Work Text:
Yoongi doesn't know what's wrong with himself.
Why can't he call it quits when he should?
Why is he always overworking himself?
Why does he snap at anyone who tries to help?
Why does he pretend to be so cold?
Why does he suffer with emotional detachment?
And why won't he reach out to anyone?
He'll dance and dance until his legs burn and his shoulder aches excruciatingly just during practice. Because he's the worst dancer and he needs to get the dance down perfect no matter how hard it is, or how much effort it'll take. He refuses to be the slow, weak link.
He'll record vocals over and over again, he'll spend hours getting the right inflection until his voice is strained and his throat is sore. Even then he'll keep going, because he needs the take to be perfect. He'll run the tapes of his vocals over with Hobi or Jungkook, and they'll say that every take he does sounds good, or they all sound the same and he should just pick one of them. But Yoongi can hear it, even the slightest tiny sound he doesn't like, and he'll record it again. He doesn't want good, he doesn't want great, he doesn't want the same, he wants perfect. And he won't stop until it's right, regardless of if he has to be on vocal rest the next day to recover.
He's holed up in the genius lab for days on end, neglecting his own health to produce instrumentals for them. He spends hours hunched over, staring at that screen, clicking and dragging instruments over to hear what they sound like. He'll fuck with the tempo of the song, turn it from 3 to 4 to 8 and then back again to try to figure out what he wants. He puts a snare in and then pulls it out because it sounds too clean, only to spend another hour looking for the perfect one.
Nothing ever sounds right for him, it's always a little too much of something, and his heart tells him that he can't get it the way he wants it exactly, and he should stop. But his head keeps going. He'll put in a piano, think it's off-beat, try to fix it and realize that he's only made it worse, and put it back the way it was in the beginning, only to fuck with it again. He'll be three days into producing a track, play it for the 150th time, realize he hates it and scrap the whole thing to start over.
Sometimes he burst into tears after he completely deletes a song, frustrated with himself for thinking irrationally and destroying something he worked so hard on. Then he'll think even harder about the track and think that he actually liked it but now it's gone so he might as well make a new one.
He gets to a point where he can't take any sort of criticism whatsoever. Anything he perceives as even slightly negative has him shouting angrily. He remembers one time when he'd finished producing a track, and played for the members. At the end they all clapped and said it was really good, but Namjoon mentioned turning down the grit on the 808 he used. Yoongi snapped and just shouted "IF YOU WANT THE FUCKING GRIT FIXED, FIX IT YOUR GODDAMN SELF!" before grabbing his keys and slamming the door to the studio, leaving some very confused bandmates.
Anyone who tries to come and get him from his studio has to go through hell to do it. He's given them the code for emergency situations but he doesn't want them to enter unless he's dead or on the brink of death. Which he normally is by the time they show up. He only ever gets up to use the bathroom when he can't hold it anymore, and his entire fridge is basically stocked with coffee and redbulls that he shotguns to keep himself going. He only eats once his empty stomach gets too hard to ignore and so he'll heat up a pack of instant noodles to cram down his throat as fast as possible. If any of his boyfriends try to come in before at least the 5th day, Yoongi will shout at them, throw waterbottles at them, and slap them if they get too close to him.
Taehyung and Jungkook have to tag team to get him out of genius lab. Taehyung will put on puppy eyes and beg Yoongi to come home while Jungkookie manhandles him out of the room. He's usually too tired to complain about it, no matter how much he wants to stay.
Namjoon can do it if he needs too. He'll put on this big intimidating daddy Dom type voice that has Yoongi feeling more subby and soft than he already was and coming home on his own free will, just to please Namjoon.
He knows his boyfriends are concerned about him, his phone pings with notifications all the time with them begging for him to come back home, before he powers it off or it dies. He can tell they get frustrated when he comes stumbling into the doorway, almost appearing drunk, at two in the afternoon. They know that no matter how hard they try to tell him that he's deserving of the success, and he doesn't have to work himself to the bone like this, he won't change. Yoongi's biggest critic has always been himself. It's not the anti's, it's not the actual critics, it's not anyone else but himself.
Whenever they release albums, Yoongi will spend the day after online. He looks for reviews and he reads them all from both American and Korean news sights.
