Archive of Our Own ^beta

There isn't any garlic paste in the house.

It catches Yoongi off guard. He's halfway through cooking dinner, sauce sizzling on the stove and meat chopped and cleaned, and then he'd gone to the refrigerator to get the garlic paste and - it's run out.

He shuffles through the containers piled up in the freezer. Maybe he's misplaced it. He's making bulgogi, he needs garlic.

He searches harder, but it's clear that he's run out.

Yoongi takes a breath. Lets it out slowly.

He doesn't need garlic, he tells himself. It's alright. He thought he was going to have it, but he doesn't. He can work with that.

It's alright.

The sauce keeps sizzling on the pan, he needs to get to it soon.

He doesn't have garlic.

The sauce isn't going to taste right.

Yoongi takes another breath. He shuts the refrigerator. For a moment he stands there, thoughts swirling, unsure of what to do. This is not how it was supposed to go. Cooking was supposed to calm him down, but staring at the slowly thickening mixture in the pan, all Yoongi can think is that everything is going wrong.

Everything is a mess.

He takes another breath. Switches off the stove.

He stares as the bubbling in the pan quietens, slows, stills to a stop.

There isn't any garlic in the house. He'd imagined the dish with garlic.

It won't be right without it.

Another breath. His fingers shake, unsure of what's next. A part of him wants to give up. A part of him can't decide, frozen in place, too many options running though his head to make an actual choice.

He could go out and buy some garlic paste. He could eat without it. He could replace it with a bunch of spices instead.

Too many things he could do.

He shuts his eyes and breathes. The clock ticks on and on. His fingers shake as time doesn't stop.

Too many choices.

There isn't any garlic.

Yoongi is so lost.

/

It's late, and the streets outside Yoongi's house are deserted.

The neighborhood he lives in is, to put it simply, as far removed from reality as society lets them be. The people Yoongi has run into, over the years, are all here to hide. They're all here to be forgotten.

They've all already been forgotten, and they're here to pretend that they meant for it to be that way.

The night is cold, and Yoongi pulls his hat down lower over his ears. The chill is biting but he needs to go to the store. He needs to buy some garlic paste.

He can't put it in his sauce anymore, he's lost his appetite for it. He'd dumped the concoction in the sink and then eaten some rice with an egg he'd found instead. But while he was doing the dishes he couldn't stop feeling like the fact that he hadn't gone out to restock was going to get back at him soon.

So here he is, in the biting cold.

The supermarket isn't too far.

There aren't a lot of people in the streets, which is good. The people he does see, Yoongi doesn't meet their eyes. Their glances pass over each other, unseeing, uncaring.

It's nice living in a place, where everyone's been forgotten. None of them need to bother remembering each other because there's the understanding that they aren't worth it.

There's a reason they've all been forgotten, anyway.

The supermarket is brightly lit, even at this absurd hour. It's one of the few twenty four hour shops around Yoongi's house. There are posters plastered on the windows, ads and special offers, and Yoongi remembers, with a sinking feeling, that it's comeback season.

He averts his eyes before he catches sight of anyone he might not want to see.

The supermarket is quiet, the only other customer standing alone in an aisle and texting lazily on his phone. Yoongi doesn't spend much time browsing. It's an in and out sort of day. He goes straight to buy what he needs, gets a bunch of spices while he's at it, and he's back at the counter in barely two minutes.

He keeps his eyes steadily on the counter. The cashier scans his stuff, one by one.

He follows the movement with his eyes, careful not to look away. Careful not to spot the magazines he knows are piled up next to the counter.

The cashier reaches out for Yoongi's bag, and Yoongi hands it to him. He piles in the items, one by one.

"Would you like a magazine?" the cashier asks, reaching towards the stack.

Yoongi shakes his head, keeping his eyes steadily away.

He hates comeback season.

"Alright then," the man says easily, ringing up his total.

Yoongi takes the bag back, thanks him, and is out of the door as fast as possible. The ads plastered on the glass watch him as he goes, taunting.

Always there.

/

Yoongi spends most of his days watching foreign TV shows.

He used to prefer Korean dramas, back before all the shit in his life went down. But now watching them is too hard because it's hard to watch shows filled with so many people he recognizes and could still be living alongside.

So many people who'd forgotten him so easily, who need to take a long moment to remember who Min Yoongi is.

It sucks, having left a world so entirely that it's like you were never there.

He used to spend a long time watching anime. Short, slice of life series that took him out of himself for just a while. But recently he's got into American TV shows.

He's watching blankly, curled up under his blanket. The room is dark and the screen is too bright.

It's probably odd how much he laughs when he's watching shows by himself. It's probably a little bit sad.

