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Yoongi goes to therapy. Not because he needs it, or because he has issues worse than anyone else. It’s just what people in Seoul seem to do, Yoongi figures. His mother likes that he goes, likes to hear about his sessions and how well they were going. And Yoongi be damned, he loved his mother — so he went.
“I want to get out of Seoul.”
Namjoon raises his eyebrow. “Why?”
“I just want to. The beach is nice. I’m tired of the city.”
“What beach are you talking about?”
“... Busan.”
Namjoon nods knowingly. Something’s under the drag of his eyelids, a secret that Yoongi itches to scratch out. He digs his fingernails into his jeans instead. Namjoon watches him from his chair, the air in his office feeling a bit sparse for his liking. “Do you like Busan?”
“I do.”
“Do you visit often?”
Yoongi fidgets, thinks about the question. “Not as often as I’d like.”
Namjoon nods. He scribbles on the clipboard in his lap for a second; notices Yoongi’s eyes burning holes into his hand as he does so. He stops. It takes a second, but when he glances up to meet Yoongi’s eyes, the corner of his lips pull into a smile. Yoongi think it looks like a smirk. “What’s in Busan?”
Yoongi’s lips go taut. “Why does there have to be anything? I just like the place.”
Namjoon smiles and relaxes into his chair. “There doesn’t.” This is all he offers, and he lets the air stifle his patient until Yoongi’s fidgeting so much that he can’t take it.
“There’s a boy.” With a heaving sigh and sweat beginning to prick in the palm of his hands, Yoongi gives in.
“Ahh.” Namjoon nods, seemingly pleased at the response. “A boy.” His expression seems to have softened, and he looks at Yoongi with a hint of fondness. Yoongi still thinks he’s hiding things behind his eyelids.
Namjoon doesn’t continue, so Yoongi continues to fill in the silence. “His name is Jeongguk. He’s younger than me. Not by a lot, I’m not some fucking pervert.” Yoongi rolls his tongue in his mouth. “He lives in Busan.”
Namjoon seems to think about his next question, turns it over and over in his head as he calculates. Then, tentatively, he asks, “Does he come to visit you?” He can see the way Yoongi tenses, and swears the temperature in the room drops with how cold Yoongi’s demeanor turns. Internally, Namjoon curses himself.
But, despite his therapist’s apprehension, Yoongi doesn’t completely shut down. “No.” He answers. “He hasn’t come to Seoul yet. I think I’d like him to, maybe meet my parents. But I’d rather visit him. I don’t like the city much, anyway.”
“As far as I knew it, you liked the city.”
“I like being inside.” Yoongi retorts. “It’s not the same thing.”
Namjoon nods, mouth open and eyebrows raised as if he’s suddenly come to an understanding of something. “Ah, I see. My mistake.” His eyes observe Yoongi intently, but offset enough to not make the other wary – more than he already is, anyway. He follows Yoongi’s line of vision to a bowl of candy on the table. Namjoon leans forward to push the bowl gently towards him – like bait to see if Yoongi will bite. Namjoon watches as he does.
Yoongi plucks a lollipop from the bowl, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth. The only noise in the room is the smacking of his lips and the knocking of the hard candy against his teeth, until Namjoon breaks the silence.
“Have you known him long?”
Yoongi nods as he sucks on the lollipop, moves it from one side of his mouth to the other. “We met as kids. In summer camp.”
Namjoon’s eyes narrow, if only slightly. He remains quiet.
“I always hated the summer, you know?” Yoongi lets out a scoff and a laugh. “Fucking summer camp, my mom practically dragged my ass. Said I needed to be out of the house, that all boys play outside and being on the computer was bad for me. I hated it, really. Loathed summer camp.”
Namjoon can see the thoughts shifting behind Yoongi’s eyes. He watches them, fleeting and just out of his reach.
“... Until I met Jeongguk.”
The shift in Yoongi’s eyes tells Namjoon more than words could – he wants to burn it in his mind, remember that one sparkle in Yoongi’s eyes before it disappears. And it would – it would dull, and go back into hiding, maybe for Namjoon never to see again. The thing with Yoongi was, you never knew. He was volatile, like a trail of kerosene waiting to ignite.