One of their releases, Yoongi read an article from a news source that he usually looked at for reviews on other peoples albums. The article said quote "You can tell the voices of the members of BTS are amazing. They put their heart and soul into each recording, but some of the best vocal performances are ruined by the dreadful production. Sometimes the voices sound like they are drowning in the mix, or way too far in front. Some of the parts of the instrumentals sound off-key or off-beat and it's hard to tell whether they didn't take a child off the street and tell them to make a song instrumental. Seriously, some of the beats sound like something I'd create at age 8 in GarageBand. SUGA should stick to rapping, because his production skills are clearly not up to par with the greatness we expect from the cultural phenomenon that is BTS"
That was a bad day for all of them. Yoongi had showed them the article while crying hysterically. He'd apologized repeatedly for "being a shit producer" and "bringing down the album quality so dramatically". He'd clung to Namjoon and sobbed and sobbed into his shirt. They all spent the day trying to comfort Yoongi, even though it was hard for them to get him to feel better. Yoongi hit a massive depressive spiral afterward, he lost energy to do anything for 3 days and laid in bed the whole time.
ARMY thinks he's lazy, because he's always bitching about wanting to lay down, sleep or become a rock. He never really tries during the recorded practices, especially some of the quick run throughs he barely even moves his feet. They say he's lazy, and he's so bad at dancing because he doesn't put the effort in. They don't see the behind the scenes, they don't see that the time he could be spending laying down he's spending standing up, working his ass off to learn dances. They don't see that the time he could be sleeping he's spending producing, or that he's so fucking tired that he has no energy to work for more dance practices.
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Yoongi hasn't slept in a 5 days. He's running on redbulls, caffeine and pure adrenaline. He's been producing and recording vocals non-stop for the past 5 days. Their first day of tour is tomorrow and they're trying to get enough done that they just have to record the finishing touches for the album once they start really getting in the middle of their world tour.
His throat hurts and his eyes burned from staring at his laptop screen. He's been messing around with the same track for ages, pulling the synth noise up in the mix, pushing it back. Turning up the kick on the drum, turning it down. Adding more reverb to JK's vocals, taking it back down. The song barely even sounds like a song anymore, just mindless noise with how many times it's played in his noise-cancelling headphones.
He's hungry but he doesn't want to get up to get food, he needs water because his throat burns but he doesn't want to get anymore bottles, or a fill up another one.
His voice is raw from over and under use, alternating between the two. Two days of only recording vocals for albums, then another three of producing and not speaking even a second.
Hobi came earlier, trying to get him to stop to go to sleep. Yoongi had said no, so Hobi asked sternly. Yoongi started shouting, so Hoseok shouted back. It ended up with Hoseok shouting "SURE! DON'T SPEND TIME WITH YOUR BOYFRIENDS BEFORE TOUR! SPEND YOUR LAST DAY IN HERE AND FUCK OFF", then he slammed the door so hard a picture fell off the wall.
Yoongi wanted to beg him to come back, rip him away from his work because he needed to sleep and eat and drink because he couldn't bring himself to do it. He doesn't know why he can't step away to care for himself.
He knows the track is done, there's nothing left to do with it and he can't even properly fix it because it just sounds like mindless noise to him at this point.
But he keeps working on it. He bottles down the hurt he feels at the last words Hoseok uttered to him, they burn in his brain. "Don't spend time with your boyfriends before tour, spend your last day in here". He knows that Hoseok didn't mean it, Hoseok would never say something like that maliciously. He knows they're all sick of his self-destructive behaviour, and they just want to spend time with him but they can't because he's always holed up working.
He wishes he could tell them how he feels, but he can't. He wishes he could say that he doesn't want to be like this. He doesn't want to be working like this either. He knows that it's wrong, he knows that this isn't something that's good for any of them. But he can't help it. He wants to be able to reach out to tell them something is wrong. He doesn't want to detach from every negative emotion he feels until they boil up and spill out into a depressive spiral. They try so hard to understand, but they can't because none of them have this issue, and he won't fucking tell them about it. He's always fucking everything up because he's so poor at communication.
He spends the whole night staring at the screen, listening to the mindless noise of the three tracks he made.
He hopes that maybe it'll finally click, the tracks will suddenly sound like he wants them too. They'll finally be perfect and he'll be able to go home. But they never do, so he sits there all night.
He wishes he could go home, but he physically can't, no matter how hard he wants to.
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"Okay! First day of tour! We got this! We're gonna give it our all and show them how excited we are to be here!" Namjoon shouts before they go on-stage. Camera's are rolling, recording for the tape of the tour. Yoongi's struggling to keep up appearances, even though they've just started.
The rest of the members nod enthusiastically, Yoongi nods blearily. He's so, so tired. He ate before this, but his stomach still grumbles in protest. His throat still hurts, and he's not gonna get a chance to give it a reprieve because he has no time to drink anything warm.
