Archive of Our Own ^beta

The rain falls hard, fat droplets falling fast and loud against the cars that line the street, and the uneven sidewalk that Yoongi walks quickly along. All he wants to do is get home. His hair is soaked and it hangs down in his eyes, no matter how many times he keeps pushing it back out of the way. Time for a trim , he thinks absently, pushing his bangs back once more before shoving his hand in the pocket of his hoodie. 

Yoongi curses the fact that he doesn’t have his umbrella. Usually he’s good about remembering it, but he hadn’t expected to be out all night, let alone walking home at five o’clock in the morning through the rain. He could have waited a little bit longer for the buses to start running again, but he couldn’t handle waking up next to a stranger, let alone staying with that stranger and running the risk of him waking up, thus necessitating Yoongi needing to talk to the stranger - and god forbid, actually learn the stranger’s name. No, Yoongi had gotten up, gotten dressed, taken one look at the dark black clouds covering the early morning sky and said fuck it before taking off towards home. He’d made it five minutes before the rain started.

There are a few cars out, people heading to early morning shifts - or perhaps just now heading home like Yoongi was. They just have a little more money than Yoongi does, and can afford a car. Yoongi can barely afford the bus.

A familiar feeling of despondency settles over Yoongi like a thick blanket. It slows his steps, and then Yoongi is walking as slowly as possible. Why bother walking quickly? He’s already soaking wet. Why bother trying to stay dry? He’s more than likely already getting sick. Yoongi thinks about his friends at home, his only family really. Hoseok is a ray of sunshine, beloved by all. Seokjin is the most confident, self-assured person Yoongi had ever met; he can do anything in the world, anything he wanted. Jeongguk is just a baby, he’d only just started his life - he had so much potential. And Namjoon, the genius, the one who is going to lift them from the mud where they’d wallowed for too long. Yoongi has faith in Namjoon. The way he has no faith in himself.

“That’s it, you’re fired .” The words echo through Yoongi’s brain over and over again. They’d been on repeat at the bar, while Yoongi took shot after shot he conned interested men and women into buying for him, while he danced on strangers, while he flirted with the one who took him home. They were on repeat as Yoongi allowed himself to be fucked into that stranger’s mattress, unable to even forget the world like he usually can. He heard those words as he left the stranger’s apartment, and now here he is, standing in the rain. “That’s it, you’re fired.”  

How is he supposed to help take care of his family? Of Hoseok, Seokjin, Jeongguk, and Namjoon? How can he help them buy food and pay rent? He got fired. And for what? For being bad at making coffee? For being tired? Everyone’s tired!

Yoongi doesn’t realize he started crying until the sob builds up in his throat, and he opens his mouth to take a gasping breath, sucking in salty tears as he does. Yoongi stops walking, uncaring that he’s in the middle of the sidewalk, his face in his hands. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, his shoulders gently shaking. The rain is pouring harder now, and when Yoongi lets his hands fall he can barely see the other side of the street through the rain and the gloom. He can, however, see a figure standing on the opposite sidewalk. It’s dark, and Yoongi can’t make out any features through the rain. He guesses, based on stature, and the broadness of the figure’s shoulders, that it’s a man. He stares at the man, who seems to be staring back. Yoongi’s tears still flow freely. His world is shattering, and yet. . . as he stares at the figure across the street, he feels the knot that had become his heart start to loosen, just a little. 

The figure across the street takes a step down off of the curb, into the street. He takes another, and another, closing the distance between them. Yoongi finds himself taking a step, and then another. But then, through the sound of the rain, and the sound of Yoongi’s heart becoming quiet, there is a horn, and a screech of wet brakes and tires as they hydroplane, and Yoongi’s world is lit up bright. For a split second, he sees the face of the man whom he had been approaching - sees the wide-set eyes, and straight, narrow nose, the full lips. His eyes are so beautiful. The lights are heading straight for him, and all Yoongi can think about are those eyes. 

He lurches forward, his hands connecting with those broad shoulders, and with all of his strength he pushes. The horn grows louder, and then Yoongi feels a blinding, unimaginable pain as the car slams into his body. Yoongi sees those eyes grow impossibly wide, and then his world goes black.

Yoongi doesn’t know how long he’s been floating. Everything is black, and he feels like he’s laying on a cloud. It smells like rain. There is a sound, far away. So far that Yoongi can barely hear it. But, as he focuses on it, it gets louder. Someone is singing. The voice is deep, full, and the most beautiful sound Yoongi has ever heard. He wants to open his eyes. He wants to see who is singing, wants to see if it’s the same person who possesses the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. 

Yoongi fights with his heavy eyelids for what feels like an eternity. He can feel his face screwing up in the effort it takes, and the singing stops. It feels like something is ripped from his chest when the singing stops, and he gasps, his eyes finally flying open. He can’t breathe. 

The black is gone, replaced instead with soft creams, and greens. Everything hurts, and Yoongi gasps again, but this time from the pain of it. Yoongi looks around, desperately searching. He looks to his left and sees machines, and a door that’s closed. Then he looks to his right, and there they are. That straight nose, those full lips. Those eyes. Yoongi latches onto those eyes as if he would die if he looks away, and then the man smiles gently, reaching over and placing his hand on Yoongi’s chest, his eyes never leaving Yoongi’s. 

“Sleep. I'll be here.” His voice is deep, and full, and then the singing starts again. Yoongi feels warm, and though he fights as hard as he can to keep his eyes open, he doesn’t prevail. He closes his eyes, and puts all of his remaining energy on holding onto the voice. He slips back into unconsciousness as one might sink under water, but the voice is still there, carrying Yoongi across currents of blackness, and somehow, even unconscious, he knows those eyes will be there, watching over him. 

Yoongi is floating again, but this time he feels like he’s drowning. He tries to move, to open his eyes, but it feels like he’s moving through molasses. Everything is slow, and he is met with resistance on all sides. The music is gone, and Yoongi knows that when he opens his eyes, those beautiful eyes will also be gone. He can feel himself floating back up to the surface, and the closer he gets, the more he feels. It all hurts, every part of him. He surfaces, but doesn’t open his eyes yet. Without his consent, tears form and fall down the sides of his face, getting stuck in his hair. He groans, and it turns into a sob. 

“Oh my god, Yoongi!” someone says, their voice too loud. Then there’s a hand on his cheek, and he finally opens his eyes. It’s Hoseok, his ray of sunshine, looking down at him. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, and his eyes are red rimmed and blood shot. “Oh, Yoongi, you’re awake,” Hoseok says, unable to hold back a sob. He presses their foreheads together. Yoongi squeezes his eyes closed, more tears falling. Hoseok kisses his forehead, and pulls back, his hand moving to rest on Yoongi’s hand. “I have to call the others.”

Yoongi watches him pull out his phone and dial. “Namjoon-ah, Yoongi-hyung’s awake.” Yoongi can faintly hear yelling on the other end. “Okay, see you soon. They’re coming, hyung. We were so worried,” Hoseok’s voice comes out as a whisper, and he sits down next to the bed, his fingers curling around Yoongi’s. Yoongi takes a moment to take stock. He’s sore all over, but he closes his eyes and realizes that there’s a lot of pain in his chest, probably broken ribs. The fingers that Hoseok holds are just sticking out of a thick cast, and his arm hurts. His right leg, too, hurts and when he tries to move it, it won’t budge. “Don’t try to move hyung. You practically broke the whole right side of your body. You were hit by a car.”

Yoongi remembers then, remembers the screeching tires and the horn and the bright headlights. He remembers the rain, and he remembers beautiful eyes.

“Where is he?” Yoongi says. His voice is hoarse, and his throat burns. 

“Who, hyung?”

“The ma-,” he croaks, before his voice gives out and he coughs hard. Searing pain shoots through his chest, and he gasps, more tears falling unbidden. 

“Don’t talk, hyung. Let me get the nurse.”

Two nurses come in a moment later, one older woman, and one younger. The younger goes about her job clinically, but the older woman fawns over Yoongi. “Why hello, sleepy-head. Welcome back to the land of the awake. Aigoo, you must be in a lot of pain.” She shows him a button next to his left hand, the one not encased in a cast, that he can push when his pain gets worse. He pushes it then, and only has to wait a moment before the pain meds mix with his IV drip, and he feels it spread through his veins. He sighs, his eyes drooping, but not closing. He wants to stay awake for a moment longer.

“How long?” he croaks, looking between the old nurse and Hoseok. The latter’s eyebrows draw together in a questioning look, but the nurse merely tuts. 

“You were in a coma, sweetheart, for a week. It was the strangest thing, you were conscious not long after you were brought in, but you were in so much pain. The boy who came in with you started singing to you, and you fell back asleep. Then you just didn’t wake up.”

Yoongi’s drooping eyes fly open. He tries to sit up for a split second before the pain reminds him to stay down. “The boy. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He left after you fell asleep, and I haven’t seen him. Hoseok, here, and your other friends have been by your side since he left, though.” The old nurse pats Hoseok on the head, and he gives her a weary smile. The old nurse leaves, then, and Yoongi looks up at Hoseok. “A week?” he whispers, his voice small. Hoseok nods. “I’m sorry.”

“Hush, you got hit by a car, you don’t need to apologize. The asshole who hit you needs to come forward, and he needs to apologize. And pay for your hospital bill. And restitution. And-”

“Hoseok.” Yoongi’s voice cuts through his escalating tirade. “How the fuck are we going to afford this?”

“Stop. You don’t need to think about that right now. You need to focus on feeling better.”

There’s a loud crashing noise from the hallway, and they both hear someone yell, “Slow down!” And then the room is full. Namjoon, Seokjin, and Jeongguk pile into the small hospital room, and they surround Yoongi’s bed. There’s a chorus of voices, all speaking at the same time. 

“Shut up!” Seokjin’s voice rings out above the cacophony, and Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut, the beginnings of a headache pricking behind his eyes. “Yoongi-ah, we’re so glad you’re okay.” His voice is measured. “When you’re feeling better I would really like to know why you were walking home in the middle of a downpour at five in the morning, but we don’t have to talk about that now.”

“Seokjin-hyung, why did you have to bring that up now?” Hoseok asks, the hint of a whine in his voice.

“Because he’s my responsibility! You all are!” Seokjin’s voice goes up an octave, and Yoongi can tell he’s holding back. “I’m the oldest, I need to take care of you.”

“Hyung, I can take care of myself,” Yoongi says.

“Obviously not!”

“Can we please not fight right now?” Jeongguk’s voice is quiet. He’s standing behind Seokjin and Namjoon, on Yoongi’s left side. They step aside, and Yoongi holds out his hand. Jeongguk takes it and holds on tight. The sliver of composure he’d been holding onto slips away and tears fall down his cheeks. He falls to his knees, clutching Yoongi’s hand against his forehead. “Hyung we thought we were going to lose you.”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Yoongi whispers. “But I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Jeongguk can only nod. 

The others give Jeongguk and Yoongi some space. Hoseok takes the opportunity to go get some food, and Namjoon and Seokjin go to speak to the nurses. A few minutes later, Jeongguk takes a few shuddering breaths, and sits up. He quickly wipes his eyes, and Yoongi reaches up to wipe his own eyes. He gives Jeongguk a gentle smile, and gestures to the empty chair Hoseok had been occupying. Jeongguk collapses into the chair. With the light in front of him now, Yoongi can see the dark circles under his eyes. 

“Guk, have you been sleeping?”

Jeongguk gives him him a sheepish look. “I got a job!” he says, a wide smile pulling across his cheeks, his hands coming up in a half hearted flourish. Yoongi’s heart sinks. Jeongguk must notice, because he sits forward, his face becoming serious. “No, hyung, don’t worry. It’s a graveyard shift, so it doesn’t affect school at all. And I’m not even busy most of the night, so I have plenty of time to do my homework!”

“But when do you sleep, Jeongguk-ah?” The feeling that had settled over him just before his accident is back, that thick despondency that threatens to suffocate him. “Fuck!” he exclaims, his good hand coming up to cover his face. “Go get the others.” Jeongguk stands quickly and goes to the door, but before he can leave the room, Hoseok pulls it open and squawks, nearly dropping the load of food in his arms. Namjoon and Seokjin are right behind him. 

“Oh, perfect, I was just going to get you,” Jeongguk steps aside, letting his hyungs file into the room. They all settle down, Hoseok passing out food - a sandwich for each, and extra bag of chips for Jeongguk. When he tries to refuse them, Yoongi pipes up.

“Just eat them.”

“You’re still growing, you need it more than we do.” 

Jeongguk doesn’t look happy about it, but he takes the bag anyway. Yoongi takes a deep breath, already feeling the effects of his pain meds wearing off, but he’s fine. He wants to have a clear head. “I got fired,” he says, and everyone stops chewing to stare at him. “That’s why I didn’t come home the night before I got hit. I went to a bar and went home with a stranger, and I was heading home before he woke up. That’s when I got hit, I was crossing the street, and the car was hydroplaning and couldn’t stop.” Yoongi thinks about the man he saved. He thinks about telling everyone about him, about feeling like he was being pulled across the street towards him, about pushing him out of the way of the car. But he bites his tongue. They’ll think I’m fucking insane, getting hit for a stranger . . . “I’m sorry I didn’t come straight home, and I’m sorry I got fired. I’m a fucking failure.” Yoongi swallows hard, trying not to let the tears start flowing again. He’s done with crying. He latches onto the pain in his ribs, willing that to calm him down. 

Namjoon sits on the edge of his bed, and rests his hand gently on his stomach. Yoongi can see the concern in his eyes, and he stares deep into them, willing everything to be okay. “It’s going to be fine.” His voice is firm, and when Yoongi opens his mouth to object, Namjoon holds up his hand. “It will. We’ll figure it out. Hobi is looking for a job, so am I, Seokjin took an extra shift, and Jeongguk found his job. I know, I don’t like it either, but there’s no stopping him. Believe me, we all tried to talk him out of it.”

“How are you going to write the mixtape of the year if you’re constantly busy at work?” Yoongi says, feeling petulant. 

“I could ask you the same question. Maybe it’s time to let you have a break? We’re going to be okay.” 

“I talked to my boss, and he said that I can take home any leftover food at the end of the night, so we’re set food-wise,” Seokjin says.

“I may have a gig teaching dance to little kids, I need to talk to the lady who runs the hagwon, but she mentioned wanting another hip-hop teacher.” They all look at Hoseok, and Yoongi guesses this is news to them as well. “What?” he laughs. “I called yesterday after you all left. I told her about my experience, and she sounded interested. I’ll go by there tomorrow and formally introduce myself, I’m sure she’ll give me a job. See, Yoongi? We’ll be okay.”

“Where the hell was all this luck before I got hit by a car?” Yoongi grumbles. “I guess if that’s what it took, I’m glad it was me and not one of you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Seokjin says, his mouth full of sandwich. “If anything you’re the worst one this could have happened to, you’re the smallest. The whole right side of your body is broken, and you were in a coma for a fucking week, Yoongi. I swear to go-” 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Yoongi says, cutting his friend off. Seokjin takes a deep breath.

“You know how much I hate it when you talk yourself down like that.”

“We all do,” Jeongguk cuts in. Yoongi glances at Hoseok and Namjoon, who are both nodding. Yoongi feels close to tears again, but he blames it on the pain that’s now rapidly getting worse. 

As if she can sense it, the older nurse from earlier comes sweeping into the room. “Alright boys, Yoongi-ssi needs his rest. You can come back in the morning.” They all groan, pleading to be allowed to stay, but she holds her ground. For that Yoongi’s a little grateful. 

Seokjin’s the first to say goodbye, and he pushes Yoongi’s black bangs off of his face and kisses his forehead. The others think it’s funny to copy him, and Yoongi’s too tired to complain. Soon they’re gone, and despite how exhausted he is, and how ready he was to be alone just a moment ago, he misses them already.

“You have some amazing friends,” the older nurse says. She adjusts the position of his leg, placing another pillow under the cast to elevate it. He hisses as she moves it and she tuts at him. “Don’t be afraid of the button,” she says, indicating the button to deliver more pain meds. 

“I’m fine,” he grumbles, but presses the button anyway when he glances up and sees the glare she’s giving him. Once he does she smiles.

“Good boy.”

“How often were they here?” 

“There was always someone here. The poor boy who came in with you didn’t leave until we’d contacted your friends, and one of them was definitely on the way.”

“Did he leave a name? Or a phone number? Anything?” Yoongi asks, his voice quiet. He tries to keep the hope out of his tone, but it’s hard. For a split second, he wonders at her choice of words - poor boy - but then figures she just meant someone who had to witness another person getting hit by a car, which he assumes is a traumatic experience. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, he didn’t.” She pats his head, and wishes him a good night. Yoongi doesn’t want to sleep anymore - he’s been sleeping for a week, apparently. But as the drugs take effect, and the pain starts ebbing away, Yoongi can feel himself sinking down, down, down. Back into the inky blackness he’d been floating in. 

Except this time he keeps falling. Gradually the blackness around him turns a deep blue, and then lighter, until all around him was a light blue sky. He falls and falls until he lands softly. Surrounding him, tickling his neck and ears is grass. He turns his head from side to side, taking in the flowers and trees around him. He isn’t in pain, and he can feel that his casts are gone. 

Yoongi sits up, and looks around again. He’s in a meadow, pink and purple and blue flowers surrounding him, and the light shines down, warming Yoongi’s skin. He looks at the ground and sees mushrooms, poking out through the grass here and there. There’s moss covering the trees. The air is clean and fresh. 

“Where am I?” Yoongi whispers. There’s no answer. He feels tired, so he decides to lay back down. All around him is quiet, but the harder Yoongi listens, the more he can hear the faint strains of a song. He forces everything else out of his mind, the wind gently rustling the trees, and the grass swaying back and forth, and focuses on that song. It’s the same song the man he saved sang to him. Yoongi’s eyes fall closed, and he listens to the melody. It’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. Yoongi listens for what feels like hours. Eventually, the song tapers off, and stops. Yoongi sits up, his eyes flying open at the sudden silence. It seems like even the wind stops. 

Sitting directly in front of Yoongi, maybe two feet away, is him. He’s wearing a soft-looking white sweater. His blond hair is long, almost covering his eyes, and just brushing his collar in the back. Yoongi looks into his eyes and it’s like his heart stops. His eyes are golden. He’s beautiful. 

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice, though a whisper, sounds unnaturally loud in the quiet of the meadow. Gold Eyes smiles slowly.

“It is wonderful to hear your voice,” he says, his own voice deep and smooth, like honey. “My name is Taehyung.”

“Taehyung,” Yoongi whispers, feeling it out on his tongue, and finding it to be good. “I’m Yoongi.”

“I know.”

“Where are we?”

“Your dream.”

“Am I still in the hospital?”

“Yes.” 

Yoongi never wants Taehyung to stop talking. “It’s beautiful here. Where are we?”

“In your mind, and in mine. We could go wherever you want, but I thought it would be easiest to meet you here. Yoongi, you saved my life.” Taehyung’s voice turns reverent. “You put yourself in my place, and I owe you my life.” Taehyung smiles again. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Yoongi says, looking away, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. Taehyung’s eyes are intense, and Yoongi is sure he’s looking directly into his soul. 

“I do.” Taehyung’s smile falters slightly, and he reaches forward until his hand rests on Yoongi’s knee. “I do. You are the reason I am still alive. And you paid dearly for it. For that, I am yours.”

Yoongi doesn’t know what to say. His mouth falls open, and he stares deep into Taehyung’s eyes. He sees sincerity in them, and love, and gratitude. Taehyung smiles, and Yoongi feels the corners of his own mouth pulling up. There was a sound from somewhere in the air them, a soft voice, and Taehyung’s smile fell. He turned, though his hand never left Yoongi’s knee. Yoongi looked as well, but he saw nothing but trees and flowers and mushrooms. Taehyung turned back around, and his eyes were sad. Yoongi never wanted him to be sad.

