Work Text:
He doesn’t know when it started, because it feels like it’s always been there. A part of him. A piano and a pen and his thoughts drowned out by the screaming of strings and drums and whispered words. A hundred thousand songs playing in tandem, fighting for the forefront of his mind, fighting for the paper beneath his clenched fist, fighting to escape first; fighting each other, fighting Yoongi.
His mother snaps her fingers in front of his face, making him blink. He looks up, sees with detatched confusion the concern etched into the gentle lines of her face.
“You’re not concentrating, Yoongi,” she says quietly, almost too quiet to hear over the music. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“You need to study hard to get into a good university instead of daydreaming while you should be working. I know it’s difficult, but we just want you to have the best life possible, and your father and I know you’ll do well if you focus.”
He looks at the paper, the questions jotted neatly in black ink that blurs beneath his gaze. Geography, maybe? Finance? It’s all the same to his tired eyes and tired mind. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I think I need a break.”
“Take twenty minutes, go for a walk,” his mother suggests, running a hand through his hair. “You look tired, get some air.”
She leaves, and after a few minutes he hears the back door close, which means she’s gone back to gardening. He takes his twenty minutes and scribbles down as many songs as he can, trying to alleviate the cacophony until it's less of a choir and more of quartet, but the questions on his paper blur all the same with a handful less songs messing up his thoughts.
Eventually he scraps his revision and writes song after song, working well into the night until the sheets covered his small room and he's so exhausted that sleep mutes the noise, and then he sleeps until the first note of the new day wakes him with bloodshot eyes and pained acceptance that this is going to be it, because he doesn’t know when it started, and he doesn’t think it will ever end.
-
“How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Write so many songs, it’s unreal. I’d think you were under a spell or something, but you seem pretty normal.”
Is that meant to be a compliment? Flirtatious? Or just a normal question? The song in his mind for this guy is nothing but horns and clarinets, and it sounds like slime at the back of his mind. If he’d known people like this would be approaching him even during his lectures he would have skipped college altogether to avoid the ball ache.
“Yeah. I’m pretty normal.”
“Pretty cute too.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? You agree?”
“I’m here to learn, so please shut up.”
The guy just smiles. “Wanna go to a bar after class?”
“Class finishes at two and I’m not quite depressed enough for day drinking on a Tuesday yet, but thanks for asking.”
The dude’s smile turns ugly, and Yoogi, for once in his life, is glad of the music, like a warning of character before a word can be exchanged. “I’m asking you out, don’t you get it?”
“Of course I get it. Don’t you get that I’m not interested? Fuck off.”
And the ugly smile becomes a sneer. “I bet you’re a frigid bitch anyway.”
“So cold that your dick would snap off,” Yoongi agrees, doodling music notes across his pages, a trail to follow, a song to submit for money when he begins to run out of food again. “Now piss off, please.”
Across the aisle, Namjoon raises his brows. Seconds later Yoongi’s phone buzzes. ‘That dude’s bad news. What does he want?’
Yoongi types while he hums something new, a song that varies only slightly when he thinks of Namjoon, something soft and sweet but full of hidden instruments with lyrics that hurt him just a little. ‘Wanted to take me for drinks, but I told him I’d snap his dick. Not interested anymore, don’t worry.’
He sees Namjoon hide his smile. ‘I worry about you for a lot of reasons, but not for something like this. I know you can look after yourself.’
Yoongi keeps doodling notes and ignoring his lecture, trying to sift through the songs for something that will earn him enough money to buy fresh vegetables since he only has bread and pasta in his apartment, and wonders just how he manages to look okay when inside is an overgrown forest of words and sounds that make even his eyesight shake with fatigue.
-
“Most people like to talk after sex,” his partner says, more than a little annoyed over breakfast. Jihyun has been building up resentment for weeks now, souring the chords in Yoongi’s mind, and he’s felt each annoyance in his chest like a kick. “But every single time you go right so sleep and don’t wake even when I nudge you. Am I doing something wrong?”
He can’t say, I don’t wanna talk about it, as he’s already used up that card. He can’t say, when I’m physically exhausted is the only time I sleep well, either, because that makes no sense to anyone but himself. He’s always tired, everyone knows that. Lazy, he’s called by those that don’t know him. Overworked by those that do, those that see new music in their emails every morning and night. But lazy is what Jihyun is thinking, and Yoongi feels the word bounce between them like a painful rubber ball. “I’m just tired,” he says, sipping his coffee. “Sorry, I’m trying to work on it.”
Jihyun sighs, and his song dims for a moment, swamped by the others in Yoongi’s head, which is a fearful thought. If his song is fading... so is he. Soon, Yoongi won’t hear his song at all, and then he’ll be alone with the sounds again. “You say you’re working on it every time I bring something up, Yoongi. I’m beginning to think you’re not all that interested in working on anything other than your music.”
That stings, but Jihyun is right. Yoongi doesn’t have time for anything else, anyone else, and he was selfish to assume otherwise, because now both he and Jihyun are unhappy because he can’t provide what relationships need.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. What else can he say? He means it, but he knows it isn’t enough.
Jihyun knows it too, but breakfast isn’t the place to discuss it. There’s no room for misery on the table with the steaming coffee and cooling toast.
“We’ll talk about it later. What time will you be home?”
“My boss...” wants me to stay late. He can’t finish the sentence, but Jihyun hears it, and his dark eyes shutter. His song fades from Yoongi’s mind like petals drifting away on the gentle current of a forest stream.
“Yeah, of course.” Jihyun offers a tight-lipped smile. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Not over breakfast.”
“No, not over breakfast.”
He’s always liked Jihyun’s song, cheerful and pleasant even when Yoongi needed it, when he felt like he was so deep beneath the surface that he’d never see the sunlight again. He knows it wasn’t love between them, has never quite been love, but it was something. It still hurts to see the smiles fade. It still hurts to hear the music fade. To know that it’s over.