His clothes are tailored, but they don't fit quite right because he's dropped more weight due to his poor eating habits.
They run out on stage, talk to the fans a bit.
The first beats to IDOL start and Yoongi instantly feels the regret of his days of not taking care of himself. His legs burn even though he just started, his throat hurts even though he just started to rap.
He loves ARMY with 1/3 of his heart (the other 2/3 reserved for family and his boyfriends), but god he doesn't know if he can get through this.
He gives the performance his all, even if his whole being wants to sleep.
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Little stars coat his vision when he blinks. It's not a new thing, it's happened before. If he jumps too hard, or towards the end of the performance when he starts to get worn out. This time feels different though. Like he's not going to be able to recover from the little stars. More appear each time his feet move on autopilot, and he knows he should slow down. But he can't. Because he won't disappoint ARMY by not giving it his all. Even if his all results in burning legs and cramps for half a day, it'll be worth it if the fans leave happy. Even if his throat burns and he loses his voice tomorrow, it's worth it if he gives the best vocal performance for them.
"If you're so jealous and it hurts go find a lawyer and sue it!" he shouts his lyrics to Mic Drop.
Then he runs to get into position.
"Did you see my bag? Did you see my bag?" Jungkook sings, and Yoongi keeps moving, despite the warbled sound of Jungkooks voice in his ears.
He'll dance until this fucking concert ends no matter how much his lungs and legs burn.
He'll give and give until there's nothing left in him, no matter how toxic of a mindset it is.
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Yoongi stumbles over his own legs as he runs into position for DNA and he curses himself because it's the first day of concert and he shouldn't be tripping already. He catches his footing as his vision blacks out entirely for a split second.
He counts off in his head, the warbled sound of the buildup for the ending dance break. Stars are consuming his vision, but there's only a couple more songs left and he can do them.
1
2
3
arms,legs, head twist, drop your hands, down and...
He collapses.
The black dots consume his vision, in the middle of the dance break. His eyes close and he's falling. He falls onto his knees first, then down the rest of the way, onto his stomach and his head knocks twice against the floor.
The others don't stop dancing. They're in the middle of the break, and it's hard to stop now. The most they can do is spare a quick glance to his direction. They assume that Yoongi just tripped over his own feet and fell, it's happened to them a couple times. Though they realized something was wrong when they moved to the second position and Yoongi was still laying in the same position on the floor.
Yoongi rarely ever made a mistake or an accident when performing. He was a perfectionist just like Hoseok. But where Hoseok and Yoongi differ is that Hoseok doesn't take his mistakes to heart. He realizes that's what it was, a mistake, and he can't be perfect all the time no matter how hard he tries. Yoongi will pretend to laugh it off while beating himself up internally and then vow to work even harder as to not mess up again.
Yoongi doesn't fall. Jimin falls. Jimin falls a lot. To the point where sometimes he just lays where he fell until the next part of the song comes on and he can get up to perform again. Yoongi wouldn't do that. He'd be up as quick as possible and trying to get back in formation immediately. But he's not. He's not moving at all.
They quickly abandon the dance and run over to check on him.
"Hyungie?" Jimin asks.
No answer.
Jin grips his arm and rolls Yoongi onto his chest. The arm Jin was holding sprawls out across the floor lifelessly when he lets go. Jin turns his head to the side and presses up under Yoongi's jawline, looking for a pulse. When he finds Yoongi's pulse it's slow, considering he was performing before, it should be beating rapidly. But it's seems as though it's beating slower than it normally does.
"Fuck! MEDIC WE NEED A MEDIC!" Namjoon shouts into his mic. He'd slipped up and cursed but he was scared. This had never happened before. They'd been injured on stage, they'd gotten lightheaded or dizzy before. But none of them had just outright passed out before.
Fans were screaming, asking what happened, but Namjoon didn't know how to comfort them. One of the members had just passed out on the floor and wasn't waking up.
The medics came rushing onto the stage, holding a stretcher like thing. They ran towards the 6 boys hovering, lowered the stretcher and picked up Yoongi. They ran back off stage with him in tow.
"Sorry, very sorry to do this but we're taking a five minute break, we'll be back in a moment" Namjoon says, ushering the remaining members off-stage as the lights cut off.
They all sprint to where Yoongi is, crouching in front of him. "Is he okay?" they ask one of the medics.
"He should be fine. He should wake up in a couple minutes. We'll have to run tests for a concussion, and if he wakes up before the concert is over he's not going to be able to perform"
Namjoon bites his lip. "Do you think we should continue without him?" he asks worriedly. Yoongi's safety would always come first.