“I have to go,” he says, mournfully. “But I will see you again.”

“How do I get back here?”

“Think of me before you sleep, I’ll find you.”

Taehyung stands, and Yoongi watches him turn and walk away. He steps past the first tree on the edge of the meadow, and turns, giving Yoongi a wave, and one last smile, before disappearing. Yoongi could cried. He feels like something’s missing. There are no sounds in the clearing, no wind, no music. Nothing but the sound of Yoongi’s own heartbeat. 

Then he’s flying, up, up, up, back into the sky where it turns darker and darker into the inky blackness. Yoongi opens his eyes with a gasp. He feels something drip onto his ear, and when he reaches up to feel he realizes that he’s crying. He quickly wipes away his tears before anyone can notice, but he’s alone in the room. It’s still dark outside. The clock on the wall reads 4 o’clock exactly. He tries to stay awake, to think about what just happened, what he saw and heard. But he can feel himself drifting off again, and he thinks of Taehyung, hoping desperately that he’ll once again find himself in the clearing.

But when he wakes again it’s to the sun’s rising, making the dark hospital room a little lighter through the opaque curtains. “I guess he was still busy,” Yoongi whispers to himself before sighing. He realized then that he was ravenously hungry. Next to the pain medication button there’s a button to alert the nurses that he needs something. He pushes it, hoping that the old nurse from the night before would come in, but when the door opens it’s a different nurse. 

“Good morning, Yoongi-ssi. How are you feeling today?” She comes in and opens the curtains, and light streams in. Yoongi hisses, quickly shutting his eyes against the onslaught. “How’s your pain?”

“Not too bad,” he says, slowly opening his eyes. “How much longer do I have to stay in here? And can we please take the catheter out?” The nurse laughs softly. 

“Yes, we can lose the catheter. The doctor will come in in just a little while to talk to you about what happened, and what you need to do to make sure that you finish healing properly. I don’t want to speak for him, but I’m going to guess you’ll be able to go home in a few days, so long as you rest properly.” 

“Thank god,” he mutters. The nurse removes his catheter - which is probably the strangest feeling Yoongi has ever experienced - and he feels free again. 

“Just make sure you have help when you try to go to the bathroom.”

“When do visiting hours start?”

“They started a little while ago, your friends are here. I just wanted to give you a chance to wake up properly before letting them attack you.” Yoongi smiles, thinking about how much hell his friends must be giving the hospital staff. 

“Have they been here a lot? While I was unconscious.”

“They rarely left. There was almost always at least one here. They’ve practically been living in the waiting room downstairs.”

“Can you get them, please?”

“Sure thing, dear.” The nurse leaves, and soon Yoongi hears the tell-tale sound of a veritable hoard of feet pounding down the hallway before his room is once again full. 

“You guys gotta go home, you know,” he says, smiling at the sight of them nonetheless.

“We will, when you go home.” Hoseok once again claimes the chair in the room. Namjoon sits on the table by the window, Seokjin next to him. Jeongguk climbs onto the bed beside him, forcing Yoongi to pull his good leg up, his foot flat on the bed. He brandishes a sharpie marker. 

“Can I draw on your cast?” he asks, giving Yoongi his best smile. “Please, please, please, hyung?” 

“Don’t you have homework to do? If you lose your scholarship and have to drop out because I got hit by a fucking car I’m going to kill you.”

“Don’t worry, hyung, I did it at work last night. Come on, please may I draw on your cast hyung-nim?” He bats his eyelashes, and Yoongi sighs. 

“Fine. Do not draw anything lewd. I’m going to need to find some kind of job after I get out of here.”

“I’m going to draw one big dick, right on the front,” Jeongguk says, sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth and getting to work. If it wouldn’t disrupt his design, Yoongi would kick him with his good foot. 

“Yoongi-hyung, I was serious about you taking a break last night. It’s your turn to focus on your art. I had my turn, Hoseok had his turn. Now it’s yours.”

“Namjoon-ah I cannot just do nothing.”

Hoseok jumps in, his brows drawn together. “Yes, you can. You’re exhausted all the time. You got fired from both of your jobs because you were burning the candle at both ends.”

“Thanks for reminding me I got fired twice in one week.” Yoongi’s voice is wry.

“Yeah, well apparently someone has to,” Seokjin says. “They’re both right, you’re going to end up in the hospital at this rate. Oh wait!” he yells.

“I’m not in here because I overworked myself! I got hit by a car, it had nothing to do with that.”

“Yes, you are!” Seokjin’s voice is loud, but no one asks him to be quiet. Yoongi’s seen this side of Seokjin only once before. Just after Jeongguk graduated from high school. He decided - after applying, getting in, and getting a scholarship - that he didn’t want to go to college. He wanted to get a job and work to help support his hyungs. Seokjin was livid, and their fight lasted for nearly two weeks. He was stubborn, and when he believed something there was nothing anyone could say to sway him. Seokjin - and the others - wanted Jeongguk to go to college, to learn and make something of himself. Something Yoongi hadn’t done, nor had Hoseok, or Namjoon. Seokjin had one year of culinary school under his belt, but couldn’t finish because he couldn’t afford it. 

“I am not letting my inability to provide for you hinder your college education,” Seokjin told him. “They are giving you a full ride because you’re so talented, over my dead body are you giving that away. We will be fine, we don’t need you to get a job. We need you to go to school.” Jeongguk relented after that. And Yoongi can feel himself relenting now.

“You were working two jobs, not sleeping, not eating, writing in all your free time. It’s your turn to rest. You got hit by a fucking car , Yoongi. Please. For my sanity. Take a break.”

“I agree,” Jeongguk pipes up, his voice quiet. Namjoon and Hoseok speak out their agreement as well. Yoongi lets his head fall back, and stares at the ceiling for a long while. He doesn’t want to take a break. He wants to have time to write, sure, but how can he eat their food knowing he didn’t contribute to its purchase? How can he sleep under their roof knowing he couldn’t help pay the rent?

“I can’t be a freeloader,” he whispers.

“You’re not a freeloader,” Seokjin says, and it’s then that Yoongi hears the anguish he’s trying to disguise as passion. “You’re family. And you almost died. Please, Yoongi-ah.” 

“Okay,” Yoongi says, unable to handle seeing the tears in Seokjin’s eyes. “Okay, fine, I’ll take a break.” There’s a collective release of pent up breath in the room, and the air feels lighter. “I will rest until I finish my mixtape, and then I’m going to find a job.”

“That’s fine,” Seokjin says, laughing softly. “That’s all I ask.”

Yoongi’s released from the hospital three days later. He’s given a crutch to walk with, but instructed to stay immobile as much as possible. He’ll have to come back to the doctor in three weeks to have his arm and leg checked. He learned after that first day awake that he broke both his radius and his ulna in three places, and his tibia and fibula in two places. His wrist was also fractured, as well as four ribs on his right side. He has a concussion, and is told to limit screen use as much as possible. He’s lucky to be alive, the doctor told him. 

As they drive home in Seokjin’s beat up, old car, Yoongi’s leg propped up on the center console, Yoongi can’t stop thinking about those words. “You’re lucky to be alive ,” the doctor said. “You are the reason I’m still alive,” Taehyung said. Yoongi can still see the fervent look in Taehyung’s golden eyes as he said those words. 

Why am I not dead? he asks himself. I’m lucky to be alive, and yet I’m able to leave the hospital three days after waking up from a week-long coma?

And another thing bothers him. Before he was discharged, Yoongi asked the old nurse when someone from billing would come talk to him. He has no insurance, maybe they would let him set up a payment plan?

“Sweetheart, it’s taken care of. An anonymous donation. You’re all settled, and ready to go home,” she said sweetly, patting his shoulder.

“Who the fuck paid my medical bills?” Yoongi asks. The car is quiet, the radio broken for two years now, and they never had enough extra money laying around to fix it. Even if they had, the car radio probably wouldn’t have been their first choice to spend it on, anyway. 

“Why are you asking that like one of us pulled a couple million won out of our asses to pay for you to be in the hospital for a week and a half?” Hoseok asks from the front seat. He pokes Yoongi’s big toe. 

“The nurse said an ‘anonymous donor’ did it. Maybe it was the guy who hit you. Maybe he felt bad,” Namjoon says. 

“He should feel bad.” Seokjin turns the car, and then stops. They’re home. 

They live on the top floor, in a small two bedroom apartment in a run down building, in a poor area of town. It’s all they could afford, but somehow they make it work, even with five guys sharing one bathroom. Jeongguk and Hoseok carry Yoongi up the stairs, Seokjin and Namjoon following close behind, ready to catch them should they fall, and then he’s finally, finally , sitting on the couch. Yoongi looks around, taking in the wallpapered walls, the tall narrow windows, the artwork lining the walls, all of it like he hadn’t seen it in months, instead of a week. 

“It’s good to be home,” he says, his voice soft. He leans his head on the back of the couch. 

“The first thing we need to figure out is how to get you a new phone,” Seokjin says, taking the few bottles of pills that they got from the pharmacy on their way out on the counter. Yoongi groans. His phone had been in his right pocket when he was struck, and shattered immediately. 

“Isn’t Jeongguk’s old phone from high school still in his desk?” Namjoon asks. Yoongi could cry. The beautiful smartphone he’d saved for years to purchase, only a year old, now gone from the world. And he would be forced to use a flip phone instead. 

Seokjin sees the look on his face, and points at him. “It’s better than nothing,” he says, his voice stern. Yoongi nods. Thankfully the SIM chip in his phone is still intact, so he’s able to transfer it over. “The data I paid for does me no good now,” he grumbles. 

“But we can reach you if we need to!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

The house falls quiet. Yoongi’s tired, and his ribs hurt - being carried up three flights of stairs was not ideal when one’s ribs were broken, but in the absence of an elevator what else could they do? Before he knows what’s happening - before he can think of Taehyung - Yoongi’s drifting to sleep. 

The next week goes by like that. Yoongi spends all of his time either on the couch, or in the bed that he shares with Jeongguk in their tiny shoebox of a room. There’s barely enough room for the queen sized mattress they stuffed in there. It sits on the floor, and there’s about three feet of space between the bed and the wall at the end and on one side. They keep their clothes in the hall closet, and in the small wardrobe that fits between their bedroom door and the bathroom. The other room is a bit bigger. There’s enough room for a bunk bed with a queen on the bottom, and a tall, narrow wardrobe. For the most part they share clothes, so their lack of proper wardrobe and closet space is not a big problem. Sharing clothes was a necessity that came out of them all being roughly the same size, without enough money to maintain separate wardrobes - though their clothes were always a little big on Yoongi. Before Jeongguk started hitting the free gym at his university they had been closer to the same size. Those days are long gone. 

Yoongi realizes that sleeping on their old, second hand leather sofa is easier than lowering himself down to the floor, where the mattress sits, and he finds himself sleeping there most of the time. Between the drugs he’s on and the limit to his mobility, by the end of the week he’s ready to go insane. 

He’s done sleeping, and he feels better. A week and a half after he was released from the hospital, Yoongi decides he’s finished with the medicine that makes him want to sleep all the time. He’s rested enough for a lifetime. 

It’s early in the morning, maybe five am or so, and Yoongi finds himself sitting in the window sill. They have four tall windows - stretching almost all the way up to the ceiling. Their apartment’s small, and old, but it’s on the top floor, and the ceilings are a bit higher than in any other unit in their building. It makes for beautiful lighting, especially in their kitchen in the mornings. If Yoongi were a painter he would paint the scene. His art is made up of words, however. 

He hasn’t written a word since his accident. Yoongi’s always been a poet - a rapper he would stress, to save face, though he knows in his heart that all rappers have to be poets. Words are his art, his pen his paintbrush, and paper his canvas. He sits in the windowsill, his broken leg stretched out in front of him, resting on one of their kitchen chairs. He’s not left handed, but he was determined to make do considering his right arm is still encased in a thick cast. He has the itch to put pen to paper. The only problem is that words will not come. His frustration grows steadily. In the past whenever words wouldn’t come, Yoongi would go to the church less than two blocks away, where he was allowed to play the piano, so long as no one was using it. 

Yoongi leans his head back against the wall. The light of the early morning filters in through the panes of glass, beams of light slanting through the room. Suddenly a similar image comes to him, one of light beams slanting through the world, only this time they’re unhindered by glass. He thinks of the clearing where he met Taehyung. He realizes for the first time that he has not thought of Taehyung, nor tried to meet him in the clearing since he left the hospital. 

He sighs in frustration. He can’t go meet Taehyung now, he’s not tired. He’ll have to wait until that evening - or at the very least, later in the day. He does think of him then, though. Thinks of his golden eyes, his blond hair. His wide mouth, and his smile. Yoongi starts humming, his eyes fall closed. He realizes it’s the song Taehyung sung to him, both in the hospital room and in the clearing. Yoongi’s eyes drift open, almost lazily, and he starts doodling music notes. The song plays over and over in his mind, and almost an hour later Yoongi sits back and realizes that he’s written down the whole song. It’s sloppy, and nearly illegible thanks to his non-dominant hand, but Yoongi knows he’ll be able to decipher it once he can finally play the piano again. 

Later that evening, there’s a rare moment where they were all awake and at home together. It’s quiet, each boy doing his own thing. Jeongguk’s doodling on Yoongi’s cast, adding little things here and there, Namjoon hunches over his notebook, his headphones over his ears. Hoseok has his earphones in as well, and he’s using the little bit of space they have in their apartment - behind the couch, between the living room space and the kitchen area - to practice his dance. He got the job teaching at the hagwon, and is now paranoid about losing it because he’s not good enough, despite the fact that he’s the best dancer Yoongi has ever met, and will ever meet, and you can quote him on that. Seokjin’s reading out loud, but Yoongi’s not listening. He’s still thinking about the song. It was in his head all day. He can feel himself drifting to sleep, and as his eyes fall closed he manages to conjure up an image of golden eyes, blond hair, and a wide smile.

And then he’s falling, falling, falling, through the deep dark to the blue. He passes the trees, and lands softly in the grass. He lies there for a moment, smiling. In the silence he can hear footsteps approaching him. The light dims above him and there’s a face. Taehyung stands over him, his wide smile on his face. 

“I was beginning to think you would never come back,” Yoongi says.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, his smooth, melodious voice washing over Yoongi like a wave. He sits up, and looks at Taehyung. “Where would you like to go?”

“Can we go to the sea?” Yoongi asks, finding it’s the first place that comes to mind, and once the idea plants itself in his mind he realizes that there’s nowhere else he wants to go. Taehyung nods, his smile not wavering even once. He closes his eyes, and Yoongi watches as the forest around them melts away, and is replaced with a bright blue sky. He sits on sand, and the sound of the wind in the trees is gone, and instead all he can hear is the crash of waves on the shore. 

“I haven’t been to the sea in a very long time,” he says, his breath rushing out of him. He stands up, making up his mind, and he runs to the water. Yoongi splashes through the waves, screaming like a child. He looks back at the sand, and his heart sinks for a moment - Taehyung’s not there. Suddenly, he’s splashed from behind. Whipping around, Yoongi sees Taehyung standing a few feet away, laughing. 

A while later, both soaking wet and out of breath from laughing, Yoongi and Taehyung make their way back to the sand. Yoongi collapses on his back, his eyes closed. He hears Taehyung settle down beside him. “Let’s come back here,” Taehyung says softly. 

“I agree,” Yoongi replies, a smile on his lips. “Would you sing me that song?” Yoongi opens his eyes and looks up at Taehyung, who’s gazing down at him. He looks perplexed.

“Song?”

“The one you were singing in the meadow last time, and before I fell asleep in the hospital.” Taehyung thinks for a moment. Then his eyebrows shoot up.

“Ah, this song?” he asks, and starts humming. It’s the song, the one that had been in Yoongi’s head all day.

“Yes, that one,” he whispers, willing Taehyung to keep going. He does, and Yoongi’s eyes fall closed again. It feels like everything stops, and the only things that exist are Yoongi’s heartbeat and Taehyung’s voice. There’s a whisper of a sound that starts up far away, but it gradually gets louder and louder until Yoongi can hear that it’s an orchestra, striking up to accompany Taehyung’s voice. Taehyung’s hum turns into a vocalized melody that seems to dance on the music that floats over the wind. 

Yoongi feels peace. He feels it in the lightness of his heart, the weightless feeling blooming in his stomach. He opens his eyes to find Taehyung staring at him. He’s no longer singing, though the music still floats along the breeze. It curls around them, enveloping them in the most beautiful sound Yoongi’s ever heard. 

“How is this possible?” he asks. “Am I just dreaming? Did I dream this whole thing?” Yoongi sighs. “Maybe I’m still in a coma in the hospital, and I just imagined you. There’s no way this could be real. ”

“You’re not,” Taehyung says, his voice soft. “And it is, I promise.” Taehyung takes a deep breath, and his smile turns sad. “I have to go.”

Yoongi surges up, and takes Taehyung’s wrist. “Wait! Please don’t go yet. Who are you? Please tell me how this is possible?”

“I told you, I’m Taehyung. And it is possible because this is what I do. And because you saved my life, and I’m finding that I can’t stay away from you.”

“But what does that mean?”

“It means I’ll keep coming back, as long as you want me to.”

“Please don’t go yet,” Yoongi asks, beginning to feel a lump growing in his throat. “Why do I feel like this? I don’t even know what you are, and yet you make me feel like I’ve known you my whole life. You make the most beautiful music, and you can turn the forest into the sea. Please don’t go.”

Taehyung stares at his wrist in Yoongi’s hand. It’s loose enough that Taehyung could slide his hand out if he wanted, but instead he simply moves to hold Yoongi’s hand. “I’m human like you, but not like you,” he said, his voice soft, almost sad. “I can walk in dreams, and. . . I live in your city, but you shouldn’t go looking for me. I saw you that morning, and you looked so sad. You feel like this because maybe. . . you needed a change. Maybe you needed something to step in and turn your life down a different path. I don’t know all the answers.” Taehyung’s voice is low and his eyes wide. “But Yoongi, you didn’t know me, and you didn’t think twice when that car was careening towards me. You saved me. Thank you. I want to know you.”

“ Taehyung . . .” They both look up. There’s a whisper on the wind, Taehyung’s name being called.

“I’m sorry, Yoongi,” Taehyung whispers. “I have to go.” Taehyung pulls Yoongi’s hand up to his lips and kisses his palm, and then Yoongi’s flying up, up, up. He opens his eyes to find that he’s in his bed, Jeongguk curled up beside him. He holds up his left hand, the one Taehyung kissed, and he would swear he could still feel Taehyung’s lips. They were soft, and Yoongi wonders what they would feel like against his own.

Yoongi limps down the street slowly. His leg is healed, though nearly a month of not using it weakened it, and walking still poses some problems here and there. He was determined though. He finally got both of his casts off, and the sheet music in his backpack has been calling to him ever since. In the three weeks since Taehyung kissed his hand Yoongi has seen him every night, and every time Taehyung is called away long before Yoongi is ready for him to go. He never tells Yoongi why he had to leave, but Yoongi never asks. Instead, Yoongi starts talking, starts telling him about his life. He tells him everything, and when he wakes after Taehyung is called away, he’s astonished with himself. He’s never liked sharing his story - sharing his family’s story - because it’s not a fun story to hear. 

