Chapter Text
monday, 5am
it's not a secret.
5am screams in the clock, bores holes into the bathroom floor right where seokjin's knees brush the cold white tiles. it's an odd hour, he thinks, throwing up whatever is it that managed to stay in his stomach for so long. it just floats in the thin zone between dream and reality, too late to be night and too early to be morning, suspended in the air like the smell of sleep and the idea of a new day that is about to come, according to the plan.
5am lights up the silent hotel room, spills from the walls like a reminder that it's already too late. at this time - or at any other ungodly hour up to your choice - dreamland is no more than a void of future, a memory of the unbearable softness of the sheets burning the skin under his fingertips. a conjecture of what dawn will be like. but dawn is just a concept, beats his heart too quickly, somehow in the middle of his belly, not a path to redemption, and redemption might be actually just the wait for the evening of his breath, for this tingling of his hands to leave.
the wait for the sun to come and dry off the rain.
seokjin kneels in bathroom floor at 5am, mouth dry, body wrong, half looking for himself, half expecting not to find whatever is it that's there to be found. the smell of bile is strong, powerful, makes him try to take himself to a few days ago, when his room smelled like sephora’s cherry blossom shower gel, the one taehyung liked so much and stole a lot. 5am is cold, 5am is right in the middle, and the xanax that has been doing nothing for him lies lost on the floor between the sink and the toilet. for a moment, drowsy and small - sleepy - as it should be, the feeling of jimin’s fingers holding his head and wetting his neck with cold water is real, but then it's not, and then it's all silence and seokjin is noise.
but it's 5am and seokjin is just too tired, so tired, has never been more tired than at this exact moment. it's funny - he tells the walls in a sluggish tone, wiping his mouth with the back of the hand - this occasional feeling of being locked inside his own ribcage, digested by his own guts (an audience for the life that unfolds and develops outside and does not stop, not even when he feels like this). in those moments, the body is less like a prison and more like a labyrinth: a body, rigorously a body, one where he just doesn't know where to put himself in.
it's not a secret, it's just something no one talks about.
so seokjin looks for five things that he can see. from this weird angle, one from which bathrooms were not meant to be seen, he sees tiles, many, enough to cover the lower half of the four walls and turn it into a strange cage. he sees the sink, maybe a corner of a small mirror on top of it, silver and dirty, shining under a blanket of darkness. he sees a small window, through which he would never be able to escape, a reminder that sometimes you are in charge of building your own doors and your own ways out. he sees the shower, needs one indeed, wonders if is there anything that cannot be washed away from someone. he sees the door, looks at it for a while, and on the other side of it 5am unrolls itself into an unknown destination. he sighs.
thing is they've all been there once or twice. in fact, some more than others, but it doesn't mean much once you reach a certain point: it's just a place you don't feel like going back to. on the first time it happened to him, seokjin had the dumb impression that he had lost his heart, that it had taken refuge in his intestines, pumping blood to his limbs from upside down, drying his brains. if felt like the air wouldn't come in properly, wouldn't fill in his lungs, like he and everything else were on the verge of something terrible that he could not name, and yoongi and namjoon were the first ones to recognize it for what it was. they didn't tell him what they could have told him then (that, yes, this happened one time or another, and yes, no use on mulling it over too much - and that, coming from either yoongi or namjoon, would have been funny, to say the least, but seokjin does understand where this speech would come from, has the slightest sympathy for their strange position), and for this small mercy seokjin is glad. they took care of him before hoseok or jimin could tell him that sometimes they felt like this too, like there was a hand closing around their stomachs, tearing his guts apart; they tried to help before someone could tell him that, no, this was not special - at least not as in unexpected -, that it happened to everyone.
(four things that he can touch. sanitary weare feels cold on his skin, itchy and almost wet on the other side of the pajamas, he hates it. there's a towel on the floor, one that he reaches by simply moving a little to the left, blue and fluffy, cheap to the fingers. there's water dripping from the sink, fat drops that will soon drench his pants, the tap is on. there's the texture of his lips, a terrible dryness that spreads through all of his skin, breaks him to pieces like he's made of sand.)