-
“Have you ever considered going into production?”
Yoongi doesn’t look up from his desk. “Namjoon’s taught me a little, why?”
“I think you’d be pretty good at it.”
“You’re my boss, you have to say that.”
“Believe me, I don’t. Would you consider it? If you’re even half the producer you are composer then you’ll make us a fortune.”
"What would it add to my workload?"
“Not too much,” his boss replies. His song changes, warbles slightly, the sign of a nervous lie. Yoongi’s too tired to care.
“Sure,” he says, because agreeing is the easiest route.
His boss claps his hands. “Great! Would you like to get started tonight? I have some people available that can start walking you through everything, if you’re ready.”
“My shift ends at seven.”
“Ah, well they won’t be available until nine.”
How many songs has he written in the past week? He’s submitted ten, but how many are pinned to the walls of his apartment, too private to be handed in, unfinished and raw and painful? How many hours has he slept?
“Okay, I’ll stay. How long will it take?”
His boss laughs. “Does it matter? It’s an infinitely valuable skill!”
It matters. “I guess not.”
-
He gets home at three, sleeps for four hours, and then gets up to start his eight o’clock morning shift, a fistful of new songs ready to submit.
-
Seokjin’s song has always been the same. Simple and light, but commanding. His song quietens everything else in Yoongi’s mind by mere presence alone, just as his physical presence quietens the world around him as everyone peers close to listen. He’s tall and commanding but kind enough that it comes off as nothing more than size; intimidation and power were only seen when he wanted them to be seen, and even then, only to select people.
But his simple, light song always brought Yoongi a semblance of peace, even if Jin’s words didn’t.
“You’re not eating enough and you’re definitely not sleeping enough.”
“I’m fine, Jin.”
“Do not lie to me, Min Yoongi, I know your fine and I know your exhausted and I know which you are now. Don’t lie to me.”
He sighs and closes his eyes, rests his head against the table between them and just tries to breathe for a while, to bask in that peace that Jin brings. “M’ maybe a little tired.”
After a moment he feels Jin’s hand in his hair, stroking the strands with all the care of a father. “Stupid, get some real rest and you’ll be good as new! And have a proper meal for once, would you? Come over for dinner if you don’t want to make anything yourself, but stop starving yourself because you’re too tired to eat.”
It’s no wonder his song harmonises so well with Namjoon’s; both light and gentle and beautiful, like the men themselves. Both old souls that are too kind for Yoongi, but love him for some reason anyway. “Dinner sounds nice,” he whispers against the table.
“Doesn’t it? I’ll make enough that you can take some home and freeze it.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, just take better care of yourself, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t mind the kids being there, do you?”
“The kids?”
-
Oh. The kids.
Kim Taehyung, the most jarring and energetic song he’s ever heard. Park Jimin, soft but faster and faster the longer he’s with Taehyung, and then Jeon Jungkook, who sounds like flowers in a summer breeze until he’s feeling competitive, and then it’s all brass. In the same room their sounds mesh and flow like the ebb of a tide, harmonising and competing and making the prettiest sounds, especially when mixed with Jin and Namjoon.
In the presence of their beautiful song, Yoongi falls asleep on the sofa, his stomach full of warm food, ears full of laughter, head full of pretty music. He can hear Namjoon chastising someone distantly, like at the end of a field of cotton, but he sleeps through it. Someone picks up a guitar, plucks at the strings, and someone else fires up mariokart.
Jimin’s song gets closer, and Yoongi feels a blanket against his skin.
“Why is he so tired?”
“He works too hard.”
“Oh man. Everyone needs a rest though, what should we do?”
“You don’t know Yoongi like I do, Jimin. We can’t make him do anything that he doesn’t wanna do; we’re just going to have to wait for the fallout and try to help.”
“Is he okay?”
“For now? Yeah, he is. We’ll have to keep an eye out, though.”
A hand strokes through his hair, feather-light. “That’s what friends are for.”
-
So he works, and works, because that’s what he’s good at, and he’s good at putting everything aside when he’s doing something good.
How are you, Yoongi?
Good.
How’s life?
Good.
You look tired.
Good.
Great.
His own song, the one quieter than everything else in his mind, fades even further, but he doesn’t worry. The one thing he’s not afraid of losing is himself, because he never had himself in the first place.
So he works, and things are good.
-
“My choreographer keeps complaining that your songs are becoming harder and harder to work with,” one of his singers says as she spins in Yoongi’s office chair. He’s just trying to stay awake long enough to nod along, until she says, way too casually, “He’s quit, Yoongi.”
“He’s quit?” That wakes him up.
“He says you’re being deliberately difficult.”
“Nice. You know that’s a sack of shit, right? I write you songs that suit you.”
“I know that,” she says, with a genuine smile. Her sounds are forest campfires and secretive kisses behind a canopy of emerald leaves, and if some dude can’t dance to that, then it isn’t Yoongi’s problem. “We’ve got a new guy, an old friend of Seokjin’s, apparently. I’m giving him a tour today, mind if we stick our heads into your office and say hey?”
“Knock yourselves out. Good luck with the dancing.”
-
He’s asleep at his mixing desk when they come in, so he misses the introduction and takes her word that he’s a friendly guy. Even in his dreams Yoongi can feel the guy’s song buzzing at the edge of his subconscious, and it sounds nice. Strange, but nice. He takes her word for it and writes the unfamiliar song, putting it in his draw of songs that he refuses to release.
-
“How are you sleeping?” Namjoon asks over lunch. “You have bags under your eyes bigger than the suitcases Jin takes on holiday, and I’m telling you that out of concern, because he packs enough to see us both through the winter.”
