks at him like he’s seeing right through him, and honestly, he might be. Both Taehyung and Jimin know about the date. Despite their assurances to the contrary, Yoongi knows they were planning on spying on the two of them that night. Yoongi braces himself as Taehyung opens his mouth, ready for his secret to be revealed, but Taehyung just shrugs. 

“Worth a try anyway.” he says. Yoongi tries to make his sigh of relief as inaudible as possible. “Walk out of the door together and see what happens.” 

Yoongi and Seokjin look at each other, matching skeptical expressions. But then Seokjin shrugs just like Taehyung, and repeats “Worth a try.” Yoongi nods and gestures towards the door. 

“After you.” 

They step out into the hall simultaneously. For a moment it seems to work, the two of them getting halfway down the hall. Seokjin turns to Yoongi and opens his mouth, a smile forming, but before he can get a word out he’s gone. Yoongi looks at empty air as he hears Seokjin’s voice from back inside. 

“I think it’s– Oh. Dammit.” 

Yoongi turns on his heel and walks back to his apartment. Taehyung is explaining to Jimin what just happened and Seokjin has a pinched expression on his face, looking down at his feet. 

Yoongi hates himself, just a little, for feeling relieved. If Seokjin can’t come with him everywhere, maybe he’s not haunting Yoongi specifically. Maybe it’s not Yoongi’s fault. The downside, of course, is that they’re no closer to an explanation.

“So that’s a no on that idea too,” Yoongi says. Seokjin nods, not looking up. 

“Well, I think we need food.” Jimin declares with a clap of his hands. “Can’t brainstorm on an empty stomach. Chinese sound good? I’ve been craving jjajangmyeon.”

Seokjin clears his throat. “I think I’ll excuse myself,” he finally lifts his gaze. “I don’t exactly need dinner.”

Yoongi watches as Seokjin goes to the bedroom, and for once he walks right through it. It’s odd to watch. Seokjin is mostly opaque, so it looks more like a magic trick than a ghost. As if it’s a trick door, with a cleverly placed gap that Seokjin is just walking behind. Yoongi wonders how it feels to pass through the wood. Part of him wants to go after Seokjin, make sure he’s okay, but a larger part says that Seokjin needs to be alone to think. Yoongi respects that. 

“Hyung, I’ll go pick up the food.” Jimin calls from where he’s already putting his shoes and jacket on. “Can you toss me your credit card?” 

“Yah,” Yoongi protests, then fishes his credit card out of his wallet anyway. He’s just a weak hyung at the end of the day. Jimin gives him a kiss on the cheek for his trouble, then presses a messy, lingering kiss to Taehyung’s lips before he leaves with a cheerful wave.

Taehyung, perched on the couch, smiles at him and pats the tops of his thighs in invitation. Yoongi elects to ignore that and sits next to him instead. 

“So,” Taehyung begins. “First ghost?” 

“I thought that kind of went without saying.” Yoongi says with an arched eyebrow. Taehyung hums thoughtfully. 

“Ahh, yeah. You don’t really seem to know what to make of it all.” There’s a small flare of indignance, but Yoongi can’t really deny that. “But don’t worry, that’s normal in your shoes. I’ve never met anyone with my experience.” 

“What is your experience?” Yoongi asks, not entirely sure if he’ll end up regretting that question. Taehyung looks at Yoongi at that, and there’s something different about his eyes. Something more unfathomable, more knowing. Not exactly older, but certainly wiser. Taehyung has always been a bit of an enigma. 

“I’ve always seen them. As far back as I can remember.” 

“And you didn’t think that was…” Yoongi searches for the right word. “Weird?” 

“Mm,” Taehyung considers it. “Yes and no. I won’t say I never thought it was weird, but I will say that I’ve never minded being a bit weird.” 

Yoongi always envied that about Taehyung. Yoongi will admit he’s never dealt with this kind of… oddity, but he's always had things about himself that made some people apprehensive. He learned to take those things and weaponize them, throwing them in the faces of anyone in his path. Spitting his demons out on stages in all his lyrics. Taehyung seemed to make them more into a fashion statement, wearing his eccentricities and ghosts proudly. Just another accessory. It made people curious, rather than wary. Yoongi himself was enchanted when he first met Taehyung, this boy with a Daegu drawl that reminded him of home and permed hair floating about his face like a storm cloud.

“My grandma helped,” Taehyung continues. “She couldn’t see them, but she believed me unlike most adults would when a child says they see things no one else can. She’d ask me about who I met that day, how I helped them, just like she’d ask how school was. That, more than anything else, made me realize that anyone worth keeping in my life would accept all my little weirdnesses. That they’d love them.” His gaze is down at his hands, and Yoongi can tell he’s not seeing them. That his mind is with a certain blonde boy who has him wrapped around his short pinky. “Jimin has always loved everything about me, just like she did. And you guys too, you and Namjoonie-hyung and Hoseokie-hyung. Even if you pretend to be exasperated, I know you wouldn’t have me any other way.” 

There’s something suspiciously like a tiny lump in Yoongi’s throat. Initiating physical contact isn’t his forte, but he feels like it’s warranted, so he slowly scoots a little closer to Taehyung. He tips sideways until their shoulders knock together. If you give Taehyung an inch he’ll take a mile, so he grins his rectangle grin and wraps Yoongi in a fierce hug. 

“Softie hyung,” he coos into Yoongi’s ear. Yoongi flushes.

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Tell me you love me and this stays between us.” Taehyung says solemnly, still holding Yoongi in his long arms. Yoongi sighs, but it’s more fond than anything else.

“I love you,” he mumbles into Taehyung’s shoulder. 

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?” Taehyung prompts. 

“You’re pushing your luck, kid.” Taehyung starts to tickle him and Yoongi squirms, breaking. “I love you, hyung loves you!” 

“And I love you, hyung.” Taehyung beams. Yoongi wiggles his way out of Taehyung’s arms. 

“Has Jimin always known? About the ghosts?” Yoongi asks. 

“Mhm, I told him about it pretty early. Maybe a few months in?” Taehyung says. “Once you get serious with someone it’s hard to hide that you sometimes talk to people that aren’t there.” 

“I don’t think you and Jimin have ever been anything but serious.” Yoongi comments, and Taehyung’s grin grows impossibly wider. His cheeks glow.

“That’s because we’re soulmates.” 

Yoongi’s heard that before, so he doesn’t bat an eye. Everyone in their group knows that Jimin and Taehyung are soulmates, they say so at least once a day. But the voice that comes from behind them sounds a little surprised as it says “Soulmates?”

Seokjin seems to have emerged from the bedroom while they were engrossed in conversation. Taehyung nods enthusiastically. Seokjin looks skeptical. “You believe in that kind of thing?” 

“I see ghosts, hyung.” Taehyung points out. “Why would I write something off just because we can’t see it?” 

“Touché.” Seokjin says, coming forward and settling himself down on the floor. 

“The way I think about it,” Taehyung explains. “is that we all have little invisible strings, right? Not just red ones like they say romantic soulmates have, but all sorts of colors, connecting and overlapping. Like a big cosmic conspiracy theory board. The strings pull us to people who are meant to be in our lives somehow, maybe fleeting and maybe for a long time. I call it String Theory 2.”

“Taehyung-ah, I think that might be copyright infringement.” Seokjin says. “Of Einstein.”  

“Sequels are public domain.” Taehyung shrugs. He looks between Yoongi and Seokjin, drawing a line in the air between them with a single finger. “You two haven’t figured out what color your string is yet, or how long. But there’s something connecting you.” 

Seokjin stares at the path of Taehyung’s finger like if he tries hard enough he can figure out the color and length of this invisible string right now. Yoongi just breathes in, holds it, and breathes out steadily, feeling vaguely unsettled. He chalks it up to just being hungry, and is relieved when Jimin knocks on the door bearing bulging takeout bags. 

Dinner is full of the excited and companionable chatter that his youngest dongsaengs always bring with them, Seokjin fitting in well despite the need for Taehyung to relate what he’s saying to Jimin. The three of them are loud enough that Yoongi can get away with being quiet. His mind jumps from Seokjin, to Namjoon and Hoseok, to his whole little family. 

He stares at the noodles dangling from his chopsticks and thinks about strings, and all the ways they tangle.

Chapter Text

And all I can taste is this moment

And all I can breathe is your life

It’s new, having someone to come home to. Yoongi finds himself leaving work earlier most nights and begging off when his friends ask to hang out, knowing that Seokjin is waiting for him. It’s not only because he doesn’t want Seokjin to be lonely. If Yoongi’s honest, it’s also because he just likes Seokjin’s company. They share space well. They don’t usually do too much, just talk over Yoongi’s dinner and then settle in for some quieter activity, but it’s – nice. It’s really nice. He’s trying not to think about it too hard.

They try to play chess one night, a set that Namjoon gave him as a house-warming gift way back in college. He’d thought it would be good for group bonding, but failed to take into account that none of them knew how to play chess. It’s still in the packaging, and truthfully Yoongi doesn’t know why he’s carried it with him for so long if they’ve never played it. Probably because he can never bring himself to throw out gifts from his friends. There’s a box in the closet of truly baffling items he’s received from Taehyung over the years. He unwraps the cellophane on the game and plops on the floor, pulling the directions out. 

“How is this going to work, exactly?” Seokjin asks. “I can’t touch my pieces.” 

“You tell me where you want me to move them,” Yoongi explains. “And I do it for you.”  

Seokjin narrows his eyes and Yoongi gives him his best innocent, wide-eyed expression, trying to communicate ‘Who me? I would never cheat’ without words.

Yoongi has cheated at every board game he has ever played. 

This game is no exception. Seokjin is yelling after only ten minutes. “YAH! I said move diagonally to the LEFT, not the right!” 

“You didn’t specify my left or yours, hyung, I did what you said.” Yoongi says calmly, taking Seokjin’s pawn off the board and placing it neatly next to the other captured pieces. It’s a long row of Seokjin’s black pieces, not one white piece. “It’s not my fault your strategy is lacking.”

“I was moving diagonally to capture your piece, Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin gripes, pointing at the spot he was (very clearly) aiming for. Yoongi stifles a laugh. “It’s my turn now, right?” 

“No,” Yoongi says smoothly. “I get to go again since I captured your piece.” 

Seokjin glares at him. “That is not a real rule.” 

“Yes it is.” 

“Let me see the rules.” Seokjin demands, holding out his hand. 

“You can’t hold the paper, so I guess you’ll just have to trust me on this one.”

“You are a dirty liar, Min Yoongi, and I do not trust you one bit!” Seokjin declares. He jabs a finger towards the patch of floor in front of him. “Put the rules down in front of me so I can see them.” 

Yoongi holds eye contact as he knocks his drink over on top of the sheet of rules. “Oops.” He deadpans. They both watch as the dark liquid spreads across the paper, the ink running and smudging. Then Yoongi moves his queen forward. “Check.” 

Seokjin takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out. “Well I hope that stains the rug.” 

A few nights later, Seokjin is gunning for a different game. 

“Please, Yoongi-yah?” Seokjin asks, letting a whine into his voice. He’s pouting with his full power, and Yoongi can feel himself starting to cave. Damn those lips. Seokjin has been pleading with him for about twenty minutes now to download Maplestory and log into his account. 

“Jin-hyung, my computer isn’t for gaming.” Yoongi repeats. “My hard drive is for music.” 

“You don’t even have to download the software, okay? They’ve got a free version. Please, I’m so bored.” Seokjin begs, draping himself over the couch. Drama queen. 

“We just played chess!”  

“You cheated. I need something that you don’t know anything about.” Seokjin asserts. Yoongi resists telling him that he technically didn’t know anything about chess either. It made him cheat even more effectively. 

“I leave a different show on for you every day.” Yoongi tries. 

“But I want to do something.” 

Yoongi thinks. He can see where Seokjin is coming from – drama watching is extremely passive, especially binge drama watching. After a few hours it becomes background noise, and Yoongi usually does something else too if the TV is on. It’s been almost three weeks and all Jin has, until Yoongi comes home, are the dramas. 

“Fine. What’s your username?” Yoongi asks, staring at the login screen. Something tells him he’s going to regret this. 

“Worldwide underscore handsome.” Seokjin says, not a hint of irony in his voice. Yoongi exhales through his nose, flattening his mouth to keep from smiling. 

“Okay, and the password?” 

“Super tuna,” Seokjin answers. “With an exclamation point.” 

Yoongi decides he’s not going to ask what a ‘super tuna’ is. It’s probably exactly what it sounds like. That, or it’s the set-up to a bad joke that Seokjin has been waiting to use for far too long. He types in the password and clicks enter. He can see Seokjin out of the corner of his eye, leaning closer over Yoongi’s shoulder to eagerly watch the loading screen. 

“I am probably so far down in the leaderboards by now.” 

“Tragic.” Yoongi deadpans. 

“You don’t get it Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin insists, batting a hand in the direction of Yoongi’s head.  

The page loads and Seokjin lets out a victorious little noise that twists Yoongi’s heart a little bit. It’s incredibly unfair that he’s cute too. He looks resolutely at the screen and all the little buttons and animations. Seokjin’s character has purple hair.  

“Okay, what now?”

“Go to the–” a ping interrupts Seokjin’s instructions. Yoongi sees a little number one appear next to the chat box. “Uh, ignore that. Go to–” another ping. And another. The number ticks up to four. Yoongi glances up at Seokjin, seeing worried confusion, then back as the number changes to five. Yoongi clicks on the chat.

goldenjk: hyung?? 

goldenjk: hyung is that you 

goldenjk: where have you been hyung?? you stopped responding to calls and texts, I went over to your apartment once and it looked like no one had been there in weeks, I’ve been asking at the PC bang and they said they haven’t seen you since October 

goldenjk: I’ve been so worried hyung are you okay?? 

goldenjk: Seokjin-hyung please

There’s a typing bubble at the bottom of the screen. This goldenjk isn’t slowing down. Yoongi looks up at Seokjin, whose face is stricken. All the pink is out of his cheeks and the normally happy mouth is pulled into a miserable line, wobbling slightly at the corners. 

“Who’s goldenjk, hyung?” Yoongi asks, fearing the answer just a little.

“An annoying little shit.” Seokjin rasps. He clears his throat. “He’s my best friend.”

The computer pings again. 

goldenjk: hyung if I did something or you don’t want to hang out anymore it’s fine but please just tell me you’re okay. If you can do that then I’ll leave you alone forever if that’s what you want.

“I didn’t even think… he doesn’t know.” Seokjin scrubs at tears that aren’t there and reaches for the mouse over Yoongi’s shoulder. His hand passes through it and he curses at himself under his breath. “Can you…” he swallows heavily. “Can you tell him something?” 

Yoongi’s fingers hover over the keys. What the fuck is he supposed to say? This kid sounds genuinely worried, and why wouldn’t he be? To him, his best friend has been missing for six months. One minute there and the next gone without a word. Coming to the apartment…it must have been before the landlord decided they could put it up, while Seokjin’s lease was still in effect. Seokjin and Jungkook were–are close enough that Jungkook knew the door code. Yoongi can only imagine how eerie it must have been, everything in place like normal but with dust on the surfaces, no food in the fridge, no signs of life. 

“Say something.” Seokjin urges. 

“Hi Jungkook-ssi,” Yoongi begins, saying the words as he types them. “I’m sorry, this isn’t Seokjin. I’m his– friend,” Yoongi stumbles over the word just a little and hopes Seokjin doesn’t notice. “Yoongi. I hate to be the one to tell you this but Seokjin-hyung has been in a coma for the last six months.” 

He presses send and Seokjin squawks behind him. “You’re leaving it at that?!” 

“It’s the truth!” 

“Yeah, but–” 

Seokjin is interrupted by the message alert, crowding into Yoongi’s space to read Jungkook’s response. 

goldenjk: what the fuck 

goldenjk: you’re aware how sus that sounds right  

“What does sus mean?” Yoongi asks. 

“Suspicious.” 

“Ah.”

goldenjk: did you murder my hyung Yoongi-ssi

“Oh god.” Seokjin groans. 

“I really don’t know how to respond to this.”

“Well, you can start with ‘no Jungkook, I did not murder Seokjin.’” 

“Okay but what about after that?” Yoongi hisses. “Go straight into ‘His ghost wanted to play videogames?’” 

“No, obviously not that,” Seokjin snaps. “If you say ‘ghost’ he’ll think I’m actually dead and then you’re right back to being suspected of murder.” 

Yoongi brings two hands up to rub at his temples. This is why he doesn’t play video games. He wishes his conscience would allow him to just log off and forget about this kid. Instead, he sighs, and says something he’ll probably regret. 

worldwide_handsome:  You know Seokjin-hyung’s address, right? Come here tomorrow evening around 6. I’ll explain everything. 

“Now you’ve done it.” Seokjin mutters as goldenjk sends a confirmation. 

There’s a knock on the door at precisely six p.m. the next night. 

Jungkook, it turns out, is tall. He’s tall, and muscular, and tattooed. His very defined arms are crossed over his equally defined chest like a bouncer at a club. Despite all of that, however, he is perhaps the least intimidating person Yoongi has ever seen. As he swung the door open, Yoongi caught quick movement as Jungkook scrambled to get into his position. His clothes look five sizes too big. His hair is overgrown, and Yoongi can only see a piece of triangle kimbap staring him down with eyes so big and sparkly they look straight out of an anime. 

“Yoongi-ssi, I presume?” He asks, voice very clearly pitched lower.

Yoongi, in spite of himself, is instantly endeared. Seokjin, standing behind Yoongi, takes in his dongsaeng and sniffs. 

“Jungkook-ah, cut your damn hair.” He comments. Jungkook, of course, doesn’t hear him. 

“Yeah,” Yoongi answers. “Jungkook-ssi?”

Jungkook nods, then abruptly stops and narrows his eyes. “How did you know my name? It’s not on my Maplestory profile.”  

Yoongi sighs. “I’ll explain, I promise. Come in, please.” He steps aside and gestures for Jungkook to come in. Jungkook toes his shoes off and bows slightly in thanks when Yoongi hands him a pair of slippers he keeps for guests. He’s polite, despite his attempts not to be.

“Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got coffee, water, beer…” Yoongi offers. Jungkook shakes his head, hair flopping around his face. 

“No thank you, Yoongi-ssi.” He clears his throat, and puts his affected voice back on hastily. “I came here for answers.”

Seokjin groans. Yoongi hears him mutter something like ‘I’ve raised such an idiot’. He bites his lip to keep from laughing. Something tells him Jungkook wouldn’t appreciate it. 

“Of course, Jungkook-ssi. You’ll get them. Do you… want to sit down?” 

“No, thank you. I’ll stand.” 

“Oh he’s so polite now,” Seokjin says bitterly. “Just wait until you get to know him, he’s the biggest brat you’ll ever meet.” 

“Okay, uh,” Yoongi starts, letting the syllable drag as he thinks where to begin. “Well, what I said on the chat was true. Seokjin-hyung has been in a coma for the last six months. He was hit by a car on the way to a blind date that his brother Namjoon – has he mentioned his brother to you?” Jungkook nods. “His brother Namjoon set up. Ever since then he’s been in a coma at Samsung Hospital. I work with Namjoon and his partner, so when Seokjin’s apartment went on the market a few weeks ago he told me about it. I’ve lived here ever since.” 

Jungkook’s eyes rove around the apartment, wide and cataloging.

“You changed the decor a lot,” he observes. “It looks way better.”

Seokjin yells in protest and this time Yoongi can’t keep himself from smiling. 

“Thanks.” 

“Yeah, it’s much more cohesive and uncluttered than Jin-hyung’s. The dark color palette is really nice.”

“That’s very kind.” 

“It’s a BETRAYAL, Yoongi-chi.” Seokjin insists, gesturing to Jungkook. “I raised him on my back! And this is how he repays me!” Helpless giggles spill from Yoongi’s mouth, and Jungkook looks at him uneasily. “Insulting me and my interior design. Just because he’s an artist he thinks he has authority here. I’ll have you know that his home is a dark little gremlin cave! Full of empty cup ramen and banana milk containers!” 

Yoongi takes deep breaths, biting the inside of his cheek. This is not the situation for laughing. The purpose here is to convince Jungkook of the bizarre truth. 

“Sorry, I know to you I must be acting very strange. Just hear me out.” Yoongi tries to think of how to word it, very conscious of Jungkook’s skeptical gaze. “Seokjin-hyung is in a coma, but his ghost, or spirit, or consciousness or whatever you want to call it, is in this apartment.” Jungkook furrows his brow and his eyes scan the apartment. “I’m the only one who can see him besides my psychic friend.”

“Riiiiiight,” Jungkook drawls. 

“I swear I’m telling the truth.” Yoongi insists. “I was laughing just now because he was upset that you liked my decor more than his.” 

“Upset is an understatement.” Seokjin mutters. “I am agog, I am aghast…my own blood turned against me.” 

“He is actually still talking about it.” 

“Tell me something that only Jin-hyung would know.” Jungkook says, and yeah, Yoongi should have expected that. He looks over to Seokjin expectantly. Seokjin is staring at Jungkook and biting his lip, considering. Eventually he grins slow and smug.

“He got blackout drunk one night and somehow convinced his tattoo artist to give him a tattoo on his chest of Widowmaker that says ‘I heart my mom’.” 

“Really?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin nods. 

“Uh… you have a tattoo of Widowmaker that says ‘I heart my mom’ on your chest.” Yoongi repeats. 

Color spreads rapidly across Jungkook’s face before Yoongi even finishes speaking. His cheeks and ears blaze brighter than a neon sign. He slumps to the ground and hides his face in his hands.

“Hyuuuuuung you promised you wouldn’t teeeeell.” He moans. 

“That’s what payback looks like, Jungkookie.” Seokjin gloats. “You must have forgotten in my absence.” 

“Uhh, he said ‘payback, bitch’.” Yoongi paraphrases. “I feel like that was a little harsh, hyung.” Jungkook, still on the floor and pouting, nods in agreement. He follows Yoongi’s gaze to approximately where Seokjin is standing. 

“I told you that in confidence, hyung.” 

“That was your first mistake.” 

“So you believe me then?” Yoongi asks. Jungkook nods, then stops, thinking. 

“Well…I think so, I mean, no one but him and my tattoo artist knows about that. Plus this would be a pretty elaborate story if Seokjin just didn’t want to hang out anymore, and ghosts are pretty cool, so honestly I want you to be telling the truth.” 

Yoongi ignores it when Seokjin pipes up again, smiling that specific bad joke smile, saying “Jungkook-ah, you could say I ghosted you, huh?”

“But there’s one more thing I’d like to do, just to be sure you really are.” Jungkook finishes.

“What?” 

“You said hyung was in Samsung, right?” 

Hospitals all smell the same, Yoongi thinks. The sterility and overly fragrant bouquets that overlay the bitter air of grief. He and Jungkook follow the nurse down the hallway in silence, unsure of what to say. It’s Tuesday, not a day that Namjoon visits, and Yoongi wonders if anyone else ever comes to visit. At least if the answer is no, Seokjin doesn’t know – Yoongi knows very well where his consciousness is, and it’s not lying in the bed.

But god, his body is.

The bed is surrounded by so many tubes and wires and sensors that it takes him a couple of seconds to really see Seokjin. He looks at once startlingly different and startlingly similar to the ghost in Yoongi’s apartment. His skin is still smooth, if a little dry. The plump, pink lips are stretched around a breathing tube and look like they could use a good chapstick. His hair is clean but flat, splayed out on the pillow. There’s a smaller tube taped to his nose, and all Yoongi can think is that it’s gotta be annoying. All of it looks so uncomfortable, but Seokjin’s face is creaseless and serene.

The steady beeps and soft whooshing sound of the respirator is the only thing that breaks the silence. Yoongi checks out of the corner of his eye, and sees that Jungkook is just staring at his hyung. There’s no discernable emotion on his face, but his wide eyes track the automated rise and fall of Seokjin’s chest. Ensuring that he’s alive.

Maybe he is physically alive, but – it’s weird. Yoongi feels weird. It’s clear that this is Seokjin, but something in his brain just won’t connect. He’s never really given too much thought to the notion of souls. At least, not beyond the occasional joke about not having one, or his being black like his coffee. Those types of existential quandaries are more Namjoon’s territory. Yoongi prefers to debate the nature of man and society on earth, more than on a spiritual plane. But now, looking at Seokjin, there’s something slightly uncanny about him. It’s his body, but the substance isn’t there. He’s like a wax figure. A puzzle with one piece turned sideways, just out of alignment. 

Jungkook clears his throat. Yoongi grasps onto the sound, grateful to be pulled out of his mind. It was all beginning to get far too metaphysical in there. Jungkook quiets again for another second, then claps Yoongi on the back with enough strength that it sends him rocking forward slightly.

“I’m hungry,” is all he says before he turns on his heel and heads out of the room. Yoongi spares one more glance for Seokjin’s body before following. 

“Are you… are you okay?” Yoongi asks, once they’re back out on the sidewalk. 

“No.” Jungkook says, and Yoongi feels his stomach drop. “I’m JK, hyung, have you already forgotten?” He shakes his head with an exaggerated sigh. “I guess old age really does come for us all.”

Relief courses through him, but Yoongi feigns annoyance and flicks Jungkook squarely on the forehead. “Did I say you can call me hyung?”

“Can I?” 

“Aish, this brat.” Yoongi scoffs, but nods anyway. Jungkook smiles, nose scrunching. 

“This brat wants food.” 

They go to a street stall selling lamb skewers and Yoongi pays, wondering how he’s accumulated another dongsaeng to drain his wallet in the course of mere hours. He also wonders why he’s not all that put out by it. They find a curb to sit on and eat, Jungkook clicking his massive boots together at the heels while he eats. They sit in surprisingly comfortable silence while Yoongi picks at one skewer and Jungkook devours three. It’s only after all the meat is gone that Jungkook decides to speak.     

“So,” Jungkook licks some grease off of his fingers and turns his large eyes on Yoongi. “You have a crush on Jin-hyung.”

“A crush? What am I, twelve?” Yoongi scoffs, staring resolutely at his empty skewer. It’s a very interesting skewer.

“Well you know what they say, hyung. We’re all twelve in love.”

“You would know, since you’re a child.” 

“I’m literally 24.” Jungkook pokes at Yoongi. “C’mon, it’s okay. I had a crush on Jin-hyung when I first met him too. Then I realized that I should have higher standards.” 

“How the fuck would your standards get higher than him?” Yoongi mutters, moving his gaze to his shoes now. His shoelace is getting close to being untied, he should fix that.

“See? That’s something you say when you have a crush. Like, to me it looked like you were talking to air. But you were looking at that patch of air with full heart eyes.” 