"I think we should. Yoongi-yah would be even more upset if he finds out that ARMY's concert was cut short because he passed out. He'd probably want us to finish the concert with or without him" Jin says, eyeing Yoongi's sleeping body.
"Jin-hyung is right. Yoongi-hyung was giving it his all because he wanted them to have an amazing concert, so I think we should go out and finish it" Jimin says.
Namjoon bites his lip again and nods. "Okay. We're gonna go out there, and we're gonna finish this." he says, mostly to himself.
Then they're all running back on to the stage. They hear shouts of variations of "What's wrong with SUGA?"
"Don't worry guys. SUGA-hyung is okay. He's doing well and he's awake, he just won't be able to finish the concert" Namjoon is surprised at how easy the lie rolled off his tongue, considering how worried he is. Yoongi is not awake. Yoongi is not fine.
The boys jump back in, pushing through the concert. They try their hardest to give it their all, but it's difficult when all of their minds are wandering back to the same thing.
Is Yoongi-hyung okay?
The answer is obvious, they know he's not. He's always been a perfectionist, he's always been the type to give it his best. But it's gotten so much worse the bigger BTS gets. It started with spending the normal time in the studio, to a whole 24 hours, two days, three and then it jumped straight to a solid week if no one came to get him.
Namjoon can't help but feel irritated when Yoongi shouts about not wanting to go home, they do it for his own good. They do it so shit like this doesn't happen.
They all know that the rest of the concert isn't the best they can do. They run into each other 4 times, they all miss or flub at least one line. It's a painful stab to the heart everytime they hear Yoongi's lines played with just the backing track, or Namjoon and Hoseok have to pick up one of his verses.
It only reminds them that they can't help the rapper get away from his own mind.
They end the concert, and they thank the fans for coming repeatedly. When they take a bow at the end, it's obvious that it's not wholehearted. One of the seven of them is missing, and BTS is 7 or none.
They thank the fans one more time as they walk off-stage. They go to the dressing rooms, where they change out of their concert clothes and into hoodies and sweatpants. They wipe of their makeup and walk back to the room that Yoongi is in.
He's still hasn't moved.
"He is okay? Right?" Jungkook asks quietly as he looks at him.
"Yes. He's going to be okay. You should be able to take him home, if you're careful and keep his head elevated. Fainting spells normally last from seconds to minutes, but he's been out for a while longer than that. When he wakes up you'll have to do a concussion test. Ask him if he feels dizzy, check for slurred speech, blurred or double vision, memory loss or trouble moving his limbs. If he has an issue with any of those then he'll have to go to the hospital"
They all nod and keep it in mind as they pick him up.
Jimin gets a rag and wipes off Yoongi's stage makeup, though they leave him in his stage clothes.
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When they get strapped into the car, they realize Hoseok is crying silently.
"What's wrong?" Jin questions, getting in the back with Hoseok.
"I-It's just that I feel like it's my fault. He hadn't been- been sleeping so I tried to get him to c-come home. But he shouted so I-I shouted back and I ended up telling him to f-fuck off. I didn't mean it but I just wanted to hang out with him because I love him and I— fuck I probably made it worse! Hoseok cries into his hands.
"Hobi, you know it isn't your fault. You were upset, and you said something you didn't mean" Jin says, hugging Hoseok.
"But we all know Yoongi can't handle being shouted at when he gets like that and I told him to fuck off! He probably got even more hurt and stayed because of me! If I'd just—"
"Hyung. We all know that Yoongi-hyung doesn't want to listen to us. It doesn't matter what you'd done, he wouldn't have come back home." Jimin sighs.
"Guys. Maybe we're thinking about this wrong. Maybe hyung does want to listen to us, it's just that he feels like he needs to keep working. Remember that he didn't always use to act like this. Plus we know he has depression and anxiety, so maybe it has to do with that?" Namjoon says.
"Maybe it does, but it still feels like he just doesn't want to spend time with us" Jimin mumbles.
"We all know Yoongi loves us. Even if he's never actually been able to vocalize it, it's clear that he does. Especially when he cooks for us, or hugs Jiminie when he has nightmares, or cleans the house because we're all mostly too lazy to do it. Yoongi's never been good with emotions, so he shows how he feels with his actions. We all know Yoongi wants to spend time with us." Jin says.
"But I don't fucking get it! Why doesn't he then? Why does he shout when I try to get him to come home? Why can't he just say that he loves us? We always tell him that we love him but he never says it back."
