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The door to his studio opened after a brief knock and Yoongi groaned and hid his face in his hands. He knew exactly what his best friend and closest co-worker is going to say, as he came to the same realization just a few minutes prior.
“Hyung. Er, sorry to bother you, but. You do know your newest title track sounds scarily like Baby Shark, right?”
Another groan came from the pile of a mint-haired man at the table and his friend chuckled. As the other sat on the small and (by intention) very uncomfortable sofa, Yoongi finally made himself look up.
“Yeah, I just realized too. Sorry, the damn thing has been playing around in my head for the last three days.”
Namjoon chuckled again. “It’s fine, don’t worry. The second track is really good, so we can substitute well enough. I like the lyrics to that one better anyway.”
Yoongi send him an unimpressed look. “You wrote the lyrics to both of them. How can you like one better than the other?”
“What, can’t I have a favourite child?”
“You have three, I would better think you don’t. Jimin would cry, if he found out.”
Namjoon grinned. “Who’s saying I don’t like Jimin best?”
Yoongi blinked and then put on an exaggerated pout, with an exemplary wobbling lower lip and teary eyes included. “B-but, Appa, does that mean that, that you don’t like Kookie and TaeTae? Please, you have to love Kookie and TaeTae too! Please, Appa!”
Namjoon rolled his eyes and threw the waddle of papers at Yoongi’s head. “Go to hell.”
“Gladly. I have a seat reserved already. Are these the lyrics for Jackson?”
“Yeah.” Namjoon grimaced. “But I’m not really happy with them. He wanted something edgy, which… Well. Take a look for yourself.”
Yoongi sorted through the papers quickly and started to go through the chicken scratch of his best friend. After a while he started to tap his foot against the chair and hum something under his breath. He didn’t even realize, he was doing that, until Namjoon sighed.
“Can you please stop? I get enough of the baby shark shit at home.”
Yoongi stopped and felt his cheeks heat up. “Sorry. I wasn’t kidding when I said I can’t get it out of my head.”
His friend sighed again and got to his feet with a groan. “I’m gonna leave you to it then. I should start getting ready to go anyway, if I want to get Taehyung and Jimin from dance practice on time.”
“Yeah, yeah. Say hi to the little devils for me. I’m gonna text you in the evening if I think of something for these. See you tomorrow.”
“Excuse you, my children are a delight. And maybe try listening to some other earworm that you actually like. If I were your soulmate, I would be pretty close to committing suicide at this point.”
As the doors closed, Yoongi raised his head with dread in his eyes.
“Wait, what do you mean, my soulmate? Namjoon!”
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The Friday after that as well as the following weekend have been hell for Yoongi. His fairly usual bout of insomnia has kicked in and the only thing he could really do was look at Namjoon’s lyrics without really taking them in, read about five hundred and three articles on the internet about soulmate song-sharing and seriously contemplated setting his room on fire. During this, the words “Your Soulmate” bounced around his brain like an ominous prediction of an apocalypse in between the first (and only the first) rhyme of the Baby Shark song. So naturally, when Monday came, he stumbled into the studio around eleven looking like death warmed over.
To his surprise, Namjoon met him in the hallway with extra-large cup of coffee, not looking much better.
Yoongi squinted at the dark circles underneath his friend’s eyes. “What happened to you? You’re usually much more annoyingly chipper.”
Namjoon gave him a look he normally reserved for when Jungkook tried to spice up his coffee with dirt. “Taehyung had nightmares the whole weekend. And the only thing that would calm him down was walking around with him while humming the accursed baby shark song.”
“Oh. I see.”
He got a look of disbelieving disgust. “You don’t see shit. Your eyes look swollen shut. You should just go home, dude. Catch some sleep.”
Yoongi groaned. “I barely made myself get up, don’t make me go through that again.”
Namjoon snorted and headed towards his bigger (and much more guest friendly) office/studio. “Have you had the time to look at the lyrics?”
“Not really. Wanna go over them together?”
“Urgh. Sure. And you should come over for dinner today. Jin decided the boys need something that’s not takeout and is bringing over food. He will be glad to see you’re alive. And the little devils missed you.”
“Excuse you, I thought your children are a delight.”
“Shut up.”
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“Uncle Suga! Uncle Suga!”
Yoongi only just managed to brace himself on the door frame, when two blurs hit his legs at full speed.
“Hey, little devils. How have you been?”
“I got an A for my drawing at school!” The child wrapping himself around his right leg (Yoongi was pretty sure it was Jimin) squealed.