Yoongi’s eyes reflect the sparkle in Jeongguk’s that he had grown to fall in love with. His mind runs with the thought of him – chases it, chases him, chest swelling with fondness. “Summer became my favorite.” A faint smile tugs on the corner of Yoongi’s lips, and it pulls at Namjoon, too, because he’s never seen it. “The hot weather fucking sucks, I hate the heat.” A frown has returned to Yoongi’s features. “But with him…”
Memories of summer camp flicker to life in Yoongi’s mind – the first time he’d met Jeongguk, a grubby pre–teen who liked to play outside and compete in sports and get dirty. Just like the kind of boys Yoongi’s mom wanted him to be like – not what Yoongi was supposed to like . He didn’t have a type – but Jeongguk came barreling in, without warning, and suddenly summer was Yoongi’s favorite time of the year.
With the memories came the sound of water splashing, boys yelling, the crisp smell of the woods around them when Yoongi and Jeongguk snuck away from the cabins at night to spend time together under the stars. That first summer that Yoongi had met Jeongguk was the time in Yoongi’s life, he was convinced, that he learned what it meant to fall in love. And every day after that, Yoongi waited. He trudged through his school days, waiting to go back to Busan. Back to summer camp. Back to the arms of the boy he was head over heels for, back to drowning in the pools of Jeongguk’s starry eyes.
“... With him?” Namjoon’s words pull Yoongi roughly from his reverie; Namjoon curses himself when Yoongi is visibly shaken out of his daze. Fuck. I shouldn’t have said anything. He watches as the light on Yoongi’s face dims; it doesn’t leave, and Namjoon thinks maybe he can salvage the conversation. Yoongi beats him to it.
“Do you love someone, Doc?”
Namjoon lets out a small laugh, a tight–lipped smile at the nickname. “I love a lot of people, Yoongi.”
“No, I mean–,” Yoongi pops the lollipop out of his mouth, seemingly unsatisfied with the taste all of a sudden. “Like, are you in love with someone? Do you have a person?”
“Are you asking me if I have a partner?”
Yoongi shrugs and offers a nod.
Namjoon pushes his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he sits back, just a little. “I do, yes.” He glances down at the wedding band on his finger, but says nothing, looks back up at Yoongi instead.
“Do you love him?” Yoongi pauses, eyes flickering as if he’s tripped himself up. “Her. Them.” He grabs the wrapper to the lollipop, meticulous as he wraps the candy back up. “Like, the days are all pointless without ‘em?”
Namjoon blinks, tilts his head as he thinks. Interesting word choice. “I don’t spend much time away from my partner.” Now is one of the only times he feels a dreadful sadness sit sourly in his chest. “I suppose I’m not sure how I would feel to be away from them for a long time.”
Yoongi’s eyes glance to meet Namjoon’s, but flicker away as he focuses his attention on the lollipop twirling between his fingers. He smirks, nodding lightly. “Maybe if I get out of Seoul, go back to Busan…” He pauses. “Maybe I’ll forget what it feels like to be away from him for a long time, too.”
The feeling in Namjoon’s chest sinks like a rock as he watches the sparkle in Yoongi’s face fizz out completely. It’s gone, and a dead silence expands between them for what seems like hours. The beeping of a timer cuts through the silence, nearly making Namjoon jump – it has never surprised him before.
Yoongi shifts on the couch. “Same time next week, Doc?”
Namjoon moves to get up, to walk him to the door and offer his hand, when all of the papers from his lap fall and scatter on the floor. A disheveled Namjoon scrambles to gather them up, and Yoongi watches with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, Yoongi.” Namjoon stands up, offers a smile and a nod. “Same time next week.”
Without another word, Yoongi nods and turns on his heel, leaving Namjoon alone in his office. As Namjoon stoops again to gather the papers he’s dropped, he knits his brows. He looks at the table, void of the lollipop that Yoongi had been eating. Confused, he looks on the couch, under the table, and retraces the moments before Yoongi had left. After a minute of confusion, his eyes rest on the bowl of candy on the table – inside, an array of lollipops, and in the middle, a lollipop wrapped a little more crudely, a little less tight, than the rest. Namjoon looks at the door, and sighs.
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“I think we’re making real progress, Mrs. Min.”
Namjoon’s smile is taut, his voice is polite, but strained. He’s uncomfortable; unfortunately, someone like Yoongi isn’t entirely afforded doctor–patient confidentiality, much to Namjoon’s distress. Divulging still felt wrong. He swallows somewhat nervously; there are too many people in the room. His boss has hawk–like eyes that burrow into him; in front of him sit Yoongi’s parents and two workers in suits.
“Just progress?” Yoongi’s mother seems displeased. The air in the office is stifling.
“It’s substantial, we can assure you, Mrs. Min.” Namjoon’s boss steps in, assures her well. “Dr. Kim?” The expectancy in his voice makes Namjoon’s chest feel tight. Against his best judgment, he gives in and nods.