"sometimes it takes a toll on your nerves, you know", he told yoongi a few days later in their bedroom without really explaining what “it” was about, a foreign lightness to a subject that disappeared like it had never happened. yoongi circled his shoulders with an arm in response, held him close with a scowl without a promise to make things better, just angrily trying to make all the bulshit go away for a silent while. it did, it did.
and they did not talk about it again.
(three things that he can hear: the clock on the bedside table, tiks and taks that moan and aim only for a future, cannot do the same for the past, just like him. a sound too far away, some bad love song in a bad radio a few bedrooms to his right, something about baby, i love you so, i want you to know that i'm gonna miss your love the minute you walk out that door, so please don't go. third thing he listens to is an ugly sound, no rhythm and no goal, just pure fluke and a bad-tasted hint of a crazed, exhausted joy. it's his own laugh.)
second time it happened, almost one year and a half later, however, was in a way less spectacular fashion, and jimin was the one to give him the advice. 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste. they say those things will help you to know that you're here, he said, wet towel on seokjin's nape - what became a habit after that -, watching as he inhaled and exhaled quickly. doesn't work well for me, but you look more like the centered kind, you know? but isn't it stupid, not to know what to do with yourself?
(two things he can smell. hotel rooms in general smell like mold, seokjin can count in the fingers of one hand the ones that did not. the bathroom is just a rich mixture of that and a sweet perfume, maybe some trace of the last person that tried to stay, maybe something about himself.)
and, yes, that's stupid. but, if anything, seokjin believes that fear is one of the few things that really leave people on equal terms in the world, and that it was not different with the seven of them. one thing they could agree on without any discussion, the first thing that made them feel like one only and whole thing. a thing with a secret, irrational fear of (what? never being good enough? never finding the right beat? never find what they're looking for in this dream? and, oh my god, this is all so silly, they were all so silly sometimes.)
but it's not a secret.
(one thing he can taste: there's no medicine in his mouth, there rarely was - seokjin had always been cautious about that, another silent agreement between them all. but he heard about them, the ones that had to have something to wake up, then something to fall asleep, and maybe many things to feel happy for a few hours and other things to forget the rest of the day. he feared for them, feared that that would be the single inescapable end of the road for everyone if nothing was done about it at some point, but what, who and when?)
yet, it takes seokjin to slow afternoons on holidays, walking jjangu in a dog park with his brother after lunch. there's just this much of tragedy one can handle, he said on one of those walks, speaking about nothing in special, speaking about all of seokjin at once, looking at a naked tree as if it was the answer to a really hard question, the one about happiness. see, seokjung was never the talkative type, and seokjin always knew better than either pointlessly disturbing the comfortable silence established between them or not paying attention to the rare occasions in which it was already disturbed. so this ordinary moment carried in itself the essence of something different, something life-changing, and seokjin stopped to watch. it was not, of course, there's no change of life in a dog park, but the intentions were there, all of them. seokjung looked at seokjin, looked at him like he knew the meaning of the marks on seokjin's face, like he could understand, without being told, what it was all about. like he felt like this too. and after that much of a tragedy, all you can do is to move on. jjangu peed on his shoe, the grass was just one more pretty thing in a very good day. seokjung left his job two weeks later, they didn't talk about this too.
but seokjin gets it, finally got it in an epiphany a few weeks ago, washing his face in a sink just like this one, seeing himself, kim seokjin, 25 years old, the middle of something that would never really be, an eternal "almost" at 5am, not 4am, not 6am - and morning is a thing yet to come. he gets it now, that there's just one door to leave the bathroom, there's no other way out. there's no shortcut, no one but himself that will keep him from waking up and sleeping on pills, no one to give back his heart or his time, no way to run away from all the fear of all the nevers that life could (would) give them, multiplied by how many times they succeeded, making they ready to fall each time harder. it’s just not for him, he thinks. there's no problem on being honest about it. and after that much of personal tragedy, all that he could do was to move on too.