“Mister Hobi told me I’m a great dancer!” Shouted the child trying to climb up his left leg (probably Taehyung).
“Mister Hobi said that to me too!”
“But he told me first!”
“No! He told me first!”
“You lying!”
“Appa!”
And the tears appeared. Great. Namjoon finally came out of the kitchen door, little Jungkook half asleep in his arms.
“Boys. Let uncle Yoongi get settled in. I’m sure uncle Jin could use some help in the kitchen.”
As both of the little boys sullenly headed toward the kitchen (Jimin’s lips still wobbling a little bit at the perceived slight), Namjoon sighed.
“Sorry. They’re still pretty tired and cranky. I will be putting them to sleep right after dinner.”
Yoongi waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Jin-hyung is here already then?” A high-pitched squawk answered his question from the kitchen. “Right.”
Namjoon just chuckled. “Maybe ask the boys to show you their dancing for the showcase? It’s Baby Shark, but it’s pretty cute.”
Yoongi shrugged and internally braced himself. “Sure, why not.”
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A week went by, and Yoongi could finally say the cursed Baby Shark torture was over. He had three days of blissful silence, once or twice visited by some of his favourite Epic High tracks and a few hip hop dance beats. Namjoon’s kids had the Dance showcase, and the tall man spend the next few days gushing about his cute angels and their numerous skills (and how glad he was they didn’t get his dancing skills from him). All of the showcase videos were made on his (shitty) phone where the Baby Shark track was mostly covered by their father’s teary hollering. Life was good.
And then Thursday came. And with it, a new song stuck in his head.
Apparently, there is something called the Gummy bear song. And it’s awful. He actually had to look it up to know it wasn’t just a coincidental extremely obnoxious melody, and the clip might have been what scarred him for life.
It started on said Thursday around three o’clock and played on a loop till late at night. By the morning, he was very close to tearing his hair out. And yet, he couldn’t help humming it, as he passed Namjoon in the corridor.
“Oh, please, not you too!” His friend groaned. Sometimes, Yoongi pitied both of them for being producers and therefore being able to recognize a melody on the first try.
Yoongi blushed. “Sorry. Wait, how do you know that awful song?”
Namjoon looked very close to slamming his head on a nearby wall. “Taehyung and Jimin came home from dance lessons wanting nothing else but to listen to that abomination on repeat for the whole evening. Apparently, another boy brought the CD to the lesson and the whole class liked it so much their next showcase is going to feature that. Their next showcase is in two months. I’m going to die in gummy bear hell.”
Normally, Yoongi would tease his friend for his theatrics, but today a rising sense of foreboding was filling his chest and making it hard to breath.
“Their dance lessons start around three o’clock, right?”
Namjoon send him a weirded-out look, but didn’t otherwise comment on it. “Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“You okay?”
Yoongi was already striding towards his door, trying to desperately push down a panic attack. “Peaches!”
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Yoongi didn’t go to work on Monday, ignoring Namjoon’s concerned calls and answering Jin’s with a cursory text. Jin would come storm his flat otherwise.
The realization, that he just might be the soulmate of a little child was slowly sinking in. According to his thorough (as possible in his current state of mind) research, no documented pair of soulmates had more than ten years between them, and even then, they usually would meet when the younger one is at least around twenty-five. Which means his at least twenty-year old age-difference was a whopping world record. His mother always told him he would be special, he thought with a hysterical laugh.
Once he calmed down a bit (and crashed for twenty hours of sleep after staying awake in a near state of panic for the whole weekend), he concluded it didn’t matter that much. Soulmates were a widely known thing, but not a common one, mostly famous because of romantic literature. Even then, most people with soulmates took it as more of a suggestion rather than an order. It was more like the universe was whispering “Look, that person will be your best friend for life!”, than an ultimatum of getting with that one person or never be happy again. Yoongi knew all that, and never truly expected to have his own soulmate anyway.
It still made him slightly sad. There was a child (maybe even Taehyung or Jimin), that would grow up hearing the same music in their head as Yoongi did.
But they can never know. It wouldn’t be right.
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Yoongi finally dragged himself to work on Thursday, nodding at Namjoon in the corridor and hiding himself in his office with music turned up so high it vibrated in his bones and almost overwhelmed the Gummy bear chanting in his head.
Around lunch, a timid knock sounded on the door. Yoongi couldn’t help but roll his eyes. His friend was predictable. He finally turned down the music (a pause between songs the only reason he even heard Namjoon in the first place) and waited.
The signal was clear enough, and Namjoon poked his head in.