“I’m doing okay,” Yoongi says automatically. He’s here for his soup and his friend, not to moan about his life. “How’s the apartment going? Enjoying couple life?”
Namjoon smiles and lowers his eyes to the table, content in the moment as his song echoes Jin’s, thinking of him. “It’s going well, really well. We work together and it suits us.”
“Of course it does,” Yoongi agrees mildly. “You were practically made to give each other happiness.”
“Yeah? How’d you know that?”
“Your songs match.”
Namjoon shakes his head, a wry smile gracing the corner of his lips. “I wish I understood how you know the things that you do, but I’m not gonna question it. Come over for dinner again tonight? The kids have been missing you. Taehyung got promoted at the school and he’s really excited, he wants to celebrate.”
“I’m kind of tired,” Yoongi says, trying not to feel the weight of disappointment he’s projecting onto himself. “I don’t know if I’m up to partying.”
Namjoon shakes his head earnestly. “He’s already done the partying bit; tonight is just a meal and a movie. We know how hard you work, we wouldn’t expect you to stay out all night. We just miss you, is all.”
How can he say no to that? “Okay, sure. Want me to bring anything?”
“Nah, we’ve got it covered. See you at nine?”
-
He brings Taehyung a ‘Congratulations on your success!’ card and a box of chocolates, and then falls asleep minutes into the movie, sandwiched between Namjoon and Jungkook, each holding one of his hands. He feels it more than realises it when Jungkook falls asleep too, the thud of his head hitting Yoongi’s shoulder, his song settling into the quiet hums of dreams.
He always sleeps better when he’s surrounded by the music of people he loves.
-
Loneliness is a strange feeling that varies over time.
Life is easy to live when you’re deep in denial, but then you’ll be brushing your teeth during an inherently average morning and it will hit you, so hard that your knees bend with the force of the blow, the air gone from your lungs as you realise that there’s just you.
Then, other times, you’re sat with friends, the people that care about you, the people you care about, and it lingers at the edge of your happy thoughts like a malevolent fog, waiting for the moment that conversation slows or everyone pauses to sigh and enjoy the moment. Waiting for the right time to creep forward and remind you that without these friends you are alone.
Yoongi can deal with that loneliness, because he knows that everyone feels it. There’s not a person in the world that isn’t plagued by the unease of self depreciation, and he makes sure that he uses his work to send the message that it’s okay to feel alone, that it isn’t necessary but sometimes despite your best efforts it does happen, that music can keep you company and remind you of yourself even when the people you love can’t. A reminder, he hopes, that there’s always going to be something out there with the potential to make you infinitely happy.
“This song is beautiful, Yoongi,” his boss says over coffee. “A number one, I can already tell. Beautiful, really beautiful. Mournful, too.”
“It’s not meant to be mournful,” he mumbles, so exhausted that he can barely pry his eyelids open. The song had been torturing his dreams for weeks, keeping him awake despite his efforts to rest. “It’s meant to be happy.”
His boss laughs incredulously. “I’m beginning to think that you don’t know what happiness is.”
-
“Hoseok is doing really well.”
“Who?”
“My new choreographer, silly. I’ve been talking about him for weeks!”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m just-“
“Tired, I know.” Suran leans over and squeezes his hand. “You’re permemantly tired, Yoongi, and I love your music, but you have to give yourself a break too. Leave your office for a while, wont you?”
“Sure,” he agrees, with no intention to do so.
She can recognise his lies, and squeezes his hand again, this time a warning. “Come to the studio with me tomorrow, have the day off and watch me dance. Tell me I look pretty, sing well and dance like an angel. That’s what good friends do.”
“I can do that from my office.”
“But you’re gonna do it from the dance studio, aren’t you?”
Her song sings of certainty.
“Yeah, looks like I am.”
-
The day he goes to the studio is a cold one, and he takes a long time in his small apartment to bring whatever he could possibly need. A big, puffy coat. Two scarves, a pair of knitted gloves, and a hat with a pompom that Taehyung had glued to the top. A spare notebook and a handful of pens, and a flask of coffee. He eats his toast on the way, steaming the cold air with his hot breath in the pale smoke of a late dawn in winter.
Inside the studio building the air is warm and welcoming, the lights a bright yellow against pale walls. Music is playing from a distant room, the rhythmic thud of footsteps echoes the beat, and Yoongi follows the sounds, like he always has.
There’s only one person in the studio itself, and Yoongi recognises that unfamiliar song.
“Hey there, you must be Yoongi,” he says, combing a hand through his hair. His long sleeved shirt is baggy, his shorts too, but it does nothing to hide his dancer’s body, the lithe twining of muscles, the sheen of sweet on his angled face, or the intensity of his sharp eyes. He smiles, ever so slightly. “You look much more awake than the last time I saw you. I’m Hoseok, by the way.”
Yoongi’s finger’s itch, because damn it he got the song wrong. It sounds different today, and he needs to rewrite it. “Yeah, hi. Sorry about last time.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says, and scrubs another hand through his pale hair. He sounds like pulses of light behind Yoongi’s eyelids. “Suran should be here soon, you’re here for her, right?”
“Yep.”
The small smile widens. “You can set up in the corner and get comfortable, then. Must be a pretty good friend to venture out at six in the morning in winter to watch her dance.”
Yoongi shrugs uncomfortably and settles into the corner as instructed. He’ll wait until Suran is around before he starts rewriting the song, or it would be rude, right? “I don’t sleep much anyway, it’s cool.”
“Insomnia?”
“Something like that.”
Hoseok cocks his head curiously, but Suran saves Yoongi from the probably uncomfortable questioning as she rushes in, three coffees juggled between her hands. “Hey guys! Yoongi, I’m so glad you came!”