“I have never had hearts in my eyes, ever, or sparkles, or anything soft . My eyes are rocks. I buy you lamb skewers and you insult me this way? Seokjin was right, you are a little shit.” Yoongi mutters, now examining the patch of asphalt his heels are resting on very closely.

“Whatever you say, hyung. Did Seokjin tell you how we met?” Jungkook asks. He’s clearly changing the subject, not pushing his luck with his new hyung. Or maybe he’s just having mercy. Either way, Yoongi is grateful. 

“No, how?” 

“We were at a PC Bang, the one near Jonggak Station. It was a year and a half ago or something like that, he’d just moved to Seoul. I was playing League and just kind of wandering around being obnoxious and I start hearing this guy in a few computers over from me swearing to himself…”

Jungkook starts throwing around a lot of terms that mean absolutely nothing to Yoongi, gaming phrases that go flying over his head. He just nods and mm-hmms at strategic points until Jungkook gets to the point, which is that they were both kicked out of the PC Bang that day and it cemented their friendship for life. Jungkook’s nose scrunches with the force of his smile as he talks about his hyung, and it’s not hard to see that they’re more family than friends at this point. 

When they get back, Seokjin is sitting at the kitchen table and literally twiddling his thumbs. He looks up as they enter, face lighting up. 

“He made you feed him, didn’t he?” he asks, smiling wider at Yoongi’s nod. “I think I’ve spent another down payment for this place just on feeding this dongsaeng.”

“Seokjin-hyung says that you eat very well.” Yoongi relays, and Jungkook laughs brightly. 

“So he’s complaining about how much he spends on feeding me. I’m a growing boy hyung! You’re the only reason I don’t live off of cup ramen.” Jungkook’s doe eyes are lethal. Yoongi can see why Seokjin caved immediately in the face of them. Hell, Yoongi did too. He bought the kid three skewers without a word of complaint and hasn’t even known him for twelve hours. “Yoongi-hyung, can you point me towards where Jin-hyung is? I think I want to talk to him for a minute alone.” 

“Uh, sure.” Yoongi says, pointing at the chair Seokjin is sitting in. “He’s there, at the table. You don’t want me to be here and tell you what he’s saying?” 

“No, thank you.”

Jungkook pulls another chair out from the table and sits down, so Yoongi takes his cue to leave. As he shuts the door to his bedroom, he hears Jungkook say softly “Hey Jin-hyung. I have some stuff I want to say. It’s okay, you don’t need to respond.” 

He slides his headphones on and blocks out all sound, to give them their privacy. He makes it through half of his ‘Hans Zimmer Favorites’ playlist and most of his work emails before there’s a gentle knock on the door to signal that it’s okay to come back out. 

Later, as Jungkook is leaving, Yoongi pulls him aside just outside the door and hands him a sheet of paper. 

“What’s this?” Jungkook asks, looking at the numbers written on it. 

“The door code.” Yoongi explains. “If you ever want to come over and hang out with your hyung.” 

Jungkook’s eyes get even shinier, if that’s possible. “With my hyungs. ” He corrects. Yoongi blinks. 

“Oh, I mean, yeah I guess if you want to hang out with me too. But I meant Seokjin-hyung–” 

Jungkook pulls him into a hug, and Yoongi is so surprised that he stops talking. “I know. Thanks, hyung.” 

Hoseok finally corners him in his studio after days of Yoongi successfully avoiding him. He comes in bearing a tall iced americano, and waits until Yoongi has taken a big, excited sip before pouncing. 

“So tell me about your boy.” He says, in a deceptively light tone. It’s clear he’s not actually asking. Yoongi swallows the coffee in his mouth and then tentatively holds out the cup. Maybe he can give it back, and won’t have to accept this trade deal. “No no,” Hoseok chides. “No take backsies on the gossip coffee. Spill.” 

“You want me to spill the coffee?” Yoongi asks, deflecting for as long as he can. He starts to tilt the cup in his hand. “I mean, if you insist Hob-ah…”

“Yah, hyung, this is your studio.” Hoseok protests. “You’d make a mess in it? And waste precious coffee?” He pouts and turns on his aegyo. “C’mon. Just tell me about your booooy.” 

And what is there to tell? It’s been a month since Yoongi moved into Seokjin’s apartment. He doesn’t think of it as his own, really. A month of pink cheeks and pink hoodies and tortuous attraction. A month of loud laughter, quiet conversations, and the most comfortable silences Yoongi’s ever known. 

There’s nothing to tell but the truth. 

“He’s kind of ridiculous. He can be really loud and theatrical, and I think it would be annoying if I didn’t know that he only does it because he likes to make me laugh. He’s really, genuinely delighted by puns.” Yoongi huffs a laugh. “And it’s actually pretty charming. Otherwise he’s kind of quiet and reserved – when I’m tired or not in the mood for talking, he never makes me. We sit in silence a lot of the time, and it doesn’t feel like we have to fill it. It’s just nice to be together. At this point I can’t imagine going home and not seeing him there. I don’t… I don’t want to imagine that.” 

“Waaahhh, hyung,” Hoseok gasps with exaggerated awe, but his apple cheeks tinge pink with a hint of real embarrassment. He slaps Yoongi’s shoulder playfully, punctuating it with a ridiculous sound effect. “So mushy! I just wanted to know how big his dick is.” 

Me fucking too, Yoongi thinks. “Well it’s huge,” he says, face flaring with heat. 

“It better be, if you sound so in love already.” 

“In love?” Yoongi asks, alarm bells ringing in his head. “What do you mean?” 

“Aish, hyung,” Hoseok chuckles. It’s loud, and brassy, and uncomfortable. He clearly regrets starting this conversation. “Do you actually want to talk about feelings? Maybe I should get Namjoonie.” 

“No, Hoseok, what do you mean?” Yoongi insists. Hoseok scrubs a hand through his hair, all frenetic energy.

“Well, you just sound so serious about him. It’s only been a bit over a month, right? You didn’t even mention how he looks or stuff you’ve done together, just went straight into how he makes you feel . I don’t think you’ve ever done that before with anyone.” 

“I’m sure I must have,” Yoongi argues, furrowing his brow. Hoseok shakes his head. 

“Not this fast. And I know you, hyung. You don’t like to talk about this stuff unless it’s in a song.” Hoseok rushes to clarify as Yoongi opens his mouth, “And that’s fine, I’m not criticizing the way you process your emotions. I have no room to speak there, since I prefer not to process mine at all.”

“That’s not true,” Yoongi protests, even though it kind of is. Hoseok laughs.  

“It’s okay, I’m self-aware. You know I’m not the most… relaxed person.” And that’s true – Hoseok works very hard to seem easy-going. On the surface he’s smiley, friendly, and just a bit flashy. Once you get to know him, you realize that he is a very tightly wound ball. In a way, he’s pretty similar to Seokjin. “Did you know it scared the shit out of me when I realized I loved Namjoon?” 

Yoongi just hums in response, not wanting to stop Hoseok now that he’s on a roll. This is the most they’ve ever talked about feelings, probably ever in their whole eight year friendship. He could examine what that says about them, but he doesn’t want to. Hoseok continues. 

“And it was so dumb too! Because the way I realized was… well okay, for a long time I was living in basically a constant existential crisis? I was just so scared of time, and it passing, and how much I had left. I think it started because everyone makes such a big deal about dancers having short careers. My future just terrified me. But with Namjoon, you know… One day I noticed that I wasn’t so scared any more. Because whatever future comes, whatever time I have, I know he’s going to be with me. And as long as he’s there, it’s going to be okay. Maybe not easy, or happy, but it’ll be okay.” It’s one of the sweetest things Yoongi’s ever heard, like pure sugar, and Hoseok looks like he’s just had a heaping spoonful judging by the vaguely nauseated expression on his face. He laughs a little, joyless laugh. “So that’s when I realized I loved him. And that scared me! I got scared because I wasn’t scared anymore. How dumb is that?”

“I don’t think that’s dumb at all, Hob-ah,” Yoongi says honestly. “It’s big, of course it’s scary.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok agrees. He takes the americano out of Yoongi’s hands and takes a large gulp before handing it back. “So anyway. You want to keep coming home to this boy. You want the future that has him in it. Sounds like love to me.”

There’s a pause after Hoseok stops speaking, the words sinking in. After a moment he starts to shake himself in his chair, all up and down his body, starting from his feet. He just wiggles, as if he can shake all of the emotions off of him like water off a dog. 

“Waaaahhhhh,” he exclaims again as he bounces, voice modulating with his movements. “That’s enough of that!”

He stands, leaning over and smacking a big kiss on the top of Yoongi’s head. “You better let us meet him soon, hyung,” is all he says as he basically flees the room.

The air feels heavy afterward. Yoongi can’t stop thinking about it, ‘ sounds like love to me ’ turning over and over in his head. It can’t be, can it? Hoseok must be wrong. He likes Seokjin, he really likes him, but he can’t be properly in love with him. He’s a ghost. Yoongi hasn’t gone out on a date with the guy, or kissed his lips, or even held his hand.

The computer is open on the song that he’s supposed to finish before the week is over, but his swirling thoughts make him functionally useless the rest of the day. Hoseok’s words play on loop in his head, drowning out any actual music from his headphones. By the time the clock hits five pm, Yoongi has ripped his nails to shreds. He needs bandages and a drink. He needs to be home. 

Seokjin calls out his normal cheerful greeting as Yoongi throws his coat on the rack and toes his shoes off, but Yoongi doesn’t respond. Instead, he beelines for the kitchen and gets out a glass and some whiskey. He hears Seokjin call his name again, but he’s too focused on trying to pour himself some whiskey with his slightly shaking hands. Setting down the bottle on the counter, he takes a few deep breaths and tries to calm himself down. 

“Yoongi-yah?” Seokjin asks. “Are you alright? Did something happen at work?” 

“No,” Yoongi rasps, shaking his head. “I’m fine.” When Yoongi feels steady enough to pour, Seokjin gasps at the state of his hands. 

“Aish, look at your nails. That doesn’t look like you’re fine.” Seokjin’s fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to take Yoongi’s in his own and soothe the hurt. “What’s the matter?’ 

“We have to think of new ways to get you to wake up,” Yoongi says. “It’s been weeks since we tried anything.” 

“I haven’t had any new ideas.” Seokjin looks confused at the abrupt change of subject. “Have you?” 

“No, but there has to be something ,” Yoongi insists. “You’re not supposed to be here.” 

“I thought we were past you trying to get me to leave, Yoongi-chi,” Seokjin chuckles. Yoongi isn’t joking. Instinctively, he brings his thumb back up to his lip and gnaws at the already torn and raw skin. Seokjin can’t hold himself back this time and actually lifts a hand to stop him, passing through Yoongi’s hand like vapor. It makes Yoongi’s heart plummet even deeper into his stomach. “Stop hurting yourself, come on Yoongi, what happened?”

“Nothing, nothing happened, that’s the problem,” Yoongi explains. Nothing happened aside from Yoongi getting too used to this, too used to Seokjin’s presence and jokes and stupid face and stupid quiet care. 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You need to get back to your body!” Yoongi cries. Seokjin tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowed. It’s an intense gaze. He looks like he’s trying to see straight to Yoongi’s core, and honestly, he might be able to. 

“Why are you pushing this all of a sudden?” He asks.

“Because it’s my fault!” The words burst from Yoongi like air from a balloon, and once they’re out he deflates a little. He looks down at his slippers, his hands holding the glass of whiskey, anything but Seokjin. “It’s my fault you’re here.” 

“Were you driving the car that hit me?” Seokjin asks, sounding genuinely confused. 

“No, of course not!” Yoongi protests. 

“Then I don’t see how this is your fault.” 

“ I was your blind date that night. You were on the way to meet me. ” 

“By that – wait, really?  You were? Hm.” Seokjin pauses, lips pursed. His head cocks to one side. Yoongi studies his expression, heart still racing, but Seokjin doesn’t look mad. More thoughtful, like he’s figuring something out.

Probably figuring out that Yoongi is the reason he’s a ghost. Any minute now he’s going to realize it’s all Yoongi to blame, and then he’ll never talk to him again. 

“See?” Yoongi insists after another agonizing second of silence. Seokjin snaps out of it, meeting Yoongi’s gaze again. “My fault.” 

“No, Yoongi-yah, by that logic it’s Namjoon’s fault, because he set us up.” Seokjin says, finishing his thought.

“But you were on the way to see me , and now I’m the only one who can see you . It has to be my fault.” Yoongi insists again, voice cracking embarrassingly. Seokjin’s eyes soften. 

“Well, Taehyung can see me too. So you can drop your guilt complex.” Seokjin says gently, perching on the arm of the couch. 

Yoongi sighs, watching a bead of condensation slide down his whiskey glass. “I guess.” It wasn’t all he meant, when he said it was his fault. Yeah, the blind date might have been the cause initially, the thing that got Seokjin to this state. But they’ve gotten comfortable with each other, sliding easily into something domestic. Dramas and dinner and even hosting their dongsaengs sometimes. Bookending the day with each other. It’s like they really live together, but Yoongi hasn’t been thinking that only one of them is really living. Maybe Seokjin wouldn’t still be like this if Yoongi hadn’t let himself get so attached. And if the conversation with Hoseok proved anything, it’s that he is attached. Like a barnacle, or a leech, or Jimin holding fast to Taehyung.

As if Seokjin can tell his thoughts strayed to those two, he says, “I don’t know why I’m here, Yoongi. But it’s not your fault. Who knows? Maybe it’s because we’re soulmates.” 

It’s a joke, Yoongi knows it’s a joke, but he can’t deny the way his heart leaps in his chest. Well, no, he can and he will deny it. That swoop in his stomach was just indigestion, from drinking on an empty stomach. He takes another fortifying sip of whiskey anyway. 

“This isn’t a drama, hyung,” He snorts. 

“Certainly seems like one, though,” Seokjin muses, a smile curling his lips up at the corners. “Maybe they could adapt our story. You write the OST, I’ll play myself of course.”

“Who’d play me? Park Seojoon?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin is trying to distract him, and Yoongi lets him. He settles himself down onto the couch, next to Seokjin. 

“Hmm, IU.”

“What?”

“She’s perfect for the part. She’s got the same dainty legs as you and she was great in Hotel Del Luna – she’s got ghost drama experience.”

“I feel like I should be offended but I’m kinda honored,” Yoongi considers, swirling the liquid in his glass back and forth. “I really like IU. She was awesome to work with.” 

“You’ve worked with IU?” Seokjin asks, eyes going wide. Yoongi nods. “Wow. I knew you worked with Joonie so you had to be good, but IU good? That’s impressive.” 

“I’m a genius, haven’t you heard?” 

“Mhm.” Seokjin hums. His eyes are shining with mirth, like he knows he’s won, and Yoongi can’t look away. This all feels far too much like flirting. They’ve been dancing around each other, but the steps are getting increasingly complicated. “I’ve heard it, but I’m starting to believe it.”

Yoongi takes a hasty sip of his drink, letting the burn in his throat distract from the burn in his cheeks. 

Later, when he’s run out of whiskey and conversation and has gone to bed, he hears a tentative “Yoongi?” whispered into the darkness. Seokjin isn’t normally this quiet – something tells Yoongi that maybe he doesn’t want him to hear what he’s going to say. That he just needs to say it. So Yoongi feigns sleep, keeping his breaths even and eyes closed. 

“If I had actually made it to the restaurant that night,” Seokjin continues, voice still a whisper but closer now, “I would have liked you.” A pause, then a sigh that can’t be described as anything but wistful. “I would have really liked you.” 

Yoongi fights the urge to gasp, to curl in on himself – anything to protect the place in his chest that started burning at Seokjin’s words. But Seokjin might not have left, so Yoongi holds himself  still and lets the flames lick at his heart. If they’d made it to the restaurant, Yoongi would have really liked Seokjin too.

As it stands, he thinks he might love him. 

Chapter Text

And sooner or later, it's over

I just don't wanna miss you tonight

The next day, Yoongi doesn’t really know how to act after Seokjin’s secret confession. He isn’t very good at pretending. He’s too blunt, too honest. It’s what gives his music that raw quality, despite how considered every detail is, that makes him so sought after. The thing is, Hoseok was only half right when he said that Yoongi puts his feelings into songs. Yoongi really only writes about what is going on in his head – his heart is a whole other story. That is fiercely protected, under lock and key and an armed guard or two. So maybe he’s a hypocrite. Maybe he wants Seokjin to bare his heart in the daylight so that Yoongi himself won’t have to.

That’s not exactly what happens. 

Yoongi shuffles out of his bedroom in the morning, stiff from holding himself still. He stretches his arms over his head, bending from side to side until he hears a satisfying crack. His sigh of relief is echoed by an odd sort of squeak, and he glances up to see Seokjin’s gaze locked on where his sleep shirt rides up on his stomach.   

Interesting. 

Seokjin swallows, throat working with an audible click. His wide eyes are now somewhere around Yoongi’s collarbones, where the neckline of his shirt is stretched out and loose. 

Very interesting.

Now this , this isn’t his heart. This isn’t his head. This is his body, and Yoongi can work with his body. Watching where Seokjin’s eyes track, Yoongi slowly and deliberately rolls his neck. It’s innocent enough, could just be part of a morning stretch, but Seokjin doesn’t seem to be able to look away from the line of his throat. There’s a palpable weight to his gaze. Yoongi wonders how far he could push it, if he should go get a glass of water so Seokjin can see how he swallows. Instead, he clears his throat and says a simple “Good morning.” 

Seokjin jolts a little in his seat. “Morning.” 

It takes considerable effort for Yoongi to fight the smirk off of his face. There’s a small hum of satisfaction beating in time with his pulse. The tables have turned since last night; it feels good not to be the flustered one. He pads towards the kitchen, past where Seokjin is still sitting vaguely shell-shocked. He hasn’t said another word, but is still staring. It’s not quite an unabashed, shameless stare, more like Seokjin just can’t help it. Like he doesn’t see anything else, including Yoongi staring right back. The loaded silence stretches on interrupted only by the sounds of the coffee maker. Yoongi turns, leaning his elbows on the counter and cocking one hip out just enough, waiting. Resisting the urge to wiggle his ass, because then Seokjin would know he knows, and the game would be over. This is too good to rush. 

When he has coffee in hand and it’s cool enough to take a sip, he groans in exaggerated satisfaction, tipping his head back again. Seokjin makes an odd sort of choking noise that Yoongi pretends not to notice, just calmly sitting down at the table and wrapping both of his hands around his mug. It’s only suggestive if you’re into that sort of thing, and judging by the way Seokjin brings a hand up to tug at the collar of his hoodie, he might be.

Not that Yoongi is keeping score, but he’d say there’s quite a few points in his favor by now.

Seokjin clears his throat. “Yah, Yoongi-chi, it’s only February.” He gestures in the vague area of Yoongi’s neckline. “Shouldn’t you put your… your collarbones away? You’ll catch a cold.” 

“Do you really want me to?” Yoongi asks, arching an eyebrow. 

“What?” Seokjin breathes. 

“Do you really want me to put them away, hyung?” Yoongi repeats, taking another slow, deliberate sip of his coffee. “Because I think you like my collarbones. Don’t you?” 

“I, uh-” Seokjin splutters. “Well, yes. I do.”

Yoongi’s eyes widen for a moment. He wasn’t expecting such an easy admission, but maybe Seokjin knows that he can’t lie. Not to Yoongi, at least. Schooling his expression back to something more sultry, Yoongi pulls on his neckline, stretching it to reveal more skin. A sudden image comes to mind of Seokjin moving aside Yoongi’s shirt himself, sucking and biting as he goes – Yoongi always did mark up easily. As it is, a pink flush is already spreading across his chest. 

“Oh yeah?” Yoongi rasps, swallowing the saliva that pooled in his mouth at the fantasy. “What else do you like?” 

“What are you doing, Yoongi-yah?” Seokjin responds, voice low and quiet and fanning the flames building in Yoongi’s gut even more.

“I’m just asking you a question,” Yoongi says, releasing his t-shirt. 

“And how do you want me to answer?”

“Honestly.” 

They hold each other’s gazes, air heavy, until Yoongi breaks it. It’s time to start his day properly. The game isn’t over, but the round is, and he won soundly. 

Throughout the day he’s overly conscious of his body, of the way he moves and the sounds he makes. Somehow he never realized just how much he flicks his tongue when recording, how loudly he groans when a take isn’t as perfect as he wants it to be. He didn’t know much he stretches his hands at the piano, fingers long and veined. But the awareness of these habits doesn’t make him do them less – it just heightens them. Yoongi knows he’s being watched, and at this point Seokjin is aware that Yoongi knows. So he plays up the actions once he notices them, letting his groans border on whines and stretching his hands until the bones pop. He runs his hands roughly through his hair, messing it up in a way that he wishes someone else’s hands could do for him.

It’s never felt so charged in the apartment before.  

He can tell Seokjin makes comments every so often. The sounds are muffled through his headphones so he doesn’t know what was said, but he can hear the intonation. It’s loud and lilting, like his normal over-the-top deflection. Like Seokjin is trying not to play into Yoongi’s game and keep the status quo, just turning his desire into a joke. But Yoongi doesn’t respond, doesn’t listen, and persists. Eventually Seokjin stops talking, but Yoongi can feel that he’s still looking. 

The sun is setting by the time Seokjin steps fully into Yoongi’s line of vision. Yoongi slides his headphones off with a questioning noise. Something is different in Seokjin’s face – earlier it was open and off-guard and maybe a little apprehensive. It’s settled now, a switch flipped. A shiver runs down Yoongi’s spine. 

“Ask me again, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin commands.

It takes Yoongi a second to catch up, but when he does, he lets the smirk spread across his face again slowly. “What else do you like, Seokjin-hyung?” 

Seokjin moves closer, edging further into Yoongi’s space. Like this Seokjin towers over him, and Yoongi doesn’t lean away on the piano bench. Broad shoulders cage him in, though he knows that he could pass right through him if he wanted to.

He doesn’t want to. The vantage point makes him feel a little small, small in the way he likes. The fire that has been simmering in his belly all day starts to grow. 

“I like a lot of things about you.” Seokjin says, voice low. Throat suddenly gone dry, Yoongi swallows and Seokjin’s eyes track the motion. “I like your neck. I wish I was able to kiss it.” 

Seokjin leans in more, lowering himself closer to Yoongi’s face. Plush lips and soft pink cheeks fill his vision. Yoongi aches to kiss him too, feels it viscerally like a hunger. 

“I like how pretty and flushed you get sometimes. You probably bruise pretty, too.” 

Seokjin’s hands stay at his sides, not reaching out, but Yoongi can feel Seokjin’s gaze like a physical touch as it moves. Yoongi wets his lips with his tongue, and Seokjin mirrors it unconsciously with his own tongue before speaking. 

“I like your mouth.” He continues. “It would look so good stretched around me. I bet it would feel even better.” 

“It would,” Yoongi breathes. Seokjin chuckles. 

“I like your confidence.”

“It’s earned.” Yoongi lets his eyes flick down to Seokjin’s crotch. He’s not sure if ghosts can get hard. At least the shredded legs of his jeans provide a glimpse of skin. It’s tantalizing, a tease when he can’t touch, but looking is enough right now. “I’d show you.” 

The ‘ if I could’ goes unspoken. Seokjin shakes his head gently. “Today is about you.”

Yoongi’s is half-hard in his jeans, the friction beginning to border on uncomfortable. It occurs to him that he doesn’t want to cum in his pants like a teenager, and he certainly doesn’t want to have to spend time cleaning cum out of his piano keys later. He slides the stool backwards, backing out of the cage of Seokjin’s shoulders. It feels colder somehow outside of his space, even though logically Yoongi knows Seokjin doesn’t give off body heat. Maybe it’s just that even the mere idea of Seokjin is enough to get Yoongi hot.

Seokjin tilts his head in a question when Yoongi stands, Yoongi wordlessly walking towards the bedroom. When he reaches the door he turns back, looking over his shoulder to where Seokjin is still next to the piano bench. “Well? Are you coming?” he asks. 

He starts to unbutton his shirt as soon as he gets to the bedroom, turning around to face the door. Maybe it reveals just how eager he is, how keyed up, but it’s not like anyone could blame him. He could feel the tension building all day, and now he feels like a rubber band ready to snap. But Seokjin, as he steps into the room, isn’t talking. He seems to have lost the bravado he had at the piano bench, eyes wide with something maybe not entirely arousal. 

Yoongi’s hands falter with sudden uncertainty. He gulps, and it’s uncomfortable now rather than sensual. His shirt hangs half-open, and Yoongi brings his arms up in front of himself. Maybe he misread the situation, maybe Seokjin doesn’t want this. He can’t even touch him, this was stupid– 

A protesting noise stops Yoongi’s spiraling thoughts. Seokjin is shaking his head. 

“Don’t stop,” he finally gets out, the words taking some effort. “I was just taking you in.” 

Yoongi’s cheeks burn. That Seokjin could be struck wordless when looking at Yoongi seems impossible, when Seokjin is Seokjin. But he lets that encouragement fuel him, pulling his arms away to stop hiding himself. He lets his hands hover over his shirt for a moment, until Seokjin meets his eyes and nods once. Then he picks up where he left off, drawing it out and making it good. If a show is all that Seokjin can get, it’s going to be one hell of a show. Yoongi will make sure of it. 

“What else do you like, hyung?” He repeats. Seokjin is looking pointedly at Yoongi’s fingers, making slow and steady work of his buttons. Ah. “You like my hands?” A nod. Yoongi’s shirt falls fully open, slipping off one shoulder. He holds his arms open by his sides for a moment, feeling the flannel slide down and to the floor. Yoongi traces over his own chest, breath hitching as he circles a nipple. “Do you like it when I touch myself with them?”   

Seokjin’s throat works. His chest heaves with breaths he doesn’t need to take. “Yes,” he answers. Yoongi presses a hand flat to his chest and glides it down, until it reaches the denim of his waistband. He pops the button and undoes the fly, groaning with relief at the release of pressure. He looks back at Seokjin with half-lidded eyes. 

“Where should I touch next, hyung?” He cups himself through his underwear. “Here?”

Seokjin’s pupils are blown wide, eyes almost black. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out, so he nods instead. Yoongi takes that as invitation enough to step fully out of his pants, sitting on the edge of the bed and letting them fall to the floor. Underwear still on, he pulls his dick half out while keeping his eyes on Seokjin. He’s almost fully hard now, giving himself a few languid pumps to get himself the rest of the way, sighing at the sensation.

“I want to see you,” Seokjin finally speaks up, voice rough. “All of you.” 

Yoongi shoves his underwear down his legs, removing the last little thing he had to hide behind. He can’t tell if it's uncomfortable or hot, him being naked while Seokjin is still fully covered. Seokjin seems to think it’s the latter, letting out a harsh breath when he sees all of Yoongi for the first time. He steps closer, into Yoongi’s space all of a sudden, eyes raking up and down Yoongi’s form. Yoongi squirms under the scrutiny, the sheets rustling softly. 