it's not a secret. but they will not talk about it.
and 5am is cold. and 5am is not.
but seokjin is here. finally.
friday, 11pm
seokjin remembers his uncle's strawberry farm, picking berries in the garden, far from the fields. seokjin remembers concerts of cicadas at night, serenades of birds in the morning, running with the dogs with the sun hard as rock above his head, buckets full of fruit rocking back and forth, then resting on the ground. seokjin remembers the pleasure of his barefeet in the cold grass, stained hands and stained lips dripping red from mulberries and scratches, silence stretching throw infinite blue skies. what would you think, seokjinnie, his brother asked once, half joking under the shadow of a skinny tree, hands covering the eyes, of becoming a farmer? it was a warm morning, seokjin remembers, one that swallowed the sleep, rolled on the floor to lie with him until he was on his side, sighing contently, going on forever.
that would be great, he said, fingers drumming happily against his belly, skin glistening in cooling sweat. seokjin remembers the wind singing between trees, seokjung's feet covered in earth, pointing calmly at the sun. that would be simple, he told seokjung, licking the sweetness out of his lips.
now, see, it was at a young age that seokjin discovered a few things about himself: how much sugar he'd tolerate in his candies, how he'd enjoy his coffee; how long it would take him to buy a new pillow, what's the best tone to use when in trouble; what is the best moment to cry, how much of an ass is it safe to be for the sake of comedy; what to do to fall asleep, what to say to break a heart. one of those things, maybe the most important of them all, was that, for some reason - probably something about the essence of his nature (even if he couldn't find himself able to really understand the meaning of that) -, simplicity was the best word to describe his way of conducting life and decisions.
understand seokjin's reasoning here: it's just that the world is very complicated itself. life is complicated (where does it even come from?), relationships are complicated, meanings are complicated, time is complicated, people are complicated. so maybe the best way of having enough energy to deal with everything there is complicated and cannot not to be so is uncomplicating himself, becoming one fluid, easy going center in the middle of all this intrication, losing time with what could be changed, taking into account all of his limitations, accepting what could not be and living the best way possible with that. and it was not that hard, even if uncomfortable sometimes - taking things lightly, paying attention, but just enough to allow things to go as smoothly as possible, leaving behind what had to be left.
(don't take him for a lighthead. he knows, now, that there were gaps in each part of this plan, but, when you're young, what the fuck would you expect?)
his brother chuckled wetly, half amused and half heartbroken, on the edge of destroying a dream, for seokjin's own sake. there's no such thing as simple, jinnie. nothing is that simple, he said, somehow disgusted at reality, two years of difference putting their weight on his shoulders every now and then under the sun. but there is natural, and that should be enough. seokjin remembers dandelions from a distance, white seeds dispersing with the breeze, coloring the horizon and reflecting sunlight. seokjin remembers the idea of simple.
he thinks he understands it now, in taehyung's arms, that maybe an idea is all that "simple" was ever really meant to be, and he wonders to what extent this realization should change his opinion about himself and about the meaning of what he'd been doing with his life so far. but let's do this slowly.
what matters in this moment is that taehyung touches him in bed, wraps his arms around seokjin's ribcage as if afraid that seokjin's heart will float away without hands there to hold it in place. he breaths close to seokjin, mouth on his forehead, whispers the obvious to his ears like a spell: it's okay, everything is gonna be okay. how long had taehyung been listening to his and yoongi's conversation is a question that seokjin does not ask, for the answer will not change a thing. but he understood it well, how taehyung managed to take him out of the floor, put him in bed, lay down with him and stay there repeating the same words until seokjin's sobbing dissolved into a light hiccup, an ashamed sniff.