"Jimin-hyung. You have to keep in mind that Yoongi isn't the same as the rest of us. He's his own person and we knew he had trouble expressing how he feels before we started dating him. We can't get mad now, especially because he's clearly struggling" Jungkook says from the front where he's driving.
"I- Listen. I understand. It's just frustrating. I know he loves us. I know I love him. It's just sometimes it feels like I'm dating a ghost. I barely see him sometimes when we aren't filming."
"We all get frustrated sometimes. We can't let our anger blindside how much we care for Yoongi-hyung and likewise with him." Taehyung says.
Jimin nods and looks back at Yoongi, "I hope he wakes up soon".
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Jin paces back in forth in worry. Yoongi just woke up after two hours, and it should've been only been a few minutes.
He doesn't have a concussion, but they have to talk to him. They can't have a repeat of this. Yoongi isn't allowed to dance at the concert tomorrow for healing and they can't have him sacrificing his health like this.
The 6 boys were ready to have to start the conversation between them, but it's actually Yoongi who starts it up.
"I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I know that the only person to blame for this is myself. I know that I'm overworking myself. I know that you just want to see me, but I'm never there. I know how hard it is for you guys when I hit depressive lows. I- uh- It's hard to explain the way my brain functions. I spend so much time in the studio working, and you ask me to come home and I want to, I want to so bad, but I can't get myself to get up. I get angry and frustrated and I don't know why because I want to go home too. I sit there trying to fix things even though I know they can't be fixed. I don't know why I am the way that I am because I know wholeheartedly that it's not going to work out no matter how hard I try but I do it anyway."
"I've always had this fucked up mindset but it just keeps getting worse and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know why I can't tell you just how much i- uh- like you guys. Any time I try to I can't, even though you guys hold so much of the space in my heart. It's annoying. I've been open with my struggles with depression but I've never been able to talk to anyone about these issues because I don't even fucking understand them myself. I know it's not healthy. I can't help it. I don't know how to help it"
His words pour out of his mouth, everything he's wanted to explain but never understood rushing out like a waterfall.
He appreciates that all they do is sit and listen until his finished. They nod and hum, but they don't say anything to disrupt the flow of what he wants to say. Once he finishes he feels exhausted. Like he's ripped his soul out and showed it to everyone.
"Hyung. We're so glad that you've finally told us. We knew that there was something going on more than just you wanting to work, but we couldn't figure out what it was. We really want to help you get through it." Taehyung smiles.
"Yeah! I have an idea. It might not work, and it might be hard for all of us. But what if we put studio limits for you. I don't think we should start too high, but maybe 3 days in the studio max. If you don't come home by yourself then one of us can come and get you. It'll take effort for all of us, but it should be more useful for stopping the over-working and the toxic issues. Especially since you too also don't want to be doing what you're doing" Namjoon suggests.
Yoongi nods. "It will be really hard for me. I want to do it. But you're just going to have to be prepared for shouting. I'll try my hardest not to but I know it'll still happen."
The rest of them nod in agreement.
"So, three days max and then we absolutely have to get hyung out of the studio. We can all do that"
"We love you hyungie" Jungkook says, hugging Yoongi.
"I care about you guys a lot too" Yoongi smiles.
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It was rough in the beginning. They didn't have to put the plan into action until after the Love Yourself Tour ended.
Immediately after it was over they dropped the next album. And Yoongi did what he usually does, spend the whole day reading and watching reviews. They tried to stop him, but he was set on doing it to "learn from mistakes and grow". So the most they could do was tell him not to take the criticisms to heart. To think about them and try to do better but to also remember that he's the one making the album and not the other way around, so no ones opinion matters more than his own feelings about the body of work he created.
It works pretty well, Yoongi teared up a bit as he read some of the more negative ones, but everytime he started to get worked up he thought about what they'd said and he calmed down a lot.
Where the issue came in was the studio issue. No matter how many times Yoongi reminded himself that this was for his own good and he wanted this too, he couldn't help but shout when they came in to get him. He threw a bunch of water bottles at Namjoon and he felt really guilty, because Namjoon was trying to help him too.
It was hard, hard to try to retrain his brain from the mindset that he used to have. Hard to remind himself that no one can get any work or any output done if he's dead. That he wants to have a healthy work/home relationship, and he wants to see his boyfriends more often.
He doesn't want to spend his showers crying on the floor and bottling up emotions all day.
He's vowed himself that he'll be more open with his emotions and acknowledge them more, not only for himself but also for his bandmates.
It's been a hard travel, and he's still not made it 100% to his goal, but he's so glad that he's had supportive boyfriends to help him through his journey.