He spreads his hands benevolently. “You ask, I deliver.”
She laughs and passes him a coffee. “Yes, you truly are a saint. Ready to watch me work?”
“I was born ready.”
But there’s something niggling at the back of his mind, something not quite right, a little odd, like furniture moved a couple of inches to the left.
Hoseok’s song has changed again, back to how it was before. The song when Yoongi had arrived has faded as if it never was.
-
Embarrassingly, two coffees down, Yoongi falls asleep huddled in the corner at sometime around nine, that unfamiliar song and Suran’s forest calm lulling him into a shallow peace.
He’s shaken awake by a big hand. “Hey, Yoongi. Dude, wake up.”
The song is different again. Yoongi groans and blinks open his eyes and sees that once more he’s alone with Hoseok. “Where’s Suran?”
“She had to go to the studio, but was worried about waking you up, so I said I’d get you up when I have to go.”
“Huh?” He grinds the heel of his palms into his eyes and blinks up tiredly. “What time is it?”
“Three.”
“Three?” He shoots up, but then quickly slumps back. “Fuck.”
Hoseok laughs slightly. “Yeah, you must have needed it. Listen, I’m not trying to insinuate anything, but if you’re having trouble sleeping you know that the best cure is exercise, right? A tired body means a tired mind.”
Yoongi snorts. “I tried running, but I fainted.”
Hoseok’s ass hits the floor with a thud. He sits back, crossing his arms, pouting and concentrating on Yoongi in a way that is uncomfortably comfortable. “You need something gentler then. Have you tried yoga or pilates?”
“Did it with Namjoon once, but I fell asleep on the mat and the instructor got mad.”
Hoseok laughs, though he tries valiantly to hide it. “Oh dear.”
“It’s cool, I’m good.”
Skepticism. “Yeah? You don’t look good.”
“Wow, okay. Thanks very much.”
Hoseok smiles widely, his straight teeth glinting in the warm light. “You ever tried dancing, tired man?”
Yoongi laughs incredulously. “Do I look like I dance?”
“You look like a man that needs to tire himself out so that he sleeps.”
“Sex works just fine, thanks,” Yoongi says, and then thinks, why the fuck did I say that?
Hoseok shrugs and stands, offering a hand to help Yoongi up. “If sex works, you haven’t been getting any good fucks recently, have you? If you’re not sleeping, come to the studio at six and I’ll take you through some beginner’s dances. Try it, and if it doesn’t work then you’re no worse off than before.”
Hoseok’s hand isn’t actually that big. It’s smaller than Yoongi’s by a little, but the palm is wider, the calluses in different places, and he has such a big presence that it takes Yoongi a moment to realise that Hoseok isn’t tall at all. Yeah, he’s taller than Yoongi, but most people are, Jimin being the exception. Taehyung would snigger and call it big dick energy, but honestly Yoongi isn’t sure what it is. Hoseok is just a lot, from his wide palms to his wide thighs and his wider smile.
“Okay,” Yoongi agrees reluctantly. “I’ll try dancing.”
Hoseok’s hand tightens around his. “Great. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
-
He was lied to.
“What part of I hate yoga don’t you understand?” Yoongi groans as he fails yet again to touch his toes. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need it at all, just like he doesn’t need Hoseok once again failing to hide his laughter somewhere behind Yoongi’s struggling form.
“This is just stretching, we can’t dance without stretching.”
“Well congratulations, I hate it.” Yoongi touches his toes, finally, and then flops back to the floor. He’s already exhausted, and he’s barely started moving. The reminder of how unfit he is aches unpleasantly, but not as much as his legs ache. “I hate this and I hate you.”
“Don’t say that, I have so much to offer!”
“Can we dance now?”
“Soon. A couple more stretches first, yeah?”
Hosoek isn’t even sweating. His face isn’t red like Yoongi’s, and he isn’t breathing harshly. He looks alert and painfully okay with being awake and active at six a.m. which does nothing but fuel Yoongi’s righteous anger. “A couple more stretches and I’ll be dead.”
Hoseok’s song sings with humour, and Yoongi still hasn’t written down this unusual tune, because as soon as he’s out of Hoseok’s presence he forgets it entirely. It keeps him awake as much as everything else, taunting him with uncertainty.
“You won’t die, Yoongi, but I’m telling you that you’ll sleep well.”
-
Hoseok looks so hopeful the following morning, that when he asks, “So? How did you sleep?” Yoongi doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.
“I slept better, thanks.”
And god, Hoseok lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. “Great! Oh that’s such good news! Are you ready to start some real dancing today?”
Yoongi’s running on maybe forty minutes of sleep and three coffees, but he’s determined to remember Hoseok’s song this time. It has nothing to do with the way Hoseok has no personal space and touches Yoongi’s waist to position him like he has the right to touch him, or the way he giggles when Yoongi trips, completely unrepentant in teasing his elder.
Hoseok flicks on his ancient stereo system, and one of Yoongi’s older songs plays, hauntingly familiar, the voice of an old ghost. “Ready?”
He’s close to collapse today, but Hoseok holds out his hand expectantly. Yoongi swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”
-
Jin cooks him dinner during his second week of dance lessons, and throws into the mundane conversation, “Hoseok is single, you know.”
Yoongi wakes from his light doze. “I didn’t ask.”
“But I’m telling.”
“Why?”
“Because next weekend he’s joining our family night and I wanted you to know in advance that he’s single.”
“You’re a bad judge of single, considering you cried after Namjoon for almost a year because you thought he was dating me,” Yoongi says sourly. He deserves the wet dishcloth that Jin throws at him, so he doesn’t fight it. He just sits and accepts his soggy fate.
“Any outsider would have assumed the two of you were dating by the way you acted around each other. Do you know how many times I saw him carrying you home from parties? I thought you were fucked out, not sleepy!”