There isn't a lot to do alone at home. Yoongi isn't really - employed. He isn't in trouble, not yet - not with the sheer amount of money he'd made back when he was still a member of the band. But he will be someday.

It keeps him awake at night, so he doesn't think about it.

He avoids the internet, for the most part. It's hard enough getting through the day without having to hear about all the idols he's ever known.

It's hard enough knowing there's a comeback this month.

He can see the sales numbers in his head already, the crowds, the fans. The love that everyone seems to have for each other that Yoongi thought he was an irreplaceable part of.

The crowds, the fans, his former bandmates. Unaffected by Yoongi's absence.

The obligatory statements of Suga hyung, we wish you were here.

Yoongi likes watching American shows. It's easier looking at faces that haven't ever known him enough to be able to forget him.

/

A lot of the shops in the streets are brightly lit.

It gives the neighbourhood a bit of a sterile feeling. Dark sidewalks and stores too bright. A sort of hospital feel.

Every time Yoongi steps inside a shop, it takes him a moment to adjust to the light. He doesn't go in anywhere unless he can help it.

A good thing about it all is that it makes the streets seem darker than they really are. It's easy to hide. Yoongi is sure that the people he passes have their own forgotten stories. Their own tales of falling from grace. Every day he wonders what it would be like to run into a face that he recognizes.

But in this town for all the fallen ones, they're all just ghosts. It doesn't matter who they are, because - they don't matter anymore.

Yoongi holds his jacket around himself tighter and keeps walking.

There's a small shop in the corner, hidden in the dark. The lights inside are a dim blue, barely enough to see anything.

It's a far cry from the blinding lights in every other shop.

Out of curiousity, Yoongi steps closer. It's hard to see the sign on the door in the light of the street light, but he squints a bit, and -

There's a drawing of fish.

A lot of fish, coiled around each other. One of them is grinning at Yoongi, tossing him a thumbs up.

JK'S AQUARIUM, the sign reads.

The sign is cute, despite the creepy lighting from the inside. Yoongi almost considers stepping inside.

Maybe another day.

/

Sometimes Yoongi wonders if he should get a cat.

It kind of feels like something he's expected to do at this point. In all the stories he reads, the loner has a cat. And the cat makes up for all the friends they never have. Until suddenly they make friends and realize that the cat was never quite enough after all, now that they've experienced true human contact.

It always seemed to Yoongi like a shitty moral to teach people.

Sometimes he wonders who those stories are written for. Or who those movies are made for. Are they for the people locked up in their rooms, like him? Or the ones who look at him and feel sorry for him?

Because Yoongi doesn't find any comfort in watching movies that tell him his lifestyle isn't enough. They don't inspire him to make things better for himself, or to 'take his life into his own hands'.

They inspire him to turn the TV off.

He supposes they're great to watch for people who aren't alone, though. It must be nice, to watch those movies and think 'maybe this loner is someone I should save'.

He wonders if it makes people feel better about themselves. The idea of 'saving' someone. Namjoon used to try it all the time with him.

Talk to me whenever, hyung.

We're all in this together.

We can get through this.

What Namjoon never understood was that they weren't all in this together. They were all affected by Yoongi's declining mental health, sure. But only Yoongi had the fucking capability to do anything about it.

All those months of therapy, rushed because of course you're our priority, Yoongi-yah, but we can't put back the entire schedule - too much money invested already - what will we answer to the authorities -

Everyone was affected by his anxieties, but the responsibility was down to Yoongi to change.

To suck it up.

To put his thoughts into perspective.

Of course you're anxious, Yoongi-yah, everyone's anxious -

But everyone wasn't anxious. Not like Yoongi. They weren't paralysed by the thought of putting music into words. They didn't spend sleepless nights in the studio unable to breathe.

Sometimes Yoongi wonders if he should get a cat.

The problem with getting a cat is that knowing his life, the cat will probably die. He'll spend every moment worrying about it until it happens.

And once it does - well. Yoongi won't know what to do with himself after that.

/

When things get too hard for Yoongi to process, he ties his shoelaces a little bit tighter. They feel firm on his feet, holding him tight. Grounding him in reality.

He takes one step after another. Slowly, carefully. The steps shouldn't be too far. They shouldn't be too close. If Yoongi does this just right then it means he won't die in his sleep.

Every crack in the sidewalk hurts his brain. Every time his shoe touches them he wants to kill himself.

There's nothing he can do to fix the sidewalk. It's something his therapist had told him years ago, as she half-heartedly tried to 'fix' Yoongi during the laughably small slots she'd been given.