“Hey, you been to lunch yet?” After Yoongi shook his head, Namjoon smiled a bit and opened the door a bit more to show him two plastic boxes full of noodles.
“Jin was here a few hours ago. Threatened me to feed you or else.”
Yoongi felt his lips twitch a bit. His shoulders loosened for a tiniest bit for the first time since Friday. “I guess I’m hungry enough to save you from those no doubt horrific consequences.”
Namjoon sat himself at the horrible old sofa and passed Yoongi his portion along with some chopsticks. They ate in silence for a bit, before Yoongi sighed. He knew what Namjoon wanted to ask about, but was too afraid to in case he would set Yoongi off again.
“I’m okay, by the way. I can’t tell you the reason yet, but I mostly got over it and I will go see my doctor Monday next week. Don’t worry so much.”
He immediately felt both guiltier and better, when he saw the relief wash through his friend.
“You know, you can come to me with anything, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” What a lie. “I will talk about it with my doctor, don’t worry, ok?”
Namjoon finally nodded. “Ok.” He paused for a bit, chewing on a piece of meat. “You want to come over for dinner again? We can pick some food while getting the kids from dance-practice and watch something. Taehyung got into Disney recently, we could watch Mulan.”
Yoongi grinned, momentarily forgetting his current problem. “Let’s get down to business?”
“To defeat the Huns. Exactly. You coming?”
Yoongi got serious again. “I can’t, sorry. It’s… part of it.”
Namjoon looked at him with sad eyes. “Ok. But if you change your mind, there will be pizza waiting with your name on it, ok?”
Yoongi smiled a bit. “Ok. Thanks, Namjoon.”
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Friday came bright and early. At eleven, Yoongi wandered slowly into his office in a surprisingly good mood.
He called his psychiatrist that evening, talking for a few minutes about his problem (and vehemently denying any accusations of overthinking this) and then played Mulan just for the heck of it. It was his and Namjoon’s favourite Disney movie for a reason. His soulmate and he got into a bit of a song fight that night, with his soulmate playing the Gummy bear song while Yoongi pressed the I’ll make a Man Out of You in. Yoongi won, and he felt damn smug about it. He dreamed of fighting during the Hun war and taking down enemies with slippers. It was awesome.
The next day, a day-old pizza waited for him on his desk. Yoongi chuckled. Namjoon was unbelievable.
He ambled the way to his friend’s space around three with a memory stick clutched in his hand. Sure, he could just send the music files through the shared documents like he usually did, but he kinda wanted to see Namjoon’s reaction, when he played the tracks.
He entered the room without knocking and tapped the man on his shoulder, snickering, when he startled and spilled coffee all over his shirt.
“Great, Hyung. Thanks.”
Yoongi put down the memory stick, so it laid in plain sight, but out of the spreading coffee, that Namjoon tried to frantically mop up with paper towels before it shorted his computer out (again). He then sat himself in the armchair, content to wait and watch his friend.
When Namjoon finally dried the last bit of his table and saved everything that could be saved, he sighed exasperatedly and grabbed the stick.
“Hope it was worth it.”
Yoongi shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like the gummy bear song, that’s for sure.”
Namjoon chuckled. “Hope it doesn’t. Taehyung and Jimin spent the whole of yesterday screaming at each other, one singing the Gummy bear song, the other a Disney song and they would switch up every few minutes. It was actually kinda cute. Even Jungkook joined in at the end.”
Yoongi smiled uncomfortably. “Your neighbours must love you.”
“You know they do.” Namjoon grinned and then went silent to put on the track.
Yoongi sighed. He’s going to be fine. He will have to be.
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The next few weeks went by quickly. Yoongi poured himself into his work, feeling greatly vindicated, when one of his tracks got into top 20. He was already planning what to buy with the royalties coming his way.
Namjoon must have had enough of the Gummy bear song and the continuous Disney soundtracks his older boys (to Jungkook’s delight) now insisted on listening on repeat, because his soulmate now sometimes changed up the songs for some dance tracks. The continuous rhythmic beat helped Yoongi concentrate unexpectedly well, and he found himself bobbing his head to silence while adjusting the tracks.
It wasn’t something Namjoon listened to most of the time (his friend usually oscillating between melancholy ballads and hard underground rap), but Yoongi wasn’t complaining. He was now almost certain Taehyung was his soulmate (the coincidence happened far too often), and considering the slightly crazy and erratic way the child sometimes behaved, he was slightly afraid what kind of music he was going to have to listen for the rest of his life. This hip-hop beat was far from something he would even think to complain about.