“God, you’re pink everywhere, aren’t you?” Seokjin breathes. Yoongi blushes ever hotter. “Your cheeks, your chest, but even your knees and elbows…” A languid finger traces over wherever Seokjin mentions, hovering just off of his skin. His eyes flick downward and linger there. “Pretty, pink cock.”  

Yoongi slides further up the bed, leaning back on his pillows. He debates just spitting on his hand, making it messy, but gropes for the lube in the bedside table instead. It’s more comfortable that way, and he’s always liked the slick sounds. Hopes that Seokjin likes them too. He pours some on one hand and starts to jerk himself off, showier than normal, trying to make it good to watch. Twisting his hand on the upstroke, rubbing over the flushed head. He teases his slit and hisses at the sensation. It feels too good, Yoongi’s eyes fluttering closed until he hears Seokjin say, “Yoongi.” 

He opens his eyes to see Seokjin’s face, watching intently. He’s knelt next to him, one arm is braced on the headboard and the other on the bed. Being poised over top of Yoongi gives him the best vantage point. He can see all of Yoongi, laid out just for him like a meal, and Seokjin hasn’t eaten in seven months. 

“Stop.” His tone is certain again, more like how he was at the piano, commanding and sure. It leaves no room for argument. Yoongi pulls his hand off his dick with an aborted groan. His hips buck up of their own accord, chasing after the friction that’s been taken away. 

“Do you trust me?” Seokjin asks, hovering at the edge of Yoongi’s vision. Yoongi squirms. 

“Jin-hyung, please-“ Yoongi whines, all shame shed some time with his pants. 

“Do you trust me?” Seokjin insists. It’s a choice; Yoongi has the ball and he doesn’t have to give it up, doesn’t have to let Seokjin have control. He knows this. “Answer me, Yoongi-yah.” 

“ Yes .” Yoongi gasps, making his decision. A pleased smile spreads across Seokjin’s face. Maybe Yoongi would regret it, but god help him, he trusts Kim Seokjin. 

“Kneel at the edge of the bed. Up on your knees.”

Yoongi furrows his brow in confusion, wanting to just fuck his own hand again, but the pleased smile has dropped into something more expectant and a little impatient and it’s doing something to Yoongi. Making him want to do what Seokjin asks. He scoots over to the edge of the bed, dick bobbing against his stomach in a truly embarrassing fashion as he levers himself up and–

Oh. He gets it now. 

Knelt like this on the bed, gaze ahead, Yoongi has the perfect vantage point to see himself in the full length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. He looks – well, he looks wrecked. His pupils are blown out too, hair sticking up in the back from writhing on the pillows. His chest is flushed a deep red, heaving with each breath. Boxers are tangled around one ankle. There’s a shiny smear of precum on his stomach from where his dick slapped against it, and he’s so hard he’s pretty sure he could cut glass. For how little they’ve really done, he looks utterly debauched. 

And knelt behind him, visible in the mirror, Seokjin. The contrast is striking. He’s fully clothed and perfectly composed. Not a hair out of place, skin like glass, with his pink hoodie and fitted jeans as pristine as ever. Yoongi looks desperate in comparison – and he feels desperate. It’s hot, he decides. Really hot.Their eyes meet in the glass, and Seokjin tilts his head just barely in a question. Yoongi licks his lips, mouth dry, and repeats, “I trust you.” 

The pleased smile is a full-blown smirk this time.

“Stroke yourself. Slowly,” he instructs, and Yoongi sighs in relief when he gets a hand wrapped around his dick again, eyes almost falling shut until–

Seokjin’s hands. He can’t feel them, but he can see them. One creeps over his shoulder and down his chest, until Seokjin is circling his nipple with one crooked finger. Yoongi’s back arches instinctively. He brings one of his own hands up underneath to rub, covered in the mirror by Seokjin’s, and it’s almost perfect. Yoongi can almost pretend. 

Almost is good enough for him.

He rolls and pinches his nipple until it’s so sensitive it hurts a little, and Yoongi’s sure it’s more pink than ever. Seokjin moves his hand to the other nipple, so Yoongi does the same to that one. By the time Seokjin lifts his hands away from his chest, Yoongi’s nipples are left aching and puffy in the mirror. More precum dribbles out of his dick as it twitches in his hand, still stroking slowly.  

“Stop,” Seokjin says. Yoongi whines again, hands stilling but not pulling away. Seokjin tsks , brow drawing together. “Hands off, Yoongi.” 

“Why?” Yoongi asks, just to be contrary. He’s always liked a little fight. 

“If I can’t touch you then you can’t either.” 

Fuck, Yoongi thinks, eloquently. Yoongi’s eyes track Seokjin's hands as they skim back across his chest and up, until closing around Yoongi’s throat. Even in the absence of pressure, his breath stutters and stops. Seokjin’s eyes widen a fraction. 

“Oh,” he says with a small chuckle. “So you can be good, can’t you?” 

Yoongi barely resists the urge to nod, yes, for you, for you I’d be so good. Or at least he’d be bad in a way that’s fun. Seokjin seems to get it, anyway, and chuckles lightly again before pressing a kiss to Yoongi’s hair that he wishes desperately he could feel. 

“Breathe, Yoongi-yah.” 

He sucks in air like he was drowning, gasping loud and ragged in the otherwise still room. Seokjin’s composure hasn’t broken one bit, smirking at the sound of Yoongi’s breath. It makes Yoongi feel a little pathetic in the most delicious way, watching his own chest heave in the mirror. Yoongi wants to see Seokjin without the hoodie, see if his nipples are as pink as his lips or if his cock gets as red as the tips of his ears. Wants to see him touching himself, as affected as Yoongi is right now without even kissing. He wants, wants, wants.  

One of Seokjin’s hands drifts down to Yoongi’s, the one planted on the mattress to help keep him upright. It surprises Yoongi enough that he turns his head to look, to watch as Seokjin’s crooked fingers settle into the spaces between Yoongi’s. It’s a moment of tenderness that’s almost cruel, an imitation of holding his hand like he wants to. Yoongi’s next inhale hitches and he blinks back sudden tears, feeling too much all at once. Seokjin must notice, because he withdraws his hand quickly.

“Hey, look at me,” he says softly. Yoongi brings his eyes back up, to meet Seokjin’s in the mirror. His gaze is warm now, not as intense. Gentle. “Are you okay? You want to keep going?” 

Yoongi nods frantically, needing to get back out of his head. “Please don’t stop.” 

Seokjin assesses him for another second before nodding. His hands roam from Yoongi’s throat to his clavicle, tracing along the bone that he was so fixated on earlier. “You really are so pretty. So delicate but broad too, all this perfect skin...” He muses. “I really wish I could mark it up.” 

And that gives Yoongi an idea. He doesn’t want there to be no evidence of this. If he wakes up in the morning without any sign that he had this, had Seokjin , he doesn’t know what he’d fee l– just knows that it wouldn’t be good. Yoongi needs the reminder that this was real. 

“Where would you mark me?” Yoongi asks. Their eyes meet in the mirror, Seokjin blinking once in confusion. 

“Anywhere.” Seokjin answers. “Everywhere.” 

“But where would you kiss me? Specifically,” Yoongi prompts. “I want you to show me.” 

Slowly, holding his gaze, Seokjin lowers his mouth to the junction of Yoongi’s shoulder. As he presses an unfelt kiss to Yoongi’s skin, Yoongi raises his own fingers to his mouth and licks. He wants it to be a little wet, a little more like it’s really Seokjin’s mouth that’s doing this. As Seokjin gives in and bites at Yoongi’s shoulder, passing through his skin, Yoongi pinches down hard in his place. It’s not the same, but it does the trick. He squeezes at the skin with his wet fingertips, scraping against it with his nails in an imitation of teeth. By the time Seokjin lifts his head and Yoongi lets go, there’s a pink and purple bruise blooming on his shoulder. Seokjin gasps at the sight, and Yoongi’s cock twitches in the hand still holding it. 

“Please, more,” he begs, starting to fist his cock again. Seokjin doesn’t call him on it, instead ducking back down and sealing his mouth to the side of Yoongi’s neck. Yoongi rewets his fingers, sucking more sloppily. Drool drips down his wrist as he brings his fingers to his neck. He pinches himself hard and gasps at the pain. Both sensations at once are overwhelming. Seokjin’s hands have migrated to his middle, holding him around the waist. Yoongi lets his head tip back for a moment, pretending that he can let it loll back against Seokjin’s strong chest. Pretending that he could fall and be caught.

After his neck, Seokjin moves to the hollow of Yoongi’s throat, then to just under his jaw, then to right above his left pec, until Yoongi’s fingers are sore and his skin is peppered in little bruises. Yoongi stares at himself in the mirror, and so does Seokjin. He looks awed, possessive. Yoongi just looks satisfied; Now he really looks as pretty as Seokjin said, the colors standing out starkly against his pale skin. 

“Beautiful,” Seokjin breathes, echoing Yoongi’s thoughts. 

“You too,” Yoongi pants. “Gorgeous.” 

“Well that goes without saying,” Seokjin scoffs, but his ears burn bright red. It’s clear that any sincere attention flusters him, despite how easily he can take control. He meant it when he said that today was about Yoongi. 

And Yoongi is getting close – cock weeping, breath coming in short, staccato bursts. Seokjin finally notices, or at least he finally decides to do something about it, and sharply says, “Not yet.” Yoongi moans in protest but obeys, taking his hand away as his dick twitches uselessly. 

Seokjin rubs his hands up and down Yoongi’s stomach and Yoongi follows them with his own again, needing the comfort. “I know,” Seokjin soothes. “One more, you can do one more for me.” 

Yoongi takes the chance to catch his breath, thighs starting to shake from the tension and kneeling up for so long. Seokjin is getting more affected, too. In his ear, Yoongi can hear but not feel Seokjin’s breath shake. Aside from that, his muttered curses, and his praise, Seokjin hasn’t made much noise. Yoongi wants to know what he sounds like when he’s really feeling it. Fucking or getting fucked, Yoongi doesn’t care. Seokjin probably sounds gorgeous either way. There’s a small string of drool on Yoongi’s chin, and he finds himself wishing again to get his mouth on Seokjin. Wishes that shiny spit dripping down his chin came from gagging around Seokjin’s cock, as he took him apart with his mouth. Bets that he could draw the most wonderful noises out of Seokjin that way, swallowing him down until he cries and comes undone. Seokjin’s voice can go so high, he’d probably whine so beautifully. And his lower register, fuck, it’s dangerous. Moans from Seokjin would be like a symphony. 

“Okay, touch yourself again,” Seokjin says. “Go on.” Yoongi’s hand feels like fire after being denied so many times, nerves lighting up immediately as he wraps his fist around his dick. His hips jump up into the circle of their own accord. Despite how wet he is now the drag is still raw, and he can’t hold back a whimper at the sensation. It’s a pleasure that borders on pain, friction on the verge of too much. But still he needs something more. 

He lets one hand snake back behind himself, rubbing lightly at his rim with two slick fingers. Just teasing himself before slipping one in. The angle isn’t quite right, but the sensation still punches a sigh out of him. He thrusts in and out in time with the hand on his dick before slipping another finger in alongside the first. Seokjin’s long crooked fingers would push on him in all the right places, he thinks, curling his fingers to press on his walls. He brushes against his prostate and moans high in his throat, bordering on a whine. 

Seokjin starts to whisper a quiet litany in his ear. “That’s it Yoongi-yah, fuck, look at you. So perfect for me, you’ve been so good. Show me what you look like when you come, come on, hyung wants to see.”

That tips Yoongi over the edge. With one last stroke, the pleasure reaches its peak and he spills all over his hand. His limbs shake too hard to support him anymore, and he collapses down onto the bed. There’s a tingling in his fingers and toes, heat spreading from his center. He squeezes his eyes shut, vision whited out. Seokjin is praising him more, but his words are muffled. Yoongi’s own pulse drowns them out, blood rushing in his ears as his heart pounds. All he can do for a long moment is lay there, panting and trembling through the comedown. 

Eventually he rolls himself over with a sigh, drawing his fingers out of himself and wiping them on the blanket with a grimace. Blinking his eyes open, he’s somehow surprised to find that it’s not even fully dark, the stubborn sun of late evening shining through the windows. Yoongi’s already examined every visible detail of Seokjin, many times, but it feels important that in this context they saw each other illuminated in broad daylight. They both let each other see and be seen. Seokjin is still looking, when Yoongi finally meets his gaze, a much softer expression on his face now than the one moments before. 

“Your hair looks ridiculous,” he says, when he knows Yoongi is back with him. Yoongi snorts. 

“Well, we can’t all be non-corporeal. You literally can’t look ridiculous,” Yoongi comments.

“Is that a challenge?” Seokjin asks, raising an eyebrow. “Yah, Yoongi-chi, I can be so ridiculous-looking–” 

“Ridiculously-good looking, more like,” Yoongi mutters, just to watch Seokjin’s face contort more. His expressions are ridiculous, but somehow still attractive. He knows what Seokjin is doing – he’s keeping Yoongi in the moment, making a light and playful mood despite the gravity of what just happened. Yoongi can feel it pulling him down further into the bed. He lets Seokjin splutter and pout a little longer, then clears his throat. 

“So was that uh… good for you?” Yoongi asks, wincing at how awkward and insecure that sounded. It’s not that he’s shy or anything, Yoongi knows he’s hot and good in bed. He’s bragged about his tongue technology in enough songs, he’s got a package of custom business cards that Hoseok got for him for one birthday that says “Hong Kong Travel Agent” on them. These circumstances were just a bit different than he’s used to. He wants to make sure. 

“Yes, Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin smiles. “It was ‘good for me’.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking away. “Pretty amazing, really,” he adds. 

“Good.” Yoongi can feel that he’s blushing again. He looks anywhere else. “Me too.” 

Silence returns, neither of them looking at each other. Yoongi catalogs his body, wiggling his toes, stretching and bending his knees, poking at all the hickeys he’d left himself. They’d really done a number on him, chest and shoulders and even the outside of one thigh sporting bruises. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Seokjin running his hand through his hair again, tugging on a strand in what seems like nerves. He sighs once, then turns to Yoongi with a big, fake grin. 

“Hey Yoongi, does this mean I’m your ‘boo’?” He asks. Yoongi stares at him for a second, not laughing. He’s not supposed to, he knows. It’s a horrible joke, but it conceals a very genuine question. 

“Yeah,” Yoongi answers, quietly. “Yeah it does. And I’m yours, too.”

Seokjin’s eyes shine, then he blinks and turns away again. “Good.” He echoes. His voice is thick. “That’s good.”

It seems too cold, all of a sudden. Laying naked out on top of the covers. Now that they’re outside of a sexual context, it’s not hot and it’s not uncomfortable. Just cold. And maybe a little lonely, despite Seokjin’s presence always being so strong. He wants to be held, wants to have another body curled around him sharing the same air. Wants Seokjin’s broad body pulling him in tight and keeping him there, crooked fingers running through his sex-messy hair. He wonders if putting his hand under Seokjin’s would help, or just make it worse like it had earlier. He wiggles a hand beneath himself until it finds the corner of the blanket, yanking it down and rolling under it. 

“What are you doing?” Seokjin asks above him, amused. 

“Mm.” Yoongi grunts back, snuggling himself in deeper. 

“Do you need a post-nut nap, Min Yoongi?” Seokjin sounds even more delighted, giggling. “Pull the covers down.”

“Why.” 

“Because I want to see your little gremlin face, and I can’t pull them down myself.” 

Yoongi yanks the covers down until they’re just beneath his chin, pouting. “Gremlin?”

“A term of highest endearment,” Seokjin assures, smiling genuinely now, looking down at Yoongi from where he’s propped himself back against the headboard. Yoongi wants to kiss him again, right on the gentle curve of his mouth. Instead he hums skeptically and goes back to getting comfy, curling onto his side and shoving his hands between his knees. The duvet settles around him, a warm weight, and he tries to be satisfied with it. At least Seokjin keeps talking, rambling about all of the qualities that make Yoongi a gremlin, cadence rising and falling like waves. 

He must actually fall asleep because he blinks once and when he opens his eyes it's fully dark, night instead of late evening. The room is shrouded in shadows. Stretching his arms up over his head, Yoongi starts when he hears a “Yah, watch it.” Seokjin is still there, in the same position, looking down at Yoongi. “Almost punched right through me.” 

“‘Times it?” Yoongi mumbles. 

“Eight-thirty. You knocked out for like two hours,” Seokjin says. “I was just about to try and wake you.” 

Yoongi makes a questioning noise and Seokjin gets its meaning. 

“You should eat something,” He explains, shifting and getting up off the bed. “And if you keep sleeping you won’t be able to sleep tonight.” 

Yoongi opens his mouth to respond with something about how he can always sleep more, but it comes out as a yawn instead. He lets his eyes stay closed.

“Yoongi-chiiiiii!” Seokjin wails, long and exaggerated. “No! I won’t lose you like this! I can’t believe I wore my lover out so much that he died… My ego is blossoming but my heart, oh my heart is dying on the vine.” 

Fighting laughter, Yoongi plays along and lets out a weak moan. He stretches a hand out in Seokjin’s direction, making it shake, before letting it fall dramatically. Seokjin gasps. 

“My Yoongi-yah! He still lives! Oh, if only I could touch him and carry him to the sustenance he so dearly needs… Oh alas, alas…” 

Yoongi cracks an eye open and sees Seokjin kneeling next to the bed with his hands clasped in faux agony. His face is pulled into the most comically distressed expression Yoongi has ever seen, contorted in pantomime anguish. His eyebrows look insane. Yoongi can’t help it anymore, and starts to laugh small, breathy giggles. Waving a hand, he motions Seokjin back and muscles himself up and out of bed. 

“And he makes a recovery!” Seokjin laughs, character broken. “It’s truly a miracle!” 

Yoongi pulls leftovers from the fridge and eats them sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, cross-legged, while he and Seokjin’s latest series plays and Seokjin berates the characters and their choices. It hits Yoongi that this feels just like it always has, despite what happened earlier. They had sex, they voiced their feelings for each other (in a way), and nothing changed. It’s easy and as comfortable as ever. Yoongi woke up with Seokjin beside him, and thinks that maybe waking up won’t be as hard if he gets to keep waking up that way. The realization sinks into his bones without fanfare. 

Hoseok was right. Yoongi isn’t scared anymore. 

Seokjin follows him back to the bedroom when it’s time for Yoongi to go to bed for real, laying his body parallel to Yoongi’s own. Not pressing up against him, but watching him with a gaze so tender it could almost be a physical touch. Yoongi smiles, sure his own gaze is just as unbearably fond, and hides his face in his pillow so that Seokjin can’t see. If he knew how utterly besotted Yoongi is then he’d just be a nightmare to deal with. 

Of course, Seokjin probably already knows. 

His phone vibrates on the nightstand and Yoongi turns to grab it, grateful for the distraction from his feelings.  

hob-ah: come out with us tomorrow night!

hob-ah: and bring your boy! 

Yoongi stares down at the screen as three dots appear. 

hob-ah: this is not a request! 

The last message is punctuated with a smiley face and a knife emoji. 

“Hyung?” Yoongi says. “I think I need to tell Hoseok and Namjoon the truth.”

Seokjin’s face is solemn now, and the expression doesn’t sit right on his face. His mouth is made to smile. 

“Yeah. It’s probably time now.” 

me: namjoon-ah, hoseok-ah, I think we should talk tomorrow

Yoongi would like to retract his previous statement. He is scared actually. One could even say terrified. Namjoon and Hoseok are on their way over, should be there any minute. Yoongi’s been pacing for the last twenty minutes, shuffling slippers surely having worn a track in the carpet already. He’s ripped his nails to shreds, unable to stop himself from tearing at them with his teeth in between panicked rants to Seokjin. 

“I’ve been lying to them for over a month, hyung,.” he reiterates. He’s said more or less the same phrase about fifty times now. 

“I know,” Seokjin says calmly. “But you’re telling the truth now. That’s what matters.” 

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Yoongi protests. He raises his thumb back up to his mouth. Seokjin steps towards him with a wordless distressed noise, gesturing for Yoongi to let go. 

“You and Namjoonie and Hoseokie and have known each other for too long to let this get in between you,” Seokjin insists. “You’re telling them now, you just weren’t ready before.” 

“But it’s you ,” Yoongi hisses. “It’s about you, Namjoon is your brother!” 

“And that’s why it was so hard to say! He’ll understand, Yoongi-yah, please stop–” Seokjin cuts himself off, huffing, eyebrows crinkled up. Yoongi pulls his thumb from his mouth when his phone vibrates, and he sees a text from Namjoon saying they’re on their way up. He whirls to face the door, heart pounding in his chest. For once, his hands stay hanging at his sides. They’re trembling so much that Yoongi doesn’t think he can lift them. 

It’s so light that Yoongi almost doesn’t feel it. He wouldn’t have noticed if his hands hadn’t been shaking so badly. As he stands there, staring down the door, one of his hands stills for just a moment. There’s the barest hint of pressure, like wind wrapping around his hand squeezing. Not solid, but undeniable. 

Yoongi looks up at Seokjin standing beside him, eyes wide. “Did you just hold my hand?” 

“Yes,” Seokjin confirms, brows furrowing. 

“I felt you,” Yoongi gasps. 

There’s a knock on the door. 

Chapter Text

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming

Or the moment of truth in your lies

Yoongi stares at Seokjin in stunned silence for a long moment, Seokjin mirroring him with a shocked expression of his own. Seokjin held Yoongi’s hand. It shouldn’t be possible, he’s never been able to touch anything before. 

Unbidden, Yoongi pictures what the night before would have been like if Seokin could have done this then. Fleeting, barely there touches dancing over his skin – he shoves the image back down. It’s not the time. 

Another knock on the door. “Yoongi-hyung?” he hears, slightly muffled by the wood. Seokjin jolts at the sound of his brother’s voice, snapping out of his stunned silence. 

“You better let them in.” he says, still sounding a bit disbelieving. 

“Yeah,” Yoongi breathes. He lets his eyes drop down to their hands, just for a second. Seokjin’s hand is still curled into a loose fist, half phased through Yoongi’s. Yoongi squeezes his fist tighter around the intangible hand, then releases it along with a big, steadying sigh. Shuffling over to the door, he allows himself to look at the handle for two counts of eight in his head. Then he opens it. 

Namjoon and Hoseok look normal. Yoongi doesn’t know what he expected, maybe his doom, but instead he just sees his two best friends. Hoseok is smiling, even, his big heart-shaped smile. He throws himself at Yoongi as he opens the door, smacking kisses on his cheeks and the top of his head with a delighted cry of “Hyuuuung!” 

Namjoon has a calm, cheerful smile on his face as he takes his shoes off, greeting him with a “Hey, hyung.” 

Yoongi steps aside to let them in, feeling vaguely off-guard. Of course they’re not mad yet, Yoongi didn’t tell them what he wanted to talk about. They have no idea what they’re walking into. 

“Want some coffee?” he asks, stalling. He needs to psych himself back up. His nerve is all shot now, deflated like a balloon. 

“With sugar please,” Namjoon accepts, dimples on his cheeks. Hoseok shakes his head. 

Yoongi busies himself in the kitchen, Seokjin following him and hovering over his shoulder. 

“Rip the band-aid off Yoongi-yah,” he tells him. He’s not bothering to whisper, and Yoongi almost tells him to be quieter until he remembers that Namjoon and Hoseok can’t hear Seokjin even if he screams. “Why are you drawing it out?” 

Yoongi shakes his head in response, bringing Namjoon his disgusting coffee. He looks into the dark, shining liquid in his own mug instead of his friends’ eyes. 

“What did you want to talk about, hyung?” Namjoon prompts. 

“Is this about your boy?” Hoseok looks excited, nearly bouncing. He thinks it’s going to be good news, Yoongi realizes. It makes it even harder to start talking. He swallows around the thick lump of nerves and guilt sitting in his throat.

“Yeah. ‘My boy’.” Yoongi begins. “So, the boy you wanted to meet? The one I’ve been seeing for a few months? He doesn’t exist.” Hoseok’s face falls from delight into confusion, and Namjoon’s expression flickers, eyebrows creasing briefly in anger before shuttering completely. “There’s no boyfriend.” 

“What do you mean there’s no boyfriend?” Hoseok asks, head cocked to the side. “You have to have a boyfriend.”

“Seok-ah, I think he means he was lying to us,” Namjoon says softly. Yoongi can’t pick out the emotion, his diplomatic inflection hiding what he feels. It hurts. Namjoon hasn’t felt the need to use that tone around them in years. Then again, Yoongi hasn’t lied to them in just as long so he supposes maybe he deserves it. The only indication of how he feels is the telltale tightness around his jaw. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it hyung? That all the times you’ve blown us off in the last few weeks, all the excuses you gave us about wanting to give your new relationship time – all of it was a lie.” 

“Yes,” Yoongi rasps. “That’s what I’m saying.” 

Hoseok shakes his head in protest. 

“No, Namjoon-ah, you didn’t hear him talk about this boy. Hyung isn’t that good of an actor, he’s in love. You can’t have been lying about that.” He directs that last part to Yoongi, mouth set in a firm line. Yoongi swallows again and looks down at his slippers. 

“You’re right,” he admits. “I wasn’t lying about my feelings.” 

“So what do you mean there is no boyfriend?” Hoseok asks again, insistent. “Are you just not dating? Does he not love you back?” 

Yoongi’s next inhale hitches and he can’t help but look up at Seokjin where he’s standing at the entrance to the kitchen. 

“You know I do,” Seokjin says, and Yoongi’s breath releases.

“No, he does, we just – we just hadn’t been honest with each other about it until yesterday.” Yoongi explains. 

“I don’t understand then,” Namjoon says. “Why is this a big deal, hyung? You’re trying to say you’ve been lying to us, but it just seems like maybe you didn’t tell the whole truth. What are you getting at?”

“No I–” Yoongi groans in frustration. “I’m going about this all wrong. You’re right, I haven’t told you the whole truth. And I have been lying to you, because that day when I said I was seeing someone, I meant it in the ghost way, or the vision way, or whatever you want to call him .” He gestures to Seokjin, even though Namjoon and Hoseok can’t see him. “I just let you think that it was the relationship way because I didn’t want you to worry about me, or think I was insane, because I know that this sounds insane.”

Hoseok and Namjoon exchange a glance, and Yoongi points at them. 

“Like that, see? You’re worrying about me right now. But I’ve been taking my meds, and going to appointments, and this has nothing to do with my mental health. I just need you two to hear me out. Okay?” He waits until both of them nod. “Okay. So I lied to you that morning, but you lied to me too, Joon-ah. You never told me that this was Seokjin-hyung’s apartment.” 