Yoongi tells him about leaving his parents’ home during high school, because he wanted to follow his dreams, and they wanted him to be sensible and follow in their footsteps. He tells Taehyung about struggling to survive, about working long hours, and studying only enough to finish high school, but not enough to get into college. He couldn’t afford it, though, so it didn't matter. He tells Taehyung about meeting Namjoon, a fellow artist and poet in the underground rap scene. They found they had a common dream, and Namjoon decided to join Yoongi after he finished school. His parents couldn’t afford college either, and he what he wanted to do couldn’t be taught in a class, anyway. 

He tells Taehyung about meeting Hoseok in the underground as well, about watching him dance from a distance and all but falling in love with him and the way he could move. Taehyung quirks an eyebrow at that, and Yoongi laughs. “Not like that. I just felt a connection with him the way I did with Namjoon. They’re my family in a way that my real family never was.” He tells him about how Hoseok joined their family after that, his own parents gone. He lived with extended family, but they suffocated him, wanted to force him into a desk job that would slowly suck the life out of him. So when Yoongi and Namjoon asked if he wanted to join their small family, he did immediately, without hesitation. They met Seokjin and Jeongguk not too long after that. Seokjin, the oldest in their group, was Jeongguk’s cousin, and legal guardian. He worked as a chef in a kitchen, making enough to support Jeongguk and help him pursue art, his dream. They integrated seamlessly into their family, and that was the end. It was the five of them against the world.

“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Yoongi whispers, staring off at the trees. “I don’t think I’d still be alive if I didn’t have them.”

“You’re all very lucky to have each other.” 

Yoongi begins to be able to tell when their time is up, when someone would come along to collect Taehyung, and Yoongi would float back up to his own world. He hates it more and more each time. Hates waking up alone, in his tiny apartment, in his old, too-big clothes. 

Yoongi limps up the stairs of the old church, hanging heavily on the railing. It was mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. Jeongguk’s at class, and the others are all at work. Namjoon found work at a bookstore, and Yoongi can’t even find it in himself to be irritated any longer about his friend needing to work instead of focusing on his art, for he had been so excited about the employee discount he’ll get. Yoongi feels aimless, having been almost a month without a job now. He feels useless, and that’s making it hard to focus on his writing. 

He steps through the doors to the church. There’s a knitting circle that meets in the afternoons on Tuesdays, but they don’t mind if Yoongi plays the piano while they work and gossip. He pushes through the doors to the main hall, and the ladies up on the small stage stop talking for a moment, before everyone is all talking at once, standing and meeting him halfway up the aisle. He’s accosted with hugs and kisses to his face and head. 

“Yoongi-yah, where have you been?” one of the ajummas asks, her voice nearly reproachful. “We’ve missed listening to you play.” They all chorus their agreement. Yoongi doesn’t have the heart to tell them the truth.

“Ah, sorry. I’ve been sick,” he lies. “But I feel a lot better now.” They fuss over him for a bit longer, before eventually breaking away to go back to their knitting, and letting him go to the piano. He feels bewildered, to be honest. He didn’t know that they took that much notice of him, enough to miss him being gone for a month. He’s never felt like anyone noticed him enough to notice when he wasn’t there. 

He sits down at the old, but still very nice grand piano. He stretches out the fingers of his right hand. His broken bones are completely healed, and he doesn’t need physical therapy. Its a miracle, and his doctors are all highly perplexed about it. Somehow, Yoongi wonders if Taehyung had something to do with his accelerated healing. . . He wouldn’t have thought that were possible, before, but now. Now it feels like there are a great many things in the world that have always been there, just out of reach of someone so painfully normal as Yoongi. 

He hasn’t played the piano since before his accident, and he wants to make sure he is completely warmed up before he tries to play Taehyung’s song. He starts with a few simple pieces he knows by heart, and has since he was a small child. When he strikes the final chord, he takes a deep breath. Feeling ready, he pulls out the sheet music he’d re-written with his dominant hand the day before, and sets it up. It’s a long song, covering four pages, with several repeats. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, picturing the melody in his head. He can hear it, just as he’d been hearing it since he met Taehyung. He opens his eyes and puts his fingers to the keys. The song flows out of him, the ease in which he was able to play it would have surprised him, had it not been Taehyung’s song. Taehyung, who claims to be human just like him, but can meet Yoongi in his dreams night after night. 

He plays the song all the way through without needing to stop once, and without realizing it his eyes slid closed, his fingers flying across the keys without needing to look at his sheet music. He knows it by heart. 

When he finishes he sits still, his eyes remaining closed, listening to the last bit of sound fade. There’s applause then, and Yoongi’s eyes fly open, startled. The ladies had stopped knitting to listen, and clap and exclaim in awe and joy at what they just heard. Suddenly a line of poetry whispers itself in Yoongi’s ear. He’s seized with the need to write it down. He can’t wait until he gets home, lest he lose it. He flips the sheet music over, and starts writing. Eventually the ladies interrupt him to say that they are leaving, and they need to lock up the church. He nods absently, still gripped by the inspiration that had wrapped itself around him like a blanket. 

He moves to the front steps, using his knees as a surface to write on. He mutters lyrics under his breath, and if he’d been in his right mind he would have noticed that he looks like a lunatic. The sun starts to set, and Yoongi moves to the cafe situated across the street. He’s got just enough cash to cover the cost of a cup of coffee, buying him as much time in the cafe as he needs, and he sits down to work. 

He isn’t sure how much time has passed, but eventually someone slumps into the seat across from him, and Yoongi’s startled so badly his pen jumps across the page. He looks up to see Namjoon sitting across from him, an amused look on his face. 

“Hey hyung, sorry to interrupt.”

“Namjoon-ah, what time is it?”

“It’s nearly midnight. Seokjin-hyung is about ready to kill you, because you didn’t leave a note and you weren’t answering your phone.”

Yoongi feels dazed, like he’s just woken up. He looks down to see that his sheet music is absolutely filled with words. He’d written over the music, and when he flips each page over the other side is filled as well. 

“Looks like you got over your writer’s block.”

“Can we afford studio time?” Yoongi’s voice is hushed, barely daring to hope.

“We can afford a few hours. Our Studio Jar has gotten pretty full the last few weeks, since we don’t need to buy as much food with Seokjin-hyung bringing home so much from the restaurant, we’ve been able to put more money into the jar. Are you ready for studio time, hyung?” Yoongi can hear the disbelief in Namjoon’s voice. He shakes his head.

“Not yet, but I will be soon. I just felt inspired. . .”

“I can see that,” Namjoon laughs. “Do you feel ready to go home, or do you need to stay a bit longer? This place is open till one.”

“We can go home,” Yoongi says, gathering his papers. The feeling is still there, but it’s not quite as intense as it had been. He feels like he can do other things without losing it. It felt like Taehyung, and Yoongi walks home with a small smile on his face. 

"What're you smiling about?" Namjoon asks. He nudges Yoongi's shoulder playfully.

"Just thinking about someon- something." Yoongi doesn’t look at Namjoon, his cheeks feeling hot after his slip-up.

"Someone?"

"Shut up." Namjoon lets it go, but Yoongi doesn’t think his secret will be able to remain only his for very long. He can’t lie to his family, and now that Namjoon knows there’s someone on Yoongi's mind, he’ll have to tell them. 

But for a little while longer, he wants to be selfish. He can’t afford to be selfish very often, but with this he can be. He can keep Taehyung only for himself, for just a little bit longer. Just until they ask. 

“Hyung, hold still,” Jeongguk whines for the fifth time in twenty minutes. Yoongi scowls, but stops fidgeting. He sits in the windowsill, his notebook propped on his knees, his pen poised in his hand. Yoongi had been sitting there working for a little while, when Jeongguk walked into the kitchen for something to eat. He gasped loudly, startling Yoongi so badly he almost fell to the ground. “Don’t move!” Jeongguk yelled, running for his backpack. Yoongi’s eyes followed after him, bewildered, but understanding dawned when Jeongguk returned with his sketchbook and charcoal. 

That was an hour ago, and Yoongi’s ass is asleep. He would never pull Jeongguk from his art, however. He know there’s nothing for it but to sit for him until he’s finished. He zones out, going over the song he had just finished again and again, reminding himself of the lyrics when he needs. His mixtape is about half finished, and he’s so close to being able to record it he can taste it. 

Seokjin, Namjoon, Jeongguk, and Hoseok are practically chomping at the bit to hear it, but Yoongi refuses to share it until it’s finished and recorded. Well, he refuses to share it with everyone but one. He shared one song with Taehyung last night, the one inspired by Taehyung’s song. He sat listening, his eyes wide, his mouth open slightly, and when Yoongi finished Taehyung sat still for so long that Yoongi’s gut twisted with fear that he didn’t like it.

But instead he surged forward, pulling Yoongi into a tight hug. It was the closest Yoongi had ever been to Taehyung, and he had immediately wrapped his own arms around Taehyung’s waist and held him tightly. He was firm, solid, he felt real; so different from how he feels when Yoongi’s awake. Sometimes he finds himself wondering if Taehyung’s real, or if he’s only something Yoongi’s brain had conjured to fill the void in his heart. He’s surrounded by people all the time, and he still feels lonely. But when he’s with Taehyung, even if it’s only in his mind while he sleeps, he doesn’t feel so lonely. 

They stayed together for a long while. Taehyung smelled like rain, and earth, and his hair tickled Yoongi’s cheek. His heartbeat was strong against Yoongi’s own chest and if he weren’t already asleep, he would have been lulled into a dream by its rhythmic beating. 

Too soon, however, just as it always happened, Taehyung was called away. Yoongi didn’t want to let go. “Please don’t go,” he whispered into Taehyung’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung replied, his voice barely audible. “I have to go. The real world calls.” Taehyung gently, oh so gently, nudged Yoongi back. He held him at arm’s length, giving him a serious look. “I’m sorry, Yoongi.” Taehyung said his name like it was the most precious word to ever touch his lips. “I hate leaving you. This time here, with you. . . it’s just as precious to me as it is to you.”

“You said you’d be there for me when I need you,” Yoongi whispered, hating how broken his voice sounded. “I need you now.”

Taehyung’s smile was so sad. “One day, I’ll tell you everything. But for now, you need to trust me, you don’t want to hear it now. I’ll be back. I promise.”

Yoongi just nodded, his eyes never leaving Taehyung’s golden ones. Then, he was flying, and then he was opening his eyes in his own living room, where he’d fallen asleep hours before. 

Yoongi stares at Jeongguk as he works. His brow is pulled low in concentration, his jaw clenched. Every now and then he looks up, but if he cares that Yoongi is staring at him he doesn’t show it. He’s too lost in his drawing. Yoongi lets his mind wander. He thinks about how hard it’s been the last few years. He thinks about working three jobs for a while, the only one of the five who could find work. Jeongguk had still been in high school, Seokjin forced to quit his job because of unsafe conditions. Namjoon and Hoseok had been unable to find more than temp work here and there, but it was never enough. Yoongi thinks about how hard he worked, how long his days and nights had been, how little pay he received, and he felt a spark of anger bloom. This isn’t not the first time he’s felt angry because of his circumstances. That had been the blackest time of his life, when he’d been so busy working to provide for his family that he’d been unable to write, or play piano, or rap. The whole reason he’d left his first family and created his second one, to make music, had been just out of his reach for almost a year. He hates thinking about it, but he almost did not make it through. Eventually, though, it had gotten better. Namjoon and Hoseok found work, and he was able to quit one of his. He still worked long hours at two jobs, but he had time to sleep, a little time to write again. He no longer felt like he was being stretched thin in every direction. 

He adjusts his grip on his pen, and puts the tip of it to the blank page. Then the pen begins dancing across the page, words flowing out of Yoongi seemingly without his say so. Eventually he realizes that the light has changed, and when he looks up Jeongguk is gone. 

He stretches out, his whole body cracking as he moves for the first time in hours. His back hurts, but when he reads through his lyrics again, he thinks that this song is perfect. There isn’t a single thing he would change about it. The rest of his family’s in the living room, watching a movie on Jeongguk’s laptop, the sound down low and the subtitles on. Yoongi feels a surge of love for them. He picked a bad place to get lost in the throes of inspiration, but they still tried not to disturb him. 

He walks slowly over to the couch and sinks into his normal spot. He groans out loud. “This is so much more comfortable than the fucking windowsill.”

“Welcome back,” Hoseok laughs. Yoongi smiles along with them. 

“Jeongguk,” he says, and his youngest brother turns to face him, his eyebrows up. “I need you to sing for me.”

“What? Hyung, I’m not a singer.”

“Shut up, of course you are!” they all yell at the same time, and Jeongguk ducks his head, a sheepish smile on his face. Yoongi ruffles his hair. “You have an amazing singing voice, and I need it for the song I just wrote.”

“Okay, hyung. Just let me know when.”

Two weeks later Yoongi finishes writing the last song for his mixtape. He records it, and burns a few copies, as well as putting them online. Yoongi, Hoseok, and Namjoon give them to their friends in the music scene, and Yoongi tries not to think about it for a while.

A month later, however, Yoongi hears his own song coming from some kid’s phone as he walks down the street, and he can’t wipe the smile from is face no matter how hard he tries. 

After he finishes his album, he’s eager to get back to work. He prepares to spend weeks looking for a job, but much to his surprise, his old boss at the coffee shop calls one morning. He apologizes for how things ended with Yoongi, and asks if he could come back. They need him. Yoongi’s so flustered and confused that he says yes, right away. He asks Jeongguk to quit his job, a request that the others vehemently back up, and to their surprise Jeongguk agrees quickly. They’ve all noticed how tired their youngest has been - the dark bags under his eyes are pronounced, and when he’s home all he does is sleep; three hours between the end of class and the beginning of work, and two hours between the end of work and the beginning of school. It’s not enough, and they all hate it. Now he can be a normal college student again. 

For the first time in a very long time, things feel okay. Yoongi can look at his family and feel good about where they are. They’re not struggling to afford rent, or to feed themselves. They still don’t have very much left over after bills every month, but they’re okay. 

But inside. . . Yoongi’s not okay. He can feel something’s wrong, something’s missing. At first it’s just a small feeling deep in the back of his mind. He only feels it when he’s calm, sitting in the living room in the quiet. But as the days go on, it begins to grow, and it becomes like a stone sitting in Yoongi’s gut. Always there, not harming anything, but there, heavy, reminding Yoongi of its presence. He’s felt this way before, or at least similarly, he thinks. Depression can rear its ugly head at the most unlikely of times. It doesn’t matter if everything is going well in his life or not, it always comes back. Though, this doesn’t feel quite like depression. It feels, almost, more like loneliness. Above all, however, Yoongi just feels tired. 

When Yoongi gets in bed he thinks of Taehyung. 

He’s seen him almost every night for two months. He knew Taehyung had his own life to live, but he’s always there when Yoongi falls asleep. Yoongi begins to count on it, he spends his days thinking about when he can go to sleep and wake up in the forest, or at the sea, or in the mountains. Taehyung has taken him everywhere in his dreams, everywhere and anywhere he could ever want to go. His nights are filled with beauty and music and Taehyung. It makes waking up the hardest thing Yoongi has to do. 

Yoongi falls down, down, down, and lands in the meadow. He sits up and immediately he can sense something is wrong. The clearing is silent. Usually Yoongi’s met with the sounds of birds, the wind whistling through the trees, or music. 

Yoongi looks around the silent meadow. He can’t see Taehyung, but there is someone standing a ways off, next to a tree. He’s partially in the shadow, one hand resting on the side of the tree, the other hanging limply at his side. Suddenly a breeze rushes through the clearing, blowing Yoongi’s long black hair into his eyes briefly. The wind stops as suddenly as it started, Yoongi’s hair once again falling limp to the side of his face, and the figure by the tree is gone. There’s a rustle behind him, and Yoongi whips his body around, both of his hands gripping the grass below him. The boy sits a few feet away from him, his legs criss-crossed, and his hands resting on his knees. 

“Who are you?” Yoongi asks. “Where’s Taehyung?”

“My name is Jimin. Taehyung’s having a bad day, so he couldn’t come.” Jimin’s voice is higher than Taehyung’s, and his face has an ethereal quality that almost looks unreal - like it could no be possible for someone to be so beautiful. Yoongi wonders if Jimin’s the same as Taehyung, which might explain his almost otherworldly beauty. Yoongi’s still not quite convinced that Taehyung is human. Jimin’s hair is a light pink, matching his pink lips. They’re pursed together, as Jimin looks critically at Yoongi. “I wanted to meet you. Now I can see why Taehyung likes you so much.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You look kind,” he said simply, smiling at Yoongi. “You look like you don’t care about superficial thinks, instead preferring to look deeper.” 

“How come Taehyung couldn’t come tonight?”

“He never stops talking about you.” Jimin quirks his head to the side. “Thank you for saving his life. You didn’t have to. He’s my best friend. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

“Of course I did,” Yoongi says, feeling bewildered. “Can you tell me more about Taehyung? He won’t tell me about his life outside my dreams. He just evades my questions, and asks me more about my life.”

“That’s because he’s afraid, even though I know he has no reason to be. But, if he doesn’t want you to know I won’t tell you. At least not yet.”

Yoongi bristles at that. He’s getting a little tired of being left in the dark. “He said that he lives in my city. Do you live here too?” Jimin just nods. “What do you do?”

“We own a shop.”

“What kind of shop?”

“You’re so curious.”

“Please.” Yoongi lets go of his reserve, deciding he doesn’t care if this Jimin sees just how desperate he is. “Please tell me how to find him in the real world? I want to know him. I want to see him more than just in my dreams.”

Jimin purses his lips, considering. His pink hair flutters on the breeze. “Keep your ears open.” Then, he stands up. “I should go, Tae’s going to be mad at me for saying just that. He’s going to be mad at me for meeting you here. I think he’s enjoying having you all to himself.”

Yoongi stands as well. “Will you tell him I missed him, please?” Jimin nods, smiling so widely his eyes all but disappear. Then the world around him dissolves, and Yoongi’s flying up once again. 

As they always do his eyes fly open as he comes back into his body with a gasp. He’s on his back, one arm pressed against the wall, and the other resting on his stomach. He rolls over, trying not to jostle Jeongguk as he does, and closes his eyes. This time, however, he does not fall immediately back to sleep. He thinks about what Jimin had said, how he needs only keep his ears open to find Taehyung in the real world. “I’ll find you, Taehyung-ah,” he whispers to himself, and then his eyes flutter closed and he’s asleep once more. 

Despite the wonderful feeling he had when he fell asleep, Yoongi tosses and turns all night. Once the warm, happy feeling he got from Jimin’s clue left him all he could feel was a sense of emptiness.  

Yoongi woke up even more exhausted than when he went to sleep, as he does so often these days, and he gets ready for his first shift back at the coffee shop mechanically, falling back on his muscle memory to get him ready to go. He gulps down some scalding coffee too quickly, burning his tongue and throat as he does, desperate to feel awake. Namjoon walks out of his room as Yoongi puts the coffee mug down on the counter. 

“Hyung you look like shit,” he says gently. “Did you sleep okay?” Yoongi shakes his head. “Bad dreams?”

“No, just couldn’t sleep well, I guess.” Yoongi stares at Namjoon as he pours himself a mug of coffee, and for the first time since his accident, Yoongi longs to tell him about Taehyung, about everything. He bites his tongue, resisting the urge. He still wants to keep Taehyung all to himself, for just a little longer. 

“Yoongi-hyung?” Namjoon says softly, breaking Yoongi from his thoughts.

“Huh? Sorry, I’m just exhausted. What did you say?”

“I just said have a good day,” Namjoon says, chuckling. Yoongi nods, and then goes to put his shoes on, patting his pockets to ensure he has his phone and keys. Shoes securely on his feet, Yoongi opens the door and steps outside.