But even then, before Yoongi had met Jin, he’d known that Namjoon’s song wasn’t meant for him. It sang for someone else, and that someone was Jin, the upperclassman studying psychology, who’d been so goddamn beautiful that the whole campus would watch him as he watched Namjoon with a shameless longing that was agony to see for its raw pain.
“Well, I never fucked him.”
“Oh I know,” Jin says with certainty. “When we first started dating I asked him, because I was insecure and kind of an asshole.”
Yoongi can only imagine the torture of that conversation for Namjoon, and the thought makes him laugh. A lot.
“But like I said, Hoseok is single.”
He stops laughing.
-
Hoseok teaches him all kinds of dances. Yoongi can’t pretend to remember their names or understand their historical significance, because he isn’t a dancer at heart, he’s a writer, a producer, a musician. But he comes to understand certain things through Hoseok’s careful teaching, like the way to twist your hips as you spin, or the steps of a particularly fast waltz. Yoongi learns how to laugh when he trips over his own feet, or worse, trips over Hoseok’s, and he learns how to forgive himself for making mistakes.
He enjoys every morning and sleeps soundly though his lunch breaks at work, dead to the world with his face wedged into small spaces on his mixing desk.
Hoseok teaches him a lot of things about dancing, but more about his own body, about how it needs the routine, the exercise, the fun. Yoongi laughs more during the mornings than he can remember, and while he dances to the music he’s written, it doesn't feel so much like it's plaguing him, it feels like it’s helping him, like Hoseok is helping him.
-
It’s strange how things change. Hosoek comes to Jin’s dubbed Family Night, and his mysterious fluctuating song harmonises so perfectly with the amalgamation of happy chaos that everyone makes. It’s strange that he teaches Yoongi to exhaust his body in the morning and then in the evening is sat on Jin’s couch with a bowl of popcorn, listening to Jungkook talk about bowling and nodding along. It’s strange that he looks up and smiles when he sees Yoongi. It’s strange that Yoongi smiles back.
“He’s wanted to come to these nights for a while, but Jin was nervous,” Namjoon murmurs one night, weeks into the routine. “We’re glad that you two met outside of us, because Hoseok is more sensitive than he looks, and we were worried he’d get the wrong impression of you.”
Yoongi doesn’t take offence, because people get the wrong impression of him all the time. “He fits in well.”
Namjoon’s smile is fond. “Yeah, he does. He’s a hard worker and a great guy, which are basically the only two requirements. Did Jin tell you he’s single?”
Yoongi scoffs. “Fuck off.”
Namjoon laughs and pulls him close, tucking Yoongi under his arm. Jin looks across from his armchair, eyes and song shining with fondness. So maybe Yoongi could understand why Jin had thought Namjoon and he were dating, but this was just the friendship they’d always had. Jimin flopped down on Yoongi’s other side and snuggled close, rubbing his cold nose against Yoongi’s cheek.
Yoongi makes it through the entire night without falling asleep even once, to everyone’s surprise.
He’s single, Jin mouths as Hoseok leaves to catch the bus with Yoongi.
Yoongi flips him off and tucks his hands in his pockets, and tries not to think about how lonely he’ll feel when the songs of his friend’s are distant from his mind.
After a while of walking in quiet, Hoseok murmurs, “These evenings are such great fun. I’m lucky to have friends like you guys.”
“We’re all lucky,” Yoongi replies, looking up at the stars. The city light blur them, haze them, but they’re still there, he sees them through the pollution.
Hoseok nudges his shoulder. “Maybe we are, but I’m especially lucky, you know?”
“Why’s that?”
But Hoseok doesn’t reply, just shakes his head with a wry smile. His song changes again, back to the private notes that only play when he’s alone with Yoongi.
-
The dancing does help, after a while. Yoongi builds up muscle in his legs, torso, and arms, muscles he frankly never thought he would have, and he finds that he does sleep better. It’s still not perfect, but once he’s asleep, he’s usually asleep until morning, when his alarm reminds him to get up for another lesson. The more he dances, the less the songs haunt him.
-
His boss visits him after three weeks, a frown on his face. “Your work ethic is dropping, Yoongi.”
His stomach sinks. “It isn’t,” he replies. “I’m doing just as much as I’ve always done.”
“No, you’re producing to the same standard, but your output is down. What’s going on?”
“I... I’m just sleeping better.”
The frown deepens. “This isn’t an official chastisement, Yoongi, because you’re an exemplary member of the team. Consider it a warning, won't you? About priorities. I don’t want you getting lazy and thinking that in this kind of industry laziness is acceptable.”
-
Lazy.
He’s used to that title, but never has he been called lazy because of his songs.
-
Hoseok picks up on the second ring. “Yoongi?”
“Yeah. Hey.” He clears his throat, hopes the raw, prickling panic doesn’t make his voice tremor. “Listen, some shits going on at work, so I won’t be able to come to the studio for a while. Sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it; just let me know when you’re ready to continue, okay?”
“Will do.”
-
Routine slips as mania takes over, and Yoongi writes more songs in a week than he’s ever done before. At night, when sleep is torturously evasive, he walks the city streets in a daze, fingers tapping against his legs as he goes, counting beats, seeking rhythm, trying not to think of Hoseok’s two songs, trying not to miss them. Trying not to miss him.
He ignores the messages on his phone, because if he loses this job he loses everything he's spent his life building.
So he writes and he walks.
“Are you coming to family night?” Jimin asks Yoongi in a voicemail. He sounds sad. “It’s been ages and we miss you.”
“Min Yoongi, if you don’t show your face soon I’m going to have to drag you out of your apartment by your hair,” Jin tells him sweetly in another message.