Namjoon goes pale. “How do you–” 

“I promise you that I am not saying this to be cruel, and it’s not a joke,” Yoongi prefaces. “I’d hope you know me better than that after eight years. But ever since the day I moved in, I’ve been seeing Seokjin-hyung’s, uh, spirit, I guess. He’s here, and for some reason I’m the only one who can see him.” 

“And Taehyung.” Seokjin adds. Yoongi waves a hand at him. 

“Right, and Taehyung, who is apparently a psychic.” 

“You’ve been seeing Seokin-hyung’s ghost.” Hoseok says slowly, like he’s trying to understand. Namjoon looks vaguely shell-shocked, jaw hanging slack instead of locked. 

“Yes.” Yoongi nods.

“Since you moved in?” 

“Yeah. We’ve gotten… we’ve gotten really close.” Seokjin snorts. “Shut it, hyung.” 

“Are you talking to him now?” Namjoon speaks up. Finally his façade is gone, and Yoongi can see all the conflicting emotions in his expression. Disbelief and concern are written all over his face, warring with something else that looks an awful lot like hope. 

“Oh god,” Hoseok gasps. “The boy you were talking about in the studio. The bad puns, and the theatricality, and how you can’t imagine coming home and not seeing him here. You were talking about hyung.” His eyes are very wide. “You’re in love with Jin-hyung.” 

“You said we would compliment each other,” Yoongi remembers that, from all the way back over seven months ago. He gives a joyless chuckle and runs a hand through his hair. “It turns out you were right.” 

“You realize how this sounds, Yoongi-hyung,” Namjoon says cautiously. Yoongi can tell that he desperately wants to believe. The skepticism is protecting Namjoon’s soft heart that can’t handle losing his brother a second time.  

“I know, Joon-ah.” Yoongi points towards Seokjin. “But I swear to you he’s standing right over there. He’s been here this whole time. And I am so, so sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. I just didn’t know how.” 

Namjoon and Hoseok stare towards Seokjin, unseeing. 

“The whole time?” Namjoon asks, voice weak. 

“Yeah.” Yoongi runs a hand through his hair and tugs a little. “That morning you came over, that’s when we realized that only I could see him. He was at that table, and you almost walked right through him. So that’s when I started the lie about the boyfriend.”

“The whole time.” Namjoon repeats, and it breaks a fragment of Yoongi’s heart. Namjoon’s next inhale shakes, just a little. 

“I hate Murakami.” Seokjin states. It makes Yoongi laugh, which was obviously the goal. The tension drains from his shoulders just a bit. 

“He just said he hates Murakami,” Yoongi relays. “I told him you’d been reading it to him. He’s already read it, and didn’t have the heart to tell you.” 

Namjoon huffs a laugh that’s suspiciously watery. “I knew it.” 

“Yoongi-hyung, you’re dating a ghost.” Hoseok’s voice is high and thin, the shock finally catching up to him. “Seokjin-hyung is a ghost and you’re dating him.”

“That about sums it up, yeah,” Yoongi confirms. “Also let the record state that I’m sorry. I can’t emphasize that enough.” 

“But… Jin-hyung isn’t dead.” Hoseok says. Namjoon has fallen silent again, looking at his hands. “How can he be a ghost?” 

“Your guess is as good as ours. We’ve been trying to get him back to his body, and nothing has worked so far.” 

Seokjin is staring at Namjoon, not meeting Yoongi’s eyes. There’s a sad crease in his forehead.  He walks over to the couch and sits down on the arm next to Namjoon. He starts to whisper something to him, too softly for Yoongi to hear what it is. Apparently this is another time where Seokjin just needs to say something, not to be heard. Yoongi turns back towards Hoseok, giving the two brothers their space. Hoseok is very curious as to what things they’ve tried, and how Taehyung is a medium. Yoongi gives him more or less a rundown of everything they’ve attempted to get Seokjin to wake up, and realizes again that they haven’t really tried anything new in the past few weeks. Eventually, Seokjin’s soft whispers in the background slow and come to a stop. A few moments later, Namjoon finally speaks up.

“I think I need to be mad at you for a second, hyung.” he states. His expression is calm, but it’s a careful calm. A fragile calm that could break very easily. Yoongi nods. 

“Okay, Namjoon-ah. If that’s what you need.”

“I understand why you didn’t tell us,” Namjoon concedes. “At least at first. But you watched me go every Wednesday and Saturday, and you didn’t say anything. That hurts a little. And Seokjin-hyung I’m–” His voice wavers, mouth stretching into a tight line. He glances over to where Seokjin had been earlier, the last place he knew him to be, and schools his face back into something smooth. “I’m sorry.” He looks back at Yoongi. “So I’m going to be mad at you for a second Yoongi-hyung, and Hoseok and I are going to leave, and then we’ll meet you at the bar later with everyone. But first you’re going to promise me that we’re not going to withhold anything important from each other anymore, even if it’s hard to say. Can we do that?” 

“Yeah, of course we can Joon-ah.” Yoongi agrees, meeting Namjoon’s eyes so he knows that Yoongi means it. He much prefers blunt honesty anyway. These have just been… special circumstances. “I promise.” 

Namjoon exhales a gusty breath. “Okay. I promise too. Hoseok-ah?” 

“I promise.” Hoseok agrees, rubbing soothing circles onto Namjoon’s bicep. 

“Good.” Namjoon nods, satisfied, but his eyes have begun to look red around the rims. There’s a strain when he speaks, like he’s working very hard to keep his voice steady. “Then I think we should go. Thank you for being honest, hyung.” 

Hoseok gives Yoongi a brief hug as Namjoon is putting his shoes back on at the door, saying “Eight o’clock, hyung. I’ll send the address.”

Namjoon waves with a small smile, and Yoongi knows they’re going to be alright. It still sends a pang through Yoongi’s heart when he hears a small sob after the door shuts. He sinks onto the couch with a deep, shuddering breath. 

“That could have gone worse,” Seokjin comments, sitting next to Yoongi. 

“Could have gone better.” Yoongi retorts, letting his head sink into his hands. It’s starting to ache a little, adrenaline clashing with the coffee he had on an empty stomach.

“I told you that they wouldn’t let this come between you,” Seokjin says softly. “Didn’t I? Tell hyung that he’s always right.” 

“Hyung is always wrong,” Yoongi responds automatically, then laughs at Seokjin’s indignant shout. “Sorry, sorry. You’re right, that was probably the best that could have gone.” 

“Now that everyone knows you should have everyone over more. It was… it was really nice to see Namjoon again.” Seokjin suggests. 

“Everyone?”

“Yeah, everyone,” Seokjin insists. “Namjoonie, Hoseokie, those two terrors who compared me to a Dorito, and Jungkookie.” 

“Oh.” Yoongi grabs his phone. “Jungkookie.” 

me: Jungkook-ah, are you busy tonight?  

Everyone is there already when Yoongi arrives at the bar with Jungkook in tow, who looks like he should be the bouncer rather than a patron. He’s sporting the same all-black aesthetic that he has been every time Yoongi has seen him, which Yoongi can get behind. He’s all for simplicity, it makes things easier in the morning. The only difference is that instead of pants so baggy they could be parachutes, Jungkook is wearing skin-tight black jeans. His thighs are… prominent. Having him there makes Yoongi feel more prepared, less like he’s entering a gunfight with a switchblade. Despite how well they took the news, Yoongi’s stomach is doing nervous backflips at the thought of seeing Namjoon and Hoseok again. They look fine, happy, laughing with Jimin and Taehyung at the hightop table they’ve nabbed, but there’s just no way that they could be completely fine with Yoongi after only a few hours. 

But against all odds… it seems like they are. Namjoon and Hoseok don’t greet him any differently than usual, giving no indication that they’re angry at him at all. Hoseok hugs him and shouts in his ear, and Namjoon nudges him affectionately once Hoseok releases his hold. His eyes and smile are soft as he looks down at Yoongi. It’s a smile that says they’re okay, or they’re going to be if they’re not entirely yet. Yoongi is suddenly grateful that this happened now, instead of when they met in college.They’ve both learned where to aim their anger, but if they were younger it would have gone very differently. Back then, they only ever aimed it at each other. There would have been more shouting, probably some throwing things, and then they wouldn’t have spoken for two weeks until a furious rap battle where they could release all the remaining tension. It’s a miracle that Hoseok put up with them, honestly. He always did have a gift of seeing someone’s potential, then making them realize it. 

When he catches Yoongi’s uncertain gaze on Namjoon one too many times, he edges up closer next to him. 

“He’s okay, hyung,” Hoseok reassures him, quiet enough so that only Yoongi hears. “It wasn’t really about you. The lie… We understand it, we got over it quickly. He just feels like he failed Seokjin a little. Giving you the apartment, he feels like he gave up on his brother.” 

Yoongi’s eyes widen. Oh, Namjoon . 

“He couldn’t have known.” Yoongi insists. Hoseok shrugs, body language deceptively casual to everyone else. 

“He thinks he should have. It’s Joonie, you know how he is. He feels responsible for everyone he loves. But he’s okay, and so are you.” 

Yoongi nods, and Hoseok squeezes his shoulder in a very clear signal to lighten up now . Yoongi isn’t as good an actor in that way, but he takes a sip of his drink and tears his eyes away from Namjoon. They land on Jimin, who is looking at Jungkook with something in his gaze that Yoongi would liken to a jungle cat seeing an unsuspecting tourist.

“Who’s this?” he asks.

“This is Jeon Jungkook,” Yoongi says, as Jungkook bows a little to the group. “He’s the youngest, so everyone be nice to him.” 

Taehyung pouts a little, and Jimin tells him that he’ll always be the baby to him. Namjoon furrows his brow. 

“Why does that name sound familiar?” 

“He’s Jin-hyung’s best friend,” Yoongi explains. “They game together. Jungkook-ah, this is Jin-hyung’s younger brother Kim Namjoon.”

Jungkook’s eyes are, impossibly, even wider as they take Namjoon in. His mouth is open just a little bit, and when he doesn’t say anything after a long moment, Yoongi taps his jaw. Jungkook shuts it with an audible snap, then says in an awed voice, “You’re RM.” 

“Uhh. Yeah.” Namjoon confirms. “That’s me.” 

“Okay. Okay, yeah. I’m chill.” Jungkook chants to himself under his breath, shaking his hands out like he’s been running. “Just my hero. Totally cool.” He takes Yoongi’s beer out of his hand and chugs about half of it, ignoring Yoongi’s indignant ‘hey’. He opens his mouth again, then thinks better of it and drinks the rest of Yoongi’s beer before handing it back to him. Then it seems he’s ready to continue, because he holds out his now empty hand to Namjoon. “RM-ssi? Give me your phone.” 

“Uh, what?” Namjoon is visibly uncomfortable. He pulls Hoseok in by the waist, tucking him against his side. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, Jungkook-ssi, I’ve actually got a boyfriend–”

“Wow, conceited much?” Jungkook jokes, then shakes himself. “Sorry, defense mechanism. I’m not hitting on you. Just give me your phone please.”

Namjoon hands it over without further protest, and shrugs at Hoseok’s disbelieving look. “What? He said please.”     

“You can’t refuse him anything,” Yoongi explains. “You get used to it.” 

Jungkook opens KKT and types in his ID, adding himself before also opening a new contact and programming himself in there too. He texts himself and hands Namjoon’s phone back to him. He makes determined eye contact, and Yoongi flashes back to the false bravado Jungkook put on when they first met. “If anything happens to Seokjin-hyung again, I’d like to know.” 

“Oh,” Namjoon breathes, taken aback. “Yeah. Of course.” 

Jungkook nods, satisfied. “Good. Okay. Yoongi-hyung, I want a drink.”

“You already drank mine.” Yoongi points out. 

“Yeah, exactly, I already drank it,” Jungkook says, blinking wide and innocent. Yoongi doesn’t buy it. “So I want another one, please.” 

“Oh he fits in just fine,” Taehyung observes. 

“Thank you,” Jungkook smiles. Taehyung beams back. Jimin is smirking. Yoongi doesn’t like this energy. 

Hoseok drags Jimin off to the dance floor as an EDM song starts, probably going to wipe the floor with everyone else currently dancing. Namjoon watches them go, a fond smile on his face. Taehyung rests his chin on his hands and tilts his head, sighing dreamily as he watches his boyfriend. They’re both so in love. Yoongi abruptly wishes Seokjin were here.

“So what was that about me being your hero?” Namjoon asks. Jungkook flushes. 

“Um.” He takes a deep inhale and lets all his next words out in one rush. “Ithinkyou’rereallycoolandverytalentedandyourmusicripsass.” 

“Rips… ass?” Namjoon repeats slowly. 

“It’s a compliment,” Jungkook squeaks, looking like he would want nothing more than to sink into the floor. 

“Okay,” Namjoon nods. “Thank you, then. That means a lot. I’m glad my music can… rip your ass.”

Taehyung snorts into his drink, liquid dribbling out of his nose with the force of his laughter. Yoongi smiles and lets himself dissolve a little into a pleasant night, the ache of Seokjin’s absence retreating a bit. Taehyung gets pulled onto the dance floor with Jimin, and Jungkook’s eyes get even wider as he watches them grind to a slow, sensual song. Namjoon and Hoseok both start shouting and slapping Yoongi’s shoulders as a song he produced comes on. Eventually, Yoongi and Jungkook end up at the bar together ordering Irish Slammers.

“This drink is friendship,” Yoongi drawls, satoori getting stronger with the alcohol. “This will cement you as my dongsaeng. Repeat after me: Friendship is an Irish Slammer.” 

“Friendship is an Irish Slammer,” Jungkook repeats solemnly. Yoongi nods in satisfaction. He hovers the shot over the pint glass, Jungkook dutifully doing the same. Yoongi counts down.

“Three, two, one.” 

They drop their shots, then chug. Yoongi finishes his glass first, more accustomed to it, placing it back on the counter victoriously. Jungkook finishes his a moment later and slams the glass on the counter with enough force that Yoongi is surprised it didn’t shatter.

“Uh… Want anything else?” Yoongi asks. Jungkook shakes his head, hair flopping around his head like dog ears. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, like he wants to say something. Yoongi calls the bartender over and orders a plain whiskey while he waits for him to spit it out.

“Hyung?” 

“Yeah?”

“Would you judge me if I go home with them?” Jungkook asks, speaking loudly into Yoongi’s ear over the music. He doesn’t need to explain which ‘them’ he means.

“Yes,” Yoongi responds immediately, then rushes to clarify at Jungkook’s fallen expression. “Sorry, no, that came out wrong. I just mean that you can do so much better than them.”

They glance over towards where Jimin is feeding Taehyung the orange slices from his drink. As they watch, Taehyung catches Jungkook’s eye and grins slowly, revealing an orange peel in place of teeth. He beckons with a finger in a ‘come hither’ motion. Something about it is strangely alluring. 

“I don’t know if I can, hyung,” Jungkook says, looking absolutely enchanted.

“Gross,” Yoongi grimaces. “Alright, you have my blessing or whatever.” Not that he needs it, he’s an adult and can do what he wants. Or, do who he wants, Yoongi supposes. 

Taehyung seemingly gets tired of waiting for Jungkook and approaches first, after spitting the orange peel into an empty glass on the bar. Jimin follows him close behind, sipping what’s left of his drink after feeding Taehyung all of the fruit.

“You’ve been staring at us all night,” Taehyung says, smirking. Yoongi thinks it’s more of a mutual staring, and there was definitely a portion of the night where Jungkook’s eyes were more or less locked onto Namjoon. But no one asked his opinion. “We can’t tell if you want to fight or if you want to fuck.”

Jungkook looks the two of them up and down, gaze raking slowly over their bodies, assessing. “I could take you,” he responds. He punctuates this statement by flexing his bicep, his otherwise oversized shirt straining around the muscle. 

“Oh, I bet you could,” Jimin practically purrs. 

“Oh my god,” Yoongi groans. He dips his fingertips into Jimin’s drink and flicks them with it like they’re misbehaving cats. “Do this anywhere else.”

“Hey!” Jimin protests, glancing affronted down at his cup. “That was a perfectly good drink.” 

“And I had perfectly good eyeballs until I saw that display,” Yoongi retorts. “Now I have to bleach them.” 

“Oh Yoongi-hyung, does our human sexuality scandalize you?” Taehyung asks, blinking at Yoongi innocently. Something about where he placed the emphasis in his sentence sounds weird, and Yoongi squints at him while he tries to parse out what it was. Why would Taehyung place the stress on ‘human’– wait.

“Yah!” Yoongi shouts. “How do you – no.” Taehyung giggles at him, Jimin and Jungkook looking confused. Yoongi’s ears are burning red. “Whatever you think you know, it’s wrong,” Yoongi asserts, downing the rest of his whiskey. 

“The way you just one-shotted that whiskey definitely makes me believe you,” Taehyung comments, nodding with faux solemnity. 

“Shut your damn mouth,” Yoongi hisses, jabbing a finger at Taehyung’s chest. 

“I’ve missed something here,” Jimin says. His eyes flick between Yoongi and Taehyung. “But I also don’t care.” He shrugs, then tugs on Taehyung’s silky sleeve. “Can we go have sex now?”

“I second that request.” Jungkook adds. Jimin high fives him without looking. For having known each other for only a few hours, the three of them are frighteningly in sync. As they turn to leave, Yoongi grabs Taehyung’s arm and tugs him in close. 

“If you tell anyone that I fucked a ghost then I will turn you into one, okay?” he whispers fiercely into his ear. Taehyung just grins his boxy grin at him, then mimes zipping it shut and throwing the key into Yoongi’s empty glass. Then with that he’s off, waving over his shoulder as he’s tugged through the crowd by Jimin and Jungkook. 

“You fucked a ghost?” Hoseok’s incredulous voice comes from behind him. Yoongi winces. Maybe he hadn’t whispered as quietly as he thought. 

“No.” Yoongi attempts. A wide, delighted grin spreads across Hoseok’s face. 

“Yooooongi-hyuuuuuung.” 

“Nope.”

“Tell your best friend all about it.” 

“I will not be telling Namjoon about how it felt to fuck his ghost brother.” 

Hoseok gasps and throws a hand to his chest. “Low fucking blow, hyung.” 

They have what is essentially a staring contest, but it’s more a contest to see how long Yoongi can avoid looking Hoseok in the eye until he caves. He looks basically anywhere else. The neon lights of the dance floor pulse and Yoongi notes how sweaty everyone on it looks with a grimace. He grimaces even harder when he notices Namjoon at the bar try and fail to catch the beer the bartender slides him. 

“Your boyfriend could use a little help over there.” Yoongi tries. He watches as the bartender pours Namjoon a new beer, thankfully handing this one to him. 

“He’ll be fine,” Hoseok says airily. His eyes bore holes into Yoongi’s face. “I could do this all night, hyung.” 

Yoongi sighs and gives in. “It was really good, okay?” 

Hoseok claps in delight. “Okay, and?” 

“And?” Yoongi repeats. Hoseok levels with him a withering stare. 

“You have to give me more detail. I’ve heard Seokjin’s dick is huge.” 

“From fucking who?” Yoongi rubs his temple with one hand. “Actually, don't answer that. You would know better than I would, because ghosts don’t seem to be able to get naked? But it was still weirdly hot if that’s what you’re after. The, like. The suggestion of it.” 

“Wait, so if he couldn’t get naked…” Hoseok tilts his head and visibly puzzles over it. “How did that work?”

“There was a mirror involved.” Yoongi mutters, watching the ball of ice slide around the inside of his empty glass. Hoseok’s smile turns lecherous, but Namjoon’s arrival fortunately saves Yoongi from having to answer any more questions. 

“What are we talking about?” Namjoon asks.

“Nothing!” Hoseok chirps, slipping one arm around Namjoon’s back and letting the other come to rest cupping his pec. Namjoon laughs, but lets the hand remain. He’s gotten a lot more comfortable with Hoseok hanging all over him, more confident in himself. Instead of shying away he preens under the attention, cheeks dimpled and glowing. Hoseok catches Yoongi’s eyes and smiles a meaningful smile, the meaning being this conversation isn’t over. Yoongi decides that it most definitely is. 

“Just about how we think it’s almost time to head out,” Yoongi lies. “The brats have already packed it in.” 

“They all seemed to…” Namjoon searches for the right words. “Get along.” 

Yoongi snorts. “You could say that.” 

Namjoon smiles. “They’ll be trouble, but I think they’re cute.” 

“Such a softie, my Nyamjyoonie.” Hoseok coos, poking his fingers into Namjoon’s dimples.

The three of them stay for one more round, until Hoseok’s cheeks are glowing brighter than the stage lights and his eyes keep unfocusing. He always was a lightweight, and Yoongi doesn’t envy the hangover he’ll have in the morning. Maybe they should get a snack on the way back, something to soak up the alcohol. 

“C’mon, hyung will buy hotteok.” Yoongi says, tugging the two out of the bar. There’s a street vendor not far from the bar, with the brown sugar filling that Namjoon loves so much and always manages to burn his mouth on.

“Really?” Namjoon lights up. “Are you just trying to make sure I’m not mad at you?” 

“Do you want hotteok or not?” 

“Yes, most generous hyungnim.” Namjoon nods vigorously, dropping the subject. Hoseok cheers quietly in agreement. 

“I’m not, you know,” Namjoon says, once he has two fresh pancakes in his hands. He’s already bitten into one too fast and had to stand there breathing open-mouthed around the steaming bite until he could swallow it. “Mad at you, that is. Not anymore.”

Yoongi takes a bite of his own hotteok. He wants to reassure Namjoon more somehow, but their guilt is their own. It’s the kind that you have to forgive yourself for, the kind that both of them always struggled with the most. Yoongi doesn’t look at Namjoon, but raises a hand to pat him on his shoulder. “Thank you, Joon-ah.” 

Namjoon follows Yoongi home one night later that week, dragging his bike with them through the streets. He muscles it into the building, making a racket that Yoongi cringes at and the doorman raises an eyebrow at. He doesn’t talk about why he’s suddenly decided he’s going to Yoongi’s instead of home, and Yoongi doesn’t ask. Instead they chatter about the songs they’re working on, the new Epik High album, and what Namjoon wants to have for dinner (just chicken please, hyung). Yoongi doesn’t realize until he checks his phone in the elevator that it’s Wednesday. Namjoon isn’t here to hang out with Yoongi, he wants to spend his usual time with his brother. 

Seokjin sits up in surprise when he sees Namjoon following Yoongi in the door, mouth falling into a cute little ‘o’ shape. 

“He’s here for you,” Yoongi explains. “Not sure if he wants to subject you to more Murakami, but it is Wednesday.”

“No reading, I promise.” Namjoon chuckles softly. “I just– now that I know he’s here…”

“I get it, Joon-ah.” Yoongi says. “I’ll go order the chicken, okay? Seokjin is sitting on the left side of the couch, so the right side is all yours.” 

Namjoon catches Yoongi’s wrist as he’s on the way out of the room, giving him a small smile and sincere “Thank you.” Yoongi smiles in return and heads to his room, clicking through the delivery app until he finds the chicken place he knows is cheap and good. He can hear Namjoon’s low murmur through the door. It reminds him of when Jungkook was over, having his moment with Seokjin. Even Seokjin’s mere presence, unseen and unheard, is enough for them. It emphasizes how much he’s been missed, how much he’s needed. Yoongi almost feels guilty, like he’s keeping Seokjin all to himself. It’s not his fault Seokjin can’t leave the apartment, or that no one else besides Taehyung can see him, but all the same. Yoongi learned long ago that feelings weren’t always rational.

Eventually Namjoon’s voice goes silent. Yoongi waits a few more minutes just to be sure, then pads back out into the main room. The two are on the couch where Yoongi left them, both looking somehow lighter. Namjoon’s shoulders look loose and unburdened, Seokjin’s smile less tight around the corners. Yoongi decides not to comment on it though, instead just settling on the floor in front of the couch with a “Chicken should be here soon.”   

“I miss chicken.” Seokjin sighs. “And eating.” 

“Do you miss cooking?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin shrugs. 

“Yeah, but the best part of cooking is eating. Or watching people eat your food, and give you compliments.” 

Yoongi turns to Namjoon. “Did you give hyung lots of compliments on his cooking?” 

“Of course.” Namjoon answers. “Hyung is a great chef. I mean, he is a professional. Why? Did he tell you I didn’t give him any compliments?” 

“No, he didn’t say that. I just wanted to know why his head is so big.” 

Namjoon laughs while Seokjin squawks. There’s a knock on the door and Yoongi gets up to get their chicken, which they eat straight out of the containers. Seokjin says they have no class, and Yoongi tells him that not making more dirty dishes is the environmentally friendly way. They bicker back and forth through the meal, Seokjin picking on Yoongi while staring longingly at the chicken. When Yoongi gets up to clear the trash, Namjoon follows him to the kitchen and stares at him for a second with a happy curve to his eyes. 

“What?” Yoongi asks. 

“I just can see what Hoseok means.” Namjoon shrugs. “You’re really soft with him, but you don’t want him to get embarrassed so you do all that play fighting and snarky comments. You love him, but more importantly than that, you know how to love him. Quiet and steady and just a little bit combative. Or rather, there’s a very even back and forth. A playfulness.” 

Yoongi can feel his ears getting redder so he jams his beanie down further on his head. Namjoon smirks, seeing right through Yoongi as he usually does. 

“Of course,” he muses. “I can’t see or hear him, so I have no idea if he knows how to love you . But I think if you’ve fallen like this, then he must be doing a pretty good job.” 

“I haven’t fallen for anyone.” Yoongi mumbles, stuffing the empty container into the trash with more force than strictly necessary. “I’m as upright as ever, Kim Namjoon. Shut up.”

“Sure, hyung.” He pats Yoongi on the shoulder and walks back out, humming softly. It sounds suspiciously like the tune to ‘London Bridge’.  

The tune annoyingly sticks to his thoughts even once Namjoon says goodnight and heads back home. He sits down at the piano and wills his mind to find any other melody. The only one that comes to his fingers is the one that’s been safely hidden on his harddrive, one that he hasn’t admitted to yet. Yoongi doesn’t think that Seokjin was serious, all those weeks ago, when he requested Yoongi write him a song. Now that he knows him better, that kind of gesture would be the exact thing that would set Seokjin’s ears aflame and make him hide behind faux narcissism. It was just a joke, one that Yoongi’s soft, stupid heart had to go and take seriously. 

Well, he doesn’t have to tell Seokjin that the song is for him. 