Namjoon watches Yoongi leave, a soft frown on his face. He finishes making his coffee, shuffling around the kitchen, his slippers sliding against the hardwood floor. The curtains are all open, and the rising sun casts the kitchen in a pale light. The apartment’s quiet, and Namjoon sits at the small table, facing the windows. He pulls his notebook from the big pocket in his robe, and opens to a blank page. He had a melody floating around in his head all yesterday, and when he awoke it was still there. It’s elusive, though, and wasn’t quite formed enough to put down on paper until Namjoon saw Yoongi making his coffee. Inspiration’s a funny thing, it can stay away for days, weeks, months, even years sometimes, but when it comes, it hits hard, and it often hits out of nowhere. Namjoon could be busy, thinking about completely unrelated things, and then he could hear something, or see something, and all of the sudden it’s like his inspiration takes him by the hand and tugs, insistent, until he writes it down - even if it’s just as a memo in his phone. 

He’s talked extensively about this subject with his brothers, and they all feel the same. Sometimes it could be like a physical thing, like with Hoseok. He could be struck with inspiration, but then be able tuck it aside and come back to it later, pull it out of wherever he stored it and run with it. Or it could be all consuming, like it often is with Yoongi and Jeongguk. If either of them become inspired, usually they can kiss whatever they were doing goodbye, because they feel the all encompassing need to create, right then and there. It can be quite comical, Namjoon muses, smiling, thinking about whenever it happens. They could be mid sentence and then stop, eyes going wide and blank as they look off deep inside themselves. Yoongi would excuse himself, and go off to create. Jeongguk would just stop, and pull out his sketchbook, and start drawing. Once this happened on the train, and they missed their stop because Jeongguk could not physically leave until he finished. They ended up riding the train all the way to the end of the line, and then had to spend another hour riding back to their original destination. Namjoon didn’t fault him for it, and neither did their brothers. They all understand, they’re all artists. Even Seokjin, in his own way. Sure, he doesn’t write, or draw, but his art is food. He could spend all day working on a meal, or a new dish, trying to perfect it, kicking them all out of the kitchen until he’s finished. 

This is why none of them were worried, or bothered when Yoongi started distancing himself after his accident. He was struck with inspiration for his mixtape, and so he pulled away while he worked on his art. He worked diligently, and finished, and they all expected him to come back. Only he hasn’t. Yoongi spends more time sleeping these days, and staring into space, lost in thought when he isn’t sleeping. Namjoon’s starting to get worried. He also noticed that despite how much sleep Yoongi’s getting, the dark circles under his eyes are growing darker and darker every day, as if he weren’t really sleeping at all. 

Namjoon closes his eyes, allowing himself to experience the worry he’s feeling over Yoongi’s well-being. He puts his pen down, the inspiration he’d felt gone as quickly as it came. He feels vague regret over losing it, especially when inspiration has not been as forthcoming lately as it has been in the past, but his worry about his hyung is more pressing than the song he wants to write. The melody will still be there when inspiration strikes again. 

There’s a creak from the other side of the room, and Namjoon sees Seokjin emerge from their shared bedroom. He crosses the hall and goes into the bathroom, the whoosh of the toilet flush sounding a moment later. Seokjin shuffles out into the kitchen, and goes about making coffee like a zombie. Finally, coffee in hand, he slumps into the chair across from Namjoon. “Morning,” he mumbles. 

“Morning, hyung.”

Seokjin takes a sip of his coffee, and looks at Namjoon over the rim. “What’s wrong?”

“How do you know something’s wrong?”

“You’ve got that contemplative look. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m thinking about Yoongi. He left a little bit ago for his shift, and he looked completely dead on his feet, despite the fact that he went to bed before any of us last night, and he’s been sleeping a lot lately.”

“Maybe he’s not feeling well?” Seokjin asks, taking another sip of his coffee. “Though I have noticed him dragging more than usual lately, as well.”

There’s a bang, and they both jump, Seokjin narrowly avoiding spilling his coffee all over himself. Jeongguk rushes out into the living room, having slammed his door open. His backpack’s on one arm, and his shirt only half on. He pushes his other arm through the hole and shoves it down his abdomen. 

“Where’s the fire?” Seokjin asks, irritated about almost spilling coffee all over himself. 

“I’m running late!”

“It’s only seven thirty, you don’t have class until ten today.” Namjoon checks the date on his phone, just to be sure. Jeongguk stops, confusion falling across his face. 

“What? What day is it?” he asks, dropping his backpack to his feet. 

“It’s Friday, bud,” Namjoon says, and he can’t help the laugh that escapes as realization dawns on Jeongguk’s face. 

“Damn, well I’m glad you guys were up so early. I would have gotten all the way to class before I realized.” He leaves his backpack there on the floor, and goes to the kitchen. He reaches for the cereal, but Seokjin stops him.

“If you can wait five more minutes for me to finish my coffee, I was going to make breakfast.”

Jeongguk pauses, his hand halfway to the cereal box, but then he puts it back down. “Okay, can we have eggs?” Seokjin nods, taking another deep sip of his coffee. Jeongguk joins them at the table, gazing out the window. “Yoongi-hyung was really restless last night, he kept moving around and waking me up, I think that’s why I forgot which day it was.”

“Namjoon said he looked exhausted when he saw him this morning.”

“He kept mumbling something, but I don’t know what it was. I might sleep on the couch tonight. Or make sure he falls asleep on the couch, and then just not move him. . .” Jeongguk grouses. 

“Be nice,” Seokjin admonishes. 

Hoseok joins them just as Seokjin stands to start making breakfast. Twenty minutes later they’re eating eggs and toast, the table silent as they all tuck in. “I think we need to talk to Yoongi tonight, all together,” Namjoon says, leaning back from the table and gently placing his fork down. “Something’s going on, and it’s worrying me a little. He hasn’t been like this since then , and I know none of us want a repeat of that time.” There’s silence at the table as they all no doubt relive that terrible time in their lives when Yoongi had nearly succumbed to his depression. 

“You’re right, we don’t want to let it get that far if something is wrong,” Hoseok says, nodding his head. 

“We’ll all be home for dinner tonight, let’s talk to him after that,” Seokjin says, and they all agree. 

That night, when they finish eating Namjoon glances over to Seokjin, who nods slightly, his mouth set in a hard line. “Yoongi-hyung,” Namjoon says, and Yoongi, who had been almost nodding off at the table, sits up straight and looks over at him. 

“What’s up, Joon-ah?” he asks, his deep voice gravelly. 

“Hyung, we’re worried about you.” Yoongi’s brow furrows, and he glances around the table at the three others, who are looking at him with the same concerned looks on their faces as Namjoon. “You’re exhausted, hyung. Gukie said that you’re always tossing and turning, and you can’t be getting any real rest like that. We’re just worried. We don’t want you to go down the same road you went down last time you got like this.”

“You guys,” Yoongi scoffs, shaking his head firmly. “I’m fine. I promise. It’s not like last time.”

“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin cuts in. “Maybe you should start seeing a therapist. Someone who can help you when you start feeling low. It’s obvious to the rest of us that you’re struggling, and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. We just hate to see you so tired all the time but not sleeping, staring off into space, withdrawing even when you’re not writing music.”

“Hyung,” Yoongi says, his voice slow and quiet. “We can’t afford a therapist.”

“We can make it work. I’ll take extra shifts, and I’m sure the others can too.”

“I can get my job back,” Jeongguk said, and Namjoon watched as Yoongi’s face screwed up in anger. 

“No. No way. I’m not letting you guys work yourselves to the bone because I’m lonely! I’m fine. I promise. Or I will be. Please don’t worry about me.” He goes to stand up, but Namjoon catches his hand before he can flee.

“We’ll always worry about you, hyung. You’re our family. We just want you to be okay. If you’re lonely, then why didn’t you talk to us about it?” Yoongi stares into his eyes for a long moment, and Namjoon swears he can see more than just sadness there. Finally, Yoongi relents and sits back down. 

“If I’m honest,” he says, before pausing for a long enough time that everyone else thinks that perhaps he isn’t going to finish his sentence. “If I’m honest, there’s someone.” Namjoon’s eyes go wide. He remembers Yoongi slipping up and mentioning someone when he was first able to play the piano after his accident. That someone seemed to be responsible for Yoongi’s mad dash of creative energy towards the completion of his mixtape, and Namjoon was so happy for him and his creative overflowing that he didn’t really put much thought into it. “He’s- he’s the one I pushed out of the way of the car.” 

A collective gasp sounds around the table, and Namjoon’s brows furrow. “What? What do you mean you pushed someone out of the way? Yoongi, did you step in front of that car on purpose?” Yoongi stares back at him, shocked at the anger in his voice. Namjoon’s surprised by it as well. He gently shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m not trying to accuse you. I’m just surprised.”

“What happened, hyung?” Jeongguk asks softly, reaching over and putting his hand over Yoongi’s. 

“That morning when I was walking home, it was pouring down rain, and someone was trying to cross the street. I saw him a moment before he stepped off the curb, but he didn’t see the car coming until it was too late, and the car couldn’t stop. I pushed him out of the way, and I got hit instead. He stayed with me on the way to the hospital - he must have been the one who called the ambulance, and stayed with me until you guys were on your way. I’ve been. . . seeing him off and on since then.”

“Yoongi-hyung, why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Hoseok asks. His eyes shine with unshed tears. 

“I didn’t want you to be mad,” Yoongi whispers, looking directly at Seokjin as he speaks.

“Mad? Yoongi-yah, you saved someone’s life. A stranger’s. And while, yes, I am mad that you put your life in danger like that, I could never be mad at you for being so brave as to save someone’s life.”

“Who is he, hyung?” Jeongguk asks, leaning his head down to try to catch Yoongi’s eyes as he stares down at the table. 

“His name is Taehyung. He’s kind, and gentle, and he inspired a lot of my mixtape.”

“When can we meet him?” Namjoon asks, smiling. There’s something about Yoongi’s voice as he spoke about this man that loosens the tight coil of anxiety in Namjoon’s chest. 

Yoongi’s answering smile is wry. “I don’t know. He’s kind of. . . elusive.”

“Well, bring him over for dinner some time,” Seokjin says, his voice final. “We want to meet him.”

“I’ll try,” Yoongi laughs softly. “In the meantime, I’ll try to feel better.” He sighs heavily. “I’m going to go to sleep now, okay?” He stands, and the others bid him goodnight as he walks down the short hallway towards his and Jeongguk’s room. 

Namjoon looks around the table with raised eyebrows. “Yoongi’s got a boyfriend?”

“Maybe not a boyfriend, he just said ‘someone’,” Hoseok says. “But who knows?” 

“But when’s he been meeting him? Hyung doesn’t leave the house that often unless he’s going to work,” Jeongguk says, confusion coloring his tone. 

“Who knows. But we shouldn’t push him,” Seokjin says, wisely. “He’s never really seemed interested in pursuing anything in the past, and we don’t want to discourage him.”

“Hyung’s right,” Hoseok says, nodding decisively. “Let Yoongi pursue this Taehyung at his own pace.”

At that, they all stand and begin clearing dinner. Then, after the kitchen is clean, they go about getting ready for bed together, crowding all four of them into the bathroom to pee and brush their teeth, before they bid Jeongguk goodnight as he disappears into his and Yoongi’s room, and then go into their own. Namjoon puts on his pajamas alongside his brothers, and then crawls into the queen sized bottom bunk beside Hoseok. Seokjin climbs into the top bunk, and they lie there quietly for a long while. 

“Yoongi’s a lot braver than I ever gave him credit for,” Hoseok whispers into the silent room. “I don’t know if I could step in front of a car to save a stranger’s life.”

“He is,” Namjoon agrees, just as quietly. He thinks of Yoongi lying broken in his hospital bed, and has to suppress a shudder. It was horrible, and he hopes something like that never happens again.

“Go to sleep, you two. You have work in the morning,” Seokjin grouses from above them, and they whisper an apology to him, before falling silent. Namjoon slips easily into a deep sleep just moments later. 

Yoongi sits in front of the piano with a frown on his face. He’s been trying to pluck out the vague hints of a melody that’s been floating through his brain for the past hour, but every time his fingers touch the keys it feels wrong somehow. He can’t stop thinking about his brothers’ concern the night before, when they ambushed him. He’d been noticing the creepings of his depression coming back, but he didn’t realize it was quite so obvious to the others. Depression would explain why he’s been so tired, despite how much he sleeps, but it’s not normally this bad. His body feels rested, but his mind is slow, unable to focus for very long. It helps that his job is as mindless as it is. Working at a cafe doesn’t require a lot of thought, as at this point it’s mostly muscle memory that guides his movements around the shop. 

He thought about mentioning it to Taehyung when he saw him last night, the real reason he went to bed so early, and why he’s gone to bed early almost every night since the accident. But as soon as he fell down, down, down into the dream and saw his beautiful face, his golden eyes, he forgot all about it. Last night they went to the wide open, sunny meadow that was full of flowers. Taehyung told him about some of the different wildflowers that surrounded them, and when Yoongi told him that he liked the one Taehyung called godetia, suddenly the meadow was absolutely full of the beautiful, delicate looking pink flowers. 

They stayed together, Yoongi lying with his head in Taehyung’s lap for a long while talking until Taehyung was called away, as he always was, and even as Yoongi begged him not to go, he simply smiled sadly like he always did, and told him he would be back as long as Yoongi wants to see him. 

Yoongi laid awake for a long time after he woke. The empty feeling in his chest was still there, but while he was with Taehyung it had been filled with light. It occurred to him, there in the dark of his room, with Jeongguk sleeping soundly beside him, that perhaps he’s not depressed at all. Of course, it very well could be that, as it always has been in the past, but perhaps, this time, the empty feeling in his chest isn’t depression, but longing. He finds he misses Taehyung fiercely when he’s awake, and he looks forward to going to sleep every night so that he can see his smile, hear his voice, lie quietly there with him wherever they find themselves that night. He’s not even sure when his feelings grew to this point, though he reasons that the only answer is that they grew slowly, steadily over time, until they were too much to ignore.

He’s never felt this way before. He’s had his fair share of one night stands over the years, but he’s never really been in a real relationship. He’s always been too busy trying to provide for himself and his family to even meet someone, let alone take the time out of his busy life to date. And even on the rare occasion that he’s had time, he hasn’t had the desire. And now, he finds himself with both the time and the desire, but Taehyung remains elusive, as he told his brothers. He wants to see him when he’s awake, he wants to hold him and touch him in the real world. He wants to be together with him when he won’t be called away by whomever it is that takes him away from Yoongi every night. He’s never met anyone other than his brothers who really sees him like Taehyung does. He’s almost certain that Taehyung feels the same way - he can see it in the way he looks at Yoongi, the gentle way he plays with his hair when he lies with his head in Taehyung’s lap, the way Taehyung seems to know how he is just by looking at him, and just what to say if Yoongi’s had a bad day. 

Jimin told him to keep his ears open, and that he’ll be able to find their shop, but he hasn’t quite plucked up the courage to start searching. For whatever reason, Taehyung hasn’t given him any hints as to how to find him in the real world yet, and Yoongi can’t help but wonder why. Does he not want Yoongi the same way Yoongi wants him? Is it Yoongi? Or is it something with Taehyung that keeps him from letting Yoongi in? He still steadfastly refuses to give Yoongi any concrete details about his own life in the real world, and on his worst days Yoongi still wonders if Taehyung isn’t a figment of his imagination. 

This is what goes through Yoongi’s mind as he sits at the piano. Finally, he realizes that he’s not going to get anything productive done today, and stands. He closes his notebook and puts it and his pencil in his backpack, and leaves the church. If Taehyung doesn’t want Yoongi the same way Yoongi wants him, then why does he continue visiting his dreams? Why would he keep allowing Yoongi to get so close to him, smile at him the way he does, kiss his hand when Yoongi’s particularly upset to see him go? It doesn’t make any sense. 

He walks slowly down the sidewalk on his way back home, frowning. He doesn’t quite know what to do with the things he’s feeling. Sure he’s had crushes in the past, especially when he was younger. But they never went anywhere. And then he left his home and his family to pursue his dreams and spent the next almost ten years struggling. He didn’t have the time, money, or energy to put toward anyone other than himself or his family. But things have been looking up, lately, and Yoongi finds that he has a little money to spare, and a lot more time than he’s used to. 

Now, if only the one person he really wants to spend that time with weren’t only in his dreams. He’s determined to ask Taehyung about it when he sees him tonight. 

Feeling a little better, Yoongi picks up his pace just a bit as he continues walking home. The previously chilly air of mid fall is turning toward seriously cold as they march ever on toward winter, and he shivers, watching his breath dissipate in a cloud in front of him at every exhale. He wonders what kind of shop Taehyung and Jimin run. What do they sell, where is it? He’s burning with curiosity at this point, and every moment since he decided he’d ask Taehyung about it it’s begun to steadily grow stronger. 

He arrives back at home a moment later, trudges up the stairs, the sound of his boots on the concrete steps echoing loud in the stairwell. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and he worked the early morning shift today, and went straight to the church after. He knows the others won’t be home, but when he walks inside to find the small apartment silent, he still feels a hint of sadness in his chest. Yoongi was surprised last night when they - gently - ambushed him after dinner, but it was on his mind all morning, and he realized that he hasn’t been spending as much time with his brothers as he should. It makes him feel like he’s been a bad hyung to the younger ones, and a bad dongsaeng to Seokjin. 

But they’re busy people, with everyone working at the same time for the first time in ages, and Jeongguk in school. The only thing he can do is try to spend as much time with them while they’re all home as possible. But if that means staying up later, what will that mean about his nightly meetings with Taehyung? How does it even work? If Yoongi goes to sleep at random times every night will that be a burden on him? He shakes his head as he moves slowly through the empty apartment. He puts his coat on the hook in front of the door, and sets his backpack down beside the couch before collapsing down onto it. How does Taehyung even know when Yoongi is asleep, he wonders. Does Taeyung need to be asleep as well? Or can he simply feel when Yoongi’s dreaming, and visit him while he’s still awake. Yoongi frowns. He really doesn’t know anything at all about Taehyung. Sure, he knows what he looks like, what he sounds like. He knows he’s fiercely kind, and gentle, and that he has an amazing singing voice. He knows, thanks to Jimin, that he talks about Yoongi in the real world, and tells his best friend about him. But he doesn’t know how old he is, where he’s from. He doesn’t know if he’s a student, or if he even went to university. And the biggest question of all, how can he find Yoongi in his dreams?

A small ball of frustration curls in Yoongi’s chest at the sheer amount that he doesn’t know. Jimin said that Taehyung’s afraid, and that’s why he hasn’t told Yoongi anything, but afraid of what? Yoongi’s suddenly desperate to find out. 

Without thinking about it, he lies down on the couch, thinking only of Taehyung as he tries to fall asleep. Screw waiting until night time, he needs answers now. Thankfully, the exhaustion that’s been dragging him down lately makes it easy to fall asleep. He falls, and finds himself in the meadow. 

Taehyung’s there, sitting cross legged, surrounded by beautiful wildflowers. Yoongi’s frustration softens, the ball in his chest loosening, but he clings desperately to a small shred of it, to keep himself focused. His golden eyes look up at Yoongi and he smiles, and Yoongi can’t help his own dopey smile in response. Taehyung stands gracefully, and meets Yoong in the middle and they embrace. Yoongi closes his eyes, reveling in the warmth from Taehyung’s body pressed against his own. He’s wearing a simple striped button down and loose linen pants, he’s barefoot, as he always is. His long blond hair blows in the gentle breeze. 

“Hello, Yoongi,” Taehyung murmurs into the top of Yoongi’s hair. 