“Hey,” the one from Hoseok says, almost two weeks after the phone call ending Yoongi’s lessons. “Hope you’re doing good, Yoongi. I’m not gonna lie, I miss our morning dances. Is work going well? Let me know.”
-
And then he's clipped by a car one evening while he’s out walking.
It’s nothing too serious, but he hits the pavement with a thud. The car doesnt stop, just blares its horn as it passes, and Yoongi sits where he lands for a while, his hand over the patch on his arm that’s bleeding from impact with the ground.
He’s so tired that he can’t feel any of the pain or shock he knows he should, so he does the one thing he knows he should do when something like this happens, and rings the one person sensible enough to deal with it.
“Hey, Jin. Don’t get worked up or anything, but a car clipped me and I’m a little confused. Can you meet me at the hospital?”
“You were hit by a car? Have you rang an ambulance?”
“No its fine, I’ll just walk, I’m not far.”
“Min Fucking Yoongi if you walk to the hospital I’ll fucking kill you! Ring a goddamn ambulance and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Yoongi is left with the dial tone and the knowledge that if he doesn’t ring an ambulance Jin really will kill him, so he rings an ambulance and sits on the curb. The song at the forefront of his mind sounds suspiciously like irony, for some reason he can’t figure out.
-
The hospital is fairly quiet, but then again, it might just be Yoongi’s hearing playing up. The staff in the ambulance were lovely to him, as sweet as could be, and whatever drug they gave him to numb the pain made him so fucking tired that he passed out on the stretcher and woke up in a bed.
After a few minutes of confused quiet, when even the songs were giving him reprieve, a nurse came in with a stern expression. “You have a serious iron deficiency, young man. Aren’t you getting enough sunlight?”
“Probably not,” he mumbles.
She hums and jots something down. “Well you’ll be glad to know that internally you’re fine, other than some bruising. We’ll keep you for the night to monitor everything, but you escaped with cuts and bruises at worst, so consider yourself very lucky.”
He nods, but he’s asleep again before she turns to leave.
-
Jin’s crying when Yoongi wakes up again, the ugly kind of crying that means he’s definitely not aware that anyone is watching.
Yoongi clicks his tongue. “Hideous. If only Namjoon could see you now.”
Jin looks up with furious red eyes. “Don’t start, don’t you dare start you stupid little creature. You were hit by a fucking car.”
“It clipped me.”
“It hit you! You could have died, Yoongi, don’t you realise how differently this could have turned out? Don’t you care?”
He lifts one heavy hand to pat Jin’s arm. “I’m okay, Jin. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, and you haven’t been fine for a long time.” Jin takes Yoongi’s hand between his own, his grip icy cold with the lingering frost of fear. “You’re a workaholic, depressed, and an insomniac. What part of that sounds fine to you?”
He can’t think of an answer.
Jin makes a weak noise in his throat and swallows a fresh wave of tears. “Joon is outside talking to the doctors. He was too upset to come in; he was scared he’d wake you up. You’re going to stay with us for the next week, no arguments. We’ve already been to your apartment and packed you some bags.”
“Jin-“
“Don’t Jin me. You’re staying with us and we’re making sure that you re-learn how to look after yourself since you clearly can’t remember how to. I’ve spoken to your boss and you go back next Tuesday.”
Panic hits like a brick. “You- you can’t, he’ll-“
Jin makes a disgusted noise in his throat. “He’ll do nothing, Yoongi, because you’re the best fucking worker he has, and he’d bend over backwards to keep you working there. He’ll wait until you’re well and he’ll treat you better and give you a raise and if he doesn’t then he’ll be seeing me, and I promise it won’t go well for him.”
“Okay,” Yoongi agrees meekly. There’s no arguing with Jin.
Jin sniffs, horrifically loud and wet, then wipes his eyes and shakes his head. “Okay! Okay. Crying over, now is the time for action. You stay with us and you take your goddamn vitamins and you start dancing again.”
“Dancing?”
“Dancing. It gave you routine, companionship, and laughter. You’ll start dancing again. I’ll go with you and make an idiot out of myself if you need me to, but you’re going to Hoseok’s studio whether you like it or not.”
He wants to object, but... well. There’s just no arguing with Jin.
-
He’s too sore to move much for the next couple of days, but Namjoon takes the time off work and they sit and watch shit films together and talk about when they were teenagers sharing bowels of ramen in their tiny first apartment. Namjoon brings calm, and Yoongi sleeps more than he has in weeks.
When he feels ready, and Jin knows he’s too ready to continue hiding, he sets off for the dance studio on a grey, rainy morning, and the songs in his head sound a little like dread.
Hoseok is already in the studio, stretching in front of the wall of mirrors. He turns to Yoongi, and for a second there’s the flash of that secret song, but then it goes sharp and painful like panic. “Yoongi,” he breathes, stepping forward. “Yoongi what the fuck?”
And shit, yeah. The bruising. He doesn’t look in the mirror all that often, but he knows it’s all the way up his left side, from his thigh to the bottom of his jaw. “Ah, nothing, an accident.”
“You can’t dance like this.”
“I can. I’ve been resting for too long anyway.”
Hosoek’s hands curl into fists and then loosen. He takes a deep breath and looks away. His song is angry. “I know you’re a private person, and I’m not saying you have to tell me anything, but I won’t fight you on this.”
Yoongi shrugs and takes off his coat. “It’s not me you’ll be fighting, it’s Jin.”
“Oh.” Hoseok swallows. “Maybe just something slow today then. Lots of gentle stretching.”
They both smile.
Yoongi feels more rested than he has in months.
-
“You’re not back at work yet, right?”
“Nope, not until Tuesday.”
“Wanna go for lunch then?”
He’s just spent hours hand in hand with Hoseok waltzing. What’s another hour but sweet torture Yoongi isn’t sure he can survive? “Sure, yeah. Let’s get lunch.”