He starts playing, starting with just a few soft chords before building. Seokjin settles down onto the bench next to him in the corner of his eye. Yoongi refuses to look at him. He’s certain that if he meets Seokjin’s eyes, then he’ll just know. He’ll be able to see Yoongi’s gooey, embarrassing center. Then they’ll both be sitting there with red cheeks and things they can’t say out loud. 

Halfway into the first chorus, a note that Yoongi didn’t play rings out. Seokjin’s fingers hover over the keys, and a mischievous smile is spreading over his face. Yoongi’s hands falter and stop, looking over in shock.

“Keep going.” Seokjin urges. Yoongi obeys. 

He starts the chorus over after counting in softly, and this time Seokjin joins in from the start. Yoongi tries not to watch him too obviously, but it’s hard not to be captivated. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration, his mouth dropped open just a tiny bit like he’s forgotten to close it. All of his attention is focused on pressing the keys, adding trills and flourishes and a lilting harmony over the top of what Yoongi has written. With each note he successfully presses, his smile gets bigger, cheeks rising like bread. It sounds…good, despite how chaotic it should be. 

“I didn’t know you played piano.” Yoongi comments, because it’s obvious that Seokjin has done this before. 

“I have hidden depths, Yoongi-chi.” Seokjin laughs, delighted. “Not just a pretty face.”

“No, not just.” Yoongi agrees, letting his softness bleed through the edges of the words. He’s not above playing a little dirty sometimes. Seokjin makes a little choked ‘yah’, and Yoongi giggles.They keep playing until Seokjin’s fingers refuse to be material any longer and pass through the keys when he tries to press them. Yoongi finishes the song off by himself, letting the notes resonate. He feels a bit breathless, even though he didn’t really do anything. 

“I guess I have to give you composer credit.” He says eventually. 

“I expect royalties.” Seokjin sniffs. “My lawyer will be in contact.”

“Of course, Seokjin-nim.” 

Seokjin sticks close to his side as Yoongi gets ready for bed; Yoongi sees him perched on the toilet while he brushes his teeth and washes his face, lingering at the edge of the mirror. He hums the tune that they just played under his breath, voice high and clear. Yoongi listens and tries to commit it to memory, so he can add it to the track he’s been crafting during spare moments.Yoongi crawls into bed, leaving the left side open for Seokjin. It’s the side nearer to the window, the one that Yoongi knows Seokjin prefers because he can watch the sky while Yoongi sleeps. It suits him just fine, because that way the light won’t wake him up quite as easily. Seokjin settles into his spot still humming. 

“Goodnight, hyung.” Yoongi mumbles, burrowing down into the duvet. There’s the smallest hint of pressure against the top of his head, before he falls asleep cradled by the melody.

Chapter Text

When everything feels like the movies

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

Yoongi’s apartment has never been so loud before. It’s also never been so crowded, all five of his dongsaengs packed into the living room and kitchen. A Mario Kart tournament has taken over and has been getting steadily more heated with each grand prix. Taehyung and Jungkook are trash talking each other with gusto, over everything from their character choice to their vehicle and special items. Jimin sits on one side of the television cheering for Taehyung, while Seokjin is settled next to Taehyung doing his very best to distract the only other person who can see him so that Jungkook can pull ahead. Hoseok is freestyling to the soundtrack for a laughing Namjoon. 

On the screen, a green shell hurtles into Jungkook’s character and sets him back a few places, Taehyung giggling as his character speeds past. Jungkook yells in frustration. 

“That’s it, I’m going to crush you,” he exclaims. 

“As long as it’s between your thighs,” Taehyung responds blithely, big smile pushing his cheeks up. He makes a kissy face as a collective groan rises from everyone else in the room, aside from Jimin who just sighs dreamily. Then Taehyung’s hands jerk to the side. “Wah– hey!”

Taehyung’s character goes careening off the track, Jungkook taking the lead again. Seokjin is cackling, and Yoongi realizes he’d grabbed onto Taehyung’s controller and yanked it towards him.

“That’s unfair, hyung!” Taehyung protests. Seokjin just sends a flying kiss at him, shoulders shaking with laughter. 

“Was that hyung?” Hoseok asks, pausing his dancing. “He can touch you?” 

“Only for short amounts of time,” Yoongi explains. “But yeah, he’s gotten the ability to manipulate some stuff.” 

“That’s so cool, hyung,” Jungkook breathes. “Keep using your powers for evil.” 

Jungkook and Taehyung launch into a spirited debate about what moral alignment Seokjin is instead of trash-talking each other further. Namjoon doesn’t seem to realize that they’re talking about a gaming concept, and he eagerly launches into a philosophical monologue about ethics and morals and what it means to be truly good in this world. He waxes poetic for enough time that Jungkook ends up losing the grand prix, just because he’s watching and listening to Namjoon so intently. There are stars in his eyes. 

“Namjoonie really liked The Good Place,” Hoseok says, sidling over to Yoongi. 

“I couldn’t finish that one,” Seokjin comments. “It made me think too much.” 

“That’s probably why Namjoon liked it,” Yoongi points out. Jimin pushes a glass into Yoongi’s hand. It smells sweet and extremely strong. “Did you poison this?” 

“No, when I kill you, you’ll see it coming,” Jimin says, patting Yoongi on the shoulder. He plops his ass into Taehyung’s lap and wiggles around before throwing his legs onto Jungkook’s. 

“The ‘when’ there is ominous,” Seokjin says consideringly. Yoongi hums. 

“I think it’s kind of comforting. When death comes, it’ll be Park Jimin. Can’t be scared of that short little shit.”

“I am TALLER THAN YOU,” Jimin shouts. Yoongi ignores him. 

“It’s a certainty in this chaotic world,” he finishes, then takes a sip of the concoction that Jimin gave him. It tastes exactly how it smelled, like pure sugar and alcohol and very little actual flavor. He grimaces, then takes another sip anyway. “Ew.”

“Hyung, you should go use your invisible hands to ruffle Joonie’s hair.” Hoseok says. “It would look so funny.”

“Ooh, Jwehooope,” Seokjin coos. “That’s a perfect plan.”

“He agreed,” Yoongi tells Hoseok. Seokjin tsks. 

“You have to say it the same way. It’s our thing.”

“I don’t want to do that.” 

“Do it, Yoongi-chi, or I’ll knock all the glasses of water by your bed over one by one.”

“But the hardwood floors,” Yoongi pouts, then sighs. “Fine. He specifically said ‘Jwehooope’ when responding to you.”

Hoseok claps gleefully. “Jjwaaaan.”

Yoongi’s been playing messenger all night with Taehyung, but somehow it doesn’t feel like there’s too much of a disconnect. The seven of them all in one room is chaotic, and cramped, and loud, but it’s so right at the same time. It’s absolutely something Yoongi will never say out loud, but it feels like all the disparate parts of his heart are together. Whole. Everyone fits in just the right way.

He looks down at his drink. It is strong. Yoongi usually doesn’t start thinking such disgustingly sentimental things until he’s three drinks in. He starts vocalizing them when he’s at five, which is why he doesn’t have that much to drink anymore. If his friends knew all the fond shit he thinks about them they would never let him live it down. 

“You want this?” Yoongi asks, holding his glass out to Hoseok. He nods and makes grabby hands, accepting the drink and taking a long sip. 

Seokjin sneaks over to the couch in a very over-exaggerated manner considering the majority of the room can’t see him, crab-walking slowly and crouching down behind Namjoon. Yoongi snorts when his arms extend over the top of Namjoon’s shoulders, like some weird bug, or a comic book villain with multiple arms. Namjoon yelps when Seokjin runs his hands through his hair, jumping and sloshing half of his drink over his shirt. Hoseok laughs brightly at the sight of Namjoon’s hair all ruffled and tufty like a duck’s feathers. 

“Hyuuung.” he whines, patting at his hair. The dimples appearing on his cheeks give away that he’s happy, that he’s missed his hyung and all that comes with him. Hoseok grabs napkins and starts dabbing at Namjoon’s shirt, which quickly devolves into him just groping Namjoon’s chest and swatting at Taehyung and Jimin’s hands when they try to do the same. Taehyung yells ‘sharing is caring’. Yoongi goes to grab Namjoon a dry shirt to borrow and realizes his cheeks are starting to ache from smiling. 

Yoongi lends Namjoon a Fear of God shirt, one of the ones they both own, with strict instructions that he has to remember to give it back. They wear different sizes anyway, Yoongi’s shirt hangs off of his own frame but puts Namjoon’s muscles on full display. Seokjin wolf whistles. 

“When did my baby brother get so buff?” he asks. “Put those away, I’m supposed to have the shoulders in the family, you get to have the thighs.”

“Joonie-hyung has the best thighs of this whole group,” Taehyung nods. Namjoon flushes. “Sorry, Jungkookie.” 

“No, I agree,” Jungkook chirps, staring at Namjoon’s full, muscular thighs stretched out over the couch. Namjoon blushes even harder, waving a hand bashfully. Hoseok squishes his cheeks in between his palms. 

“You’re so sexy, babe.” He pecks Namjoon on his protruding lips and releases his cheeks. He turns around to the maknaes and points a threatening finger at each of them. “Everyone can look but only I can touch.” 

“No fair!” Jimin yells, tackling Hoseok. 

“Ew, what did I start,” Seokjin grimaces. “You were supposed to admire my body, not my brother’s.” 

“I’ll admire you later,” Yoongi mutters, cackling when Seokjin’s ears immediately turn red. Taehyung leaps up from the couch. 

“That reminds me! I brought Doritos!”

The night goes on with more games and much more shouting, enough that Yoongi wonders if he’ll get a noise complaint. At one point he and Namjoon get goaded into having a rap battle like the old days, but Hoseok has just put the instrumental to No Scrubs on as the background and it turns more into karaoke. Taehyung insists he get a turn and puts on Waterfalls, Jimin and Jungkook joining in with actually quite impressive harmonies. They narrowly avoid having to do the heimlich when Jungkook shoves eleven Doritos in his mouth at once on a dare from Seokjin. A heated game of Jenga ends when the tower falls and Hoseok is so surprised that he screams and somehow falls over while seated. At one point Jungkook calls out “Hyung?” from the kitchen and all six of them respond, which makes Jimin laugh so hard that he somehow falls over while seated. 

Yoongi feels sentimental again and he’s not sure what to blame it on. After Jimin’s disgusting cocktail he’d switched to water. Maybe there’s nothing to blame but Yoongi’s own soft heart, try as he might to deny it. There’s just something about this moment that feels ephemeral. All of his people are together and happy. He wants some way to hold onto it, the sights and sounds and warm, warm feelings. He’d photograph it, but he’s not sure that Seokjin would show up on film. The image wouldn’t be complete without him in it. Memory, as faulty and impermanent as it is, will just have to do. Taking the moment, as his friends’ laughter rings in the air around him, to think to himself if this isn’t nice, what is?     

Seokjin looks at him with a twinkle in his eye like he knows exactly what kind of mush Yoongi’s thinking, like he agrees. 

Eventually everyone begins to wind down, and when Yoongi yawns four times in succession Hoseok takes it as a cue to start shuffling everybody towards the door.

Taehyung appears to be his normal, boisterous self as he trips over his feet while putting his shoes on, eventually stuffing his feet in and crushing the backs beneath his heels instead of wearing them properly. This is par for the course for him; he’s always been averse to wearing shoes for some reason. Yoongi hasn’t been able to determine if it’s a foot fetish thing, because it only seems to apply to Taehyung’s own feet. Mostly he tries not to think about it too much. He really doesn’t need to know all that Taehyung and Jimin, and now Jungkook he supposes, are into. 

“Thank you for coming, everybody!” Taehyung trills, waving his arm and doffing an invisible hat as he bows. 

“This is my apartment,” Yoongi says, then grunts in surprise as Taehyung grabs his arm in a surprisingly firm grip and tugs him out into the hallway, ushering him two doors down and out of earshot before stopping. “Woah, Taehyung-ah.”

“Hyung, why didn't you tell me Seokjin was developing powers?” Taehyung asks urgently. All traces of jovial drunkenness have vanished. His eyebrows are furrowed over clear, intense eyes. The switch is jarring, but then Taehyung has always been a good actor. 

“I- I don’t know, it didn’t come up,” Yoongi stammers, caught off guard. “Why? What does it mean?” 

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s good. You have to tell me if anything else changes, if he can manipulate more, or anything else,” Taehyung insists. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Yoongi agrees. “Um, he can play piano a little. He makes the keys move.” Taehyung nods, face pinched, and pulls back a little.

“Alright. I’ll try and figure out what it could mean. I just… I haven’t encountered many ghosts strong enough to physically touch our world.” He inhales, deep, and lets it out. “Maybe they’re just not aware of their own strength. Either way, it’s just unusual.” 

“But hyung hasn’t been behaving like a normal ghost anyway, right?” Yoongi asks. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach. He’s not tired anymore. “Because he’s not one. Not really.” 

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” Taehyung’s voice is flat, not sounding convinced. The sinking feeling starts to turn into a swirling, sick one. It feels an awful lot like dread. Taehyung pats Yoongi on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’s fine, just. Keep me updated.” He raises his voice back into his happy, drunken cadence. “I love you, Yoongi-hyung!”

“Okay.” Yoongi responds, unable to muster up anything else. He’s never been an actor like Taehyung. 

“C’mon, you know you have to say it baaaack,” Taehyung wails, latching onto Yoongi’s side and pulling , dragging Yoongi towards the ground until Jimin pulls him off with an admonishment about Yoongi’s bad shoulder.

Their whole hushed conversation had happened while everyone else was still putting their coats and shoes on, and Taehyung has made sure they’re none the wiser. The only one suddenly off kilter is Yoongi, as he moves through the calls of goodbye and hugs and clean-up in a haze. The dread hasn’t left, having made a home in the pit of his stomach. It weighs him down as much as if Taehyung was still holding on, and he has to fight gravity with every step.  

“That was fun.” Seokjin is perched on the couch, watching Yoongi pile empty bottles of soju and beer into the recycling bin. There’s a contented smile on his face. 

“Yeah, it was really nice.” Yoongi shakes his head in an attempt to clear the fog and scoops up another empty bottle. There’s a tiny amount of liquid left in the bottom, and he swirls it around and watches it catch the light. “I always prefer drinking at home to drinking at clubs or bars.”

“Me too, but going out can have its charms,” Seokjin points out. “You all seemed to have fun when you went out last week. And the best part is the walk back from a night out, when you can stop at all the street vendors.” 

“Is the only thing you miss about your body the food?” Yoongi jokes, laughing weakly. Seokjin doesn’t laugh along. Yoongi looks up from his recycling, and he’s just sitting on the couch looking into the distance, thinking. Like he has to really consider it. Yoongi swallows, the dread thickening. “Jin-hyung?”

“Hm? Of course not,” Seokjin answers. He isn’t meeting Yoongi’s eyes and his voice sounds distracted. Yoongi fumbles with a bottle and it lands too hard in the bottom of the bin, cracking straight down the middle. He stares at the light shining off the broken pieces. It was supposed to be a joke, it was supposed to be funny. It’s not funny now. 

“What else do you miss?” Yoongi presses. 

“I miss lots of things.” It’s a non-answer, meant to stave off further questions. Usually Yoongi would let it end there, but the dread is turning into something cold and sharp and oppressive. He puts the recycling down and sits on the couch facing Seokjin, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging them. 

“Like what?” He pushes. 

“I miss taking my dongsaengs to barbecue and having so much fun that we’re asked to quiet down. I miss going to PC Bangs and eating too much cheap ramen. I miss going out with my brother and his boyfriend and pretending to gag over their PDA even if I’m really happy for them.” Seokjin still isn’t meeting his eyes. Yoongi considers himself lucky that he’s even gotten this far in the conversation. “But…” 

“But?"

“I’m really a quiet person, Yoongi. I like simple things. And I was busy a lot,” Seokjin admits. “I didn’t get out that much because I didn’t have the time, or if I did, I didn’t have the energy. Gaming with Jungkookie was nice because I didn’t have to leave my apartment if I didn’t want to.” He looks at Yoongi, then. His lips curve into a small smile. “I think I’ve felt more myself here with you these last few months than I had for a while before the accident.” 

It hurts because it’s exactly how Yoongi has been feeling. Yoongi is an introverted little creature, and while he often emerges from his comfortable cave (by choice or by force) to be with his friends, he spends most of his time at work or at home. Solitude was easy, it was comfortable. Until Seokjin, Yoongi never realized that maybe he was a little lonelier than he realized. He never knew that he could be even more comfortable with someone else than he was alone. 

“When you wake up,” Yoongi says, “we’re going to take everyone out to barbecue. We’re going to eat far too much meat, and drink a bit too much, and then we’ll go to a noraebang and embarrass ourselves thoroughly. We’ll walk home and stop at any street vendor that catches our eye– hotteok, or odeng, or tteokbokki or all of the above. Then we’ll come home and sleep the whole next day.” He can picture it so clearly, the two of them pressed together, warm skin against warm skin. Morning breath but they trade lazy kisses anyway as they fall in and out of a doze. Yoongi wants it so badly. “Okay? When you wake up. Promise?”

“Sure, Yoongi,” Seokjin agrees, still smiling that small smile. His voice is flat, and it’s a bitter imitation of what Seokjin said happily when Yoongi first agreed to help him. “When I wake up. Promise.” 

The next morning, Seokjin is back to his normal self. Bombastic and energetic, and making far too much noise before Yoongi has his first cup of coffee. When Yoongi scoops fresh, hot rice out of the cooker Seokjin excitedly makes Yoongi hold an egg over the bowl while he stands across the kitchen. He screws up his face in a weird expression, nose scrunching and eyebrows furrowing.

“What am I waiting for exactly?” Yoongi asks. Suddenly, the egg in his hand splinters in half, shell splitting jaggedly down the middle as the insides drip down Yoongi’s hand and into the bowl of rice. He just stares for a while, hand going sticky with yolk. Eventually he finds his words. “You didn’t even touch it.” 

“I know,” Seokjin says delightedly. “Don’t I just crack you up?” 

Mustering up a withering stare in response to the pun is harder than it should be. It should be a good thing that Seokjin is happy again, but Yoongi just feels the dread wash over him again. It settles in his stomach like cement, and he has to force his breakfast down his throat before he goes outside and calls Taehyung.

“Hyung,” Namjoon bangs into the studio, breathless. The door goes flying against the wall with a sickening crack. Yoongi looks up from his monitor, and Namjoon’s normally healthy and tan skin is white as a sheet. He’s shaking, hands fumbling with the buckle on his helmet as he tries to take it off. The plastic snaps in his hand and he doesn’t even notice, just pulls the helmet off and throws it on Yoongi’s couch. 

“Are you okay, Namjoon-ah?” Yoong asks, alarmed. “Do you need anything? Water? Sit down.” Namjoon shakes his head. 

“Hyung, they’re pulling Seokjin off of life support at the end of the month,” Namjoon says, voice shaking as badly as his hands. Yoongi feels his blood turn to ice. 

“What? Who is?” 

“My parents. The doctors they–” he heaves in a deep breath. “The doctors say that his brain activity is slowing down. So my parents have decided that they’ll discontinue life support at the end of the month.” 

“They can’t do that,” Yoongi protests. “Jin-hyung is an adult, he makes his own medical decisions.” 

“They can,” Namjoon explains, shaking his head. “Seokjin doesn’t have a living will or spouse, so the choice falls to them as next of kin.” 

“But–” Yoongi pulls his phone out of his pocket, pulling up the calendar app. He counts the days until the 30th of the month and his stomach plummets to the floor like he’s on a roller coaster.   They only have eleven days.

“I know. I know.” Namjoon drops down onto the couch. He lets his head fall into his hands helplessly. His voice cracks when he speaks, muffled by his arms. “What are we going to do?”  

“We can’t tell them that his spirit is still here and doesn’t want them to pull the plug, can we?” 

Namjoon doesn’t laugh, and Yoongi didn’t expect him to. He just shakes his head and tugs at his hair until it sticks up in messy spikes. 

Yoongi thinks, sinking down next to Namjoon. What can they do? Namjoon could beg his parents not to discontinue life support, but without telling them the bizarre truth too there’s likely no way they’d listen. They’d just chalk it up to the reluctance of a brother to let go of his hyung. He wracks his brain for any other ideas to try with Seokjin, and comes up empty. Namjoon’s parents probably see it as a kindness, not to prolong the kind of half-life that they think their son is in. But it’s a death sentence, isn’t it?

“I don’t know what to do,” Yoongi admits. “What will happen to hyung without life support?” 

“Well.” Namjoon swallows. “His body will die. That’s a given. But his mind or his soul, or whatever is in your apartment… I don’t know. Maybe he’ll be a ghost forever. Or maybe he’ll just disappear.” 

Yoongi tries to imagine it. He’s thought about it before; going home and Seokjin not being there. The thing is, whenever he had, he’d imagined Seokjin was just off somewhere else. Living his life. Not once had he ever thought that Seokjin would be gone entirely. A lump rises in his throat and he tries to force his next words out around it. 

“Maybe,” his voice is rough. “Maybe that’s what he needs to wake up. They pull the plug and he goes back to his body, and he wakes up for real.” 

Namjoon looks at him. “Yeah,” he agrees, without conviction. “Sure, hyung.” 

“Well what’s the other option?” Yoongi bursts, standing with the force of his words. He can’t sit still anymore, a sick, nervous energy coursing through him. He can feel his own hands shaking just like Namjoon’s were, and he resists the urge to bite his nails. “Seokjin is just dead? He doesn’t exist anymore? I won’t accept that Namjoon, I won’t.” 

“Hyung, do you think I would?” Namjoon asks incredulously. He rises too, forcing Yoongi to look up at him. His jaw is taut and rigid in his normally soft face. “Seokjin is my brother. I love him too.” 

They stand in tense silence for a moment. They’re glaring at each other, but it’s not really in anger. It’s grief, pouring out of both of them. The air in the studio is full of it now, suffocating.  

Yoongi deflates first. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Joon-ah.” 

Namjoon’s expression crumples. “What are we going to do?” he asks again, the question a broken whisper this time.  

Yoongi tries to fold Namjoon into his arms and put his own feelings away. Namjoon needs his  support. The fact that Yoongi is falling apart too doesn’t matter right now. He stares at the wall and tries not to feel like it’s a lost cause. They have a week and a half before the end of the month; Seokjin isn’t gone yet. He says as much to Namjoon, trying to soothe him and give him the comfort that he came for. Yoongi is the hyung that fixes it, but he doesn’t know how to fix this. Namjoon buries his face into Yoongi’s shoulder, and Yoongi feels a wet patch spreading onto his shirt. He rubs circles onto Namjoon’s back, shushing him. They stay that way for a long while. 

Eventually Hoseok, mouth set in a thin line, arrives at the studio. He hugs Yoongi to his chest for a long moment before bundling Namjoon out of the door without a word. There’s nothing to be said, not now. 

The file on his desktop that he’d been working on when Namjoon had come in is still open. The label at the top of the screen reads forhim.mp3. Yoongi collapses into his desk chair and stares at it. Maybe the peaks and valleys of the soundwaves have some sort of answer. Maybe the intertwining parts figured it out. But no. It was Yoongi and Seokjin who wrote it, and they were out of ideas weeks ago.

There’s a war in Yoongi’s mind. All he wants is to go home and be with Seokjin, but at the same time he wants to run far, far away. He wants to avoid this a little longer, because it has been so easy up to this point. Living with Seokjin is easy. Loving Seokjin is even easier than that. But this is so hard, and the stakes are so high. 

Yoongi doesn’t make people talk to him. He waits, silent and steady, and lets them come to him when they’re ready. Usually he buys them more food, just to show them that he’s there and willing to listen. It’s what his friends did for him too, when he was struggling. Namjoon was the only one who was ever brave or stupid enough to try and make him talk, which was inevitably a disaster. It took years and a lot of hard work to get to a place where he was comfortable sharing his demons. Seokjin is never going to share what’s in his head of his own volition. He won’t come to Yoongi after a few extra treats like a skittish cat. 

There’s no other option but to force it. To take a battering ram to Seokjin’s carefully constructed walls and knock them down. Nerves swim in his stomach, but if there’s one thing that Yoongi has never done, it’s back down. Failing somebody he loves is not an option, has never been an option. 

Seokjin doesn’t seem to notice how tense and caustic Yoongi is when he gets home, or he’s just decided to be polite and not comment on it. Instead he remarks about how late Yoongi has been working this week, reminds him to eat well and waits until Yoongi gives in and makes some instant noodles. He slurps it down while Seokjin talks at him, feeling it weighing him down like lead. The thick sauce coats his mouth and throat and he has to work to swallow. It’s easy to feign fatigue, with how off he’s acting. Seokjin is being far too kind and understanding, far too gentle in comparison to how Yoongi knows he’s about to be. He urges Yoongi to get washed up, get ready for bed. All the while Yoongi can only think I’m sorry, I have to, I’m sorry. 

“Your hair is growing out.” Seokjin comments, perched in his usual place on the toilet seat as Yoongi splashes water on his face. “Look at your roots, they’ve gotta be over an inch by now. You really should dye it again– I bet you’d look nice with dark hair.” 

Seokjin is right. Yoongi’s dark roots are more than showing, they’re a thick dark stripe right at the top of his scalp. If Yoongi was more fashionable or avant garde like Taehyung, he could probably say that it’s a fashion statement. But now, it’s just a stark reminder that time has been passing, is currently passing, and they are swiftly running out. That, more than anything else, is what gets Yoongi to start talking.

“Jin-hyung, you’re getting stronger,” Yoongi says, voice muffled around his mouthful of toothpaste. Seokjin doesn’t look away from where he’s levitating Yoongi’s bottle of mouthwash.

“I know, it’s pretty sweet, right?” 

“I mean you’re getting stronger as a ghost.” Yoongi emphasizes, spitting into the sink. Maybe this is the wrong time for this conversation, but then again, it’s really the only time. Now or never, no matter how bad Yoongi is at emotional confrontation. Though judging by the last few months he can tell that Seokjin is actually even worse at it, which seems like a morbid accomplishment. Seokjin arches an eyebrow and the mouthwash dips a bit in midair.

“I’m not a ghost.” 

“But you’re going to be, ” Yoongi sighs through his nose, tugging on his hair, before ripping the band-aid off. “Hyung, your parents are going to cut off your life support.” 

“What?” Seokjin asks, eyes going wide. The mouthwash begins to shake, and Yoongi eyes it nervously. “They can’t do that.” 

“They can,” Yoongi insists. “Namjoon told me today, they’re in charge in the absence of a living will or next of kin. We have until the end of the month. You have to wake up.” 

“Don’t you think I’m trying?” Seokjin asks, brow furrowing in frustration. The mouthwash shakes a bit harder, sloshing in the bottle. 