“He’s mentioned… him.” Namjoon swallows. The reaction of Yoongi’s parents permeates the room; his father stiffens, his mother steams. She seems immediately angry. Namjoon glances at his boss; with an affirming nod, Namjoon continues. “The boy from the fire.” Namjoon wants to swallow the words faster than he says them. “... Jeongguk?”
It’s not until Yoongi’s mother stands up abruptly that Namjoon can see tears in her eyes. She looks absolutely outraged. “Don’t say his name.” She hisses. Her husband tentatively grasps her arms to placate her.
“Honey, he’s just doing his job–,”
“No!” She snarls. “This happens every goddamned year. I’m not doing this again. I’m not reliving his fucked up fantasies.” Her chest heaves and she wipes at the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes. Carefully, Namjoon offers her a box of tissues. He reaches far, holding the box out as if she’ll take his arm off with it.
“If I may…” Namjoon swallows, eyes flickering from Yoongi’s mother to his father, and down at the binder in his hand. It’s Yoongi’s patient file – filled with all the information pertaining to Yoongi as far back as he’d been institutionalized. In the beginning of the binder was his intake form; clippings from local newspapers; photos of a charred building, blackened and burned to the ground.
“I don’t believe that the incident, per se, is his fantasy, Mrs. Min.” Namjoon recalls their last meeting. “I hate the heat”, Yoongi had said. “He’s shown no inclination to behavior that would suggest enjoyment of the fire.” Namjoon swallows again, dryly.
“If he’s spoken of the fire…” One of the workers in suits that sit to the side of Yoongi’s parents, speaks up. “Has he indicated remorse?” She leans forward, taps the edge of her pen on her clipboard. Namjoon decides then that he doesn’t like her.
“I did not say that he had spoken of the fire, ma’am.” Namjoon attempts to meet her gaze, but doesn’t entirely want to. He knows the entire room is waiting for him to speak – maybe waiting for him to fuck up – and he doesn’t like it. He’s used to being the one doing the listening. “... I said he’d mentioned the boy.”
The worker glares at him, refusing to back down. “... The boy he killed in the fire.” She says matter–of–factly. Namjoon glances at Yoongi’s parents: the father, who strokes his wife’s arm to soothe her, flinches. Mrs. Min stares at the ground, the faint sound of a choked sob escaping her tinted lips.
“As I'm sure you know..." Namjoon pauses. "There’s reason to believe the boy killed himself, ma’am.” He flips through Yoongi’s file. The papers feel too rough and dry in his hands, like they'd make good kindling for a fire. “He has made statements in previous sessions that stated the boy had killed himself. The fire was more than likely a mechanism to cope with the emotional trauma from losing–” Namjoon pauses. From losing his first love, he thinks. He exhales. "From a professional standpoint, I’m very grateful for the progress we’ve made so far. And, while it seems small or inconclusive, I think if I continue working with him, we might get the answers we’re looking for.”
Because, on the surface – to these people, these workers in suits – Min Yoongi was nothing more than a monster. A monster of a child who had set fire to a building, a cabin in the woods where summer camp for boys was held every year. He was a deranged psychopath who showed no remorse – not that any of these people had bothered to look for it.
But, to Namjoon, Yoongi wasn’t any of those things. If he didn’t know it before, he saw it in the way that Yoongi’s eyes lit up at the memory of summer camp. At the way he could see fleeting emotions behind Yoongi’s eyes – where there was happiness, there was hurt, and when they got to it, Namjoon was sure there would be so much more to Yoongi’s memory, his thoughts, his feelings. However, Namjoon would have to be allowed there – no other psychiatrist had continued seeing Yoongi after a year or less. Usually less.
Namjoon had read the notes in Yoongi’s file maybe thousands of times. To him, Yoongi was but a boy – a boy who’d found love in a cabin in the woods, under the starry night skies, picking flowers in lieu of archery and sports, finding beauty in the boy who made his heart blossom. He hated the heat, but liked flowers because Jeongguk was his flower, the one that bloomed and wilted all in front of him.
Namjoon had read it; read how Yoongi unfurled with his memories of Jeongguk, read how Yoongi said that things just changed too much in the time between summers. How Jeongguk became more distant as they grew; how Yoongi didn’t think he knew how to swim, until he saw Jeongguk jump into the lake and refuse to come up. He’d learned to swim that day, the notes said.