There's nothing he can do to fix things bigger than himself. A lot of the universe is out of his control.

He never understood how that would make him feel better.

Yoongi is at the mercy of a damned cracked sidewalk.

The roads are empty enough, and, before he can rethink it, he steps off the sidewalk and into the road instead. The tar is uneven, but it's better.

He takes careful steps, one after the other. The lights are too bright, but there's a shop in the corner, hidden in the shadows, a dull blue light the only source from within.

Yoongi stares at the sign again. The fish are coiled together, and there's just one, with a cheeky grin. Tossing finger guns at him.

There's a sign under it, in messy block letters, that reads OPEN.

Yoongi hesitantly pushes at the door.

The place is small. Just the length of a wide corridor, packed with fish tanks on either side. There's the gentle hum of the motors running in the tank, the bubbling at the water surfaces. The place is dark enough that Yoongi can't make out the colours of most of the fish.

There are so many fish.

"Hello," someone says, from his position on the floor.

He's sitting cross-legged, face lit up by the light of his phone screen. He seems to have been playing some sort of game. For a second he's startled when he sees Yoongi, and there's a pause as his character dies loudly on screen with screams of pain and too many gunshots. The guy winces, but just switches his screen off and gives Yoongi a wide smile.

"Do you have something in mind?" he asks. "Or do you want to look around?"

"Just look around," Yoongi says. He pushes his hands into his pockets, where no one can see them.

The other guy nods.

"It's very dark here," Yoongi can't help but say.

"Oh," the guy says. "Yes, sorry - the fish get stressed in brighter lights. I'll turn on the one in the side room."

"No, that's fine - " Yoongi starts to say, but the guy is already pushing himself up, moving down the corridor and opening a door that Yoongi hadn't noticed previously. It leads to a different room, and he switches on the light there, letting the warm yellow spill out into the shop.

It isn't much, but it's enough.

"Thank you," Yoongi says.

He gets a smile in response.

The guy is - a bit taller than Yoongi. He has a giant sweatshirt pulled over his clothes, and a beanie pulled over his ears. His hair is long enough that Yoongi has trouble looking at his eyes. He looks young. A little quiet.

"I don't know much about taking care of fish," Yoongi admits softly.

"That's fine," the boy says. "No one knows at first. I can help you out."

"What would you recommend?"

The boy tilts his head, considering.

"A lot of people go for betta fish," he says. His voice is soft. Harmless.

It calms Yoongi's anxieties somehow.

Yoongi tilts his head. He does find betta fish pretty. Breathtakingly so. But they've always struck him as kind of sad. Kind of lonely.

"Don't they get lonely?" Yoongi asks, before he can help himself.

The boy smiles. Not teasingly, just - smiles. "I wouldn't know," he says. "I don't think I can speak for them. But if you want fish that you can raise in a group, I'd say go for zebra danios."

"I don't know what those are," Yoongi admits.

The boy steps up to one of the tanks, gesturing for Yoongi to come closer. There are dozens of tiny fish inside, swarming together, chasing each other.

"They're pretty," the boy says, and it sounds less like he's trying to sell them and more like he's sharing something he can't keep to himself.

They are pretty.

Yoongi spots them in the strangest of colours. Neon blues, yellows, oranges. They look so small, so bright, so completely part of a different world.

He catches sight of his own reflection, staring at them. From a distance, divided by a glass wall. He can love from a distance, he thinks.

It's up close that things go to shit.

"They're pretty," Yoongi agrees.

The other boy grins, all his teeth showing. It's still hard to catch sight of his eyes. "That's great," he says. "Do you want them? I'll tell you everything you need to know - I'll give you a pamphlet, too. And my phone number, actually, it's best if you have that too. You can call me if you have any trouble."

Fifteen minutes later, Yoongi is out the door, with a fish tank tucked under his arm, a bag of fish food, five tiny fish and a bunch of other fish essentials. There's a phone number stored in his worn out iPhone -

Jeon Jungkook (the fish guy).

/

Jeon Jungkook the fish guy had told Yoongi to change the water in the tank every four days, and that's what he does.

What he hadn't told him to do was spend every other second panicking, but Yoongi does that too.

He checks the pH of the water constantly. He measures out food with shaking hands. At night he sits in the dark, face pressed against the small table that the fish bowl is resting on, sure that any moment one of them is going to drop dead.

Every time he turns around, is a moment when he could turn back and find them dead.

The fish are so beautiful. So bright, so lovely. It would be just like Yoongi to be the reason that they die.

He wishes there wasn't so much wrong with him.

It's comeback season. It's already a shitty time.