“I don’t think you are, actually,” Yoongi says, keeping his voice carefully even. “I don’t think you’ve been trying for a while.” 

“What the hell does that mean –“

“I like having you around too, Seokjin,” Yoongi stresses. “I’ve never been so comfortable with anyone before, but you are going to die , do you want that?“

“Of course I don’t,” Seokjin snaps. “But you don’t get it, Yoongi.”

“What don’t I get?” Yoongi asks. “Please, tell me what I’m not getting about this situation.”

“I – I don’t,” Seokjin begins, choking on the words. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what I have to do, but I have tried . I have tried so hard.”  

“We haven’t thought of any new ideas for weeks, hyung,” Yoongi stresses. “And time is running out. I need you, Namjoon needs you, we all need you here.” 

“I’m right here, Yoongi.” Seokjin’s voice comes in a whisper. The mouthwash is shaking so fast now that it’s blurry in Yoongi’s periphery. 

“No, you’re not. We need you here, for real. In your body, alive, where your brother can see you and we can kiss each other properly–” 

“Where we can both get so caught up in work that we never see each other? Where I can live in Seoul for a whole year and a half and never even meet my brother’s best friends? Can I really be here then, Yoongi?” Seokjin is shouting now, not in the indignant and facetious way he usually does, but genuinely. The mouthwash drops to the floor, spilling over the tile as his concentration lapses. His chest heaves and Yoongi knows that if actually had to breathe he would be hyperventilating. 

“If we get busy, we make what time that we can for each other. We hold each other accountable! You’ve been doing that for me this whole time, I’ve never come home on time so consistently before,” Yoongi exclaims, volume rising too. He doesn’t know how this got so heated so fast. The nerve he touched must have been extremely sensitive. “ Please , hyung, I don’t want to lose you.” 

“And I don’t want to lose you !” 

There’s some sort of jagged edge where they’re not lining up. Yoongi doesn’t understand where the disconnect is, because it seems like they’re both worried about the same thing. So why are they yelling? 

“I’m not going anywhere, hyung,” Yoongi insists, fisting his hand into his shirt over his heart. “ I’m already here.” 

“But I don’t know if things would be better if I were here the way you want me to be!” Seokjin bursts. “I’m scared, Yoongi!” 

“ What are you so scared of, Seokjin?” Yoongi shouts back. “Life?”

“YES!” 

The next few seconds happen in slow motion. The word is torn from Seokjin’s throat, raw and aching and so honest. The mirror shatters, exploding outwards in a hundred tiny shards. Yoongi throws his hands up to shield himself from the flying glass and stumbles backwards, foot sliding in the spilled mouthwash. Seokjin’s eyes widen in horror as Yoongi tips, unable to stop himself from falling. One hand reaches out and nearly finds purchase, but the momentum can’t be stopped and Yoongi’s hand slips through Seokjin’s fingers. 

As his head hits the tile of the shower with a burst of white-hot pain, his last thought is that Seokjin’s hand was solid.

Chapter Text

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

Yoongi wakes up to a steady, rhythmic beeping and knows he’s in the hospital before he even opens his eyes. Thoughts feel like they’re swimming, but Yoongi tries to concentrate enough to take stock of himself anyway. His eyelids feel glued together. His mouth is dry and gummy, lips tacky when he tries to lick them for some moisture. There are voices too, filtering through over the beeping of the monitors that are all presumably attached to Yoongi. A pressure and tug on his finger when he twitches it confirms there’s definitely something attached to him. 

“I think he’s waking up,” one of the voices says, and it sounds like Jimin. “Yoongi-hyung? You with us?” 

Yoongi peels his eyes open with monumental effort. Jimin’s face comes into focus slowly. Over his shoulder there’s a blur in the shape of Taehyung. He tries to say yes, but a croak comes out instead, throat dry as a desert. 

“Here, hyung,” Taehyung says, grabbing a cup of water off a tray next to the bed and holding the straw to Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi sips gratefully, the cool water easing the itch in his throat and making his head feel a bit clearer. Nothing hurts, and that tells him that he’s probably pretty drugged up. His mind can’t conjure anything up past falling and then pain but he assumes that if he’s in the hospital then it must not have been too good. 

“What?” he manages, once Tae takes the water back. Jimin gets the message. 

“What happened?” Yoongi nods. Or at least he attempts to nod, it’s more like shifting his head slightly down on the pillow and then angling his chin back up. “Well, we were trying to reach you – everyone was, and you wouldn’t answer your phone. We went to your studio and you weren’t there, which is when we started to get a little worried. Jungkook knows the code to your apartment, which by the way hyung, extremely rude that he knows and not us? We will be talking about that slight later. Anyway, he found you unconscious in the bathroom. With… quite a bit of blood.” 

“You have nine stitches in the back of your head and probably a concussion,” Taehyung explains. “The doctor said they’d test you for that once you woke up. Jungkook found you about four hours ago now.” 

Yoongi frowns. On the surface it makes sense – they couldn’t reach Yoongi and got worried. But the thing is that there’s been a lot of times over the years where they couldn’t reach Yoongi, because he was holed up doing some sort of song or having alone time or any number of reasons. Usually they don’t come looking until at least 48 hours of no contact, they just quietly let him know they’re there whenever he emerges. So there must have been a reason they needed him at that moment. 

“Why–” he starts to croak out, but then Namjoon comes into the room and a chill goes down Yoongi’s spine. Yoongi can tell immediately that he’s been crying – his eyes are red and swollen, his skin a bit blotchy. 

There’s only one reason why Namjoon would be crying, isn’t there? 

“Hyung, you’re awake,” Namjoon says, breathlessly. “How are you feeling? Does your head hu-” 

“Namjoon,” Yoongi cuts him off, voice returning to him suddenly. “Jin?” 

Namjoon’s eyes well with more tears, but then a smile spreads across his face.

“He’s awake. Jin-hyung is awake.” 

Yoongi is speechless. He’s not even sure if he’s breathing. Namjoon collapses against him, arms wrapping carefully around his shoulders, as he shakes in relieved sobs. Yoongi musters the energy to bring the hand not tethered to the heart monitor up to Namjoon’s back, rubbing slightly in soothing circles.

Seokjin is awake. He did it. 

“He woke up about seven hours ago,” Namjoon sniffs, pulling away. “The doctors said that he was surprisingly lucid, he opened his eyes and looked around and even looked directly at the nurse who was there with him before going back to sleep for a bit. When I got there he woke up again for a little while and said ‘Joonie’”. 

“That’s amazing,” Yoongi breathes. Namjoon nods and his smile fades a bit. 

“That’s when I tried to get ahold of you, to tell you he was awake. We were really worried, hyung. When Jungkook called and said he found you lying in a pool of blood, and you were unconscious, I- I thought we’d lost you just when we got Seokjin back.” 

Yoongi grips Namjoon’s hand in his as tight as his limited muscle control will allow. 

“It’s okay, Joon-ah. Hyung’s here. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Namjoon swipes at his eyes once and fixes Yoongi with a bit of a sterner gaze, the kind Yoongi is used to seeing in the studio when Yoongi is being too stubborn to admit something isn’t working, or that he needs a break and some sleep, and maybe to eat something besides coffee and cup ramen for 48 hours. 

“What happened, hyung?” 

“We fought,” Yoongi starts, swallowing. The dryness is coming back and Taehyung holds the straw up to his mouth again, waiting for Yoongi to take a grateful sip before pulling back. “Jin-hyung and I, I mean. We had a really big fight because I was afraid that uh, that we had stopped trying so hard to get him to wake up? And you told me about the life support deadline. And he had more ghost powers than ever before. Almost like, you know, a real ghost. One who was actually dead. And he got mad, saying that I was pushing the issue, so I pushed more, and he eventually said that he – that he didn’t know if things would really be better if he was back in his body.” Yoongi looks up from where he was picking at the hospital blanket and at Namjoon, who has a stricken look on his face. He looks back down. “Anyway, um. It escalated and the mirror kind of exploded. I was startled, and slipped while trying to avoid the glass shards. And I guess that’s where you guys come in.” 

Namjoon swallows thickly but doesn’t say anything, just settles heavily on the side of the bed. Taehyung’s face has crumpled like a paper ball, silent tears welling up. Jimin pulls him into his arms and Yoongi can hear him murmuring quietly in his ear, “Don’t cry baby, my baby don’t cry. Jin-hyung is going to be okay, don’t cry.” 

“I knew he wasn’t always as happy as he let on,” Namjoon finally speaks. “He never liked to talk about this kind of stuff. I thought he’d say something when he was ready and I shouldn’t force it. I thought maybe he was just a bit lonely? He worked so much at such weird hours.”

“I think he was maybe a lot lonely,” Yoongi says. “Aside from you and Hobi, he really only mentioned Jungkook as a friend. But I don’t think he talked to him about this kind of stuff either.”

“I thought setting him up with you would help,” Namjoon breathes, sounding vaguely shell-shocked still.

Yoongi wants to say something in response to that, he just doesn’t know what. He opens his mouth, breathes in, lets it out again. Hoseok comes in as his saving grace, striding in with purpose. Yoongi is at first grateful, then worried – Hoseok looks grim. He has his dance instructor face on, the one he uses when he knows he has unpleasant things to say but has to say them nonetheless. 

“Joon-ah, we have a problem,” he whispers, tugging at Namjoon’s sleeve. 

“What is it?” Namjoon asks, the already devastated expression on his face falling further. Hoseok glances worriedly at Yoongi, like he doesn’t want to say it in front of him. Yoongi sighs, and stares Hoseok down in a way that hopefully conveys exactly what he’s thinking: just get it over with. Spit it out. Hoseok swallows, which is how Yoongi knows the message was received.

“Uh,” he begins. “I was talking to hyung just now. I was telling him that Yoongi-hyung is okay, that we found him and he’s fine. And hyung… um. Hyung said ‘who’s Yoongi?’”

Taehyung’s soft weeping gets more intense in the silence of the room after Hoseok’s words land. Jimin’s own eyes well with tears and he stops trying to stop Tae’s, instead just holding him. Namjoon looks at him with the most awful expression of pity, and Hoseok just looks guilty as tells Yoongi: 

“Jin-hyung doesn’t remember you.”

After visiting hours are long over, and his friends promise to come back first thing tomorrow with decent food, Yoongi takes himself on a walk. The hospital hallways are dimly lit and quiet, Yoongi’s slippers shuffling along the linoleum the only sound aside from a distant chorus of beeps and alarms. The elevator is thankfully empty, he doesn’t know how he’d explain what he’s doing. He doesn’t know if it’s against the rules to be out of bed past a certain time, feeling vaguely like he did as a kid, sneaking out after curfew.  

Seokjin’s room is in the same spot as it was when he visited with Jungkook, but Yoongi almost misses it anyway. So many of the machines have been taken away that it looks like a different room, almost twice the size of the original. Seokjin is still hooked up to more wires than can be strictly comfortable, but you can actually see him in the bed. Someone’s given him a hoodie, one that Yoongi recognizes as Namjoon’s.Even in the shadowy lighting, you can tell that he looks healthier. There’s color in his cheeks, and he’s breathing by himself, deep and unhindered. The unnatural stillness is gone, and he shifts a little in his sleep as Yoongi watches. His hands twitch and his face scrunches into a little pout. All Yoongi wants is to go in, smooth out the furrow in his brow and kiss those pouting lips. For the first time, he’d be able to feel them. But this isn’t a fairytale, and kissing a sleeping prince won’t do anything but get him arrested for harassment, probably. 

He sighs. Somehow, he thought seeing Seokjin would help. Everyone says seeing is believing. He thought that if he saw Seokjin for himself, then he could be content with the knowledge that he’s alright. That he’s whole, and happy, and Yoongi could let him go easier. But all he feels as he makes his way back up to his own room is that he’s leaving his heart behind on that bed. 

Jungkook picks Yoongi up from the hospital when he’s released. He doesn’t say it, but Yoongi can see how scared Jungkook was. It’s in the way that his eyes will go back to Yoongi every couple seconds, the way that he keeps touching him. It’s like he’s reassuring himself that Yoongi is still there, awake and alright and in his body. Yoongi doesn’t say anything about it. He doesn’t know what the scene was like when Jungkook found him in the bathroom, unconscious in a puddle of his own blood, but he can imagine it wasn’t pretty. That’s confirmed by the fact that Jungkook takes Yoongi to his own apartment instead of home, pulling a bag of Yoongi’s clothes and toiletries from the backseat when they get there. Yoongi doesn’t say anything about this either, just tries not to worry about if the blood stained the white tiling and grout.  

Instead he worries about other things. He worries about Jungkook refusing to let him sleep on the couch, insisting that “the person with the head injury sleeps in the bed”. Even playing the caring hyung card doesn’t work, which the brats are usually all too happy to take advantage of. He worries about how much work is surely piling up with both himself and Namjoon taking time off. Yoongi can’t even read his email without his head pounding, so the little red number keeps ticking up by the day. He worries a lot about the amount of time his friends must have taken to come up with the “Yoongi Watch” schedule they seem to have developed.

They run like a well-oiled machine. When Jungkook has to do work or go to the gym, Jimin comes over bearing coffee and snacks to chatter at him. Taehyung comes and reads whatever he’s reading at the time aloud to him, because he’s still banned from screens so they can’t watch movies. 

He offered to recap every episode of all the dramas on TV, but Yoongi vetoed that suggestion immediately. 

Hoseok makes him stretch, turning on gentle hip hop playlists and leading him through easy yoga poses. They make his legs and arms shake a little, not used to that type of movement, but at least they don’t make his head hurt. Even Namjoon comes a few times, despite how busy he must be with Seokjin being awake and moving in with him and Hoseok. Yoongi can tell that he’s itching to talk about it, but Yoongi is a master at deflecting and feigning fatigue. He’ll talk eventually, but he needs time. He needs to avoid it for a little while longer.

One week in, he finally cries. It’s late, sleep evading him, and he’s so tired and so fragile. The cracks, steadily widening despite the stitches in his head, break open at last. He hopes Jungkook is asleep, thinks he can get away with muffling his tears in the pillow, but after a few moments of quietly shuddering sobs, the door opens softly. Yoongi stares resolutely at the floor through blurry tear-filled eyes, and he sees Jungkook’s socked feet padding over slowly. The bed dips and a warm, tall body settles down behind him.

“Shhh, hyung…” Jungkook whispers. An arm wraps around his waist lightly. “Shhh, I got you.” 

Jungkook holds him until the sobs slow, and Yoongi, eyes aching, falls asleep.

The stitches in his head come out the next day, and Yoongi stares into Jungkook’s bathroom mirror and takes himself in. He looks as bad as he feels. His eyes are red-rimmed and swollen from crying, and they stand out in his pale, puffy face. The dark roots of his hair have grown out even more than before, stark black against bleached blonde. There’s a weird patchy bit of fuzz where the doctor had to shave. 

“Jimin-ah?” Yoongi calls. Jimin and Taehyung have been hanging around Jungkook’s apartment a lot lately. Yoongi doesn’t think it’s just for his benefit. There’s something growing up between the three maknaes, something sweet and strange and exuberant. 

Jimin pokes his head into the bathroom. “Yeah, hyung?”  

“Will you do my hair?” Yoongi asks. 

Jimin smiles so wide that his eyes crinkle into tiny moons. Yoongi lets himself sink into the sensations; Jimin’s small hands against his scalp massaging in the dye, gently tilting his head back to rinse. The sound of the water in the sink, the buzz of the clippers against the back of his head. It’s almost meditative.

He gets turned towards the mirror with a flourish when he’s done. The difference from the morning is stark. Instead of messy, overgrown bedhead he looks polished. Jimin left it long in the front and on top but with a sharp undercut shaved in to disguise where that awkward cut for his stitches had been. His hair is entirely black, no old bleach left. The contrast smooths out his complexion, still pale but no longer so washed out and blotchy. He hears Seokjin in his mind making that throwaway comment about how he’d look nice with dark hair, and he really does.

The rest of the night Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook all take turns rubbing the short sides and back, cooing over how soft it is. Yoongi lets them, accepting their tactile affection without grumbling. He’s not sure if he feels better, or if he feels empty. 

Two weeks after his release from the hospital he’s cleared to go back to work and he convinces Jungkook to set him free, but he doesn’t go home. He packs the clothes and toiletries and his pillow back into his bag, waves goodbye, and goes straight to the studio. He sets up his pillow on the couch against the wall with the novelty Kumamon blanket that was a present from Hoseok some birthdays ago. The trash can begins to fill up with takeout and cup ramyun containers, and time starts to melt a bit, days running into each other. Yoongi works, throwing himself back in with a vengeance, and pointedly doesn’t open the file on his desktop labeled for him.mp3 . Instead he finishes the mixing on an EP that’s not due for another month and a half. Opens a file called i don’t like edm.mp3 that has been languishing for so long that he doesn’t even know what it was for. Starts a new mixtape just to give himself something to do.

His friends know, of course they know. He couldn’t hide his quiet tears from Jungkook for one night, so obviously he can’t hide this. Hoseok and Namjoon work just down the hall, for crying out loud. At first no one says a word, just bringing him food with more vegetables in it and setting fresh water bottles on the desk next to him. Whenever someone makes a comment about how hard he’s working, Yoongi just uses the backlog from his time off as an excuse. It works for the most part, but there’s a breaking point, as there always is. And as always, it comes in the form of a stern Namjoon.

Stern Namjoon, while rare, is a force to be reckoned with. This isn’t the genial, nerdy Namjoon. This isn’t the clumsy Namjoon who sheepishly hands you the door handle again and asks if hyung could fix it. This is the Namjoon who won’t hesitate to flay you open and force you to look at all your messy insides, the Namjoon that opens Yoongi’s studio door and seems to take up all the space inside. He crouches down in front of Yoongi, making determined eye contact until Yoongi can’t help but look back. 

“Hyung, it’s okay to not-” he begins after a deep breath. Yoongi cuts him off. 

“Namjoon-ah, I go to therapy. I know it’s okay to not be okay,” he snaps. Namjoon sighs heavily, and Yoongi knows he’s readying himself for a fight.  

“Listen hyung, I’m going to tell you something, so can you stop being defensive for a second?”

“Who’s defensive?” Yoongi is unable to stop himself from retorting, then at the look on Namjoon’s face, holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine, sorry.”

“Don’t be angry with me, I didn’t do anything,” Namjoon explains, voice carefully level. 

“I’m not angry with you.” 

“Don’t be angry at Seokjin-hyung, either.” 

“I’m not.” It’s the truth. How could Yoongi be angry with Seokjin? Seokjin did exactly what he should have, exactly what he needed to do. He woke up, he got back to his body and his life. It’s himself that Yoongi is angry at– his own foolish self that went and got attached. He should have known better . It was always going to end this way. There are no happy ghost stories. His is no exception. “What do you want, Joon-ah? Hyung is working.” 

“He woke up for you.” 

Yoongi blinks. Nothing about that sentence computes. Namjoon is staring at him, clearly waiting for a reaction. Yoongi clears his throat. 

“What?” he asks, his voice so soft it’s more like a breath than a word. 

“Jin,” Namjoon clarifies, as if it could be anyone else. “He woke up for you.”

“He doesn’t even remember me, Namjoon.” Yoongi’s fingernails dig into his palms, leaving angry red crescents behind when Namjoon gently uncurls them and holds them in his own. 

“Think about it. You two argued, and you got hurt. You could have died . Jin didn’t know what to do, so he did the only thing that he knew would get someone over to your apartment. He woke up. For you.” 

It makes sense, is the thing. They’d tried so hard to figure out how to get Seokjin to wake up. Nothing had worked, but Yoongi had never really tried to provoke it so violently. And they had stopped trying so much, towards the end at least, because Yoongi liked having him there. Yoongi liked having him there, and Seokjin liked being there with him. Yoongi hasn’t gone back home because it’s not home anymore. The apartment doesn’t feel like home without his voice, without his presence that took up so much space even when non-corporeal. And the tiny hope that Namjoon’s words spark in his heart, a tiny flame just starting to thaw the ice - Yoongi hates it.

Yoongi loves Seokjin. And maybe before he wasn’t scared, but now it’s the most terrifying thing that he’s ever heard. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Yoongi hates how broken his voice sounds. 

Namjoon looks at him with something far too knowing his eyes. It’s so gentle and so utterly devastating that Yoongi averts his eyes immediately, focusing on the patch of wall beyond Namjoon’s shoulder. 

“Because I don’t want you to give up on him. Or on yourself.”

Yoongi stares harder at the wall, tears threatening. He wonders how he’s hydrated enough to cry. Namjoon places a big, heavy hand on his shoulder and looks Yoongi in the eyes one more time. 

“Go home, hyung.” 

So he does. Or he tries to, at least.

He walks in the door and almost cries again right there, because it’s silent in the apartment. No one is there to wait for him and yell hello. He can see the couch and there’s no one sitting on it and waving cheerfully at him. 

There’s not a single trace of blood left in the bathroom, and Yoongi suspects that it was Hoseok’s doing. Some part of him feels like maybe there should have been some evidence left behind, even if it was unsightly. Because with nothing remaining, it’s starting to feel like maybe none of it happened at all. Other breakups leave traces, like pictures buried on your phone or gifts given or stray pieces of clothing. Seokjin is just… gone.

Yoongi is pretty sure he’d give every shirt he owns just to be able to bury himself in Seokjin’s pink hoodie. He never even got to know how it smelled. 

Of course, Seokjin isn’t really gone. He’s at Namjoon’s. It’s only Yoongi’s Seokjin who is gone. Yoongi sees himself in the now intact mirror and thinks that it’s fitting that he looks nothing like the Yoongi Seokjin knew. If Yoongi’s Seokjin is gone, at least Seokjin’s Yoongi is gone too. 

It’s been a month and a week since he woke up, and Yoongi hears that his rehabilitation is going surprisingly well. Superhuman, almost. He still uses a wheelchair to get around, not quite steady enough on his feet to be stable, and his fine motor skills are still being regained, but his mind is as sharp as it was before the accident. Yoongi hears him in the background sometimes when he’s on the phone with Namjoon or Hoseok, his loud boisterous tones. It doesn’t hurt to hear as much as it did at first. Instead of a knife to his heart it feels more like a cigarette burn; searing for just a second instead of a slow and consistent bleed-out. 

“I want to see my old place!” Seokjin calls out one day, volume high enough that Yoongi can hear clearly. This isn’t a new desire, Yoongi has been resisting requests for about a week now. “I can’t believe they sold it, landlords are such snakes.” 

Yoongi snorts in spite of himself and that, more than Namjoon bringing it up every night as they leave the studio, is what makes him cave. 

“Alright,” he acquiesces. Hoseok gasps into the receiver. How he manages to make an intake of breath sound so delighted, Yoongi will never know. “I can’t handle just him, but… if it was everyone coming over. The seven of us I think I could manage.” 

As soon as they hang up, Hoseok texts the groupchat a wild string of emojis, including several hearts, seven smiley faces, a fork, a chicken leg, french fries, a cat, and an alarm clock. Then a bunch more hearts and an angel emoji. 

jungkook: ? 

jimin: Taehyungie and I will bring drinks!!  

jungkook: bring drinks where

jimin: oh Hobi said that we’re having family dinner on Friday at Yoongi-hyung’s at 8

hob-ah: Yes!! Be there or else!!

Friday arrives too fast for Yoongi’s liking, but at 7:45 on the dot Jimin and Taehyung arrive bearing six bottles of soju and Yoongi’s favorite whiskey. He lets Jimin tip some of it into his mouth while Taehyung holds the back of his head in one hand and rubs what he probably thinks are soothing circles on Yoongi’s stomach. 

“For courage,” Jimin explains as Yoongi raises an eyebrow but swallows nonetheless. He bats their hands away.  

“I’m fine. I’m not nervous.”

Jimin looks pointedly down at his bitten nails.Yoongi stuffs his hands in his pockets. Taehyung coos and pulls them back out, pressing determined kisses to Yoongi’s abused fingertips while Yoongi tries in vain to pull them away. This farce lasts until there’s a knock on his door and a cheerful Hoseok sing songs through the door, “Yooooongiii-hyuuung!” accompanied by a burst of laughter from himself and a windshield wiper, which is to say, Seokjin. 

Yoongi’s heart freezes in his chest along with the fake smile on his face as he opens the door. 

Namjoon and Hoseok flank either side of Seokjin’s wheelchair, with Jungkook hovering right behind it with arms crossed over his chest like a bodyguard. Seokjin sits like he’s a king holding court and the chair is his throne. It’s the first time he’s seen Seokjin since the brief cowardly glimpse through the hospital door, and Yoongi catalogs every change from the ghost he knew, the one that still haunts him in his memory. His hair is longer and a bit darker now, brushing down the nape of his neck. The pink hoodie is gone, and he’s wearing a blue sweater with a massive whale printed on the front. The sleeves are long and brush over his knuckles where they rest on the arms of the wheelchair. He looks relaxed, happy, cheeks shining and pink and frustratingly plump lips curved into a happy little u. God, all this time later and Seokjin’s lips still make him want to scream. 

He’s been staring too long and the jovial laughter has trailed off into awkward chuckles, so he forces his gaze up to Seokjin’s eyes and bows a little. It’s too formal and feels wrong. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Seokjin-ssi,” Yoongi says. The honorific tastes bitter in his mouth. “Namjoon has told me so much about you.”

“Ahh, Yoongi-ssi,” Seokjin responds, grinning. “By the end of the night I’ll have you calling me hyung. I think after dealing with all these dongsaengs you need one, yes?” You have no idea how much I need you , Yoongi thinks. “Please, invite me into my home!” 

“Hyung,” Namjoon hisses. Seokjin and Yoongi wave him off simultaneously.

“It’s fine, Joon-ah,” Yoongi says. “It was his house first. Come in, please, Seokjin-ssi. You brats can come in too, I guess.” 

Seokjin wheels himself in, despite Jungkook trailing behind him with his hands and stupid muscles at the ready, and Yoongi watches as his discerning eyes track over the living room. Not too much has changed really, Yoongi didn’t make any major changes aside from adding the piano and changing the–

“The chandelier,” Seokjin says. “That’s new. I don’t-” 

“You don’t like it, I know.” Yoongi sighs, rolling his eyes. It causes a shift in the air– Seokin’s eyes widen and he tilts his head in surprise, and everyone holds their breath, looking between the two of them. Yoongi snaps his own mouth shut, because fuck, he wasn’t supposed to know that, was he? Fuck fuck fuck. He can feel his heart thawing and speeding up. “Excuse me, please,” he mutters, voice rough, and pushes past the maknaes and walks as fast as he can get away with to the bathroom down the hall. 