"it's okay", taehyung squeezes him lightly, watches him cry with eyes that glow in the dark and then makes silence to let seokjin own this moment because the pain is his to deal with.
taehyung is. hard to explain. first time they met was uncomfortable, they had no clue on how to properly address each other in a practice room full of strangers, had no idea of what kind of dynamics should be built between the two of them, between them all. which was odd, you see. taehyung, sitting on the floor, all crooked limbs and wild eyes full of suns and moons and whole galaxies, felt like a long missed friend, someone that should have been there, by seokjin's side, that whole time. thing is they started at the same point, taehyung and him. both pretty faces coming out of nowhere if we're talking about their purpose in the group, both completely unaware of to what extent they'd really be able to provide something more to a thing that could, theoretically, already be good without them. both needing to be needed, needing to prove a point too, clueless about what could be their roles in a universe of singers, rappers and dancers.
seeing it now, seokjin guesses that they felt it in each other, empathized with this secret agenda of theirs right in the first moment.
then, they watched. never so carefully, none of them sophisticated enough to hide this unspeakable interest, but discreet enough not to be detected for a while. so, eyes locked, that's how it starts. in an evening, right after an afternoon full of nots and don'ts, taehyung appears to seokjin in the living room, holds his hand with the kind of inappropriate boldness that only works in dramas and for taehyung himself, tells him that they like the same animes, did you know that, hyung? so. shouldn't they watch them together, then?
"okay."
and it's weird, the fabricated proximity that should not feel so natural but does. it's like a butterfly that flies at night, it's like poking a nerve. taehyung is both endearing and obnoxious in how he looks at life, either impossibly stupid or ridiculously brave in how he's the one to always have the nerve of doing, unperturbed, the things that the rest of them never got to do without a lot of thinking, a lot of complicating. so, hugs it is. holding hands, unexplained cuddles, an impossible amount of honesty about his own feelings that makes seokjin dizzy, lost on his way home.
maybe that's why he got to places that seokjin didn't. but seokjin doesn't want to think about it now.
now, taehyung is long, soft in a way that makes seokjin feel like he can see right through his bones, made of melted glass. he traces seokjin’s cheekbones with his fingers, builds shiny wet roads on his face. when taehyung comes closer and plants a sloppy kiss on top of seokjin's forehead, it occurs to him that taehyung is the kind of person that would look good holding a sparkling sword, promising you a sky full of stars, even if it was a sky drawn with a pen in a paper bag. they lock eyes for a second, and seokjin knows that this the weight that taehyung has to carry around, the price to pay for what he conquered.
"but it's not okay, is it?", he asks, quietly, when seokjin is not really crying anymore and night surrounds them and their words. taehyung has this specific way of looking of seokjin, that can be split in two: a) there's fond, open understanding. taehyung knows where seokjin comes from, knows what his confidence on camera tries to compensate. so taehyung knows when to praise, when to rub a shameless hand down seokjin's arm, when to hold his shoulders and sigh. thank you; b) there's also shy, absurd admiration. taehyung takes pictures of seokjin with his retina, makes seokjin burn in shame and exhaustion just by looking at him like taehyung is a moth and seokjin is a lamp that confuses and amuses him, takes him out of his way too, pretends to be the moon. it's not simple, it's not meant to be simple. it simply is.
taehyung gives him this mixed look, stares, actually. then peppers kisses on seokjin's wet cheeks and cleans his tears with lips, chastely kisses seokjin's lips to share the salt, cares for him with so much love that makes it impossible not to love him back.
so seokjin laughs. loud, watery, out of place like arrhythmia because no, it's not, at least not now.
but taehyung, startled at first, then relaxing bit by bit, muscle by muscle, would be able to light up an entire building with the intensity of this smile, one that should not be here. they laugh, and they cover their mouths to avoid waking the whole house up, then they laugh more because nothing is simple and nothing is okay, everything is messed up in ways that cannot be ignored. they laugh because seokjin is not happy, for many reasons that not the conversation that taehyung listened through the door.
seokjin is not happy where he is right now. that shouldn't have been so hard to put into words. he is happy at moments, he's not happy on other ones, and right now he laughs at the idea of how miserable he feels for things that sound so important but could be trivial, was he any other kim seokjin.
