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Yoongi and Seokjin were part android.
Almost everyone was, nowadays. People didn’t age or get sick because every time they did, the problematic part was replaced by robotic parts. Yoongi, a long time ago, had heart problems and he’d gotten a robotic heart. Seokjin, a long time ago, had heart problems, and he’d gotten a robotic heart.
The only problem was that both of them had been too poor. So they’d been signed up for a program where androids could share organs. So Yoongi took the heart from midnight to noon, and Seokjin took the heart from noon to midnight. They were never awake at the same time.
Yoongi often wondered how Seokjin was. He came to only after Seokjin gave the heart back to him, so when he opened his eyes Seokjin was sitting motionlessly in front of him, hands folded neatly on his lap, head bowed a little.
Seokjin was pretty. Yoongi had first been pretty surprised when he saw Seokjin. He’d stared at Seokjin’s face for a while, hands hovering over the porcelain skin where soft lashes rested against pale cheeks. He felt weird, examining someone’s looks while they couldn’t do anything else.
He’d never talked to Seokjin. He couldn’t. If they tried hard enough, they could stay awake for short amounts of time, but neither of them had tried. He wondered how Seokjin’s smile would look. He only saw Seokjin sleeping, all functions shut down as their shared mechanical hearts beat in the other owner’s chest.
He glanced at the clock. It was a little past noon, but Seokjin never was picky about it. He sometimes even let Yoongi have a few more minutes, once up to an hour, and once Yoongi had been so engrossed in his music he’d forgotten to give it back for over 24 hours. He’d left a note, telling Seokjin he was sincerely sorry and that he could have the heart for the next 24, but he’d come to, at midnight the next day, to a note that read, It’s okay; I understand. Can I listen to your music one day? =]
That itself told Yoongi a lot of things. That Seokjin was kind. Maybe too kind for his own good, but kind. Neither Yoongi nor Seokjin had a choice but to trust that the other would give the heart back after the 12 hours, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to run away with the organs. It was a crime, of course, but it didn’t stop people from trying to become independent.
Yoongi had thought about just leaving Seokjin sleeping in the apartment they had to share, running away with the heart and just never giving it back. But he came back, every night, because he couldn’t. Not only was it just not right, he was drawn to Seokjin.
Seokjin, who spent parts of his precious 12 hours filling the fridge up for Yoongi and leaving hot meals for him to eat when he woke up. Seokjin, who spent parts of his precious 12 hours doing Yoongi’s laundry and cleaning the mess Yoongi made. Seokjin, who spent part of his precious 12 hours leaving notes for Yoongi to find so it felt like they were talking to each other.
Yoongi quietly placed an mp3 player full of his music into Seokjin’s palm, closing the long fingers around it and running his thumb down Seokjin’s jaw.
The note on the mp3 player, written on top of a blue post-it note in Yoongi’s messy scrawl, read, I want to see you smile.
Yoongi chuckled quietly to himself. 12:24. He’d taken too much time away from Seokjin. He carefully opened the panel on his left chest, a move that weirded him out no matter how many times he’d done it and knew it was perfectly painless, and transferred the heart over to Seokjin’s chest.
--
Seokjin came to slowly, blinking against the bright sunlight that filtered through the window. Yoongi was sitting in front of him, head nodding off to his chest. He got up quickly so he could lay Yoongi down and pull the sheets over him, but something was in his hand. He looked down to find a small mp3 player. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips, but he placed it down so he could get Yoongi comfortable first before he listened to the contents.
He listened to the songs on the player the entire day as he went through his freelancing job as a writer at a newspaper, even as he went to the market to get groceries, and even as he met up with Taehyung and Namjoon. “What’re you listening to all day?” Namjoon peeked over, handing him a glass of blueberry yogurt smoothie.
Seokjin took it with a smile. “Yoongi’s done with his songs, I guess. He’s letting me listen.”
“Oh? Can I hear?”
Seokjin handed Namjoon an earbud, and after a bit, Namjoon looked awed. “Wow, this guy’s stuff.. Hey, do you think I can get his number? I wanna see if he’s willing to work with me.”
Seokjin did, and he hummed the songs on the entire way back, sipping on the blueberry smoothie Namjoon got refilled for him and clutching a bag of groceries in the other hand. He had a few hours left, so he first started the computer up so he could finish the work he’d been meaning to wrap up for a while.
He got off at 11 so he could have a meal ready for Yoongi, but before he started he knelt by the bed where Yoongi was lying, looking like he was just asleep to the world. He wrote notes for Yoongi telling him he’d given Namjoon his number, carefully folding it and placing it in Yoongi’s palm. Yoongi’s hair was dyed a dark red, and Seokjin huffed in exasperation. Yoongi was always dyeing it and he was always telling Yoongi to stop because his hair was so damaged, but apparently post it notes with angry emoticons weren’t enough of a deterrent.
He had to admit, though, the dark red looked good against Yoongi’s pale skin. He caught himself smiling and studying Yoongi’s face, so he shook himself out of it and hurried over to the kitchen to cook. He knew Yoongi spent all 12 of his hours doing nothing but making music, holed up at his studio, so he couldn't help but feel happy when he came to and found that the food had been eaten and the dishes had been neatly done.
It was 11:45 when he was done, and he didn’t even hesitate in giving Yoongi the extra 15 minutes. Taehyung hadn’t quite understood. The 12 hours should have been so precious to Seokjin, who had such a limited time. But Seokjin didn’t quite think so. It wasn’t like he had anything urgent, and humans lived basically forever now. What he couldn’t manage in one day, he could always pick up the next. Time was important to Yoongi, but Yoongi was important to Seokjin. Seokjin didn’t really have anything he could do except give Yoongi his time, so he did.
He closed his eyes, opened his chest panel and tugged out the heart carefully, detaching the wires one by one as he connected Yoongi’s wires to make sure they didn’t both disconnect at the same time and cause trouble. He laid himself next to Yoongi, disconnecting the last one and pushing the mechanical heart into place in Yoongi’s chest cavity.
He fought to stay awake. They could, for a couple of minutes, but waking up always took time. But Yoongi stirred and he yawned as he came to, and Seokjin smiled as brightly as he could as his body shut down.