-
“How have you been sleeping?” Hoseok asks over sandwiches. He got changed after dancing, and despite the family nights together, Yoongi isn’t used to seeing him in clothes not made for performance. His trousers are baggy, his shirt tight, his hair combed. His face is gorgeous, but that’s the same as every other day. Yoongi’s seen Hoseok at six in the morning after a night of drinking, a hangover the size of China in the bags under his eyes, and he was gorgeous then. He’s seen him sick, pausing their training to find the closest trashcan, positively green, and he was gorgeous then. He’s seen him laughing and crying, caught in movement and caught in stillness, unaware and on show.
Yoongi wonders if it’s as obvious to everyone else as it is to Jin that he’s in love with Hoseok and doesn’t know what to do about it.
“I haven’t been sleeping great,” he admits.
Hoseok nods. “You haven’t been dancing, that’s why.”
“I had work to do.”
“You always have work to do, but what’s the point of living a life without fun too? You can’t just work until you die, or what’s the point in living at all?”
“I love what I do,” Yoongi argues, because it’s true. Writing songs, hearing them outside of his own head, it’s the best thing he could hope to do. It brings him a joy he can’t find anywhere else.
Hoseok takes a bite of his sandwich and speaks with his mouth full. “I love dancing, but it doesn’t mean I wanna do it all the time. You’ve gotta have more than one thing in your life. You not in a relationship?”
He feels his mouth twist into something that’s probably not even close to a smile. “No. Last one didn’t go so well.”
“Yeah? They accuse you of putting your job first?”
“Yes.”
“And getting dumped wasn’t a wakeup call?” Yoongi doesn’t even know what that means, but his expression makes Hoseok laugh. “It didn’t make you wanna change?”
“Why should I change for someone else?”
“You shouldn’t, you should change for you,” Hoseok replies, suddenly all too serious. “I can see that you’re not happy, even if you do like your job. You need something else.”
Yoongi wants to be brave and ask with a smirk, you offering? But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. “What do you suggest?”
“Dance,” Hoseok says. “Let dance be your something else.”
Dance. But it isn’t dancing that Yoongi wakes up at five thirty for, no matter what he tells himself. He doubts it ever has been. He wants to know that secret song. “Okay. I’ll try dance.”
“You promise? You’ll stick with it this time?” Hoseok puts his elbow on the table and offers Yoongi his little finger. “You pinky swear?”
“I fucking pinky swear, alright?” he grumbles, linking his little finger. Hoseok’s smile is like the sun, and yeah, Yoongi definitely has an iron deficiency, because he feels like he’s never actually seen the sun before that hopeful smile.
-
His bruises start to fade, and his sleep pattern begins to settle. Whatever Jin had said on the phone to his boss had an impact, as he went back to work and was left undisturbed despite the haltingly slow pace he crawled by with, which again proved the point that you don’t argue with Jin.
Dancing goes well, but it hurts Yoongi to touch Hoseok and hear that song and not to understand it, just like it hurts to see his smile and listen to his laugh. Hoseok brings him energy like little shocks of lightning; they leave him buzzing, but the aftermath is raw.
One day he goes to the studio and finds Taehyung spayed across the floor, Hoseok and Jimin stretching in the corner, and Jungkook trying hopelessly to make Jin and Namjoon touch their toes.
“What the fuck?”
Hoseok grins. “Yoongi! We’re gonna learn a dance together, isn’t that exciting?”
“Hi Yoongi,” Taehyung calls without opening his eyes. “Hobi wants us all to dance together so he dragged me out of bed with no regard for the fact that I was gaming all night. Can you believe it? Who would have thought such a nice looking guy would be so mean.”
“Usually I’d side with you,” Jin grunts to Hoseok, wiggling his fingers as Jungkook shoves on his back, trying to push his arms towards his feet. “But this really is awful.”
“I’ll buy everyone pizza tonight if you can make it through the two hours without any more complaints,” Hoseok offers. He winks at Yoongi. “If Min Yoongi can make it through this every morning, you guys should be fine.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” Yoongi asks, dropping his bags. He doesnt really mind either way, because Hoseok’s smile is nothing short of doting, and the room sings of energy and happiness.
It takes him all of ten minutes to realise that the old studio that smells of sweat and rings of music, this is his happy place, with Hoseok guiding his dance, Jimin off giggling with Taehyung in one corner and Jungkook bullying his hyungs in the other.
“I never thought I’d see the day when you were the most serious about dance in this room,” Hoseok murmurs close to Yoongi’s ear as he spins him. “Guess we’ll leave the routine for another day, hm?”
“Why do we always end up waltzing?” Yoongi asks, because it’s a relevant question.
Hoseok’s hand tightens on his waist. “I don’t know. It just feels natural, right?”
Jin’s scream of indignation saves Yoongi from embarrassing himself. He turns to see Jin on the floor, red in the face, Namjoon and Jungkook bent at the waist from the force of their laughter. Taehyung is almost asleep on Jimin’s shoulder as they scroll through instagram together.
“This all feels pretty natural,” Yoongi eventually says.
That night he doesn’t go walking, he sleeps on the couch between Hoseok and Jimin, his friends around him like a lullaby.
-
“So how does dancing compare to sex?”
Yoongi glares at Jin. “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that.”
“For tiring you out. Is dancing as good as sex?”
“Oh shut up.”
-
He lives his life. He works. He dances. He hears the songs in the hearts of the people he’s near, and he sleeps when he can, if he can. He loves Hoseok, but that becomes part of his routine too. He goes to sleep, he loves Hoseok. He wakes up and walks the midnight streets, and he loves Hoseok. He waltzes in the winter dawn, and he loves Hoseok.