“i don't think that's fair, you know. what he said to you,” taehyung says after they stop laughing and stay still for a few minutes, and it takes a while for seokjin to understand where they're back into. the outburst just took him to other places, many other ones, and he needs some time to find himself again as a part of the current situation.
“love is not about being fair, tae. nothing is that simple," taehyung flinches, and seokjin (flinching too) holds his hand, guards it in the middle of his fingers. taehyung is young, seokjin knows. taehyung is a lover of the idea of love, and seokjin is the older one (just as seokjung), but will not be the one to destroy his dreams right now, even if it's for his own good. at least not tonight. "if you're focused only on giving a person the strict fair part of what they deserve, this is not love at all. this is not even treating them as people."
taehyung does not answer, and, as seokjin speaks, he understands a few things himself, like a puzzle that takes form slowly, like things that you can only get once you say them out loud. "love sometimes is just about accepting how things are. was it about fairness, you might be able to say that i myself left him alone in the position of deciding both our fates, right? that isn't fair too." and it wasn't. to some point, a small voice on seokjin's head still cannot tell for sure if part of what happened was architected only to formulate one more excuse for him to leave. as if i can't stay here anymore because i'm not happy wasn't enough as a reason, as if assuming himself the weight of this decision was not something he could without an external source of justification. was he in any other situation, would he have conducted the whole thing the same way he did? "in the current conditions, i think he made the right choice, the one that had to be made. i made a right choice too, given what i know and what i want. yet, we're both sad. that's just how things are, and the only fair part of this is that there's nothing we can do about it.”
silence is loud. seokjin likes it more when taehyung laughs with him, liked it more when things were not so complicated, when taehyung's eyes could not mean so many different things, each one more terrifying than the other. taehyung traces his lips with his nails, careful not to cut and careful not to scare. their knees touch, they breath together. they love, and love is always so hard to understand.
“so, don't you blame him?”
if seokjin feels like there's water in his eyes again, taehyung pretends not to see.
“i wouldn't know what to blame him for, even if i wanted to." there are no stars outside, and seokjin likes the sap idea of all of the stars in the sky having moved to taehyung's hands. he smiles at that, but his face feels numb. "but who else could i resent?”
taehyung hums in agreement, looks tired and looks like he doesn't understand, but respects seokjin enough not to say so. “and now what?”
they come closer. taehyung pulls seokjin's face to his own neck, holds him like who holds a doll. caresses his back, but there's no strength on how he does so, like he's allowing seokjin's heart to leave, if that's what it wants now.
“now?" seokjin asks, more to himself than anyone else, and there's no secret about it. taehyung smells like all wild things: trees, running barefeet in the grass; the flow of a river, sun-kissed skin cooled by a waterfall; unstoppable passion, kissing in the rain, all the things that could have been and were not. and taehyung is right. it's not fair. "now i let it go.”
he arranges seokjin slowly between his arms, entangles their legs likes it's normal. it is. with him, it is. but silence is just silence now, holds nothing against them, and seokjin doesn't feel like falling asleep, bets taehyung does not too, so pretending is fine, hugging is fine, they're fine, even if they're not okay. that's all he could ask for.
"you deserve to be happy."
if seokjin looked at taehyung right now, he would remember his uncle's strawberry farm, picking berries in the garden, far from the fields. he would remember the pleasure of his barefeet in the cold grass, stained hands and stained lips dripping red from mulberries and scratches, silence stretching throw infinite blue skies, through taehyung's galaxy eyes, so fond and so absurd. seokjin would remember the idea of simple, how somehow it does not feel like a thing that really does exist, seokjin would remember a dream and not feeling happy about it anymore.
but he doesn't.
instead, he feels. all the love and all the care, seokjin feels taehyung's hands and the way he looks, how his nails leave burns in the tissue right under the skin, a kind of comfort that should not be natural, but is. seokjin feels it all, all the praises and all the things that could mean something, summed up in an embrace and in the promise of a quiet night, one in which his heart would be able to float away to anywhere it wanted to. he feels it, and he wonders in which kind of terrible world this would not be enough for him to be happy.
“and who does not?”
this is not fair.