It's comeback day, and Yoongi avoids all the screens that he can. He doesn't turn on the news. It's a day of shattering records, of worldwide chaos. Of art and music and celebration.

A day of staring at the performances and spotting the places that he could have been, where there isn't a hint of a hole anymore.

His existence has been covered up so entirely Yoongi himself isn't sure he was ever there.

He knows that there are messages on his phone from his former bandmates. They always ask him how they've done, if they've done well, if Yoongi is proud - and Yoongi tells them that he is. It takes him a week to finally reply, but he always tells them that he's proud.

Yoongi is proud. He can't blame them for the fact that he got left behind.

We're all in this together.

It was a nice thought, but they never were. They were in the freaking entertainment business. There was no friendship about it. No ethics. It was either Yoongi going down, or him dragging them all down with him.

It's easier for the band to continue like he'd never been there, than for them to try and explain the gaping hole every time he couldn't go up on stage because he was crying in the bathroom.

It's weird thinking of the days he had to go hide and cry in the bathroom.

Yoongi's house is now so empty that he can cry wherever the hell he wants.

/

Hello, Jungkook-ssi. This is Min Yoongi. I doubt you remember, but I bought five zebra danios from you two weeks ago. They've been swimming a lot closer to the surface than usual today, I just wanted to check if that's normal?

Hi, Yoongi-ssi!

Of course I remember you, I don't get a lot of customers ha ha :D

Swimming close to the surface doesn't sound alarming - it's only a problem if they're gasping AT the surface

If that's happening then they aren't getting enough oxygen

Oh. I guess they're fine then? I don't know, I just feel like something is off, I'm sorry to bother you

It's not a bother at all!

Could you maybe send me a video of them?

Idk maybe I might be able to tell better

[VIDEO ATTACHED]

They look fine to me, Yoongi-ssi

They're pretty hyperactive fish, so sometimes they swim around like this

It's nothing to worry about!

You're doing great :D

He stares at that message for too long.

You're doing great :D

It's what he tells himself, hours later, as he sits next to the fish tank without getting a wink of sleep.

Jungkook said it was fine.

Jungkook knows what he's talking about.

But what if.

Knowing Yoongi's luck, what if.

The thought is enough to keep him awake, heart racing.

/

It's odd introducing himself as Min Yoongi.

In a way, it's sadder than using a fake name. When he texts Jungkook and calls himself Min Yoongi, it doesn't occur to him that the boy might know who that is.

It hurts a bit when he realizes he doesn't. But who knows anyone, in this town of ghosts.

When Yoongi debuted, he used the name Suga. It was an odd choice, contradictory to the dark, explosive personality he was expected to portray, but something about the duality worked. What made things harder was that the persona he'd had to build made it harder for people to see him as human.

Suga didn't have room for emotion. He wasn't supposed to. He was the one who stood on the outside of every hug while he pretended they meant nothing to him, the one who spoke of burning down the planet and wrote diss tracks intending to tear the government apart.

Suga was raw power. Raw anger. He wasn't - this.

This shell of a person wasting away, unable to get himself out of bed because he's terrified all of his fish are dead.

This is just Min Yoongi.

It starts as a nagging fear at the back of his mind, but now it's unbearable. Yoongi can't get up. He can't look inside the fish tank. He doesn't know what he'll do if any of the fish are dead.

How will he live with himself?

What will he do?

Time ticks by, and he needs to get out of bed. He needs to because he needs to feed the fish. Assuming they're alive. If they are, then they need food. If he doesn't feed them then they'll die.

He can't breathe.

It's a terrible feeling, like the ground has been pulled out from under him. He's forever stuck in free fall and he's never hitting the ground, and the horrible lurch that comes with falling just never goes away.

When Yoongi was younger, when he didn't know enough about mental health to realize something was fucked in his brain - he thought there was something wrong deep inside his chest. He thought someday it would explode and he would suffocate to death.

Now that he knows there's something fucked in his brain, it doesn't make it any easier. Because if this is all just in his brain, if this isn't Min Yoongi - this shell of a person that's wasting away, then Yoongi doesn’t know who he is.

Because he sure as hell isn't anyone else.

/

The next time Yoongi stops by Jungkook's store, the boy is lying on the floor.

He's playing some game on his phone again, frowning angrily at the screen as he seems to be blowing people into pieces. He looks up for a second when Yoongi steps inside, and then he looks startled again, sitting up too abruptly and dropping his phone to the side.

Again, there's the sound of his character dying dramatically.

"Yoongi-ssi," Jungkook looks surprised.

"Jungkook-ssi," Yoongi says.