It’s only a matter of time before he’s followed, so he locks the door behind him. There’s precious few moments this friend group allows for solitary breakdowns. Yoongi makes use of his time by sinking down onto the ground, back propped against the wall by the toilet, and curling into as small a ball as he can manage. He runs his hands through his hair and tugs until his scalp prickles so he has some plausible deniability for the tears pooling in his eyes. No, they’re not because of Seokjin, really. They’re just from yanking on his hair hard enough to hurt. That’s much better. 

There’s a soft knock on the door. “Hyung.” It’s Taehyung, low voice carrying softly through the wood. “Let me in, please.” 

Yoongi doesn’t fight it, just reaching up without a word and twisting the lock on the door. It clicks loudly in the otherwise silent bathroom. Taehyung slips in, closing the door behind him and locking it again. He sits down against the opposite wall in a mirroring pose, touching his bare toes to Yoongi’s socked ones. Yoongi stares at them in lieu of Taehyung’s face because it’s easier than looking into his sympathetic eyes. Taehyung wiggles his toes against Yoongi’s.

“We can make them go home, hyung,” Taehyung says. “You don’t have to do this.” 

“I know,” Yoongi responds. He’d weighed the pros and cons already. Pro, he sees Seokjin. Con, he sees Seokjin. It’s a pretty even split. “But I’ll have to rip the band-aid off eventually. It might as well be tonight.” 

Taehyung eyes him for a long second, gaze like an x-ray that can see straight through to Yoongi’s cracked center, then nods anyway. He stands first, then extends a hand to Yoongi. Yoongi lets himself be pulled to his feet, but opens the door himself after one last deep breath.

Thankfully, Jimin has the command of the room. It saves Yoongi from an awkward return to silence and discomfort, no one knowing what to do without the host. Jimin can and does make himself at home anywhere. He’s coaxed Jungkook into pouring everybody a round of soju and is trying to get them on board for drinking games as Yoongi and Taehyung re-emerge. 

“I can see how you’re the ones who have corrupted my child,” Seokjin laughs. He’s flushed from one shot, and Yoongi realizes how low his alcohol tolerance must be since the coma. Namjoon gently takes the glass out of Seokjin’s hands, already holding Hoseok’s as well as his own. “How did you even meet?”

“Yoongi-hyung introduced us all!” Taehyung joins in, blithely. He doesn’t notice, or perhaps ignores, Namjoon making a slashing motion across his throat behind Seokjin’s chair and Hoseok’s grimace. 

“Oh?” Seokjin asks, eyes landing on Yoongi. He fights the urge to run back to the bathroom and hide some more. “And how did you meet my Jungkookie?”

“Uh-” Yoongi starts, unsure what to say.

“We have a mutual friend.” Jungkook answers, saving Yoongi from trying to lie. Seokjin turns back to Jungkook and starts yelling about why he didn’t know Jungkook had other friends all this time, and Jungkook is laughing, and it’s so familiar and so foreign all at once. Seokjin belongs here, in this apartment. Yoongi has never gotten used to his absence, doesn’t know if he wants to. Now, hearing him laughing and shouting and carrying on… if not for the fact that everyone else is seeing him too, it would feel like Seokjin had never left. 

An arm settles heavily across his shoulders, startling him out of his thoughts. Hoseok, glowing red already too, curls his hand around Yoongi’s bicep and smiles at him. He looks completely happy to the untrained eye, but Yoongi’s had years to learn to decode all of Hoseok’s microexpressions. This is a smile that pulls at the corners, tinged with melancholy. It says I know, hyung and I’m sorry. Yoongi swallows around the small golf ball lodged in his throat and nods a small, curt nod in response.

Dinner is awkward. Yoongi can tell that they’re handling him with kid gloves, both him and Seokjin. They carefully maneuver around anything that could lead to questions that can’t be answered, avoiding inside jokes or really anything that’s happened in the past two months. Sometimes Yoongi can feel Seokjin’s eyes on him, when it’s obvious that he and Jungkook are close, or when it’s too clear that his heart is broken. There’s only so far his poker face extends.

It’s a blessing when everyone finishes eating, because it means they can all drift away to the couch for conversation and Yoongi can beg off to clear up the dishes. He almost gets away with it until Taehyung comes in asking if he can dry, since he loves dishes, and Hoseok decides that he’ll do the washing instead since Yoongi did all the cooking. So as opposed to a good, slow dishwashing session Yoongi hovers between the kitchen and living room like he’s the ghost now, a real one, watching from the outside. 

The conversation in the living room is ever so slightly stilted, three out of four participants far too aware of the elephant in the room. And everyone is so unsubtle about it, that Yoongi is sure that Seokjin can see at least the shadow of the elephant. No one in his friend group would make it as a secret agent. It’s embarrassing. 

“Yoongi-hyung?” Namjoon calls. “Do you want to play us something? I’ve been telling Jungkook all about Agust D’s piano skills.” 

Another transparent lie, but Jungkook nods along vigorously. Yoongi sees this for what it is, which is Namjoon knowing that he needs something to do. The dishes were taken from him, so Namjoon is offering an alternative. 

“Oh, dinner and a show?” Seokjin asks, delighted. “What fine service you provide here.” 

He settles at the piano, stretching his fingers. He tries to think of what to play, huffing a bitter laugh. All the years of piano lessons and recitals and being a professional goddamn composer apparently mean nothing, because once again the only thing that will come to his head is the song he wrote for Seokjin. He doesn’t want to do it, doesn’t want to show his heart so plainly, but his hands move of their own accord.

It sounds different now, because of course it does. Still sweet, but aching at the edges of every chord. Without Seokjin’s playful additions it’s not a love song, it’s a love lost song. 

The last notes ring in the air around them before fading into nothingness. All of his friends are probably wearing the most unbearably pitying looks on their faces, so Yoongi stares resolutely at the piano keys. There’s a scuff mark on the high C that he’s about to rub at when the tiniest sniffle breaks the silence.

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin says with a watery laugh. Yoongi whirls around to see him swiping at tear tracks on his face with his sleeve. His ears are red with embarrassment. “I don’t know why I’m crying.” 

“Your song was so bad it made him cry, hyung,” Jungkook pipes up, but the joke is half-hearted. Seokjin flaps a hand at him. 

“No no, it was very nice, Yoongi-chi. Felt like it was missing something but-” 

“What did you call me?” The hope in his heart flares to life just barely. 

“Call you what?” Seokjin asks. “Yoongi-ssi?” 

It dies again, the fire not catching. Yoongi shakes his head. “Nothing. Uh, it’s a duet. My partner isn’t here right now.”

“Oh.” Seokjin sniffs again. “Well I hope they come back soon.” 

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, voice full of gravel. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

“So,” Seokjin begins. It’s afternoon, just him and Hoseok home. Seokjin is slumped in the corner of the couch, muscles aching after physical therapy. Hoseok is standing at the counter, sorting Seokjin’s pills for him into neat boxes labeled with the day and time they need to be taken. He makes tiny sound effects as he sorts and pours each one into their designated space, and Seokjin speaks up over him. “Yoongi.” 

Hoseok starts, hands fumbling with the bottle in his hands. It almost falls to the ground before Hoseok manages to grab it again, cursing. He straightens then, turning to face Seokjin with a nervous chuckle. “Ha. Um.” His face contorts in odd ways as he searches for what to say. “...Who’s Yoongi?” 

Seokjin raises an eyebrow.

“Hoseok-ah.” 

Hoseok laughs, loudly. And exceedingly awkwardly. “Oh, you mean Min Yoongi.” 

“Of course I mean Min Yoongi. Your best friend and colleague, Min Yoongi. We had dinner with him just a few days ago? Yah, Hob-ah, I thought I was the one with the head injury.” 

“You know me, hyung. Forgetful.” Hoseok waves a hand. They both know that’s a lie, but neither of them mention it. That’s one of the many things Seokjin likes about Jung Hoseok. “What about my dear hyung Min Yoongi?” Hoseok asks, voice still too loud. 

Seokjin thinks. What about Min Yoongi? He’s been asking himself the same thing for days. Because that dinner was categorically weird. First off, the setting was strange to begin with. His old apartment, full of someone else’s stuff. It was a very stark reminder that time had moved on without him for a while. Everyone else seemed kind of anticipatory for something that didn’t occur, and a little or a lot sad. Even Seokjin cried, for no fathomable reason. He allows himself three crying sessions a year, and all he can think of is maybe his body decided he needed to make up for the lost time and let the tears flow. But even with how weird it all felt, Seokjin can’t stop thinking about Min Yoongi. 

There’s something about him that makes Seokjin want to look again and again. Each time he was able to drag his eyes away they snapped back within moments, seeing a new detail. He’s the kind of stunning that creeps up on you, a study in contrasts. Round cheeks with a sloping nose and a soft mouth, but sharp eyes that pinned Seokjin like a butterfly to a board. Pale as a ghost but pink pink pink, in his nose and lips and the tips of his fingers when he runs them through his dark hair. Looking at him, Seokjin’s heart was beating loud in his ears but his mind was finally quiet. It made no sense, none at all, but when he looked at Yoongi it felt like he’d found what he’s looking for. 

It’s strange to think that maybe the guy who moved into your old home could be your new one, but Seokjin wants to move in immediately and never leave. 

He doesn’t say any of that to Hoseok, of course. Instead he says a very casual and chill “What’s his deal?” 

Hoseok cocks his head to the side. 

“What’s Yoongi’s deal?” he repeats. Seokjin nods. Hoseok crosses his arms over his chest and looks up, thinking. “Uhh… well you know he’s a producer.”

Seokjin nods again. “He‘s worked with you and Namjoonie for years.” 

“Right,” Hoseok confirms. “He’s really great at it. And at rapping, in general. Just a very talented person, our Yoongi-hyung.”

“ Your Yoongi-hyung. He’s younger than me.”

“Yeah, my Yoongi-hyung, your Yoongi-chi,” Hoseok says, waving a hand. Seokjin doesn’t understand the nickname but figures he must have misheard, and decides again not to interrupt. “I don’t know what else you want to hear? He’s kind of quiet and intimidating at first but he’s really soft and caring and kind of silly once you get past that. He’ll do anything for us.” 

“Is he single?” Seokjin hears himself ask, like his mouth and brain conspired against him momentarily to take down his filter. Hoseok freezes, eyes wide.

“Uh. He just got out of something kind of complicated,” he finally grits out. 

Ah, poor Yoongi. That must have been the partner that he mentioned not being there for that piano song he played. No wonder he’d seemed so upset, and everyone treated him so delicately. It had to have been quite the break-up. 

Well, maybe he could use some distracting. Seokjin has been told many times that he’s an excellent one of those, most probably because of his face and shoulders. Years ago, the world seemed to decide that Seokjin was a pretty face and not much else. It bothered him at first, a lot. But then he became determined that if he had people’s attention anyway, it might as well be for a reason of his choosing. So he started telling bad jokes, and laughing loudly, and generally taking up space. There’s a lot of quiet inside of him, but he pushes all the noise he can outward. It can get exhausting, always playing a bit of a part, but it’s the way he lives. 

Or, it was the way he lived. Past tense.

Waking up has been odd. He can’t seem to quite fill all the spaces that he used to, like he shrunk down a half size. For one, he can’t go back to work yet. The restaurant hired someone new when it became clear that he wasn’t going to wake up for a while, and the occupational therapist at the hospital said that his fine motor control won’t be 100% right away no matter how stubborn Seokjin is. His recovery is apparently already remarkable, and he can’t push his body to heal faster than it’s ready to. 

So that knocks out working a solid 40 to 50 hours out of the week like he used to. It also considerably cuts down on his enjoyment of video games, because he gets frustrated at himself when the controller is harder to operate than it used to be. Jungkook goes easy on him when they play together now, which Seokjin hates even more. Watching an endless stream of dramas got old much faster than he expected, everything feeling like a rerun to him. So that’s left Seokjin with quite a few hours in the day with nothing to occupy him but his own inner world, a place which he’s historically avoided. And apparently, a place where Min Yoongi has taken up permanent residence. 

Namjoon and Hoseok’s attention is starting to chafe at him after weeks and weeks of living with them. Seokjin wants to get out. Jungkook is spending a lot of time with Jimin and Taehyung, the two youngest of Namjoon’s friend group. The dinner proved that all three of them together was sweet but chaotic, and Seokjin doesn’t think he has the energy for that right now. Yoongi, on the other hand. Yoongi would be perfect, Seokjin just knows. He seems like the kind of person that matches the energy that he’s given. 

Yoongi’s number is in his phone from the group chat that Hoseok set up. It’s late enough in the evening that he should be home from work. He types out a message just to him.

me: Min Yoongi-yah

me: are you home?

dongsaeng min yoongi: Kim Seokjin-hyung

dongsaeng min yoongi: I can be. Why?  

Seokjin grabs the extra apartment key fob, a reusable bag, and slips his feet into his shoes. There’s something oddly giddy in his chest. It feels vaguely like he’s playing hooky, though he doesn’t know why – There’s technically nothing keeping Seokjin at his brother’s. He’s an adult, he doesn’t have to answer for his whereabouts. He’s been walking well enough that if he takes it relatively easy, he doesn’t need his wheelchair anymore. The convenience store’s aircon hits him and he takes a deep, satisfied inhale. 

He makes it out of the store with slightly shaking legs and arms but a smile on his face. Laden with groceries, he hails a cab to take him the rest of the way to Yoongi’s. Yoongi opens the door looking like he’s prepared for something more dire than just a companionable dinner. 

“You just wanted… to cook?” Yoongi asks, furrowing his brow. He takes the bag from Seokjin’s hands, Seokjin’s brittle grip giving it over easily despite how determined he’s been in holding it. Yoongi’s fingers fumble on the plastic as he pauses at the sight of Seokjin’s hoodie. Seokjin looks down, wondering if he’s noticed a stain or something, but the pink fabric is clean and unmarked. Yoongi shakes himself a little and swallows. “Why did you come here to do that?” 

“Namjoon’s kitchen is vastly inferior,” Seokjin explains. “I chose this place for a reason when I moved in. It’s a newer building, and it has an oven and gas stove instead of just the normal electric range. That opens up so many more options when cooking and baking. I miss it.” 

“I see,” Yoongi says, hefting the groceries onto the counter. He opens the bag and starts to pull out what Seokjin brought, squinting at labels on the bottles and the various ingredients. “I’ve actually never even used the oven.”

Seokjin gasps exaggeratedly just to get a small chuckle out of Yoongi. “A travesty!” he insists. “All the more reason why I should cook here tonight. The poor oven has been neglected for months. Instead of an ov-on, it’s been an ov-off.” 

Yoongi snorts once. Then twice. Then he starts wheezing a laugh that almost doesn’t make any sound at all, more breath than laughter. His shoulders shake with the force of it.  “That wasn’t even good,” he gets out. “That was so bad, hyung.” 

Seokjin beams. All of Yoongi’s teeth are showing. His gums are out and it’s because of Seokjin. It’s the first time that he’s seen Yoongi smile so big. The expression suits him. It fits on his face like that’s what should be on it all of the time. 

“If it was so bad, then why are you laughing?” 

“I’m laughing because it was bad.” Yoongi wipes a small tear from his eye, breathing deeply to get himself back under control. “That was your worst one yet.”

Seokjin tilts his head to the side. He doesn’t remember making any other puns around Yoongi, but he’s always making them. It comes as easy as breathing now. He shrugs it off, but it niggles at him. It’s another puzzle piece, of which there have been an increasing number, where the corners won’t quite fit together. There’s the feeling again that there’s something that he’s missing, something that everyone else knows.  

Yoongi pulls him from his thoughts as he pulls the garlic cloves from Seokjin’s hands.

“I’ll do this. Minced?” he asks, pulling out the knife. 

“I can do it,” Seokjin protests, making grabby hands. Yoongi smashes the garlic beneath the flat of the blade and shakes his head.  

“Someone has to make sure you don’t cut yourself,” he argues. “Besides, every good chef needs a sous-chef. You’re above prep work by now.”

“No good chef is ever above prep work,” Seokjin states. “First rule of cooking.” 

“Okay, hyung,” Yoongi agrees easily. He slides the garlic into the pan with a sizzle. Seokjin preheats the oven to the needed temperature.

“You know I’m actually mildly allergic to garlic,” Seokjin says. Yoongi arches an eyebrow at him.

“Why did you just let me put so many cloves in, then?” 

“I will give up being able to feel my lips for garlic. The potato allergy is a different story, but garlic is an essential.” 

“A very noble sacrifice,” Yoongi nods solemnly. 

“I am exceedingly noble. A shining knight of cuisine. Nay, a king.”

Yoongi bows with a flourish, playing along. “My liege.” He rises, clutching the knife to his chest as though it were a sword. “How many onions should I slay for you?” 

After that they cook mostly in an easy silence, surprisingly easy for how little they really know each other. Yoongi checks in on what he should do next according to Seokjin’s plan, and Seokjin makes more puns that Yoongi pretends not to find funny but smiles at anyway. They settle on the floor at the coffee table with their meals, Yoongi turning on a nature documentary when Seokjin says he’s bored of the dramas that are on. It’s all very nice, the quiet kind of companionship that Hoseok and Namjoon aren’t as good at providing. Seokjin doesn’t want to leave. He wants to make excuses to stay the night, the next day, the next week.

A school of fish swim in a shining blue ocean on screen. The light reflects in Yoongi’s eyes as he watches. 

“Do you like fishing?” Seokjin blurts. 

“I’ve never gone,” Yoongi answers. “I think I could like fishing.” 

“Okay. I hate fishing.” Yoongi’s voice is a low, sleepy grumble as he opens the door. 

He’s completely bundled up on top, a massive black puffer coat swallowing his frame. He’s got a black bucket hat jammed on his head despite the fact that it’s too early for the sun to have risen. His legs he’s left bare aside from a pair of black basketball shorts, and they look long and dainty. In contrast with the all-black wardrobe all the exposed skin looks paper-white and glowing, with a hint of pink on his knees. The socks and slides he’s also sporting don’t even ruin the effect. Seokjin’s trying not to be too obvious in his staring, but it’s difficult to control himself this early in the morning. Thankfully, Yoongi doesn’t seem to be awake enough to notice. Seokjin is pretty sure that he’s not actually squinting and instead his eyes are just fully shut. He might be attempting to go back to sleep standing up. 

“Yah, we haven’t even gone yet. How do you know?” Seokjin responds, shaking himself out of the leg-induced haze finally. 

“It’s early,” Yoongi whines up at him, drawing out the syllables. There’s an actual pout on his face. It’s too cute, Seokjin wants to die. Those round cheeks are lethal. Yoongi hasn’t really tried to play to Seokjin’s hyung tendencies yet, but if he keeps it up like this then he could have anything he wants. Seokjin will get it for him. 

He already did buy him coffee, an americano like Namjoon told him is Yoongi’s favorite. He waves it enticingly under Yoongi’s nose. His eyes blink open, still bleary with sleep, but he smiles and grabs for the drink. 

“You can nap in the car,” Seokjin says, gently hustling Yoongi out of his apartment and into the elevator. “We have a bit of a drive until we get to the marina.” 

Yoongi does nap in the car. As they drive further out of Seoul, Yoongi slumps lower and lower in his seat. Eventually his head tilts down and lands on Seokjin’s shoulder. His soft breaths ghost over the skin of Seokjin’s neck, warm and a little damp. His hands are still wrapped around his coffee, but Seokjin takes it from him before his grip can go lax enough to spill. Seokjin’s tired enough that he could let his head lean against Yoongi’s and take a nap himself, but instead he watches as the sun rises and paints Yoongi in tones of gold. When it gets bright enough inside the car, Yoongi groans and drags himself up off of Seokjin’s shoulder. He tries not to mourn the loss too much. 

“Okay. I’m awake,” Yoongi insists, reclaiming his coffee and taking a long sip. 

“That’s very convincing, Yoongi-chi, but maybe try that line again. Once more with feeling.” 

Yoongi just sips his coffee and glares at him, eyes sharp despite the sleep stubbornly clinging to them. The sun is fully up once they pull into the marina, the hazy chill of the morning evaporating into what promises to be a very nice spring day. Yoongi tugs his bucket hat down further over his face and pulls a tiny tube of sunscreen out of his bag, putting a small dab on both of his cheeks. Seokjin wants to rub it in for him but decides that would definitely be weird, so he holds himself back. 

“What about your legs?” he asks. “All that delicate skin, Yoongi, you can’t leave it unprotected.” 

“I already put some on my legs.” Yoongi responds. He drains the last of his coffee, tilting his head back all the way so he can turn the cup upside down and get all the dregs in the bottom of the cup. The line of his throat is arresting. 

It really is a beautiful day, bright and clear out on the sea. The captain ferries them out to the open water, then shows them how to properly bait and cast their lines. After that he leaves them to it. The boat rocks gently from side to side, lulling Seokjin and Yoongi into one of their comfortable silences. After a few false starts, Seokjin catches the first fish. It’s not that impressive, just a small flat fish, but Seokjin gets loud and triumphant anyway, demanding that Yoongi praise him sufficiently.

“Hey Yoongi, what’s a fisherman’s favorite fabric?” Seokjin prompts, after almost an hour has passed with no more bites. 

“What, hyung?” Yoongi obliges. 

“ Herring bone,” Seokjin says, bursting into giggles. Yoongi smirks. 

“Do you know what kind of music you should listen to when fishing?” he asks. Seokjin thinks, snapping his fingers when he has the answer. 

“Something with a lot of bass?” 

Yoongi shakes his head. 

“A good tune- a?” he tries. Another head shake, and Yoongi’s smirk grows. 

“Something really catchy,” he says.

Seokjin howls. He cackles. He laughs until his stomach aches. It’s not that funny, which is what makes it hilarious. He’s been beaten at his own game. Yoongi’s smirk turns into a full gummy smile, which he conceals by turning back towards the water, but Seokjin sees it anyway. As he feels another tug on his line and starts to reel it in, he can’t help but think that Min Yoongi is the only catch he really wants today.

They get back to Seoul in the late afternoon, carrying a cooler packed with the few fish that they’d caught that the captain hadn’t made into lunch. Yoongi insists Seokjin keep their spoils since he caught most of them, and Seokjin doesn’t have the energy to argue. His limbs are starting to shake from exertion and standing for so long on an unsteady surface, and the early start is catching up to him. Unlike Yoongi, he didn’t nap on the way to the marina. He sinks onto the couch as Yoongi gets talked into staying for a cup of coffee with Hoseok. Sleep isn’t the intention, but his eyelids are really very heavy, and he doesn’t see why he can’t just rest them for a while.

He wakes an indeterminate amount of time later, unsure why until he hears hushed, urgent voices from the entryway. Seokjin knows he shouldn’t, but he’s not really eavesdropping. He’s just… overhearing. It’s their own fault for talking about serious matters in earshot of the couch. And it’s also their own fault if they assume that Seokjin is still asleep. Just because he’s acting as though he were still asleep doesn’t mean he is. 

“What are you doing, hyung?” Hoseok whispers. 

“I’m going home, Hob-ah.” Yoongi answers in an icy tone that Seokjin has never heard him use before, especially not around his best friend. It’s defensive. 

“You know he’s not who you want him to be,” Hoseok continues.

“I know that, I’m not stupid,” Yoongi retorts. Small thumps follow the statement, Yoongi putting on his shoes. 

“I never said you were,” Hoseok says. 

“No, but you’re implying it. Thinking that I can’t take care of myself!” Yoongi is getting more heated, and the last word of the sentence comes out louder than the rest of the conversation. He swears under his breath and hurried footsteps come towards Seokjin, who lays the sleeping act on even thicker. He lets his mouth fall open a little, his breaths come heavier. The footsteps pause next to him, there’s a relieved exhale, then they retreat back to the door. 

“I’m not implying anything. I just don’t want you to get hurt again,” Hoseok pleads. “He’s not the same.” 

“I know okay?” Yoongi hisses. “But– I’d rather have him like this than not have him at all.” 

There’s a sharp inhale and a brief pause, then Hoseok exhales a gentle “Okay, hyung. Okay. I’m sorry.” 

Silence falls except for the rustle of fabric, a soft swish swish sound like Hoseok is holding Yoongi and rubbing up and down his back. 

Seokjin shifts, turning onto his side and opening his eyes. He watches the waning light play across the ceiling and thinks. Yoongi is using him as a replacement or stand-in of some kind, presumably for his ex. So what? The knowledge doesn’t hurt. Really, it doesn’t. Seokjin kind of knew it already. There’s always been a sense that Yoongi sees someone else when he looks at Seokjin. That gummy smile always fades too quickly, some shadow always hovering over Yoongi’s shoulder to stifle it.

Call him pathetic, but Seokjin doesn’t really care if he’s being used. All he wants is Yoongi’s smile to linger, to not slip off his face like water. If it means playing another part, a new one, he will.

“The worst part is that he was right,” Yoongi says eventually, voice thick and breath shaky. “When we fought, he said he didn’t want to lose me if he woke up.”

Seokjin furrows his brow. Something about that… sounds familiar. He’s not sure what, but it feels like there’s something on the tip of his tongue.  

“He didn’t, you’re being so good to him, hyung,” Hoseok soothes.

“But I lost him,” Yoongi gasps, miserably. “He was right, Hob-ah.”

There’s the awful choking sounds of someone trying desperately not to cry and failing, then more shushing sounds from Hoseok. The door opens, closes, and the sound of footsteps fading into nothing. Overlaid on top of it all is the sound of Seokjin’s heart, hammering in his ears. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, exactly. Anxiety? Maybe. His pulse is running faster than it normally does, and he’s getting a little warm. Sorrow? There’s a prickling in his eyes that he thinks means he might cry, but he doesn’t know why. It feels like more than empathy, somehow. Confusion he’s certainly feeling, so he latches onto the one emotion he’s certain about and lets himself reel for a moment until the door opens and shuts again and he jolts. It’s just Hoseok this time, Yoongi gone.

“Oh, Jin-hyung,” Hoseok exclaims, looking like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Did we wake you?”

He’s nervous, Seokjin can tell. He shakes his head and lies. “I heard the door shutting.”

“Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I should get up anyway.” Seokjin sits up and stretches, arching his back until it pops. “Don’t want to nap too long and not be able to sleep tonight.” 

“Shouldn’t you be wide awake all the time? You slept for seven months, after all,” Namjoon jokes, emerging from the bedroom.

“Chefs sleep very little, I was catching up,” Seokjin sniffs. 

Namjoon settles into the armchair across from him, folding himself down to rest his elbows on his knees. “Can I ask you something, hyung?” 

Seokjin opens his mouth, and Namjoon adds, “Don’t say that I already have,” before he can get the words out.

“Spoilsport,” Seokjin huffs. 

“What was it like when you were in the coma?” Namjoon asks. “Do you… remember anything?”