“Hi,” he breathes back. They let go, but don’t step away. Instead they sink down the ground so they’re sitting cross legged with their knees touching. Taehyung looks at him with amusement sparkling in his eyes. 

“You haven’t taken a nap in a while, hyung,” Taehyung remarks, and that surprises Yoongi. He thinks for a moment, and realizes that Taehyung’s right, it’s been a while since he’s slept during the day. He’s been too busy between work and music in the few months it’s been since his accident, when he napped every day. 

“You’re right. But I wanted to see you, and I’ve been tired lately.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow, and he quirks his head to the side, something he does when he’s confused. Yoongi finds it hopelessly endearing. “Are you sick?” Yoongi shakes his head. 

“No, just. I don’t know. I’ve struggled with depression for a long time now, and sometimes it comes even when things in my life seem to be going well. I mostly feel fine, not like usual, but I’ve just been tired a lot in the last month or so.” He feels so incredibly safe here in his dream with Taehyung that he doesn’t hesitate to reveal his struggle, something he would most certainly have trouble talking about in the real world, even with his brothers. 

Taehyung’s eyes take on a faraway look, like he’s thinking hard about something. Then he gasps, and his beautiful golden eyes go wide. 

“What?” Yoongi asks, alarmed. 

“Oh my god,” Taehyung breathes. “It’s because of me. It has to be.”

“What? What do you mean? That’s crazy.” Yoongi shakes his head, waving his hands in front of him. 

“No, it’s not. I’ve never dream walked with the same person so often before, but that has to be it.” Taehyung’s deep voice is determined, and sad. “Hyung, do you wake up after I leave?” Yoongi nods, unsure where he’s coming from. Yeah, he always wakes up, and sometimes it takes him a while to get back to sleep, but he always does. “Some people wake up, and some stay asleep after I leave their dreams, I don’t know why. But I didn’t think about the long term effects of you waking up halfway through the night every night, oh god, hyung, I’m so sorry.” Taehyung’s hand comes up to cover his mouth. “I’ve been so selfish.” His words are quiet, but Yoongi hears them loud and clear. 

Yoongi stares at him, bewildered. “So, what? You’re not going to come anymore? You’re just going to leave? Just like that?” Immediately Taehyung’s hand flies down to grasp Yoongi’s where they rest in his lap, and he fiercely shakes his head.

“No, hyung. I told you, I’ll always come back as long as you want me to. I just can’t come every night anymore. Your mind needs to rest so that you can recharge.”

“I don’t care if I’m tired, if it means I can see you.” He gasps, then, remembering why he wanted to talk to Taehyung in the first place. “Or, you can tell me how to find you in the real world, and then we can spend as much time together as we want to. We can be together. Don’t you want that? Because I do. I want to be with you in the real world, not just in my mind. I’ve never felt this way about someone before. I hate not being able to talk to you whenever I want, and introduce you to my family. I want to kiss you and touch you somewhere that’s not my mind. I want to make sure that I’m not making you up, that I’m not still in that hospital bed, stuck in a coma and dreaming this whole thing. Please, Taehyung, don’t you want that too?”

Throughout Yoongi’s outburst, Taehyung’s gaze hardens just a bit, and his eyes are so incredibly sad it makes Yoongi want to scream, to fight whatever is going through his mind to make him feel that way. He tries to pull his hands back, but Yoongi just adjusts their grip so that he’s holding Taehyung’s hands instead, griping tightly to his warm skin. It’s then that he knows, it’s not because of Yoongi that Taehyung doesn’t want to meet. There’s something going on behind his beautiful, big eyes, something he hasn’t told Yoongi. 

“I do, hyung,” Taehyung whispers. “But. . . I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” 

“I’m afraid that you won’t like what you find when you meet me in the real world.” He sounds so small, so defeated, and it lights a fire in Yoongi’s chest. 

“Taehyung-ah. There’s nothing that could keep me from loving you with my whole heart.”

“You love me?”

Yoongi hadn’t thought about it, but as soon as the words left his lips he knew they were true. “Of course I do, dummy. I’ve spent almost every night with you for months now, and even though I know nothing about your life, I know you. And I love you.”

“I love you, too, hyung. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“So tell me where to find you. Please.” 

Taehyung stares at him for a long, long moment, and then tears well up in his eyes, spilling over quickly. Yoongi won’t let go of his hands, so they just roll down his cheeks, dripping down and creating small wet spots on his shirt. He shakes his head minutely, and Yoongi feels his heart break, just a crack, but enough to hurt. “I can’t. Not yet, I’m sorry, hyung.” Taehyung pulls his hands back, and Yoongi lets him. “I have to go. I’m sorry. I love you.” Then he stands, and disappears into thin air, just as if he were never there at all. Yoongi stares at the empty space Taehyung occupied just a moment ago, and he takes a deep breath, trying not to cry at the memory of pain on Taehyung’s face. He understands Taehyung on a deeper level, now, and for that he’s grateful. He just wishes it weren’t a glimpse into the deep well of anguish that Taehyung is obviously hiding inside himself. 

Yoongi’s hands are stuffed deep into the pockets of his long padding. It’s snowing lightly, freezing in the early December morning. Yoongi has to work the closing shift tonight, so he’s still got a few hours until he needs to be at the cafe. He’s wandering around Itaewon, listening hard. He’s spent several hours every day for the last month trying to find the shop Jimin mentioned, keeping his ears open, listening for anything that might draw him to Taehyung. He figured he should start in the neighborhood he and his brothers live in, and slowly work his way around Seoul. Unfortunately, Seoul is an enormous city, with thousands of streets that Jimin and Taehyung’s shop could be located on. 

He sees Taehyung around once a week now, sometimes twice. He’s definitely more rested, his mind clearer during the day, but he’s not happy about it. Their shared time together has become too precious to waste on feeling bitter or angry, though, so he keeps that for his daytime hours, and instead spends his time talking with Taehyung, lying in the grass or on the beach together, their arms wrapped around each other. They haven’t done anything more than that, not even one kiss shared, but Yoongi’s okay with that. He loves Taehyung, and he wants to wait until he can kiss his lips in the real world. 

That’s why he’s become so determined to find him. He has to. He has to prove Taehyung that whenever he’s afraid of Yoongi not liking about him in the real world is nothing to be afraid of after all. 

Despite the freezing temperatures, Yoongi’s warm. His cheeks are flushed, and his breath puffs out in front of him in great clouds as he hikes his way up the hill. He lives on the edge of Yongsan-gu, and typically tries to avoid the hustle and bustle of the hill, there are simply too many small shops tucked away littered around the neighborhood to avoid looking around the area, not when Taehyung’s shop could be any one of them. He wishes he could put his headphones in, to at least break up the monotony of walking through the near empty morning streets, but if he can’t hear, that would defeat the purpose of his wandering. 

His phone, gripped tightly in his hand deep in his pocket, starts to vibrate, and Yoongi stops, stepping to the side of the road, despite the fact that there are no cars in sight, as he pulls it out. His eyebrows go up when he sees it’s an unsaved number, and he considers just rejecting it, sure it’s a spam call. But as his thumb hovers over the reject call button, something stops him. It’s just a feeling, but it’s enough to cause him to accept the call and hold the phone up to his ear. 

“This is Min Yoongi.”

“Min Yoongi-ssi, good morning. My name is Bang Sihyuk with BigHit Entertainment. How are you doing?”

A shock runs down Yoongi’s spine. He’s heard of BigHit. It’s a small company, not incredibly popular yet, but their male idol group - some ridiculously long name that Yoongi can’t remember - debuted not long ago, and are doing well in the charts so far. His eyes are so wide he’s afraid that they’re going to freeze in the cold winter air and fall out of his head. He forces himself to blink hard, ignoring the burn, and takes a deep breath. 

“I’m doing well, thank you. How can I help you Sihyuk-ssi?”

“I’ll cut right to the chase. I heard your mixtape, and I think you have some serious talent. Are you currently with a company?”

“No, I’m not. I did that mixtape on my own.”

“I’m not looking for another artist right now, but the production quality on that album, especially considering you did the whole thing on your own, is extremely high, and I’m very impressed. I would love it if you could come in sometime this week, and talk more in person about some opportunities you could have here with BigHit. I think that with your talent and your input, our artists could shoot directly to the top of the charts. And maybe in the future, when the company’s grown a little larger, we could get your voice out there as a soloist as well, if that’s something you’re striving for.”

Yoongi feels like he could throw up, but in a good way if that’s at all possible. He takes another deep breath, trying to contain the emotion that’s building in this throat. “Sir, yes, absolutely, I can come in whenever you want. I need this opportunity.”

“Why don’t you come down tomorrow morning, at ten am? I’ll text you the address. I very much look forward to speaking with you, Yoongi-ssi. I think you could be really good for this company.”

“Yes, thank you sir, I look forward to it as well. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, enjoy the rest of your day. Oh!” he says then, and Yoongi’s eyes go wide. “If you have anything else that you haven’t released yet, bring it in with you.”

“Okay, I will.”

Yoongi hangs up, and shoves his phone back into his pocket so that he can press his hands to his face, sinking down into a squat. He feels like he’s going to explode with the enormity of what just transpired. This is his shot. His shot to become a producer, what he’s always wanted. Sure, he’s a rapper, too, but it’s always been making music that he’s passionate about, writing lyrics and rapping them are only parts of the whole dream. He screams into his palm, and then, one hand still pressed hard against his mouth, he pulls out his phone and unlocks it, seeing that Bang Sihyuk already texted him the address of the company. It’s a little far away, but that’s fine. Yoongi would go all the way down to Busan for this opportunity. He opens up katalk, and the group chat he has with his brothers, and as he texts them he notices that his hand is shaking. 

The owner of BigHit Entertainment just called me and asked to meet me. Said he heard my mixtape and wants me to work for him, producing for his artists. 

He hits send, and then all but runs back down the hill. Screwing the subway, he hops in the first taxi that stops for his frantic waving and rattles off the address. He’s vibrating with excitement and the need to get back home, to his laptop to start going through all of the finished songs he’s made but hasn’t released yet to find the absolute best ones. This is everything he’s spent the last ten years working toward, and actual, paying job in the music industry. Maybe everything’s been worth it, all that shit I’ve gone through, if it meant I’d get here, he thinks. 

He’s so lost in the excitement of the moment that he completely forgets the reason he was out and about that morning. 

The next morning Yoongi paces outside the small building that BigHit Entertainment runs out of at nine fifty. He’s nervous, but he takes deep breaths, trying to steel himself for whatever is to come. Taehyung didn’t visit him last night, so he’s well rested, if a little sad to have missed him. Yoongi shakes his head. Now is not the time to mope about Taehyung. 

He checks the time on his phone. It’s only nine fifty-two. Fuck it, he thinks. He’s a little early, hopefully they’ll just see it as eagerness. He goes inside, and heads to the elevator. Their offices are on the fourth floor, and the ride up is silent until the elevator announces their floor. He steps out, and doesn’t have to look far to notice the frosted glass door with the logo BIGHIT ENTERTAINMENT emblazoned across the front. 

He opens the door and the woman sitting at the front desk greets him. There’s a small sitting area, and behind the desk is a long hallway with several doors spaced evenly along the walls. “Good morning, are you Min Yoongi-ssi?” the woman asks, and Yoongi nods, swallowing hard. Hopefully his dry mouth goes away. 

“Yes, I am.”

“Bang PD-nim is expecting you, have a seat and he’ll come get you in a moment.” Yoongi nods again, and goes to the black leather couch. But almost as soon as he sits down, an older, roundish man steps out from the door closest to the front door. Yoongi stands again, and the man smiles. 

“Yoongi-ssi? It’s nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand, and Yoongi takes it loosely, bowing low. “Come on back to my office.” He leads Yoongi down the short hall to a different door than the one he emerged from. He sits down at his desk, and gestures for Yoongi to sit in the chair opposite. His office is small, and a little cluttered. “This space is a little cramped, isn’t it?” he says, a smile on his kind looking face. If Yoongi is honest, he doesn’t really look like someone who would be running an entertainment company. 

“Seoul is an expensive city, and I’m sure it’s hard to find the perfect space,” Yoongi says, tactfully, he hopes. 

“That it is. Ok, let’s get down to business. I love your work. One of the boys in our group gave it to me. I’m honesty incredibly surprised you haven’t been snatched up yet. Have you been scouted my many different companies?”

Yoongi reaches up and scratches behind his ear, trying not to grimace. “To be honest, I haven’t been able to get my music out there as much as I would have liked. It’s been rough the last ten years, and only in the last few months have things gotten to a point where I had the time and money to spend writing music and recording it. And that was only after I lost both of my jobs and got hit by a car.” Bang Sihyuk’s eyes go wide at Yoongi’s confession. “The doctors said I was lucky to have survived, and while I was recovering I wrote most of that mixtape.”

“Then you’re undiscovered talent. That’s perfect, because when you rise to the top of this industry, which I firmly believe you will, you’ll be able to say you got your start with us. Do you want to make music with us? I know pop may not be your usual, and our group is a bit less hip hop than the music you make, but we’ve got good rappers, and you may be just the person who help foster that part of their talents.” Sihyuk’s voice is confident as he speaks, optimistic. 

“Yes, I do want to make music. And I like every genre. I also compose classical music, and I’m pretty good at the piano, if I say so myself.”

“Fantastic. Did you bring anything new I can hear?” 

Yoongi nods quickly, and pulls out the USB stick that’s got his music on it. Last night, with his brothers’ help, he chose five songs that he’s proud of. Sihyuk takes the USB and puts it in his computer. “Any one in particular you think I should hear first?” 

Yoongi doesn’t hesitate before he rattles off the title of the song he asked Jeongguk to sing, the one inspired by Taehyung’s song. As the first notes start playing, Yoongi can’t help the fond smile that spreads across his lips. It’s very different from the kinds of songs on his mixtape, and judging by the look on Bang Sihyuk’s face, he was not expecting the soft, beautiful ballad that begins playing through his computer. He stares at Yoongi wish wide eyes as the song plays all the way through, and then he smiles. “Oh yes. We are going to take this industry by storm, my new friend. When can you start?”

“Yesterday.”

“Perfect.”

They spend the next two hours discussing Sihyuk’s plans, as well as going on a small tour of the different studios. Yoongi will mostly be working from home on his own computer and equipment he spent the last ten years slowly saving up to buy, but there’s a small office that has enough room for two computer desks, so that he can come into the office and work when he needs to. Then Sihyuk introduces Yoongi to the other producers, as well as the boys - ambitious and rambunctious young men with a ridiculously long name that the abbreviate to TXT - and when Yoongi finally leaves the building after signing his year-long contract, he feels like he’s walking on air. He texts their group chat again, giving them the shorthand of what happened, promising to give them the full story that night when they’re out celebrating. He’s already got the bare-bones mp3s of two songs sitting in his inbox and he’s eager to get home to his equipment to get started, but first he’s got one more shift at the coffee shop. He wanted to call and quit right there, but he couldn’t in good conscience leave them high and dry for the closing shift tonight. He’s also not interested in burning any bridges, knowing how fickle things can be. 

So he goes in, and hands in a letter he’d written and printed that morning before he even went to BigHit, his two week’s notice. His boss is upset that he’s leaving, especially after having given him a second chance, but he’s marginally understanding when Yoongi tells him that it’s because he got his dream job in the field that he’s been working so hard to get into. He appreciates that Yoongi’s giving notice without just quitting. 

Then, it’s almost as if someone hit fast forward on his life. Where the time would eek by at a snail’s pace before, it now flies by. He’s busier than he’s been in a long time, but he’s busy making music. It’s so beyond worth it, and he had no idea the last time he was this happy. 

Three months pass, and with Yoongi’s new paycheck - which is not as big as he’d get at a bigger production company, it’s still nothing to sneeze at, and much bigger than his last several jobs put together - the boys don’t have to worry about much of anything anymore - rent and utilities are covered with much more left over than they’re used to, and they still get more left over food from the restaurant Seokjin’s a cook at that they barely need to grocery shop. So while he’s still just as paranoid about saving his money, Yoongi does finally allow himself to buy a new smart phone - the newest Samsung model - to replace the one he lost in the accident nearly six months ago now. 

He feels like he’s dreaming, because things surely could not be going this well. Not when a year ago he was stuck in a deep, black hole of depression, barely scraping by to feed himself and his family, working himself to death. 

“How is this possible?” he asks Hoseok early one morning. They’re both sitting at the table drinking their coffee and trying to wake up. Yoongi has a deadline tonight, and he’s planning on going into the office and locking himself in the studio all day. The boys are set to start recording their comeback album tomorrow, and Yoongi and the other producers are working their asses off to make sure the tracks are ready to lay their voices over. 

“How is what possible, hyung?” Hoseok’s also got an early start today, as he was asked to add a few more classes to his schedule at his hagwon. They’ve become incredibly popular, and he’s got a veritable dance troupe of middle and high schoolers that he’s training now. He’s never been happier. 

“That we can be here? Doesn’t it feel too good to be true?”

“No, we deserve this, hyung. We’ve worked out asses off for years. You’re almost thirty. You deserve this success after so long.”

“Why you gotta bring my age into this,” Yoongi grouses, faking a frown, but Hoseok just laughs, and so does Yoongi. Hoseok is right, Yoongi does deserve this. There’s only one thing keeping him from thinking that everything is perfect. 

He still only sees Taehyung once or twice a week, and it’s starting to truly weigh on him. He misses him so much sometimes he thinks his heart will shatter inside his chest. He’s never had a more regular sleep schedule in his whole life, and where he used to be a night owl, he simply finds himself waking up absurdly early to get work done instead of staying up until all hours like he used to. Going to sleep at night is his favorite part of the day because it means that he may fall down into a dream where he gets to wrap his arms around Taehyung, listen to his voice, stare into his eyes. He’s starting to go crazy with the want to truly be with him. 

He still wanders around Seoul in his free time, keeping his earphones out, listening as hard as he can for whatever it is that will bring him to Taehyung. But there’s nothing. In truth, he’s starting to lose hope that he’ll ever find him. 

Soon, Hoseok leaves, heading for his academy, and Yoongi leaves not long after, the rest of his family still sleeping soundly. It’s still freezing cold outside as they reach the end of February, and Yoongi’s bundled up tightly in his long padding over two sweatshirts, a thick knitted beanie on his head, and a giant scarf nearly eating him. He’s still cold as he walks the few blocks to the subway. 

The streets are not busy, the few people out at this hour look just exhausted, like they’re still waking up, hands gripping their coffee like they’ll die if they let go. Yoongi enjoys the peace and quiet of the morning, the way the warmth of the sun is able to cut through the freezing air to warm the little bit of his face that’s not covered up. He reaches into his pocket for his airpods - another splurge that he tries not to let himself feel guilty about - but stops dead in his tracks. 

There. On the wind, it’s faint, but he can hear it clearly. Taehyung’s song. He’d know it anywhere. Yoongi whips his head around frantically, trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. He thinks it’s coming from a few streets over to his left, and he takes off, racing through the nearly empty streets, completely forgetting about his desire to get to the office early and get to work. 

He turns down a smaller street, and then again down an alleyway. The music gets louder as he gets closer, and then he’s standing outside of a flower shop, and the music fades away. On the door is a beautifully painted sign that says “Kim and Park Flowers” , and beneath it is an open sign. He can see someone at the back of the small shop. He’s standing with his back to the door, but Yoongi would know that hair, those shoulders anywhere. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and steeling himself. He has to convince Taehyung that it doesn’t matter what he looks like, or what his circumstances are in the real world, Yoongi’s still going to love him. Always going to love him. This is his chance. 