He wonders for a second if this is something he does frequently - lying on the floor of his own shop. It can't be hygienic. Yoongi doesn't think anyone takes their shoes off when they enter, who knows how much dirt they've been tracking into the shop.

He carefully slips his own shoes off near the door, hoping to be inconspicuous about it.

"Do you take returns?" Yoongi asks, voice quiet.

Jungkook looks like he's been slapped in the face. "I - what? Why?"

"Actually no, that's rude of me," Yoongi says quickly. "I'll - I'll just give the fish back to you, yeah? You don't have to give me money for them."

Jungkook still looks hurt. "I don't understand," he says. "Are they - you don't like them?"

"I do!" Yoongi says quickly. "I'm just - I'm too worried about them. It's messing with my head."

Some sort of understanding seems to dawn on Jungkook's face.

It's an odd moment, because Yoongi thought Jungkook might laugh at him.

Worrying is normal.

Everyone worries.

You'll be okay, just don't think about it too much.

It's the sort of thing everyone says, the sort of thing that Yoongi can't argue with because - there's no explaining to someone that he isn't just worrying.

But Jungkook looks at him with - understanding. His eyes are a bit sad, behind the mess of bangs that peak out from his beanie. It's a bit crooked on his head, toppled off from when he sat up.

"I get that," he says. "It can get overwhelming sometimes. You can call me when you want help, but if you're really sure it's too much for you to deal with, you can leave them with me."

Yoongi blinks.

"I live here," Jungkook says, a bit sheepish. "Just - if you leave your tank here, then I can take care of them, and you can check on them whenever you want until you feel ready to take them back."

Yoongi blinks again.

That can't be right.

"I - you'd do that? That doesn't seem - fair."

Jungkook shrugs. "I have a lot of fish," he confesses, like that isn't something Yoongi has noticed. "It won't make a difference to me. I'll feel bad if you just - give up on them, so. This is the next best option."

"Won't I be in the way?" Yoongi asks. "If I turn up to see how they're doing."

Jungkook gives him a look. He squints at him, like he's trying to figure out if Yoongi is joking or not.

"Yoongi-ssi," he says, gesturing at the empty shop. "How many customers do you see here?"

"Uhhh…"

"You won't be in the way," Jungkook says. "If anything you'll give me someone to meet."

He smiles, and Yoongi feels a bit of warmth despite himself.

/

Sometimes Yoongi wonders how old Jungkook is.

He knows he's younger than him for sure - his boyish face gives it away. But Yoongi can't place an age. It seems rude to ask.

It seems ruder still to ask what he's doing at this shop.

As far as Yoongi can tell, he really does live here. The shop leads into a tiny, single room at the back, connected to a single bathroom, and with a sink and counter built into the wall that seems to serve as a kitchen. The room has a bed, a TV, and is a total mess strewn with clean laundry and comic books, and the first time that Yoongi sees it, when he asks Jungkook if he could use the bathroom, Yoongi feels like he's stepping into somewhere he really shouldn't be.

But - it doesn't make sense, for Jungkook to be here without a family. Yoongi can't tell what he's running from to end up in this ghost town.

Yoongi stops by almost every day. It doesn't feel right otherwise, now that Jungkook is taking care of the fish he paid for in a separate tank of their own. He looks cheerful every time Yoongi drops by, and never makes him feel out of place at all.

Once, Yoongi comes by when he's cleaning the tanks.

His jeans are rolled up to his knees, t-shirt sleeves pulled up to his elbows. His beanie's been replaced with a silly ponytail right over the top of his head, and it's unfairly cute - but he looks embarrassed once he realizes that Yoongi has entered the store.

"Yoongi-ssi!" he says, dropping the cloth in his hand to the floor to tug the ponytail off instantly. The hair flops down, spilling over his face, keeping his eyes out of sight again.

"I wouldn't judge you for a ponytail," Yoongi says, amused and a little disappointed.

Jungkook looks even more embarrassed, and doesn't reply.

"I cleaned your tank!" he tells Yoongi proudly, like Yoongi came to…make sure he was doing that, or something. He grabs his cloth back off the floor, pointing vaguely in the direction of the tank of Yoongi's fish.

"Oh," Yoongi blinks, feeling a bit guilty. "I could have helped."

Jungkook shakes his head.

Yoongi takes a peek inside his tank, and the fish look happier than ever. Yoongi has named them all, after completely unrelated people. His personal favorite is a tiny green fish, that's always a bit too excited.

There's another giant yellow one, who's unreasonably pretty. Pretty enough that Yoongi is a bit insulted by him.

He names him Kim Seokjin.

Jungkook kicks a foot stool under another set of tanks, climbing up to start emptying it. Yoongi turns away from his fish and stands behind him, wondering what to do.