All the songs he writes sound a little bit like Hoseok’s illusive one, but not enough that he can get a solid grasp. Sometimes instead of walking he lays in bed and wonders if the tune is why he’s become so attached to Hoseok, but then the next morning their eyes will meet, and Yoongi will berate himself for ever doubting that he’s entirely in love, because all it takes is a smile from Hoseok and Yoongi feels like he has enough energy to fly, enough peace to sleep for a week.
-
“He’s still single,” Jin says one evening over cocktails. His eyes are a little red, as he’s spent at least half an hour getting emotional about how much he loves Namjoon. “He’s still single Yoongi, but he won’t be forever.”
“I don’t want him to be single forever,” Yoongi replies into his long island iced tea. “I want him to be happy.”
Jin scoffs. “Happy? He’s happy when he’s with you, and there’s only so long you can ask him to wait for you to pull your head out of your ass.”
What do I have to offer? Yoongi wants to ask, but he’s scared of the answer being a resounding, nothing. “You can’t solve all of my problems for me, Jin.”
“Those songs you hear,” Jin says, because they have no secrets, “What do you hear when you listen to Hobi’s?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”
Jin nods like he knows everything. “Then why don’t you ask him?”
“Because I’m scared.”
“Life is meant to be more than surviving, Yoongi,” Jin says, tired and wise beyond his age. “Do you know how scared I was when I asked Namjoon on a date? I was crying. I was so terrified that when he said yes I ran away and locked myself in a bathroom on campus and cried like a baby. He had to leave a letter with my tutor because I hadn’t even given him my number.”
Namjoon had been surprised and delighted when Jin had asked him out, Yoongi could remember. He hadn’t been in love, not yet, not like Jin was, but it hadn’t taken long, a handful of weeks at the most. Maybe less, maybe days. Hours, minutes, seconds. They harmonised like birdsong.
Yoongi sits up, thinking. Hoseok’s song was always so strange when they were alone, so unfamiliar and yet... like it had always been there. Like it was always at the edge of Yoongi’s mind, somehow.
Jin rests his cheek on his hand and smiles indulgently. “You realising yet?”
Yoongi can’t reply, because his heart is in his throat, choking him. Hoseok’s song sounds familiar for a fucking reason. A goddamn fucking reason.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
“He’s working late at the studio tonight,” Jin says. “I’ve already text Namjoon to come and pick me up, so you go on ahead and I’ll see you tomorrow. You know, he knew about the car, he knew about the accident. He was outside the ward with Namjoon, and I think he spent even longer crying than we did. He didn’t come in and see you at all, because he was worried he’d never let you go, and he didn’t want to scare you, he didn’t want to rush you.”
Yoongi wants to cry, he wants to wretch, he wants to scream. He grits his teeth and manages, “I don’t have anything to give him, Jin.”
Jin shakes his head. “I love you, Min Yoongi, but you truly are the stupidest genius I have ever met, even stupider than Joon. He doesn’t want anything from you other than happiness, and that’s exactly what you can give him.”
“Fuck,” he says again, because fuck eloquence. He saves his emotive language for lyrics, leaves the real shit for himself. He’s so fucking in love.
Jin leans over the table and kisses Yoongi’s forehead. “He’s still single, Yoongi.”
-
The last time he ran he fainted, and god, he’s pretty close to it now, but he fucking manages to make it from the bar to the studio, and he must look disgusting. He’s dripping in sweat, wheezing through sad, sad lungs, but Hoseok managed to get him toned enough to run, and that’s more than anyone else had ever managed before.
When Yoongi bursts in, Hoseok isn’t dancing. He’s sat in the middle of the floor with his legs apart and his phone between them, but he isn’t looking at the screen. His head is tipped back, exposing the long line of his neck. Yoongi wants to rest his forehead there. He wants to sleep all the way through the night, knowing he can wake up and Hoseok will be right there next to him.
“Hey,” he says, and Hoseok’s eyes open with a jolt.
“Hi,” he says. Then, “Jesus Yoongi, you look rough. Are you alright?”
“Yeah I’m great,” Yoongi says. For the first time in his entire fucking life he really feels like he might mean it this time. “So, there’s this thing with my brain, right? I hear songs all the time, especially when it comes to people. Everyone has their own song, you know? And it changes with mood and stuff, but it never alters completely.”
“...Okay,” Hoseok says cautiously. He stands up and faces Yoongi, eyes curious. “I feel like this is more serious than I think it is. Is this why you have trouble sleeping?”
“Yeah. And the thing is, you have two songs, and I could never figure out why. You have one song thats really... it’s like...” he makes a vague motion with his hands. “It’s pretty. Its fast and energetic and fun like summer. And you have another song, one that I can never remember right. It’s slower, softer, like spring. Like blooming flowers and warm air and the smell of cut grass and the colour of butterfly wings.”
“Okay,” Hoseok says again, nodding like he’s trying to understand. “Any idea what that means?”
Yoongi runs out of courage. “I, uh.” He clears his throat and hopes he doesn’t cry. “So, I think I found the words to describe your song, finally. I think, uh, I think the first one, the one I hear around strangers and friends is hope.”
Hoseok takes one tiny step closer. “Yeah? And the other one? Does it just play when we’re alone?”
Yoongi’s mouth is fucking dry. “Yeah, just us.”
Hoseok’s hand touches his cheek, soft and a little cool. “What does it sound like?”
“It sounds like my song,” Yoongi says with all of the tight, painful emotion locked in his chest. “It sounds like my happiness.”
Hoseok shakes his head and smiles. “It sounds like our happiness.”
Their first kiss tastes like Yoongi’s sweat and maybe his tears too, and they’re both laughing too much for it to work, but Yoongi doesn’t mind, because there’ll be so many opportunities to have the perfect kiss. For their first go, it’s pretty damn good.