He opens his eyes, and looks down for a split second before pushing the door open. He looks up, but there’s no one there. The door at the very back of the store, behind the counter opens and closes quickly, as if Taehyung saw him outside, and ducked down to hide, before retreating into the back room. Yoongi stands there, the bell on the door jingling as it swings shut behind him. His heart sinks. Taehyung ran away from him. 

Then the back door opens again, and his heart starts pounding in his chest, but the person who steps out isn’t Taehyung. Jimin looks just as impossibly beautiful as he did in Yoongi’s dream, and when he sees Yoongi, his bright customer service smile fades just a bit into something a little more sad. 

“Yoongi-ssi,” he says, softly. “You found us.”

“Why- why did Taehyung hide?” he asks, hating how his words make him sound like a child. The pressure on his heart threatening to shatter it gets just a little harder, and he can feel it begin to crack, just a bit. “Why doesn’t he want to see me?”

“Yoongi-ssi-”

“Hyung,” Yoongi interrupts. 

“Yoongi-hyung, it’s not that Taehyung doesn’t want to see you. He does. Believe me. He’s just not ready.”

“He told me he’s afraid, but I don’t understand.” He has to fight hard to suppress the urge to stomp his foot like a child. 

Jimin takes a deep breath, looks down for a long moment. “Taehyung doesn’t look quite the same way you see him in your dreams,” he says then after a moment’s hesitation, and Yoongi can tell in the way he speaks that he feels he should not be saying this. 

“What do you mean? He looks different? That doesn’t matter, I didn’t fall in love with his face, I fell in love with him.”

“I know. He doesn’t even look that different, he just has. . .” Jimin trails off, looking up at the ceiling. Yoongi realizes that he’s trying not to cry. “He has.” He huffs, looking away for a moment, before growling softly and shaking his head, making up his mind. “Scars. From something that happened years ago, when we left Busan and came here. He’s still Taehyung, but he’s terrified that you’ll see him and be disgusted with what you see.”

Tight, hot anger clenches in Yoongi’s chest. “How can I prove to him that I don’t care what he looks like?”

“Give him time. Keep reassuring him when you see him. That’s all you can do. I can’t force him to see you, but I will not tell you to stay away. I know how he feels about you, and he beats himself up constantly because he feels like a coward, and I’m so tired of seeing him hurting because of his low self-esteem. He’s my best friend.”

Yoongi nods, a determination he hasn’t felt in a long time settling in his stomach. It’s only then that he finally looks around the small shop. It’s absolutely full of all kinds of different plants and flowers. There’s also a small case in the back that’s full of crystals and what look like small bags of dried flowers and leaves. “Will you tell me what you and Taehyung are, please?” he asks when he finally turns back to Jimin, who’s watching him with an intent expression. “You own a flower shop, and sell crystals, and can walk in other people’s dreams.”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I would never.”

“I’m a witch. Taehyung is too.”

Yoongi knows that if someone told him a year ago, even just six months ago, that they were a witch he would have dismissed them outright as insane, and walked away. But hearing it from Jimin, after everything he’s been through in the last half year, it makes perfect sense. He nods, staring into Jimin’s eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay? You’re not going to call me a crazy person?”

“How can I? I’ve never met Taehyung, but he visits my dreams even though he’s real, and I know he’s right through that door. It makes sense. So much in my life has gone right since I pushed him out of the way of that car. I healed impossibly fast, my hospital bills were paid anonymously, I got my job back before getting my dream job. My brothers also have jobs, and Jeongguk is doing so well in school. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if any of that is Taehyung’s doing, through magic of all things, then I accept that.” 

“We also interpret dreams, and sell small charms. We’ve got a few regulars who realize that our wares are a little more than normal, but for the most part people just think that this is a regular flower shop. The dream interpretation is why we’re open so early, people tend to come right after they wake up with a dream fresh in their minds that they want us to interpret.” As Jimin talks he smiles, his eyes narrowing to slits.

Then Jimin turns, and steps to the door. He opens it just enough to stick his head in. Yoongi takes a step forward, but then forces himself to stop. He’s gotten this far. He needs Taehyung to come the rest of the way on his own. He hears Jimin speak. “Will you come see him? Please?” It’s silent, and Yoongi knows that Taehyung is whispering. Then Jimin steps back, a sad look on his face. He looks at Yoongi. “Is there anything you want to say to him?” He hasn’t shut the door yet, and it takes everything Yoongi has not to run over and throw himself through it. His fingers twitch, the desire to touch Taehyung in the real world nearly debilitating. 

“Tae-yah?” he calls, raising his voice so that there will be no chance of Taehyung not hearing or understanding him. “I love you. I will love you no matter what. I don’t care how long it takes for you to realize that I mean it when I say that, but however long it takes, know that I will be here. And I’m going to keep coming back until you’re ready. I want to be with you. I want to show you off to the world, to my family, and I don’t care what anyone thinks or says about it.”

He’s not used to putting his feelings into words outside the safety of music, but he hopes that the sincerity of his words gets through to Taehyung. 

Then, Yoongi turns and looks around for a moment. He spots a display of bouquets of dried flowers, beautiful, and undying. He picks out a small one with pink and purple flowers, and he takes it to Jimin at the counter. He sets it down on the glass, and fishes his wallet out of his pocket. “How much?”

“Five thousand won.”

Yoongi pulls a five thousand won note from his wallet and hands it to Jimin. Then, feeling bold, he picks up the bouquet and goes to where the door to the back room is still open. Jimin makes a small noise of protest, but Yoongi turns his whole body away from the door as he thrusts his hand, and the bouquet, through the opening. “Tae-yah, these are for you.”

His heart clenches when he hears a wet sniff from behind the door, and then there’s a hand on his, gentle, so gentle, and Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut as they touch for the first time in the real world. Then Taehyung takes the bouquet from him, and his hand is gone. “Thank you,” Taehyung whispers. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll wait for you forever, if I have to.”

Then, before he can succumb to the emotion in his throat, Yoongi flees the shop. 

That night, feeling like he’s about to melt into a puddle, he confesses everything to his brothers as the sit in the living room after dinner. He tells them about noticing golden eyes through the rain, and how Taehyung went with him to the hospital before the boys were contacted. He tells them about Taehyung singing him to sleep, and then appearing in his dream for the first time. He’s since realized that Taehyung must have been the reason he was in a coma for so long, he kept him asleep so that he could help heal him somehow. He tells them about meeting him so often in his dreams, and how they fell in love that way. Then he tells them about finding the flower shop that morning, and what Jimin told him. 

When he finishes speaking, they all stare hard at him, brows drawn and their lips turned down in frowns. 

“I know you probably think I’m crazy, but it’s true. You have to believe me.”

Jeongguk speaks first, clearing his throat in the silent living room. “I believe you, hyung.”

“You do?”

“You’re not the kind of person who would believe in magic and witches unless it were real. Unless you’ve completely lost your mind, I know you’re telling the truth.”

“Are we so sure he hasn’t lost his mind?” Seokjin mutters, and Yoongi just rolls his eyes at him. 

“So Taehyung doesn’t want to meet you in the real world?” Namjoon asks, surprising Yoongi. Namjoon is an incredibly logical, intelligent person. Of anyone Yoongi expected Namjoon to be the one who truly doesn’t believe him. Namjoon must see that in his expression. “I’ve always felt that there was some kind of magic in this world,” Namjoon says softly. “I think that’s the reason I was able to meet all of you, and the reason we’ve made it through the hard years. We scraped by, sure, but there were a few times I was sure we would all starve to death. Somehow we all made it through. It’s either God or magic, and I’m not sure which, but now you’re saying it’s magic, and I’ll believe you. But why doesn’t he want to meet you?”

“Jimin said that he’s got scars from something that happened in their past, and I don’t know if he means physical or mental scars, but I promised him that it wouldn’t matter in the slightest what he looks like, or whatever’s happened in his past.” Yoongi swallows hard, trying to dispel the ball of emotion in his throat. “I’ll love him no matter what.”

“That’s why you started going to bed at a normal time,” Hoseok says, his eyes going wide. “You’ve been a night owl the whole time I’ve known you, and then all of the sudden you started going to bed at a reasonable hour of the night every night. It makes so much sense now.”

They laugh, and Yoongi feels his cheeks heat up. “Yeah, especially these days I never know when I’ll see him, so I try to go to bed at the same time every night. I think he must be able to tell when I’m asleep, probably because of his magic, because it doesn’t matter if it’s at night or a nap, he’ll still come.”

“So what have you two gotten up to in these dreams?” Seokjin asks, waggling his eyebrows, and Yoongi sputters, his cheeks absolutely blazing now. 

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “We haven’t even kissed yet. I wanted to wait until we could in real life. But now. . . I don’t know if I want to wait. I don’t know when he’ll be ready to let me see him.”

“Feeling a little horny, hyung?” Jeongguk says, nudging him, and Yoongi smacks the back of his head. 

“Yah. Shut up.”

“Guess that’s a yes, then,” Jeongguk mutters, and the others laugh hysterically. 

Yoongi falls down, down, down, a feeling he’s intimately familiar with by now. He alights on his feet, and looks around in surprise. He’s in the flower shop, and he spins quickly around, searching, and there. Taehyung is standing a few feet away, in front of the glass case full of crystals. Yoongi wants to go to him, but Taehyung’s expression stops him. 

“So. . .” he starts, his voice quiet. “You found me. Hyung. . .”

“Tae-yah-”

“I asked you not to, hyung,” he pleads. 

Yoongi deflates. He takes a deep breath, and his chest feels tight. His lungs don’t want to fill all the way, and he realizes why a moment later when his vision blurs slightly with tears. There are no chairs in the shop, but Yoongi’s used to sitting in the ground when he’s in these dreams anyway, so he lets himself fall to the floor. His hands rest in his lap, and he stares down at his fingers. He hears Taehyung rush over, and sees him fall to his knees in front of Yoongi. “Why don’t you trust me?” Yoongi whispers. 

“Hyung, I-”

“If you trusted me then you would believe me when I say that I don’t care what you look like. Do you think so low of me? That I’d be so shallow to run away if I don’t like what I see?” Yoongi looks up, then, locking eyes with Taehyung, who looks like he was struck.

“Hyung,” he breathes out. “It’s not you I think low of. It’s me.” Taehyung falls to his side, and pulls his legs out from under him, resting them on either side of Yoongi. “I’m sorry. I have. . . no self-esteem, and I’m sorry that it’s hurting you. That is the absolute last thing I want to do. I’m a coward.”

“What happened to make you think so low of yourself? To the point where you won’t let me meet the love of my life?”

Taehyung stares at him, eyes wide, once again looking like he’d been struck. Then to Yoongi’s absolute horror, his face crumples and he covers it with both of his hands. His shoulders shake, and before he can even consciously tell his limbs to move, Yoongi’s scooting closer, uncrossing his legs so he can rest them over Taehyung’s, to allow them to be as close as possible. He pulls Taehyung’s face down to his chest, and holds him close, petting his hair as Taehyung cries into his shirt. 

“I’m sorry. I told you I would wait as long as it takes this morning, and I meant that. Just. . . please. Tae-yah.” Taehyung just nods against his chest, taking deep, ragged breaths. 

“I’ll try, hyung, I promise.” He sits back, though he’s still close, thanks to where Yoongi is sitting. Yoongi reaches up with both hands, and cups Taehyung’s cheeks, using his thumbs to brush away Taehyung’s tears. Even though he knows he’s dreaming, it feels so real. Taehyung’s skin is hot under his hands, from how hard he was crying. His tears are wet. Then he thinks, it’s not really a dream. . . not really. Taehyung’s real, he’s causing this. It’s not my subconscious making something up, and just because it’s happening inside my head doesn’t make it any less real.  

So, he leans forward, pulling Taehyung’s face forward to meet him halfway, and he presses a kiss so light and gentle against his lips that he barely feels anything. He doesn’t hold Taehyung’s face, does nothing more than barely rest his hands on his skin, hoping that it doesn’t feel like he’s forcing this on Taehyung. Instead of pulling away, like Yoongi thought he would, Taehyung presses in, just barely pressing a little more. Both of their lips are closed, and it’s probably the most chaste kiss Yoongi’s ever had. But, he’s never kissed someone he loves before. Never kissed someone he would go to the ends of the earth for, and that makes all the difference. 

Taehyung pulls back a moment later, and Yoongi lets him, of course. It’s become abundantly clear to him that while Taehyung may have been the one who started everything by visiting him night after night, he’s easily frightened, and Yoongi doesn’t want to startle him, or cause him to retreat even further away from him. 

“I love you,” Yoongi whispers. Taehyung closes his eyes, red from crying, and rests his forehead against Yoongi’s. 

“I love you, too.”

“Do you want me to stay away, or can I come back to the shop and buy you flowers?”

Taehyung lets out a gust of air, a ghost of a laugh. “You don’t need to buy my flowers to give to me.”

“Of course I do. When you love someone you buy them flowers, you just so happen to own a flower shop, so it saves me a trip. You can even put them back after I leave, and earn money without losing any assets.”

“I would never.” Yoongi smiles, and Taehyung leans in to kiss him once more before the ever hated call of Taehyung’s name faintly floats through the air. 

“Why do you always have to go?”

Taehyung sighs gently. “I’ll tell you the whole story some day, but the gist of it is that Jimin and I can’t use magic for too long at one time, so Jimin always calls me back after five minutes.” Yoongi’s eyes go wide, and Taehyung laughs softly. “Five minutes outside is a lot longer in here.”

“You haven’t been here for that long yet, though, not tonight. Please. Don’t go.”

Taehyung kisses him, this time firmer, the hands on his forearms gripping tightly. “I’ll always come back,” he whispers, as he always does. Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. 

“Okay. You’d better. I’ll be by tomorrow to buy you flowers.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Then Taehyung stands, and walks to the back of the shop, and Yoongi can only watch as he opens the back door and shuts it behind him, and then Yoongi’s flying up, and he wakes. 

To his great surprise, Jeongguk is still awake, lying beside him on his phone. “Oh, hyung, you’re awake. Wait, were you with Taehyung?” Yoongi just nods, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the heels of his palms hard against them. 

“I kissed him,” he whispers. 

“And?”

“And it was wonderful.”

Yoongi goes back to the flower shop the next morning, even though he’s not going into the office. He buys flowers, and hands them to Taehyung through the door, and then he does it again the next day, and the next day. 

Three days later, when he falls asleep he keeps falling until he’s once again with him. Yoongi smiles brightly, and this time when he moves to close the distance between them, instead of simply pulling him into his arms, he reaches up and cups his cheeks to pull him down into a kiss. Taehyung’s just tall enough that he has to lean his head down slightly to meet Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi savors it, lingering for a long while, breathing in the scent of him. It’s light, floral, which makes sense considering he spends so much time around flowers. 

They’re in the meadow again this time, and it’s warm and bright. Taehyung conjures up a blanket, and they both lie down, pressed against each other’s sides. “How was your day, hyung?” Taehyung asks. Yoongi lets his head fall to the side so he can look at him. 

“It was good. The boys’ album is coming together, and they’re working so hard. They’ve almost finished recording it, and then we’ve got to go in and make sure everything works perfectly together, the music and the vocals. I’m also working on a few more tracks on the side, just for me.”

“Sounds like you’ve been very busy.” Taehyung adjusts so he’s on his side. “Thank you for the flowers, hyung,” he whispers. 

“Will you tell me about your day? I want to know more about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Taehyung stares at him for a long moment, before the corners of his lips curl up. “Okay, hyung. I guess there’s little point in keeping things from you anymore. Um. I was born in Daegu.” Yoongi’s eyes go wide.

“I was, too.”

Taehyung laughs softly. “But, um, I left when I was fifteen.” His voice sounds incredibly sad as he says this, as if perhaps it wasn’t his choice.

“Did your family move?”

Taehyung shakes his head gently. “No, they’re still there, as far as I know. I left on my own.” Yoongi’s heart clenches. So he and Taehyung were in the same boat, they found themselves without a family from too young an age. “I decided to go down to Busan. I’d always wanted to be near the sea, so I just went. I stayed in a hostel for a while, and then I met Jimin, and it was like I met the other half of my soul - though, there’s never been anything romantic between us. He’s my brother, and my best friend, and when we met it felt like we’d known each other our whole lives, as cliché as that sounds.”

“It doesn’t. That’s how it was when I met Namjoon, when I met all of my brothers. That’s how I felt when I met you.”

Taehyung smiles again, and Yoongi can’t help but lean in for another kiss. Taehyung sighs gently. “Then, after a few years, we moved here to Seoul, and we’ve been here since then.”

“How old are you? You’re not going to tell me that you’re like five hundred, right? How long do witches live?”

He laughs, and Yoongi’s glad the sad expression is gone from his face, even if it’s just for a moment. “No, hyung. We live the same amount of time that any human does. I just turned twenty-five in December.”

Yoongi lightly smacks his chest. “You had your birthday and you didn’t tell me?”

“Sorry,” he says, trying to sound placating through the mirth in his voice. “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-seven. I’ll be twenty-eight next month. March ninth. So you’d better visit me that night.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Or better yet, you could come to my birthday party,” Yoongi says gently, knowing what Taehyung will say and not wanting to scare him off, but wanting to offer nonetheless. “You don’t have to say anything, Tae-yah, it’s okay,” he whispers as Taehyung squeezes his eyes shut. The silence that hangs between them is heavy, like a physical weight holding Yoongi down on the ground. He sits up, then, as if to prove to himself that he can, that he’s not being held down. Taehyung follows, and then they’re sitting with their knees pressed together, the same way they’ve sat together for months now. “Why did you leave Daegu?” 

“Fifteen is when magic manifests, if it’s going to. My parents are non-magical, but my great-grandparents had been, so it skipped a few generations. My parents freaked out, and told me that if I was going to stay I would have to pretend that I was normal. I tried for a few months, but it became too much. It’s like having a living thing inside me, and if I ignore it for too long then I start to feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Did you live with Jimin’s family, or did they reject him too?”

“We did. I went to his high school with him, and after we graduated we moved out together, worked a couple jobs each to pay for an apartment.”

“Why did you come to Seoul?”

Taehyung readily answered his other questions, but this one gives him pause. Finally he sighs heavily, the memory obviously weighing on him. “Jimin started dating this guy a few months after we moved out on our own. Another witch. He turned out to be. . . a really bad guy. We moved to Seoul to escape.” Yoongi reaches between them and takes Taehyung’s hand in his own. Once his hand is safely enclosed in Yoongi’s, it no longer feels like the distance between them is too great, and he breathes a small sigh of relief. 

“I’m glad you were able to get Jimin out of a bad situation. You’re a good friend.”

“Thank you, hyung. That means a lot more than you know,” he says, almost bitterly. “We’ve been here in Seoul for four years now, but sometimes it still feels like if we turn the wrong corner he’ll be there, waiting to hurt Jimin again, and it terrifies me sometimes. He’s probably not even looking for us, but we- we’re still careful. That’s why I only stay with you for five minutes at a time in the real world. In case he’s tracking us by our magic.”

“That’s possible?” Taehyung nods. “That’s okay, then. I’ll take a limited time with you if it means that you’ll both be safe. Though, we could have a lot more time in the real world, and you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“Hyung.” Taehyung’s voice is suddenly hard, and Yoongi sits up straight, surprised. “Please. Stop.”

“It’s true!”

“It’s not going to happen, not yet!”

“Then why do you keep coming?” Yoongi says, trying to keep a tight rein on his tone. Part of him wants to yell, wants to rage, but he knows that won’t help. “Why do you keep letting me spend time with you when you won’t let us be real?” 

“Isn’t this real, though? Isn’t this real enough?”