He does want to help, but he has no idea what to do.

"There's a bag of chips in the other room," Jungkook says, voice a bit muffled from how he's leaning over the tank. "Help yourself."

Yoongi's eyebrow twitches.

"Jungkook-ssi," he says, "You don't need to entertain me."

Jungkook turns to look at him, a bit surprised. "You find eating chips entertaining?"

"What? I mean - you can give me stuff to do. I thought you'd show me how to take care of fish better."

"I did," Jungkook protests. "I can't make you clean my tanks too."

"You cleaned my tank, though."

"That's different," Jungkook says, but it's very clear that the situation they've built for themselves makes as little sense to him as it does to Yoongi.

There's an awkward pause.

"I can help," Yoongi repeats.

Jungkook thinks about it forever. "Okay," he decides. "You can hand me plastic bags to put the fish in."

It sounds…pretty simple, but it's a task at least. Yoongi gives him a mock salute, shuffling for the bags inside the bucket of supplies Jungkook has been trudging around.

/

Namjoon used to think Yoongi had an obsession with being perfect.

It was an argument they had, over and over, when Yoongi was too paralysed to move. Too terrified to write anything, to rap, to make any music at all.

You could write shit and it would be better than what those other guys write, Namjoon would say. I don't know why you're so hard on yourself.

But Yoongi wasn't hard on himself.

Yoongi wasn't anything.

His former bandmates could put his problems into such neat little labels. Yoongi hyung has social anxiety. Yoongi hyung has stage fright. Yoong hyung has imposter syndrome. And once they had those neat little labels, they figured it was all something he could fix.

We care about you, was something that they all liked to say. We know you're amazing, your brain is lying to you.

Yoongi doesn't know why they thought that would help.

He doesn't get how they could think it would make him feel better, that his brain was lying to him and the only words he could trust where those of the people around him who barely knew him. Yoongi worked in the entertainment industry. He knew better than anyone how fast people's opinions of him could change.

The fact that he had to trust those words, the words that shouldn't mean anything to him, over his own brain - it left Yoongi with nothing to trust at all.

It wasn't perfection he was obsessed with. It was being fucking presentable. It was passing for a functional human being every single day.

Someone who could breathe.

Someone who could speak.

Someone who could do what they were paid to do instead of backing out every second.

It wasn't perfection that Yoongi couldn't keep up with, it was the absolute bare minimum. And that's what made everything so terrible. His bandmates could say take it easy, and do what you're comfortable with, don't push yourself - but they didn't realize Yoongi could only stand next to them because he'd been pushing himself from the moment he was born.

They didn't realize how much it took out of him to do just the bare minimum.

Yoongi had no choice but to leave.

He lost everything then. The official statement was put out - due to personal reasons, SUGA will be parting with the band and leaving BigHit Entertainment. The fans were in an uproar, more over the fact that they didn't know why he was leaving and less because they would miss him. #HYBEMistreatingSUGA trended for nearly two weeks and scrolling through the theories, at all the fans who'd managed to dig up evidence that Yoongi's bandmates had hated him - too many things clicked in Yoongi's mind.

He really was just a story. And he hadn't even been a good one.

He was the story of a disaster - of something crashing and burning, that people pitied for two weeks and then never thought of again.

/

Yoongi's noticed before that Jungkook gets more customers on weekends. They still aren't a lot, but it's enough to validate him keeping the shop open.

On weekdays, though - the place is almost empty.

Yoongi is near the back of the shop, watching a bunch of goldfish swim around in their tank. They look at him with huge, wide eyes, and - they kind of remind him of Jungkook. Unfairly pretty, kind of skittish, and eyes too wide for their faces.

Then he realizes it's weird to compare someone to a goldfish and he stops that thought right there.

Jungkook is on the floor again, playing a different game this time, with less blood and mortal peril involved. It seems to be a puzzle or something, and he's frowning at the screen in concentration as he plays. He's been a bit off all day, not talking much, drawn into himself.

Yoongi doesn't mind. He's content to watch the goldfish.

But he is a bit worried. It bothers him that he's worried. Yoongi really doesn't have enough space in his head to worry about someone else.

The door opens, someone stepping in, and Jungkook is up on his feet instantly.

The first thing Yoongi notices about the customer is his shoes. It's been raining outside, and they're tracked with mud. There's no sign on the door that says to leave footwear outside, and honestly if Yoongi had never seen Jungkook sleeping on the floor he'd be walking around with his shoes on too, oblivious to the fact that Jungkook was always in his socks for a reason. This isn't just his shop, this is his house.