Namjoon looks hopeful, curious, like Seokjin is an interesting puzzle that he’s just about to solve. Seokjin feels a flare of irritation. He doesn’t want to be a metaphysical question or its answer. 

“I’ve never remembered my dreams, Joon-ah.” Seokjin replies. Namjoon shakes his head. 

“I know, but… I mean it wasn’t exactly a dream was it? And everyone says that you’re supposed to be able to hear people,” he presses. “That you’re aware on some level.” 

Seokjin eyes Namjoon. The irritation is getting stronger, but he tries to rein it in. Namjoon is just curious. He’s always trying to form theories about life and the universe, it’s how he is. “Is this about you coming to read to me? It’s very touching that you came every week, hyung appreciates it a lot, but I don’t remember hearing your dulcet tones. I just don’t think I was there.” 

Namjoon’s eyes light up, like Seokjin just admitted something. “Then where were you?”   

“Look,” Seokjin sighs, exhale coming sharp through his nose. “Can you please just tell me what you want to hear?” 

Namjoon leans back, furrowing his brow. “What?” 

“You clearly want me to say something, and I’ll say it if you’ll just tell me what it is.” Seokjin crosses his arms in front of his chest. “This is getting exhausting.”

“I don’t want you to say anything, just… just the truth,” Namjoon protests, looking confused. Seokjin sees Hoseok out of the corner of his eye, looking between the two of them worriedly. He should back down, apologize for snapping, but now that he’s broken the seal he doesn’t think he can put the anger back in. 

“No, all of you have been expecting something from me since the moment I’ve woken up. You’ll make some reference I don’t understand, and then you’ll stare at me out of the corner of your eye like you’re waiting for me to pick up on the cue. But I don’t know it, and it’s starting to feel like I’m disappointing you.” 

“Hyung, I don’t know what you mean,” Namjoon says firmly. He’s on the defensive now. His expression is carefully blank, confusion and all other emotions put away. Seokjin has seen him like this during other confrontations with other people. It means he’s hurting, and doesn’t want it to show. It means he’s shielding himself and anything he perceives as weakness. Maybe it runs in the family– Seokjin does the same thing. The only difference is that he almost never stops. Now is an exception, where the jagged crack in the armor is not only showing but bursting open. So watching Namjoon shut down, knowing he’s hurting a little too– there’s a petty, awful part of Seokjin that’s pleased about that. They can hurt together. 

“I’m missing something,” Seokjin insists. “I’m not completely unaware, you know? I can tell that there’s something just out of reach, on the tip of my tongue, or whatever metaphor you prefer, but I just. I can’t get to it. And maybe all I’m missing is seven months of my life, but I don't think that’s it. Because none of you are as good at hiding things as you seem to think you are. I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.” 

“Jjwan, you’re not being fair,” Hoseok chimes in. He’s obviously trying to diffuse the tension, using their special nicknames. But Seokjin isn’t going to let him off that easily.  

“Don’t ‘Jjwan’ me right now,” Seokjin snaps. “You told Yoongi that I wasn’t who he wanted me to be. But I don’t think I’m who any of you want me to be. Maybe I’m not who I want me to be either! At least Yoongi is upfront about it.”

“I thought you were asleep.” Hoseok says weakly. His eyes are wide and guilty, a bit hurt. 

“Well, I’m a good actor,” Seokjin huffs. 

“Okay, let’s talk about Yoongi.” Namjoon’s jaw is clenched tight. He looks like a tightly coiled wire, or a rubber band ready to snap.

“I don’t want to talk about Yoongi.” Seokjin protests. 

“You never want to talk about anything! But guess what? Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do!” Namjoon explodes, flinging his arms out to his sides. He crowds himself into Seokjin’s space, drawn up to his full height. “And if you won’t talk about yourself then we’re going to talk about Yoongi. So what are you doing with him? Huh? Why do you want to be around him all the time?”

Seokjin blinks, taken aback. Namjoon yelled at him. Namjoon hasn’t yelled at him since they were in the third grade and he stole his favorite Pokemon card. 

“I don’t know,” Seokjin says, voice much smaller than just seconds ago. “I don’t know why.”

Namjoon softens incrementally. “Hyung –” 

“I’m going for a walk,” Seokjin says brusquely. He hears Namjoon and Hoseok try to protest, but he grabs his coat and slams the door before any of their words can register. He pulls his shoes on in the elevator, hands shaking. 

He starts walking without a destination. The night air is so cool against his burning cheeks that it almost feels like Seokjin might be crying, but when he swipes his hands under his eyes they’re dry. Why did he do that? Stupid. Stupid, stupid Seokjin. He groans, the sound echoing so loudly that a stray cat in the alley bolts. After a while, his legs start to ache with the strain and he slows to a stop. When he looks up at the building his feet have led him to, he snorts derisively.

Of course. Of course it’s Yoongi’s.

It’s frustrating. Most of his own motivations are now a mystery to him. With Yoongi– Seokjin was only telling part of the truth when he said he doesn’t know why he always wants to be around him. He does know, kind of. He has an inkling. He just very stubbornly does not want to examine it.

It’s comfortable there, which has nothing to do with the fact that it used to be his own apartment. It looks too different, and if anything it seems like Yoongi just lives in another unit with the same layout. 

The only reason it feels like home is because Yoongi is there. Seokjin said that he wanted to make Yoongi his home, and he thinks that he just might have actually followed through.

Seokjin knocks on the door. There’s footsteps, and Yoongi’s muffled voice growing closer. “I’m sure he’s fine, give me a second–” 

Yoongi opens the door with one hand, the other pressing his cell phone against his ear. He’s already in his pajamas, a stretched out t-shirt showing the tense line of his shoulders. They soften into their usual slouch when he sees Seokjin. 

“Yeah, he’s here,” he says into the phone. Seokjin can tell the deep timbre on the other line is Namjoon, but doesn’t hear what he says. Yoongi’s skin is scrubbed pink and shiny, a faint red rim around his eyes the only thing betraying the fact that he was crying earlier. It’s late. Yoongi is ready for bed. Seokjin should leave, but he doesn’t want to. And anyway, Yoongi is stepping aside and waving him in. “It’s fine Joon-ah, I’ll let you know when he’s headed back your way, okay?” 

Yoongi doesn’t say when that will be, which is how Seokjin knows Namjoon told him about the fight. This is Yoongi letting Seokjin decide if and when he’s ready to go back to his brother and face the music. The walk over cooled him down some, and he’s feeling the tiniest bit of shame. Whatever is going on in Seokjin’s head isn’t Namjoon’s fault, and he’s fully aware that he took his frustration out on someone who's only ever been trying to help him. But Seokjin is the hyung here, the one who should be doing the caring rather than getting cared for. He’s tired of everyone walking on eggshells around him. The eggs are already broken, they might as well acknowledge them. 

He stomps over to Yoongi’s kitchen. The metaphor made him hungry. Behind him, he hears Yoongi saying goodbye to Namjoon and the small thunk of him setting his phone down. 

“Hyung?” Yoongi asks as Seokjin pulls eggs from the fridge. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin sighs. He cracks a few eggs into a bowl and beats them with perhaps a bit more force than strictly necessary. “I just need a snack. Do you want any omelet?” 

“Sure,” Yoongi nods. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Seokjin grabs scallions and snips them into fine rounds, stirring them into the egg and pouring it all into the pan. “Go sit down.” 

Yoongi does as he’s told, and Seokjin barely even fumbles as he rolls the omelet. It’s not as perfect as he used to be able to make it, but still good. His occupational therapist would call that good progress. Hoseok would probably call it great progress. He plates two rolls and brings them over to Yoongi, sliding him a pair of chopsticks before grabbing his own plate.

Yoongi eats in relative silence, only humming appreciatively at the first bite. When they’re both done, he stands and reaches for Seokjin’s empty plate. Seokjin tries to wave him off.

“I can do that, Yoongi-yah.”  

“You cooked, Jin-hyung,” Yoongi insists. Equivalent exchange. Seokjin releases his hold. Yoongi takes the dishes, dropping them in the sink. He speaks over the sound of the tap running, quiet but firm. “Do you want to talk about what happened with Namjoon?” 

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“You should.” 

“There are a lot of things I should do,” Seokjin agrees. “But it’s… unpleasant. And difficult.” 

“What’s difficult about it?” Yoongi asks, not unkindly. 

“Everything.” He takes a deep breath. “Feeling in the first place. It’s a messy business. Then there’s articulating the feeling. I don’t have a gift for words like you and Namjoonie. I don’t know how to say it.”

Yoongi starts drying the dishes, and Seokjin is grateful that he’s turned away. There’s an illusion of nonchalance, like this is just a casual conversation while the chores are being done. “I understand what you mean. I’m not as good at talking about my emotions as you think I am. I’m aware of them, but the only time I’m open about them is through music. If I have to look someone in the eye and tell them about what’s going on inside… it might as well be running a marathon.”

“Gross.” 

“Yeah.” Yoongi huffs a short laugh. “Gross. But hyung… I do have that outlet. I have a place for everything to go. Do you?”

Seokjin thinks. It’s not hard to know that he doesn’t. Cooking has never been like that. It was a hobby that became a job. Gaming is great, but it’s both a release and source of frustration. His friends… he’s never wanted to burden them. Plus, how can he talk about his feelings if he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling? If he doesn’t have the words for it? Much better to just ignore it all. It’s like that saying about the tree falling in the forest. If it falls, and no one is around to hear it, and it doesn’t make a sound… did it even really fall? If a feeling is never articulated, is it even felt? 

He’s pretty sure that’s how the saying goes, anyway.  

“No,” he answers finally. “I hold everything, like Atlas. It’s why my shoulders are so big.”

“Aren’t they sore?” Yoongi asks gently. 

Seokjin sighs. “I don’t know what to say. That’s why I got so mad. I’m confused. Ever since I woke up there’s been something off, with me and everyone else. It feels like I’m trying to play a part but I’m the only one who hasn’t been given a script. And all of you know the lines and the steps and are dancing circles around me, as I try to catch up. I’m missing something.” 

Yoongi has stopped with the dishes, and is instead just standing at the counter. He’s gripping it with white hands, and his back heaves with deep, slow breaths.

“And it’s not like I wasn’t off before,” Seokjin continues, unable to stop now. The dam has been broken, and the water is rushing out. “Like I wasn’t feeling good.   But at least I knew what my role was, and I worked really hard to play it well. I took care of everyone, and now everyone is trying to take care of me. Even Jungkookie. I don’t know where I fit anymore.” 

Yoongi turns to face him, finally, and his eyes are shiny and achingly gentle. “You fit here,” he rasps. “Not your character, or your role, or whoever you think you need to be. You fit here.” 

Seokjin tears his gaze away from Yoongi, because it’s too much. He stares at the swirling wood grain of the table, trying to get lost in the pattern instead of his thoughts. It’s too much to hope that Yoongi is saying what Seokjin thinks he’s saying. That the weird feeling of home is mutual, that Yoongi feels it too. He shakes his head and forces a laugh. 

  “Enough talking. I’m done with words. Would you play me that song again?” Seokjin asks. “The duet?” 

Yoongi visibly hesitates, taking a long pause before giving one jerky nod. Seokjin settles down next to him on the piano bench, shoulder to shoulder. Their arms touch all the way down to the elbow, when Yoongi stretches his out to place them on the keys. If he minds, he doesn’t show it. Seokjin takes that as enough of an invitation to stay where he is. 

After a deep inhale, Yoongi settles his long fingers on the opening chords and begins to play. The song has a slow start, sweet and syrupy. The tempo starts to pick up, and that’s when Seokjin reaches out and plunks a key. Yoongi starts, faltering for barely a second, but continues. And Seokjin, though he hardly knows why he’s doing it, keeps playing. With the additions he’s making, the melody is playful and light. It weaves in and out of Yoongi’s deeper notes and chords naturally, like the music had been waiting for it.

For every note he presses, something flashes before his eyes. 

A flat. Watching Yoongi cheat at chess.

E. Yoongi stretched out on his bed, panting Seokjin’s name. 

C major. Realizing no one else could see him, but thinking that if Yoongi could then Seokjin had the only one who really mattered. 

Every moment leading up to that terrible split second when Yoongi’s hand slipped from his grasp. In a way, Seokjin was right at the very beginning– scaring him did wake him up. Seeing the man he loved laying motionless in a puddle of his own blood while he was powerless to help was the most scared he’d ever been in his life. 

It’s all there. Note after note, every piece finally clicks into place. Memories that, just like his part of the song, were always meant to be there. Maybe it wasn’t a script that Seokjin needed. Maybe it was a score. 

He’s so awestruck that he doesn’t immediately notice that he’s the only one still playing. He glances over, and Yoongi is hunched in on himself with tears streaming down his face. One hand is curled around his stomach, and the other is pressed to his mouth to muffle his uncontrollable sniffles and gasps. His eyes are shut so tight it’s like he thinks if he squeezes them hard enough the tears won’t be able to get out. 

“Yoongi,” Seokjin breathes. Yoongi’s breath hitches. He doesn’t look at Seokjin, just curls tighter in on himself. “Oh, my Yoongi-chi. Can you look at me?”

Yoongi shakes his head no but does anyway, opening his red-rimmed eyes and looking over at Seokjin. 

“You’ve waited so long, haven’t you?” Seokjin asks. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t-” Yoongi gasps, breaths shaky and wet. “What do you mean? Do you-”

“You must have hurt so bad,” Seokjin interrupts. He can feel tears pricking his own eyes. “I didn’t know. I just knew I wanted to be with you. My heart knew before my head did. I’m sorry it took so long for it to catch up.” 

“Y-you remember?” Yoongi chokes out. He looks like he’s bracing himself for a blow, like he can hardly let himself hope. Seokjin nods, because he doesn’t trust himself not to start sobbing if he opens his mouth. Yoongi breaks, openly weeping without trying to quiet his sobs. And finally, Seokjin can do what he’d been aching to do all that time.

He folds Yoongi up in his arms, crushing him to his chest. His own tears are dripping down onto Yoongi’s hair, but he doesn’t think Yoongi minds by the way he grips Seokjin tight around the waist. Warmth sinks into Seokjin’s bones, into his soul. He’s not sure how long they just sit and hold each other, not speaking, just feeling. Tears dry to tacky trails on Seokjin’s cheeks as Yoongi’s shoulders gradually stop shaking. At last, he takes one more deep, shuddering breath and pulls back from Seokjin just enough to look at him. Even with red-rimmed eyes and wet, blotchy cheeks, he’s the most gorgeous person that Seokjin has ever seen. 

“This is going to seem kinda weird,” Yoongi chuckles, the sound still teary at the edges. “But I really want to kiss you right now.” 

“After that very tender and emotional moment?” Seokjin asks. He pauses, for effect. “Yeah. I agree. Please kiss me, Min Yoongi.” 

The smallest smile spreads across Yoongi’s face, before he swipes a hand across the remaining tears on his face and surges up. When their lips meet, they taste like salt. 

It’s perfect. 

Kissing Yoongi is never going to get old. Seokjin can remember the frustration now, the need to reach out and touch and be felt. Countless moments when Yoongi’s round cheeks and pout needed to be poked and pinched, and Seokjin couldn’t do it. Times when he needed comfort, and god knows he won’t accept anything verbal, and Seokjin couldn’t grasp his hands in his own and reassure him that he was there. 

The sex, when all Seokjin could do was tease.

So kissing, their lips actually meeting, will never get old. Seokjin drinks in every sensation. Yoongi’s lips are soft and yielding under his own, growing slightly slick with saliva. He sighs into Seokjin’s mouth when he adds a hint of teeth and nips at Yoongi’s plush bottom lip. Yoongi slides his tongue along the seam of Seokjin’s lips, so he opens them with a gasp to let Yoongi lick into his mouth. Yoongi’s hands are going everywhere, feeling every inch of Seokjin that he can reach. Strong fingers run through Seokjin’s hair, down his back, grasping at his waist with what feels like enough force to bruise. He kind of hopes that it does. It’s when Yoongi gropes at his ass that Seokjin lets his own hands start wandering, eventually landing in between Yoongi’s legs. He’s tenting his jeans, and Seokjin can feel that his own are tight too. 

“Can I interest you,” Seokjin gasps, pulling back from Yoongi, lips swollen, “In an uncoordinated handjob?” 

Yoongi huffs a laugh, eyes slightly dazed. “I’m pretty sure you could interest me in anything.” 

“Good. My hands are still a bit shaky when I’m excited.” Seokjin holds up a hand in demonstration, showing the slight tremor that runs through them. “But what I lack in fine motor control I make up for in enthusiasm.” 

Yoongi huffs another laugh, pulling Seokjin to his feet. “As nice as that sounds, I’ve got another plan.” 

He leads Seokjin by hand away from the piano bench and towards the bedroom, and a memory lights up in Seokjin’s mind. 

“This feels familiar.” Seokjin comments. Yoongi looks back at him, grinning too softly for the situation. Yoongi pushes him down on the bed, placing a hand on his chest when Seokjin tries to pull Yoongi down with him. 

“You said something last time,” Yoongi starts. “About how that day was about me. Now I want today to be about you.”

Yoongi sinking to his knees in front of Seokjin is a sight that he won’t readily forget. He tells himself, very firmly, never forget a single detail of this boy ever again. Especially not this. Yoongi’s lips are shining and pink already from their prolonged makeout session, and his tongue comes out to wet them again as he tugs Seokjin’s zipper down. Seokjin obligingly lifts his hips up to help as Yoongi pulls the jeans and underwear off of his legs at once, throwing them carelessly behind him. 

“Wow,” Yoongi breathes, once Seokjin is bare in front of him. “Hoseok was right.” 

“What?” Seokjin asks. Yoongi shakes his head. 

“Nothing, just –” He chuckles. “You’re big.” 

Seokjin feels himself flushing hotter, almost feverish. It occurs to him, as he watches Yoongi tease the head of his cock with his swollen lips, that this is going to be over embarrassingly quickly. 

“I won’t last,” he gasps in warning. Yoongi chuckles again, low in his throat, and Seokjin feels the vibrations on his dick. 

“Been a while, hyung?” Yoongi jokes.  

“You know it has.” Seokjin swats at Yoongi’s shoulder, then stops. Oh god. Oh fuck. The last time they did something like this, months ago now, Seokjin was comatose. “Yoongi-yah. Did I have a coma boner?”

Yoongi blinks up at him. “A what?” 

“Did my body get a boner the last time we had sex? Did some poor nurse walk into my room to check my vitals and get traumatized by my erect penis?” Yoongi collapses against Seokjin’s thigh with the force of his laughter. “Yoongi, this is serious! Those hospital gowns hide nothing!” 

“It would take some pretty thick fabric to hide this.” Yoongi says through giggles, breathless. He’s smiling wide and gummy, grin tucked partially into the meat of Seokjin’s thigh.

“Well now, you’re just trying to fluster me and I don’t apprecia- oh.” Yoongi shuts him up by abruptly swallowing him down, engulfing him in wet heat. “Fuuuuck,” Seokjin exhales. 

It ends as quickly as Seokjin thought it would, mere minutes before he’s spilling down Yoongi’s throat. Yoongi is just as good with his mouth as he’d bragged, pulling off of Seokjin with a pop and a smug smile on his face. Seokjin feels boneless, bracing himself with one arm to keep himself from flopping back onto the bed and melting into a vaguely man-shaped puddle. 

“What do you want?” he asks, once he’s caught his breath and can feel his toes again. “I can—“ he flaps his free hand towards where Yoongi is visibly hard in his pajama pants. Yoongi shakes his head, getting to his feet and climbing up beside Seokjin.

“I’m good,” Yoongi says, voice husky with use, and god , if that isn’t a sound Seokjin could hear for his whole life. He crawls up on the bed and winds his arms around Seokjin. “Just—“ and he goes limp, pulling Seokjin down onto the bed with a small oof. It seems like the vaguely man-shaped puddle is exactly what Yoongi wants, as he hooks a leg up over Seokjin’s hip. “I just want this.” 

They’re pressed together completely, from where their legs tangle together to where Yoongi’s nestled his face into the space underneath Seokjin’s chin, slightly open lips against his collarbone. Seokjin can feel Yoongi’s softening dick against his thigh, his stomach rising and falling with each breath, the steady and sure beat of his heart. He’s warm and pliant, and Seokjin lets himself sink into the soothing feelings. 

“Yoongi-yah?” he asks, before he can let himself drift entirely. Yoongi grunts in response. “You really… blew me away.” 

Seokjin feels an amused huff of air and the outline of a grin pressed into his skin. “Go to sleep, hyung.” 

Chapter Text

Seokjin’s singing echoes over the sound of running water. He should be out of the shower soon, he’s onto the last song in his playlist. Yoongi’s already heard the muffled strains of one of the more upbeat Coldplay songs, a Mamamoo song with lots of belting, and now they’re onto Seokjin’s self-proclaimed theme song, ‘Jjiniya’. Instead of actually singing, he’s now mostly just gleefully shouting along whenever they say his name. Yoongi can picture the way his hips and shoulders wiggle to the beat and huffs a laugh to himself. As soon as it fades out, the water shuts off too. Seokjin continues humming as he bustles around in the bedroom.

It’s nice, having the sounds of life in the apartment again. Even when they’re not talking, which they often aren’t. It’s enough to just… share the same space. Exist together. There’s a warmth to the place, a certain brightness.

There’s the sounds of drawers opening and shutting, and Yoongi realizes he’s probably missed his chance to ogle Seokjin a little bit. Fresh out of the shower Seokjin is a sight to behold; skin all shiny and pink from the heat, the rivulets of water running down the divot of his pecs and along the broad planes of his back, all the way to where the towel wraps around his delicate waist.

Oh well. Yoongi is too comfortable to be mad about it, engulfed in a sweatshirt on the couch. He’s got his knees tucked up to his chest, and the sweatshirt is big enough that he could probably yank it down to cover them, too. He buries himself a little further into the soft cotton, pulling the sleeves down over his perpetually cold fingertips and shuffling down so the neckline covers his nose. It smells clean, like the fresh scent of fabric softener and a bit of musk underneath that Yoongi just recognizes as Seokjin.

“Yoongi-yah, have you seen my hoodie? The pink one?” Seokjin calls from the bedroom.

“I don’t think so, hyung,” Yoongi responds, lifting his face up out of the fabric. “Maybe you left it at Joonie’s.”

Seokjin huffs and one last drawer shuts. “But we brought the last of my clothes over last week –” He rounds the corner and cuts himself off as he catches sight of Yoongi. “Oh. Haven’t seen it, huh?”

“Nope,” Yoongi deadpans, making direct eye contact for once. Seokjin’s eyes curve up the way they do when he thinks he’s found a fun new bit to play out, before his expression contorts into exaggerated despair.

“Oh, you wiley little thief,” Seokjin cries, flopping dramatically next to Yoongi on the couch. “Wasn’t it enough that you stole my heart?”

“Who said I ever wanted your heart?” Yoongi asks, playing along. “All this time I’ve actually only been after your money. I had a whole plan.”

“Did you now?” Seokjin raises an eyebrow, amused. He forces Yoongi’s knees down and wiggles until he’s comfortably situated in Yoongi’s lap. Yoongi hums in agreement.

“Yep. I was going to divorce you and take you for all that you’re worth. The house, the money, the dog –”

“Oh, we have a dog now?”

“Yes, we have a dog. He’s a poodle, he’s very cute.” Yoongi explains. “Though I had to scrap that plan, because our marriage and subsequent divorce isn’t legally recognized in Korea. So instead of the long con, I’ve settled on just blatant robbery.”

“Of course, you had no other choice,” Seokjin agrees, smiling fondly up at Yoongi. Yoongi can feel his character break open like a pinata, and he couldn’t stop the gummy smile forming on his face if he tried. “So cold of you, Yoongi-chi, to not even leave me the dog. Colder than the icy toes you insist on pressing to my legs at night.”

“You like it,” Yoongi says, leaning down to kiss Seokjin. You’re warm, he doesn’t say. It reminds me that you’re here, you’re really here. He doesn’t say it because Seokjin already knows, thinks the same thing judging by the way he reaches out to touch Yoongi so frequently. The way he can’t get enough of even little things like holding hands walking through the grocery aisles or Yoongi leaning his head on Seokjin’s shoulder. All of the little bits of physical intimacy is still a novelty for them both. Seokjin parts his lips with a sweet little sigh into Yoongi’s mouth, letting Yoongi in easily. He lets Yoongi map out of the contours of his mouth for a while, tasting him and taking this kind of warmth, too. Then Seokjin takes control, kissing back so deeply that Yoongi’s mouth could bruise like a peach from the force of it. He moans, surprised, and Seokjin giggles as he bites at Yoongi’s bottom lip. He pushes his hands up Yoongi’s shirt, tracing up and down his sensitive sides, and then —

He rips the hoodie up over Yoongi’s head, throwing his arms up in victory. He brandishes the hoodie like a war trophy, cackling in delight.

Yoongi pouts. “Hyung.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Seokjin warns. “All cute, you’re a goblin and a menace.”

“I thought I was the thief here,” Yoongi whines, still pouting. Seokjin never resists his pout for long.

“I am not stealing,” Seokjin asserts, pulling the hoodie on. His head pops out of the hole with adorably fluffed up hair. “I am just taking what is rightfully mine.”

“Okay.” Yoongi opens his arms wide. “Come take me.”

Seokjin groans, but his ears go a bright shade of red. His gaze settles somewhere around the couch cushion just to the left of Yoongi’s head, unable to meet his eyes suddenly. It’s with a hint of genuine flustered embarrassment that he says “Yaaaahh, Yoongi-chi, so greasy.” Then he crawls into Yoongi’s arms anyway, the warm weight of him settling against Yoongi’s body. It’s even better than the hoodie, Yoongi thinks. Even more comforting, and the pink of Seokjin’s cheeks and lips are a nicer shade.

“You know,” Yoongi muses. “I thought you were a thief when we first met. Thought you’d broken in and were going to rob me.”

“You threw cushions at me,” Seokjin huffs. “In my own home.”

“It was my home at that point,” Yoongi argues.

“Our home,” Seokjin insists, knocking his head lightly against the side of Yoongi’s.

And, okay. Maybe all along it was their home. Even from the very beginning, from the very first pillow that Yoongi lobbed at the handsome stranger standing in his living room. It felt right, natural, to have Seokjin there. That feeling just grew with every good morning, every drama they watched, every bad joke that Seokjin told. And when Seokjin wasn’t there… it was empty. There wasn’t the same energy, the same joy. It wasn’t a home anymore. It was just a place.

Now Seokjin is back. His alpaca slippers rest on the stand next to Yoongi’s fluffy brown ones. His shirts hang next to Yoongi’s in the closet. There’s a chandelier that they picked out together dangling above them, casting the room in a warm, golden light.

“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees. “Our home.”