“No! It’s not enough! Not anymore.” Yoongi takes a deep breath, and Taehyung tries to pull his hand away from Yoongi’s grip, but he just holds tighter, unyielding. “No. You’re not allowed to let go. If this is all you’re going to give me, then don’t try to take it away.” His heart is breaking, the same way it’s been for a long while now. He hurts for Taehyung, for the fact that he thinks so lowly of himself that he won’t even give Yoongi the chance to decide for himself. He doesn’t realize he’s started crying until the tears spill over, and begin rolling down his cheeks. “Why did you do this to me, huh?” he whispers. “Why did you waltz into my life, beautiful inside and out, so kind, and loving, and intelligent and insightful, and then keep me at arm’s length? It’s not fair. Please let me in.”

He’s not looking at him, but he can hear Taehyung’s breathing getting harsher, faster, and then he’s gone. Yoongi stares down at his hand, now empty, and he begins to sob. He doubles over, cradling his empty hand against his chest, and doesn’t notice he’s flying up out of the dream until he’s awake. He catches himself, knowing that Jeongguk is asleep beside him, and not wanting to wake him, but even with his hands pressed tightly over his mouth he can’t remain silent, and Jeongguk wakes with a start. 

“Huh? Hyung? What-” he says, but when Yoongi just shakes his head, he sits up and wraps his arms around him, holding him close. “It’ll be okay, hyung. I promise.”

The next morning, Yoongi sits at the kitchen table, his mug of coffee resting on the table in front of him, half empty. “Yoongi-hyung, are you alright?” Namjoon asks from across the table. He’s been staring at Yoongi for a few minutes now, but Yoongi continues staring down at the table. “Jeongguk said you woke up crying last night, did something happen with you and Taehyung?”

“He just left. He’s never just left before,” Yoongi whispers. “I’ve known him for six months, spent countless hours in my dreams with him, and he’s never once just left without saying goodbye before.”

“Do you know why he left? Maybe something happened on his end and he just had to go suddenly.” Yoongi knows Namjoon’s trying to make him feel better, but it’s not going to work. 

“He doesn’t want to meet me. I try not to, but I keep pressuring him, and I’m afraid that he’s going to just stop coming. I know where he is, he and his best friend own a flower shop in Itaewon, but when I found them he hid, and he didn’t want me to find them. I just. . . I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to.” Yoongi reaches for his mug, and brings it to his lips, but then he puts it back down. “Jimin said he’s got scars, and he told me he’s really insecure that I won’t like what I see when I see him in real life, but how can he just decide for the both of us how I’ll feel? It’s not fair!” He takes a deep breath, a little dismayed at how shakey it is. 

“Do you know what happened?”

“He won’t tell me.”

“It sounds like he’s. I don’t know. Disfigured, maybe,” Namjoon says, gently. “And if that’s the truth, then it might normal for him to be afraid of you seeing him, especially after you’ve gotten so used to the way you see him in your dreams.”

Yoongi’s still a little surprised at how easily his brothers have accepted the fact that the love of his life is a witch whom he meets only in his dreams. He loves them all the more for it. He knows how absurd the whole situation is. 

“He’s probably afraid that you’ve fallen for his face, and when you see his real face you won’t love him anymore. I know!” he starts when Yoongi opens his mouth. “I know that’s not true, but it’s hard to accept that if you hate the way you look. And he’s probably hurting just as much as you are, if not more because I’m sure he knows he’s hurting you. But having low self-esteem, or no confidence in yourself, can be debilitating. I struggle with it sometimes, I know we all do to some extent, but for some people it’s a lot harder to see any worth inside ourselves for whatever reason, and I know that for people who can’t stand the way they look, it can be almost insurmountable.”

“So what do I do? How can I show him that it doesn’t matter? I keep asking myself that over and over again, and if he won’t even give me the chance then I don’t know what I can do.”

“There may not be anything you can do.” Namjoon’s voice is gentle. “He’s got to work through his insecurities on his own. You just have to keep being there, let him come to you. Prove it to him by not giving up on him, because that would be doing exactly what he’s afraid you’ll do.”

“I told him I’d wait as long as it took, but it’s so hard, Namjoon-ah.”

Yoongi stands outside the flower shop, his conversation with Namjoon earlier that morning fresh on his mind still. He takes a deep breath, and then pushes the door open. The bell rings. There’s another customer there already, and older woman standing at the back talking to Jimin. He sees Yoongi and his eyes go wide, but he continues listening to the older woman. Yoongi occupies himself by picking out which flowers he’ll give to Taehyung this morning. There’s a small bouquet of dried yellow flowers, and he smiles fondly when he sees them. They remind him of Taehyung’s dyed blond hair, his golden eyes. He picks them up and mills about until he hears Jimin bid the older woman good day, and she leaves. 

“Hyung,” he says softly, and Yoongi looks over to find him standing in the middle of the store. “Hi.”

“Good morning, Jimin-ah.” Though he tries to hide it, a hint of the heaviness of his heart bleeds out into his voice. 

“Tae told me what happened last night, he was sure you wouldn’t come today.”

“Of course I’m going to come. I’m always going to come.”

Inexplicably, Jimin smiles widely at that. “Good. I’m glad.” Yoongi hands over the five thousand won note, and though Jimin tries to refuse the money, Yoongi persists until he takes it. “Wait here just a moment. Tae’s upstairs, I’ll go get him so you can give them to him.” Jimin tries to hand him back the bouquet, but Yoongi waves a hand, shaking his head. 

“Just take them up? I don’t want to disturb him.” 

He turns to leave, but Jimin grabs his wrist, stopping him. He turns, and looks back at the pink-haired young man, his brows drawn in confusion. “Wait a moment, okay? I’ll be back, and then I want to buy you a coffee. I need to tell you a few things.” Yoongi frowns, but nods, and then Jimin disappears through the back door, presumably to whatever is upstairs. It occurs to him, then, that Jimin and Taehyung probably live upstairs. The flower shop is at the base of a three story building, after all, there must be apartments above, and the back room probably leads into a common area and the staircase to get upstairs. 

Jimin reappears a moment later, a jacket in hand, and he leads Yoongi out of the shop after turning the open sign to closed. He locks the door, and then they’re walking down the alleyway towards the main road. 

“Is Taehyung okay?” Yoongi asks softly. “Why wasn’t he in the shop this morning?”

“He’s okay, he’s just having a bad day. He has those from time to time.”

“Is it because of me?” Yoongi can’t keep the guilt out of his voice. 

“No, it’s not. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Come on, my favorite cafe isn’t far.”

Jimin leads Yoongi down another small side street, and then into a very small cafe. There are only three tables, and one of them is occupied by a young woman, probably a student, who has books strewn across the table in front of her. 

“Jimin-ah!” the old woman behind the counter crows when they walk in, and Jimin greets her just as enthusiastically. “Where’s Taehyung-ah? I haven’t seen his beautiful face in a few days.”

“Taehyung’s having a bad day, halmeoni. He’s at home.” Yoongi watches the old woman’s face fall into one of genuine sadness. “This is his boyfriend, Yoongi,” Jimin says then, and the woman turns her sharp eyes on him. He can feel himself shrink under the weight of her gaze, and he gets the feeling that despite her being a solid foot shorter than him, that she could easily take him down with her words alone. “Don’t look at him like that, halmeoni, he’s a good man.”

“He’d better be. Our Taehyung-ah deserves only the best in this world after what he’s been through.” Yoongi’s brow furrows again. “So, the usual for you, Jimin-ah?” Jimin nods, smiling widely. “What about you?” she asks Yoongi, and he mumbles his order. “Speak up, my old ears aren’t what they used to be.”

“Americano, please,” he says, a little louder. 

“Alright, I’ll bring them when they’re ready.”

“Thanks, halmeoni,” Jimin says, turning to go to the empty table in the corner. 

“What about paying?” Yoongi hisses. Jimin shakes his head. 

“Tae and I help take care of her aches and pains, so she gives us as much free coffee as we want as a trade.”

“Oh. That’s. Kind of you.” Yoongi sits down opposite Jimin. They sit in a silence that would have been uncomfortable with anyone else, but with Jimin it just feels peaceful. He exudes a positive energy, and Yoongi wonders if it’s because of his magic, or if that’s just how he is. The halmeoni brings their coffee a few minutes later, telling them to enjoy, and ruffing Jimin’s hair affectionately before going to ask the student if she wants another coffee. 

Jimin wraps his hands around his mug, likely for the warmth, since he doesn’t try to drink it yet. “So, hyung. I know you’re really hurting because of Taehyung’s insecurities, and he’s going to be so mad at me for it, but I wanted to tell you why he is the way he is.”

“If Tae doesn’t want me to know, then you shouldn’t tell me.”

“If he had a valid reason for not wanting you to know, or if you were anyone else, I wouldn’t. But you deserve to know. And I think that once you know you’ll understand him better, and he’ll also hopefully be able to get his head out of his ass sooner. I’m tired of having to watch him flip flop back and forth between really happy and gushing and in love, to angry and upset and mad at himself.” Jimin takes a deep breath. “Did he tell you why we left Busan?”

Yoongi nods. “He told me you had a boyfriend who was a bad man, and that you left to escape from him.”

“So the bare minimum. Okay. Sihyup was a witch, like us,” Jimin says, his voice suitably soft. “Tae and I specialize in healing magic and dream walking, and his was shapeshifting. He could turn himself into any animal, and he also was able to not so much talk to animals, as just sense what they’re feeling. This drew me to him initially, I thought how can someone who’s so close with animals be a bad person, since animals know that kind of thing, right? I was wrong. A few months into our relationship he started to get really jealous and controlling. He didn’t want me to leave our apartment without him, and he hated Tae - which should have told me something a lot sooner. He was afraid that Tae would go after me, and was really threatened by how close we were. It was mostly verbal abuse, gaslighting, all that fun stuff, until one day he hit me. He only hit me twice, that first time alone, but the second time Taehyung saw. He stepped in, and they got into a fight. Sihyup’s a relatively small guy, shorter than Taehyung, and not super muscular, but Tae didn’t expect him to turn into a fucking tiger and attack him.” Jimin’s lower lip starts wobbling, and he reaches up and wipes furiously at his eyes. All the blood drains from Yoongi’s face, and he feels like he’s going to be sick. “And it’s all my fault, for not breaking up with him after he hit me the first time, or even before that. I smashed a lamp over his head while he was practically trying to eat Tae, and got him dazed enough that I was able to grab Tae and run. We left everything behind, and as soon as Tae was discharged from the hospital we left Busan with nothing.”

Yoongi feels like he’s been punched right in the chest, like his lungs are being squeezed in a vice grip, and he can’t take in a full breath. “A tiger?” he breathes out. “What the fuck?” 

“Yeah. He was one fucked up son of a bitch.” Jimin takes in a deep, shuddering breath, trying not to break down right there. 

“It’s not your fault,” Yoongi whispers. 

“That’s what Tae always says, but I don’t believe you. It is my fault, and now Tae has to go through the rest of his life with the reminder of my cowardice.”

“What- what-” Yoongi starts, but finds he can’t finish the question. Jimin knows what he wants to ask, though. 

“Sihyup mauled his shoulder, and scratched his face badly. He can still use his arm, but it’s weaker than it was before, and he’s got a bad scar. The worst of it, though, is his beautiful face. He’s got bad scars running from his scalp down to his chin.” Jimin hesitates, before reaching up to his own face and demonstrating, and Yoongi gasps. Then Jimin covers his face with both hands and shakes his head. “He’s so self conscious about it that he rarely leaves the shop, prefers not to work in the front so he doesn’t have to see people. Some days he’s okay, but others he can’t get out of bed. And I’m not telling you this so you can pity him,” Jimin starts, his tone heating up, and Yoongi quickly shakes his head. 

“I would never.”

“He’s going to be so mad at me,” Jimin mutters. 

“Thank you for telling me.” Yoongi reaches for his coffee and takes a big sip. It’s still hot, but not so hot that it burns his mouth. It’s good coffee too, and his surprise must show on his face because Jimin chuckles softly. 

“Halmeoni makes damn good coffee, doesn’t she?” Yoongi nods. “I’m going to tell Tae that I told you the whole story, because I can’t keep anything from him.” Yoongi nods again. He wouldn’t expect Jimin to keep secrets from his best friend. 

Then, Yoongi gets an idea. He reaches for his receipt, and checks his pockets. Then he stands and goes to the counter. “Halmeoni, could I please borrow a pen?” She smiles, and hands one to him, and he quickly writes his phone number down on the receipt before giving it back. Then he returns to the table. “This is my phone number, would you give it to Tae, please? Tell him he doesn’t have to text me or call me or anything, that it’s completely up to him, I just want him to have the option. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.”

The earlier heavy mood lifts as Jimin smiles brightly. “That’s a great idea, hyung. I’ll give it to him.” Then he pulls out his own phone, and starts typing. A moment later Yoongi’s phone vibrates. “Now you have my number too. Also you didn’t have to write it on the receipt, you could have just told me? We have technology,” he teases, and Yoongi’s cheeks heat up slightly.

“It was the first thing that came to mind,” he grumbles. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll give him the receipt. It’s more romantic that way.”

“Thanks, Jimin-ah.”

“Of course.”

Yoongi takes another sip of his coffee, and then gently sets it back on the table. “You told halmeoni that I’m Taehyung’s boyfriend. . .” he trails off, and Jimin laughs.

“Aren’t you?”

“I want to be. That’s why I want to see him in real life so badly. I want to be with him all the time, not just when I’m asleep.”

“I know it sounds repetitive, but just give him time. On top of his insecurities about his scars, Tae’s also never been in a relationship before. I’ve known him since we were fifteen, and he’s the kindest soul I’ve ever met, but he’s never met anyone that makes him feel the way you to, and I know that for a fact. He also used to be pretty awkward, before he grew into his charms.”

Yoongi nods. “I’ll wait. I hate it, but I will. As long as he needs.”

Yoongi goes about his days the way he has since he found the flower shop. He gets up and goes to buy Taehyung flowers, giving them to Jimin, since Taehyung’s still not around. He tries not to feel impatient about the fact that Taehyung hasn’t texted him, and hasn’t visited him either since he left early that night. Every time his phone rings or vibrates a shock goes through him, and he scrambles to get to it as fast as he can, disappointment spreading through him when it’s work, or one of his brothers. 

Days pass. Then a week. Then two. And still nothing. He goes every day, sometimes bringing coffee from the coffee shop halmeoni for Taehyung and Jimin in addition to the flowers he still buys. 

This continues for two weeks, and then three, and then a month has passed. It’s getting warmer outside, but Yoongi can’t feel it, not with the ice that’s curling around his chest as another day passes without seeing him, or hearing from him. 

He knows his brothers are starting to feel really worried again. He sees them watching him, trying to coax him out of his room. He realizes, however, that something’s really wrong when Sihyuk sits him down one afternoon, and slides a paper cup of tea across his desk. 

“Yoongi-yah, is everything okay?” he asks, his voice full of fatherly concern. “Everyone around here is really worried about you.”

Yoongi takes a deep breath, staring down at the red wood of the desk. “I, um. I went through a. A breakup, I guess,” he says softly, realizing for the first time that perhaps that’s what happened. He hasn’t heard from Taehyung in a month, and he’s starting to worry that he never will again. Every day he goes to the shop and asks Jimin how Taehyung is, and he sees the sad look in Jimin’s eyes when he says, “not so well.”

“Oh,” Sihyuk says softly. “I’m sorry, Yoongi-yah, that’s really hard.” He takes a deep breath, and Yoongi looks up to see him nod to himself. “Take a few days off. You’ve got vacation time, use a few of your days, and take it easy.”

“Oh, no, I can’t-” Yoongi starts, but Sihyuk just shakes his head. 

“No, as your boss, I’m asking you to take some time. Rest. You look exhausted. It’s not a shame to need to take some time when we lose someone, especially someone we care about, as you so obviously do.” Yoongi knows he won’t accept any other answer, so he just nods. “It’s Wednesday, take tomorrow and Friday, and come back on Monday refreshed.”

“Okay, I will. Thank you.”

“We care about, Yoongi-yah. I can’t tell you how lucky we are to have you here, and if you burn yourself out then we’ll all suffer, okay?”

Yoongi’s reminded about how it was before. Before he met Taehyung, before the accident. When he was working himself to the bone at two jobs, when he was fired from the both of them because he couldn’t keep it together long enough to do a good job. He doesn’t think that that’s going to happen here, but it scares him nonetheless. He nods again, more determined this time. “I’ll get some rest, and I’ll come back and do an even better job.”

“I know you will. Now, go. Get out of here. Maybe go to the sauna and relax in the hot bath for a while. That always relaxes me.” Yoongi laughs softly.

“Maybe I will. I’ll see you Monday.” He stands and bows, and then leaves. 

He elects to walk for a while before going home. He lets his mind wander. For the first time in a long time he thinks about that morning that changed his life. He remembers how he felt that morning, the despair that clung to every piece of him. He’s so different than he was back then. So much has changed. He hasn’t felt the desire to go out and get black out drunk, or go home with a stranger just to feel something. He knows that’s because he’s had Taehyung, but now, when he may quite possibly have lost Taehyung, he still doesn’t feel the desire. He feels despair now, as he did back then, but it’s different now. Back then it was a destructive despair, but this feeling is just. . . heavy. It weighs him down. Weighs his heart down. But he doesn’t feel like he needs to self-destruct to feel better. That’s because of Taehyung. Because he’s had him to keep him company, to focus his energy on while the rest of his life slowly improved. He wasn’t alone, letting his thoughts drag him down. He knows it’s not very healthy to put the fact that his life has vastly improved over the last six months on someone else. And he does know that it’s not all because of Taehyung. He made his mixtape on his own, he got his job at BigHit all on his own, though his merit. Perhaps he should thank Taehyung for being out that early morning, for walking out into the middle of the street in the rain, and almost getting hit by a car, because since then so many things have changed for the better. Yoongi was able to get out of the slump he was sinking down into while he clung to his self-loathing. 

He’s never asked Taehyung why he was out that early morning. Why he stepped out into the road. Did he even see Yoongi on the other side? It was still mostly dark, and raining pretty hard. But, if Yoongi could see Taehyung, sure Taehyung could see him as well?

Then, a terrible thought flits through his mind. Did he step in front of that car on purpose?

Yoongi immediately pulls his phone out of his pocket, stopped dead in his tracks on the sidewalk. He calls Jimin, his hands shaking. He answers a moment later, with a confused, “Yoongi-hyung?”

“Jimin-ah, did Taehyung step into the path of that car on purpose?”

“What?” Jimin gasps. “What do you mean?”

“That morning, when I got hit. Did he step in front of that car on purpose? Please ask him.” Yoongi’s voice is shaking as badly as his hands are. He guesses that Jimin must pull the phone away from his mouth, because he can faintly hear him ask the question Yoongi demanded the pose to Taehyung. He faintly hears a flustered, “No!” and the pressure that had built up in his chest releases in a harsh breath Yoongi blows out. He moves to the edge of the sidewalk, and sinks down into a crouch against the building. He covers his eyes with his hands. He feels so much all at once, and it’s overwhelming. 

“Yoongi-hyung, what made you ask that?” Jimin asks. 

“I don’t know, I was thinking about that morning and everything that’s happened, and had that thought, and I don’t know anything because Tae won’t talk to me. It’s been a month, Jimin-ah, please just tell me if I should stop. I told him I would wait, but if he doesn’t want me anymore then I’ll go away, and stop bothering him, and I-” He stops. He’s started crying and his words are coming out garbled. “I will always love him, but this is hurting me so much,” he whispers, trying to get his breathing under control. 

He hears something on the other end, like the phone is changing hands, and then it’s him. His deep voice floats through the speaker on his phone, and Yoongi cries harder. “Hyung,” Taehyung says. “Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He sounds absolutely broken, and Yoongi feels like he’s breaking as well. 