But the customer is tracking mud into the room, and Yoongi's heart races but he says nothing. It's beating in his chest with the fury of open your mouth and say something, this is a chance to say something, this is something you can do and you should do, you freaking moron - but Yoongi stays quiet.

"Hello," Jungkook says, with his customer service smile. "Do you have something in mind? Or are you just looking around?"

The customer grunts, which isn't an answer at all, and starts looking around at the fish.

"I can't see anything," the customer says. It doesn't sound annoyed, but it doesn't sound very happy either. It's more of the kind of dissatisfied statement people make when they expect their problem to be fixed immediately.

"I'm sorry about that," Jungkook says, stumbling towards the other room. He cracks the door open, switching on the light, letting a bit of it in through the open door.

The man looks through the open door curiously, and Yoongi gets a horrible feeling in his chest.

"You live here?" the man asks.

"Uhhh…" Jungkook says, clearly uncomfortable. "I - sometimes? Not really, no."

Jungkook has never been good at lying.

The man looks at him a second longer. A second too long. His gaze drifts a bit lower than it should.

The uneasy feeling in Yoongi's chest darkens.

He spots Jungkook's fingers shaking.

The rest of the encounter passes over normally. The man buys a whole lot of guppies, and a couple of plants, and then spends ten full minutes explaining to Jungkook why even though he says the lights stress the fish out it's more important for business that he keep them on. Jungkook laughs uncomfortably, in some kind of effort to get him to leave, but the man thinks he's enjoying the conversation and stays for even longer, talking about all kinds of shit that he seems to think is fascinating.

"Till when do you stay open?" he asks, when he's leaving, a hint of a smirk on his face, and for Yoongi - that's the final piece of the disaster.

/

Yoongi doesn't go home that night.

He tries to. He swears to god he tries to. He stays at Jungkook's shop until the last possible moment, until staying any longer would be crossing boundaries for sure, and then he tries to leave.

He walks down the street, but every shadow across the road looks like the man from earlier. Every sound he hears in the distance sounds like footsteps leading to Jungkook's door.

Yoongi can't make it around the corner with coming back to make sure his door is still closed.

This can't be the first time something like this has happened. Jungkook must have lived here for years, surely he knows how to deal with shady guys who sound like they're trying to hit on him.

But Yoongi has known him for months now and he's never even seen him raise his voice.

It's never occurred to him before just how - unsafe the place Jungkook works at is. Hidden in the dark, engulfed by the shadows. Barely any customers even come in.

Yoongi almost makes it to the end of the street again, before he's turning and rushing back once more.

It's cold. Yoongi hadn't dressed to be out this late, he'd meant to stop by for an hour and then be gone. But now it's nearly past midnight, and he's still stuck in the same freaking street, in the freezing cold.

He can't leave. He can't. He doesn't know what he'll do with himself if something happens to Jungkook.

But what can he do? He can't barge into Jungkook's place. He's as much of a stranger to Jungkook as the creepy man is, and he has no right forcing his company on him in the name of safety.

Heck, Yoongi is being creepy enough as it is, practically stalking his door.

His eyes burn involuntarily. He wants to leave. The normal, functional thing to do is to leave. Jungkook isn't a child. He knows how to take care of himself.

But Yoongi can't leave. He can't think. He can't breathe.

He wipes at the tears angrily. His fingers are cold.

Yoongi fucking hates himself.

Too many people keep coming by. Too many people who could be the creepy man. His mind is reeling, he's starting to get dizzy, because - he's going to have to stay here all night. And who's to say the man will be here today? What if he's here tomorrow? Or the day after? Or the day after that?

Will Jungkook ever be safe?

The moment Yoongi lets his guard down, that'll be the moment Jungkook gets hurt.

He knows this for a fact.

That's how his life has always worked.

If Jungkook gets hurt, it will be Yoongi's fault.

He's scared he might pass out.

Maybe the creepy man will step over his body and go in to hurt Jungkook anyway.

Maybe Yoongi should pass out and die. Then he wouldn't be responsible for anything. He wouldn't have to know if something happens.

And then he hates himself for being so selfish.

Maybe he'd be gone, but Jungkook would still be hurt.

The door behind him opens, and Yoongi starts so much he nearly falls over.

Jungkook stands in the doorway, looking about as alarmed as Yoongi feels. He's dressed differently now, in sweatpants and a soft hoodie instead of his jeans - like he was just about to sleep - and he looks at Yoongi like he isn't convinced he's real.

Yoongi sees the precise moment that he puts his guard up. That he realizes that Yoongi being here is freaking weird, that he has no business on his doorstep after midnight - that Yoongi is, for all that they've spoken, still a stranger.