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“Yah, Hyung!” Namjoon’s holler carried through the entire corridor and stopped Yoongi in the middle of closing his door and locking himself in his office for the afternoon (again).
Yoongi huffed but peeked out to show his friend he was listening. He has been avoiding his dongsaeng quite successfully for the last few days, but it seemed like his luck (and Namjoon’s patience) has run it’s course.
“Hyung, you should finally come over again. Even Jungkookie is asking about you, this is getting crazy.” His friend ran up to the door and now was resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath after the short sprint.
Yoongi grimaced. “I gotta finish something, Namjoon-ah. I’ve just been kinda busy, that’s all.”
The look Namjoon was giving him spoke a lot about what he thought about that excuse. It must have been a desperate situation though. Because his younger (much taller and normally hating on anything resembling cute, that didn’t involve his three children) friend has resorted to pouting. “Please, hyung? I really need somebody to help me outvote the Disney fanclub at home. Last time I played my own music at home, Taehyung started screaming Let It Go over the chorus.”
Yoongi winced at the sudden swell of Honour to Us All in his head and nodded. “Jin isn’t sick of Disney at all?”
Namjoon chuckled. “Oh please. Hyung was the one to show them Frozen in the first place. He’s fully taking advantage of seeing them only once a week. They came home yesterday from Jin’s with Olaf plushies, that play that In Summer song over and over. Seriously, if he wasn’t my beloved older cousin, I would give him a piece of my mind…”
Yoongi found himself indulgently smiling. “Well, you know. At least they sometimes listen to that dancing hip hop mix. That must be a pleasant change. Anyway, sorry Joon-ah. I really can’t this week. Maybe later.”
As he closed his door, he missed the bewildered and suspicious look on his friend’s face.
“Wait, Hyung. Wait! What dancing hip hop mix? Hyung!”
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The weekend before the dreaded Gummy bear recital, Namjoon decided to take all three of his boys on a trip and left Yoongi to the mercy of Kim Seokjin. Their friend was a bit of a force of nature. So, when the tall man, that could easily be a model but chose to cook in a noodle restaurant, pounded on his door on Saturday afternoon, Yoongi let himself get dragged out for a movie mostly willingly.
It was after that, as they sat in a coffee shop and Yoongi was still lowly complaining about the stupidity of the main hero, that Jin send him a hard look. Yoongi knew the real reason for this meeting will come out now.
“You know, Namjoon thinks you think one of his sons is your soulmate. You know that’s bullcrap, right?”
Yoongi choked on nothing. He knew Jin was blunt, but this was a level he didn’t expect even from his hyung.
“How does Namjoon know that?”
Jin looked a little sheepish. As sheepish as somebody by the name of Kim Seokjin can, that is. “Well, that is actually probably my fault. My dear cousin can be as perceptive as a rock, but if you lay the facts out next to each other, even without knowing yourself, he makes the connections fast. So. Is he right? Do you really think that crap is true?”
Yoongi contemplated lying for a few moments, but then gave up with a groan. “What else can it be? The moment Taehyung and Jimin started on the Baby shark band wagon, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Then they moved on to Gummy bears. I had to fight tooth and nail to listen to anything else. And now there’s the whole Disney soundtrack. This is too much to be a coincidence. What other explanation is there?”
“I don’t know. Have you tried a coincidence?”
“I just said-“
“Shut up. Just a non-impromptu question. What have you been listening to for the last few hours?”
Yoongi actually had to think hard. In the last few days, he kinda stopped differentiating that for his own sanity. “Some dance beat? I guess Namjoon put that on for the ride there or something.”
Jin send him a disbelieving look. “Namjoon. Listening to dance music. Really?”
Yoongi shrugged. “What do I know about what Namjoon listens to at home.”
“Yeah, you’re only his best friend, and you spend like ninety percent of your time in each other’s pockets.”
Yoongi only grumbled something under his breath. Jin was kinda right in this, he had to admit that. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember an instance of Namjoon willingly listening to any dance music without dominant rapping parts.
“Besides, we did an experiment. I got the boys a present before their trip, they’ve been listening to old Girl’s Generation and Super Junior CDs for the whole ride. Namjoon texted me a while ago, Jimin is repeating the first chorus of Gee over and over again and Taehyung now decided to be a singer so he can sing Bonamana with his new favourite hyungs. You wouldn’t know, of course, because them being your soulmates is. Absolute. Bullshit.”
Yoongi could only blink dumbly at the avalanche of words that first didn’t make any sense to him. His only thought was if Jin actually took a breath in his tirade. And then the meaning of said tirade finally sank in. And Yoongi breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
“Hyung, are you absolutely sure?”