The notes described the drawings of flowers taped in Yoongi’s room, a field of tiger lillies with nowhere to blossom. They described how he and Jeongguk would sneak away from activities like fishing and soccer to pick flowers and look at the birds in the sky instead. How Yoongi incessantly drew gardens of flowers but oftentimes they were wilted, how birds on paper didn't sing like like the ones in the sky. How Yoongi hated rope–tying at summer camp because Jeongguk was too good at it, and Yoongi was terrified that he couldn't undo Jeongguk’s knots no matter how much he tried.
And the older they got, the more time seemed to wear on Jeongguk, until Yoongi realized their summers together might not be enough anymore. Yoongi was afraid of the summer ending – back in Daegu, Yoongi couldn’t jump in to save Jeongguk when he swam out too far. Couldn’t undo the knots in the rope that hung from the ceiling. Couldn’t show him the flowers that reminded Yoongi of him, couldn’t point out the birds in the sky to keep Jeongguk from slipping through his fingers.
So, for Yoongi, the summer didn’t end. In his mind was the cabin, the walls surrounding the place where he’d shared a bed with his childhood love. Jeongguk would crawl into his bunk in the middle of the night to show him a flower he’d found outside that maybe Yoongi hadn’t seen before, or pull him with whispers and giggles to sneak outside to the edge of the lake and watch the moon’s reflection in the water. Once, by the lake, he’d asked Yoongi what they would do when they didn’t have summer camp anymore.
“That’s easy,” Yoongi had said, a smile on his face and butterflies fluttering in his chest. “I’ll just go find you in Busan.”
Jeongguk had smiled, a bright smile that showed his teeth and made him scrunch his nose. “I’ll plant a garden with a lot of flowers. Tiger lilies, like your favorite.” He’d whispered, leaning into Yoongi as the sounds of the lake drawled in their ears, plush grass just a little damp underneath their hands, fingers intertwined. “That’s how you’ll know where to find me."
Yoongi hadn't been to Busan since the fire – he'd never been allowed. Jeongguk never visited him, Namjoon knew, because Jeongguk existed only in Busan, in the recesses of Yoongi's memory where he relived his childhood, the summers that he spent at camp. He surrounded himself with the flowers, the lake, the woods, all in his room – all from memory, etched on paper like it was etched in his brain. It existed there, only. Namjoon knew Yoongi went to Busan still, even if he didn't – as often as he could, from the confines of his room, the four walls that seemed too big and too small at the same time. In Yoongi's mind, he left Seoul, every year. Now, as his reality began to catch up to him, Yoongi yearned for something more – something past the boundaries of where his memory could take him. Jeongguk hadn't come to Seoul, Yoongi had said - he never would. Yoongi would go to Busan to find Jeongguk instead.
“... Dr. Kim?”
Startled, Namjoon blinks. He’d been staring down at the contents of the binder in his hands. He clears his throat. “–hm. Yes?”
The worker in her suit and glasses sighs, closes a folder that rests on her lap. “We’re going to go ahead and approve the continuation for his therapy. His release will continue to be contingent on his progress.”
Namjoon nods sharply and straightens his posture. “Thank you, ma’am.” He watches as she reaches absentmindedly for the bowl of candy on his desk.
“May I?”
A moment of hesitation flickers by before Namjoon nods again. “Of course.” He watches as she plucks a lollipop from the bowl. His eyes move to a vacant spot on his desk; he glances out the window. It’s all he can do to convince himself that he doesn’t smell the scent of freshly picked flowers as he sees a group of middle–school boys laughing and running around at a bus stop across the street. Namjoon smiles; it’s somewhat strained. Suddenly, he thinks, he’d like to go outside. Maybe not for himself, but a breath of fresh air nonetheless.
The next week, a vase of flowers sits neatly on the table beside the bowl of candy. A faint knock alerts Namjoon at his desk. “Come in.” He says, and when he looks up, he smiles. “Yoongi. Please have a seat.” He motions to the couch in front of him, and doesn’t miss the way Yoongi’s eyes take in the flowers.
“Tiger lilies.” Yoongi says, after settling on the couch.
Namjoon gets himself settled, too – leaves his clipboard on his desk instead of clutching it in his lap. He raises his eyebrows, glances at the flowers, and nods with a kind smile. “Do you like them?” He watches as Yoongi reaches out to touch them, tentatively, pets the petals with the most delicate hand. It’s hard to believe the same hand doused a building in gasoline and lit it in flames, with someone inside.
Yoongi simply nods, a small nod accompanied by a slight pout of his lower lip. “Mm.”
Namjoon smiles. “You’re welcome to take one with you.” He says. It’s against his better judgment, but he doesn’t pay it mind.
“Now, should we begin?”