“Taehyung-ah, this hurts too much. I told you I would wait but I don’t know if I can and I hate myself for that.”

“Hyung, I love you.” Taehyung’s voice is shaking as bad as Yoongi’s is, and Yoongi wishes desperately that he weren’t out in the open right now, that he was at home, so he could break down completely like he wants to. “I got scared, after Jimin told you about my face. I’m a coward. I’m so sorry.”

“Can’t you be brave, Taehyung-ah? For me? Be brave for hyung.” His voice is barely audible, and he hopes Taehyung heard him. 

“Okay, hyung. I’ll be brave.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow, but if you’re not there I won’t come back.”

Yoongi hates himself for that. Hates himself for the ultimatum. But he can’t do this anymore. 

“Okay hyung,” Taehyung breathes. Then the line goes silent, and he knows Taehyung hung up. Yoongi forces himself to pull it together, takes a deep breath, and stands. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up to cover his assuredly red face. He heads to the subway, and goes down the stairs as quickly as he can. He’s happy when he catches the train just before the doors close. There’s one seat open, between two old ladies, and he sinks gratefully down into it. He sniffs, his emotions and the cold air outside causing his nose to run, and a moment later one of the ladies beside him nudges his arm. He turns sharply, and sees a kind smile on her face and a tissue in her hand. He takes it with two hands, ducking his head and thanking her formally. He wipes his nose, and clenches it in his hand. 

He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, but he ignores it. His stop arrives quickly enough, and he gets off the train to trudge the rest of the way home. But, then, as he passes it, he looks up at the church. He stops, and before he can talk himself out of it, he goes up the steps. It’s a Wednesday, and there are only a few people sitting inside at the pews. He sees the priest moving around up front, rearranging the books and pamphlets in the backs of the pews. Yoongi walks up to him, and when he sees him the priest smiles. 

“Yoongi-ssi, good morning. Long time no see.”

“Good morning, father. I’m sorry, I’ve been busy.” The priest, Father Kim, smiles, an understanding look in his eye. He’s asked Yoongi a few times to come to mass on Sundays, but thankfully has never changed his opinion of him when Yoongi always politely declines. He still lets him come in and play the piano when there’s not a service in progress. “Can I play the piano?”

“Of course, you’re always welcome to.” Yoongi bows low in thanks, and then goes go the piano in the corner of the room. He can’t help the small smile that curls his lips when he hears Father Kim tell the few people sitting around that they’re in for a treat, that Min Yoongi is a fantastic pianist. 

He doesn’t let himself think about what he plays, just lets his fingers fly across the keys, letting one song bleed into another. Then he finds himself playing Taehyung’s song, and it feels like saying goodbye. 

He manages to finish the song, but he’s crying again, and he reaches up, his sweatshirt sleeves covering his hands, and wipes them away. Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and he jumps. He looks up, and it’s Father Kim. “Are you okay?” Yoongi wants to lie, to smile and say yes, but even though he’s not religious, he feels like he can’t lie to a priest. 

“No, I’m not really,” he whispers. 

“Come sit with me?” Father Kim asks, his hand still comfortingly on Yoongi’s shoulder. Yoongi nods and stands. Father Kim leads him to the first pew, and Yoongi sits down heavily, shoving his hands in the pouch of his sweatshirt. “Want to tell me about it?”

“My- my partner, h- they’re-” 

Father Kim interrupts him. “I’m young and hip, Yoongi-yah, you can say your boyfriend, I won’t judge.”

“My boyfriend has really bad scars on his face. And we met on-online,” he says. Despite his earlier determination not to lie to the priest, he knows that if he told him the true story he would condemn him straight to hell, or at a mental institution at the very least. “And I’ve never seen his face, but I love him, and he doesn’t want to meet me in real life because he’s afraid that I won’t love him anymore, and I don’t know how to prove to him that I don’t care what he looks like.”

Father Kim nods, staying silent for a long moment. “You can’t force someone to have confidence in the way they look, or the things that they’ve gone through. It sounds like it’s something he really struggles with, and it’s something only he can work through.”

“That’s what my brother said,” Yoongi whispers. 

“Your brother sounds wise. I know it can hurt really bad, to feel rejected like that. You just have to have faith that he’ll work through it, and that if it doesn’t then it wasn’t meant to be.”

“But I don’t want to let go of him.”

“Sometimes things just don’t work out the way we want them to here on earth. We can only have faith.”

Yoongi nods. He feels a bone deep exhaustion settle over him. He’s been so emotional lately, and it’s becoming too much to bear. He knows that if Taehyung doesn’t show up tomorrow he’ll just have to let go, and the thought devastates him. “Thank you, Father. I’m tired, I should go home.”

“Of course, my boy. And don’t hesitate to come around to play the piano, any time, okay?” Yoongi nods, stands and bows, and then leaves. He goes home, and falls straight into his bed. 

When he wakes a few hours later all four of his brothers are lounging on the bed around him. He blinks his eyes open, and stretches, looking around with a puzzled expression. “Hey guys,” he mumbles, his deep voice gravelly. 

“Hey, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin says, a gentle smile on his face. “I’m not going to ask how  you are because I know you’re not doing very well, so we’ve all decided that we need to have some good old fashioned family bonding time.”

“We’re going to play board games, and watch a movie, and order chicken.” Jeongguk’s smile is wide and excited. 

“We’re also going to look at apartments,” Namjoon says softly. “If you’re okay with it, since it is your money, we were thinking it’s time we move into a bigger apartment.”

Yoongi’s brow furrows. “My money is your money,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “You’re my family. And you’re right, it’s high time we don’t live like five sardines crammed into a tiny two bedroom can anymore. We can definitely afford a three bedroom now, maybe a four bedroom. We’ll have to see what we can find.”

“I call my own room!” Jeongguk says suddenly, and Hoseok smacks the back of his head. “What?”

“Yoongi will get the single room,” Seokjin says. “After all he’s the one with the big fancy job who can pay for it, and hopefully soon he’ll have his boyfriend over and we definitely don’t want to share a room with those two when they finally actually come together.” 

Yoongi knows he means well, that he’s even joking, but his heart still sinks a little. “About that. . .” he starts, but Namjoon’s hand on his shoulder stops him. 

“Let’s just pretend, just for a little bit. Let’s forget about our troubles and just have a fun afternoon. You’ve been too sad lately, and it hurts all of us.”

“I’m not sure pretending is the answer.”

“Regardless,” Seokjin says. “Let’s do it anyway. Come on, get up, I’ll break out the board games.”

They haven’t had a good old fashioned game night in a long time, but years ago, when they couldn’t afford cable, and didn’t even have wifi for a while, they collected cheap, old board games that they could find at flea markets to pass the time at home. Those days were very hard, but they made it through, just like they always did.

They appoint Yoongi the banker during Monopoly, and warn him that if he tries to cheat they’ll kick him out of the family, and he laughs along with them. He finds that it’s easier than he thought to allow himself to forget his troubles and simply have fun with his family. They play Monopoly until it’s dark outside, and they’re all hungry. They decide to concede defeat to Hoseok, who has the most property, and order their chicken. While they wait for it to arrive they choose a movie, and then, wanting to wait for the food before they start watching, Yoongi grabs his laptop and they start looking at available apartments. 

There’s not much, but they have time. They don’t need to move right now, so it’s okay. There are two that they think could be good, both three bedroom apartments, and Yoongi composes an email asking to see each of them at their earliest convenience. Then he sits back, and listens to his brothers talk. Jeongguk’s new school year will start soon, and he’s a little worried. It’s his last year, and he’s feeling the pressure. They all assure him that it’ll be fine, that he’s an amazing artist, and his professors will see that. And then he’ll get tons of fame and money and attention and he’ll be able to paint and draw all day every day. He says he just wants to draw partwork for video games, and none of them ar surprised. 

They eat chicken, and watch a movie, and by the time Yoongi finally climbs in bed he’s exhausted - it’s way later than he’s gotten used to going to sleep. Just before he settles down for the night, he realizes he hasn’t checked his phone all day - not since he talked to Taehyung that morning. He’s been with his brothers all afternoon, he hasn’t had a need to, especially since he’s on a mini vacation from work. 

He plugs it in, and it lights up to show that he has several texts from an unsaved number, and Yoongi gasps, nearly aspirating his saliva in the process. He opens them, and starts reading. 

Hyung I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m such a coward and that your love isn’t enough for me to stop feeling the way I feel

I’ve felt this way for four years now, I wish I could change overnight but I can’t

I’m sorry I shut you out for so long, you didn’t deserve that

I just. . . I don’t know how to stop feeling like you’re going to take one look at my face and run away screaming. I know I would if I were you. Like in that american movie the phantom of the opera. His mask comes off at the end and everyone screams and it causes panic. I feel like that every time I leave the house, like any moment someone’s going to look at me and scream. I don’t get screams, but I get gasps, I get pity, I get little kids crying when they see me. So I don’t go out unless it’s to walk around in people’s dreams. Usually I’m just in the background, just an extra. Sometimes if they’re having a nightmare, I’ll change it so it’s a good dream instead, or something silly or funny. If it’s a happy dream, I’ll try to make it better. I try not to interact with people too much, but sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone wearing my old face and not have to watch the look in their eyes morph from fear to sadness to pity. You’ve only seen that face, so I’m terrified to show you my real one because I’m afraid you won’t love me the same way. I know you won’t run screaming. But I also can’t bear to see the look of pity in your eyes. Not you. Hyung I love you but I’m terrified.

Yoongi reads his message several times, tears welling and spilling over. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself, wiping his cheeks. “I’m done crying.”

It’s okay to be afraid. Yoongi types quickly and hits send right away.

But we all have to face our fears or live forever in that fear, and that’s not healthy or fair to us. 

The bubble pops up indicating that Taehyung is typing, and then goes away, and then reappears a few times. Finally Taehyung’s message pops up, and it’s enough have Yoongi’s heart soaring even as his tears continue falling. 

See you tomorrow. 

See you tomorrow, Taehyung-ah. Sleep well, my love.

Taehyung doesn’t respond, and Yoongi doesn’t mind. He puts his phone down, and lies down. Sleep finds him quickly, and he spends the whole night in a deep, dreamless sleep. 

The next day Yoongi paces back and forth a little ways down the street from the flower shop. He’s trying to calm himself down, so his nerves don’t show through. He’s excited to see Taehyung finally - damn his scars, Yoongi doesn’t care - but he can’t shake the small voice in the back of his mind that is telling him that Taehyung won’t be there. That he’ll still be in the back room, or upstairs hiding, and no matter how much Yoongi tries to push it away, it won’t leave him alone. He shakes his head, rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans - his favorite jeans, the ones that make his legs and his ass look great - and straightens his shirt - a simple light blue button up under his brown leather jacket. 

Then it occurs to him that if Taehyung is in there waiting for him, that he’s probably just as anxious and nervous and worried Yoongi won’t show, and that’s enough to spur him into action. 

He goes straight for the flower shop, only hesitates a split second before he’s pulling the door open. And there he is. Taehyung’s watering some flowers, his back to the door. He freezes, every muscle in his back tensing under his t-shirt when the bell on the door sounds. He reaches over, placing the watering can on the counter, his other hand clenching and unclenching at his side. 

“Taehyung-ah,” Yoongi breathes, and Taehyung’s head head tilts to the side, just slightly, as if he’s chasing the sound of Yoongi’s voice. So Yoongi says his name again, and takes a few steps forward. When Taehyung doesn’t move, Yoongi keeps stepping forward, closing the distance between them. Finally Yoongi’s there, within arm’s length of the love of his life for the first time. He reaches out and gently places his hand on Taehyung’s shoulder. He’s warm, solid under his hand, the way he always is in Yoongi’s dreams, but somehow more. 

Taehyung reaches up and covers Yoongi’s hand with his own, and then he’s turning around and Yoongi can finally look him in the eyes. Jimin didn’t exaggerate when he told Yoongi the extend of Taehyung’s scars. He has four deep, faded, though ever present scars moving diagonally across his face from his hairline on the left side down over his nose and cutting through the corner of his mouth. His hair is longer in real life, and Yoongi wonders if he often wears it covering as much of his face as he can. 

Without warning, a surge of pride goes through Yoongi, and it doesn’t take long for him to realize why. “You are so badass,” he says. He reaches up and pushes Taehyung’s long, blond hair out of his face, exposing all of it, and Taehyung’s eyes go wide at his words. “So badass.”

“W-what?”

“You fought a fucking tiger and survived, Tae. You’re bad ass.”  

“No one’s ever put it that way before. . .” he mutters, looking down before laughing softly. 

“I’ll tell you as often as you need me to. Because you’re finally here,” he says the last word like it’s the best thing he’s ever said in his entire life, and if he’s honest, it almost certainly is. “You’re so brave, and so badass. Someone was hurting your best friend, and you defended him, and then fought a fucking tiger, survived, and got Jimin out of there. You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known.” 

Tears well in Taehyung’s eyes, and Yoongi brushes them away once they fall. “I love you,” Taehyung says wetly. 

“I love you too. Come here, I want to kiss my boyfriend’s sexy, badass face,” he says, knowing he’s probably playing it up too much, but Taehyung’s giggle makes it worth it, and then their lips meet and it’s perfect. 

There’s a loud whoop from the back, and they break apart just long enough to see Jimin giving them both a thumbs up before he leaves again, giving them privacy. Yoongi kisses Taehyung again, and again, and again, savoring the feeling of his love’s lips against his own, his tongue in his mouth, his hands in his hair. 

Taehyung’s the one who pulls back, rests his forehead against Yoongi’s. “I’m sorry I ghosted you for a month, that wasn’t cool of me.” 

“Doesn’t matter, so long as you never do it again.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

It takes a long time to fully convince Taehyung that his scars are not disgusting, or frightening, but rather a testament to something he survived. Possibly even cool, or so Jeongguk tells him the first time Yoongi brings him and Jimin over to meet his family. They all swarm around them, asking about magic, and what it’s like to fight a tiger - “terrifying,” Taehyung says, deadpan, as if it’s the stupidest question, which it is, Yoongi agrees, and smacks the back of Jeongguk’s head for asking. 

They welcome Taehyung and Jimin into the family so readily, it’s like they were always meant to be there, which Yoongi’s not so sure they’re not. They help move Yoongi’s family into their new apartment - which is closer to the flower shop than they are now, something Yoongi most certainly did on purpose, and would confirm it if anyone grew suspicious - and they tease Yoongi relentlessly the morning after the first time Taehyung spends the night. He’s never been more happy to have his own room.

Suddenly, a month has passed since the first time Yoongi saw Taehyung in real life. Then another, and another, and then a year has passed. Yoongi helps BigHit grow to become one of the top entertainment companies in Korea, thanks to the songs he writes and produces, several of which top the charts each week. With the money he earns, Seokjin is able to go back to culinary school with a dream of starting his own restaurant, Namjoon is able to finally go to college. He wants to pursue social work, to help young kids whose families reject them they way his did, the way Yoongi’s did, and all of their found family. Jeongguk doesn’t have to worry about supporting himself as he pursues his art relentlessly - with Jimin by his side, as the two of them fell headfirst into each other much the same way Yoongi and Taehyung did, thankfully minus the getting hit by a car part. Hoseok opens his own dance studio, specifically focusing on training kids who want to go on to try to become idols. 

Taehyung slowly, slowly comes to, if not love, then like his face once again. He starts to be able to see his scars as war wounds, proof that he’s still alive. He and Jimin keep their flower shop open, but he ventures outside more and more. He takes Yoongi on adventurous dates, going to see all the places around Seoul that he’s wanted to see but where’s never had the confidence to show his face. Yoongi falls impossibly more and more in love. 

One night, almost two years after Yoongi was hit by the car, he and Taehyung are lying in each other’s arms in Yoongi’s bed. His arms around Taehyung’s waist, his cheek pressed against his chest. One of Taehyung’s arms is wrapped around Yoongi’s back, the other up playing with his hair. 

Yoongi looks up at him, propping his chin up on Taehyung’s sternum. He’s feeling reflective today, as he often finds himself in quiet moments. 

“Before I met you I felt like I was drowning.” Taehyung’s eyes pop open at Yoongi’s soft declaration. “I had just lost my job because I was so exhausted from the heaviness of life. I was deeply depressed, and lonely. I went to clubs when I had nights off work and went home with the first stranger who showed interest.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Taehyung whispers. 

“I’ve been thinking today, about what I had to go through to get here. How bad everything was, and how that’s what put me where I was that day. Because it was that horrible morning that I saw you, and it was pouring down rain. I felt like all the bad in the world fell away for a moment when I looked at you. I felt lighter, like the weight of my life had been lifted just for a second and I could breathe again. And when I realized you were going to get hit by that car, I didn’t even think before I pushed you out of the way. Before I even knew you I loved you, and I didn’t question it. I think I knew I couldn’t live if you didn’t. Do you believe in destiny? Shit, I sound like a fucking idiot when I say that. . . but that’s what it feels like. I believe you were meant to come into my life when you did.” Yoongi takes a deep breath. “The way I was headed. . .” He closes his eyes, and when he continues his voice is softer. “When I was twenty-two I tried to kill myself. Everything got really black, and I was deep in my own head. I couldn’t find a job, I couldn’t write, my brothers were depending on me to help provide for our family and I couldn’t do that. So I thought that if I removed myself from the equation then it would be easier for them.” Taehyung is silent during Yoongi’s whispered confession. Yoongi adjusts, laying with his cheek pressed into Taehyung’s chest. His skin is still warm from his earlier shower, and Yoongi feels like he could stay there forever. Taehyung holds him closer. 

“What happened?” Taehyung whispers, his eyes squeezed shut. 

“I tried to overdose on pain meds leftover from when Namjoon broke his wrist earlier that year. My brothers found me in time and they called an ambulance. The doctors pumped my stomach, and I was in the hospital being observed for three days after to make sure that I didn’t try again. But at that point I was just exhausted. After that things got better, for a while. I channeled my feelings into my music, and I found a job. Things always got better, and then they got worse again, and then better, up and down, up and down, never stopping. I’ve never been that low again, but there are times where I’ve thought about what might have happened if they hadn’t found me. Or if things got really bad again, would I try again? I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t met you - that was a bad time. I don’t know. . . If you hadn’t been there, would I have stepped in front of the car anyway?” Yoongi’s voice is barely audible. “But I don’t have to wonder, because I saw you, and you changed my life, Taehyung-ah.”

“You changed mine too, Yoongi-hyung. In ways I don’t know if you will ever fully understand. You didn’t just save my life, hyung, you gave it back to me. I spent so long filled with self-loathing and hating my face enough to keep me from experiencing the world.”

“I guess we saved each other,” Yoongi whispers, starting to feel himself growing heavy with sleep. 

“I guess we did.”

“Are you tired, Tae-yah?”

“I’ll probably be awake for a little longer still,” Taehyung mumbles, leaning his head up so he can kiss the top of Yoongi’s head. 

“Hmm, good, ‘cause I’m falling asleep. Meet me in my dream and we can keep talking, okay?”

“Okay, hyung. Anywhere in particular you want to go tonight?”

“Anywhere you are.”

Yoongi’s eyes close all the way, and then he’s falling, falling, falling. He lands gracefully in the meadow, filled with beautiful flowers of all kinds. And there is Taehyung, of course, his eyes gold, where in real life they are a gorgeous brown, but the rest of him looks exactly the way it does in real life. Yoongi thinks he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. “Hello again, my love,” he whispers, and goes to Taehyung, pulling him into a warm embrace. Sometimes, when they’re like this, Yoongi wishes he never has to wake up, so he’ll never have to let go.