Jin chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure. There’s no way any of Namjoon’s kids is your soulmate. Soulmates are rare, and we don’t necessarily understand everything about them, but that isn’t possible.”
Yoongi slumped back in his chair, suddenly feeling boneless, like he could fall asleep immediately, but also like he could run a marathon. It felt like a tension he carried the whole of last month finally fell away. Then he sent a bewildered look Jin’s way.
“Wait… But if it’s not Taehyung, then who the hell has been putting the awful songs in my head?”
Jin grinned almost evilly and Yoongi had to fight a shudder. “Me and Namjoon have a theory about that, actually. Why don’t you come to the kid’s recital on Thursday and see if we’re right?”
“Why can’t you just tell me?” No, he wasn’t whining, what are you talking about? “I swear to god, Jin, if my soulmate is a married closeted balding father of four…”
“We’re pretty sure it’s not. And why would I tell you? Where would be the fun in that?”
Yoongi’s groan full of good-natured exasperation and anticipation was followed by a breathy laugh vaguely sounding like a wind-shield wiper.
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The room was surprisingly full of parents. Yoongi thought there were maybe ten kids in the class, but the families almost filled the whole small theatre.
The boys in their bear costumes (that Jin had to sew up after Namjoon almost amputated his arm) were cute at least. So cute in fact, it almost made up for the screaming high pitch of the mother on his right and a quiet proud sobbing of Jin on his left. (Namjoon was going to sob afterwards, when he found out he missed the whole thing when Jungkook needed to urgently go poopoo. You just had to love small kids.)
Also, one huge plus, instead of putting the Gummy bear song on the (frankly awful) sound system of the theatre, the kids sang the whole thing. It was possibly the cutest thing Yoongi ever saw. He was even considering attending the next showcase too.
After the show, the kids (some still in various levels of changing back into normal clothes) poured out, where the teary-eyed parents waited for their little superstars.
Yoongi stood there, uncontrollable smile stretching his face, and was the first little Jimin barrelled into while Taehyung almost took down Namjoon with a rugby player worthy tackle.
“Uncle Suga, you’re here! Did you see? Did you see?”
“Yes, Chim, I saw the whole thing. You both are incredible dancers and singers.”
The answering smile would have made up for the screeching mother all on its own.
At that moment, something weird happened. His head, playing the happy buzz of the children’s version of the song, went weirdly silent. He tore his eyes away from the happily babbling Jimin and quickly looked around. But all he saw were only the parents he spent the last hour in the theatre with.
And then, a booming laugh sounded from behind his right shoulder and Yoongi turned his head.
The guy was gorgeous. He was a little taller, his fluffy hair was dyed an atrocious orange-red colour and his lips looked like a heart when he smiled.
Their eyes met in a moment, that could have easily been an eternity, and Yoongi felt like he could write a symphony. He was going to write a symphony. And it’s going to about this guy’s smile that grew softer and lovelier the longer they looked at each other.
And the guy excused himself from his previous conversation and started to make his way towards their group, Yoongi’s attention was finally focused back on the group he arrived with. Jimin was incessantly tugging on his trousers, a cute pout on his face.
“Uncle Suga, why are you staring at mister Hobi like that?”
Yoongi send a panicked look towards Jin and Namjoon, only to see the duo snickering into their hands. They were going to be no help, apparently.
“Well, Chim, you see…”
“Hi! I’m Jung Hoseok, the dance teacher of these munchkins. I haven’t seen you around here before. Jimin-ah, why don’t you introduce us, hm?”
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Outtake:
Hoseok stayed behind in the dance studio that evening to work on the Gummy bear choreography. He was admittedly a little distraught. He made the first choreo way too hard for a bunch of five-year-olds and had to now work on screwing his head on straight. For the record, since he recently found out that the awfulness of an ear-worm of the Gummy bear song and week before that with the Baby Shark, might not be him going crazy from all the kids’ songs, but actually a back-feeding loop with his possible soulmate, he was kinda off his game. You know, only the most romantic notion in the world might come true for him! Nothing major!
Just as he was really getting into it and thinking up some really cute moves for the kids, a loud rendition of I’ll Make a Man Out of You started to bang around in his head.
He loved Mulan, it might be his favourite Disney movie, but he needed to work on this, damn it!
He gave up after about an hour. He will think of something tomorrow.
He put on the Mulan movie, when he got home too. Just for the heck of it.
He dreamed of being peddled with slippers by a small mint-haired man. It was a really weird dream he luckily forgot before breakfast.