That Yoongi might be the one he should be afraid of.

The expression of confusion disappears, and Jungkook's face hardens. His fingers are shaking again, just slightly, and Yoongi sees him tighten them around his phone.

And the thing is, Yoongi can't argue. Because he shouldn't be here.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Jungkook looks even more taken aback. "Yoongi-ssi?"

"I should go," Yoongi says. "I know I should leave, I'm sorry, I'm just so worried."

"Are you - are you crying?"

Yoongi wipes at his eyes again. "I can't get out of my head," he says. "I just - I don't know what I'm doing."

Jungkook is starting to look scared again, and Yoongi doesn't know what to do. He needs to leave. He has to leave.

He takes a step back.

"I think I'm going to pass out," he realizes.

Jungkook's eyes widen. He reaches out, and Yoongi's vision fades.

/

When Yoongi wakes up, it's to a face that he doesn't recognize.

There's an old woman above him who he might have seen before, but he also might have not. Everyone in this town looks the same to him. Yoongi thinks he's lying in her lap, and there's a mix of humiliation and gratitude as he tries to push himself up.

It doesn't occur to him for a second that Jungkook isn't there. For a few moments, he doesn't remember enough to realize that he'd been there before.

All there is in the world is him, and the old woman.

Passing out because of anxiety isn't something weird for him. It's happened way too often, each time more horrific than the last. The worst that Yoongi remembers is when one of the producers at the entertainment company was yelling at him. It was bad enough getting yelled at in front of so many people - passing out because of it was the nail on the coffin.

It was after that that Yoongi had first been sent to therapy.

"You're too skinny," the old woman is saying, frowning, scolding. "It's too cold for you. You need to eat more."

She's warm. It's the first time in forever that Yoongi's been held by someone.

He doesn't remember the last time.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, his words coming out messed up.

"I've sent that boy to get you something," she says. "You just stay put till then."

It's only then that Yoongi remembers that boy.

Shit, he must have creeped him out. He's never going to be able to look him in the eye again.

And then he remembers the real problem - Jungkook hadn't been safe.

There's the sound of fast footsteps, and then Jungkook is back again, panting slightly for breath. He looks like he'd been running. There's an assorted collection of snacks in his hands - some juice, water, and a bag of crackers. The woman points at the water, and he juggles everything in his hands to hand it to her, settling down on the ground next to them.

She hands it to Yoongi, and he takes a small, shaky sip.

"It's the cold," the woman scolds again, this time to Jungkook. "Look at how he's dressed for the cold. And he's so skinny. Of course he fainted."

"Is he sick?" Jungkook mumbles. He sounds anxious, but also tired, and Yoongi realizes it must be an absurd hour of morning.

"Not sick," the woman says. "Just stupid."

Which is pretty much the summary of Yoongi's life, so he takes it.

Jungkook presses the back of his hand to Yoongi's forehead anyway, and Yoongi feels ten times worse.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles again.

Jungkook shakes his head. "You seemed off when you left," he says. "I should have known you didn't feel okay." He tears open the bag of crackers, holding out to Yoongi. "Eat something. You'll feel better."

Yoongi takes one, hesitant, but he doesn't eat it.

"Get him something sugary," the old woman orders, and Jungkook gets up immediately. He reacts with so little complaint that Yoongi thinks he gets ordered around by her every day.

Once he's gone, the woman turns to him again. "You can stay at my place today," she says. "Go back in the morning. It's not safe to walk around when you're this tired."

Yoongi shakes his head immediately, pushing himself out of her lap. "No, no," he says. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I just - I was worried."

She squints at him. "Worried?"

Yoongi wasn't just worried, he had a full fledged panic attack - but he can probably leave that part out. "There was a guy earlier," he says, because the woman seems safe. Kind. "I thought - he seemed like he was hinting something, when he came to Jungkook's store. I was worried he'd come back at night."

Realization seems to dawn on her face. "Oh," she says. "Jungkook - this boy who runs the fish store?"

"Yeah."

"He'll be fine," she says. She points across the street, to another store. "You see that shop? I work there. Either me or my daughter is always awake. One of us always keep an eye on the boy who runs the fish store."

"I - you do?"

"Of course," she says. "He doesn't have a family. That always attracts the wrong sort of crowd. I have a big stick by the door specifically for them."

"Wow," Yoongi says.

"Mm. So you don't have to worry. If some guy comes by I'll hit him with my stick."

Somehow - that seems to be all the relief Yoongi needed.

"Thank you," he says, honestly. His eyes are burning again, unbidden. "How - how do you know he doesn't have a family?"

"He doesn't," the woman says simply. "He isn't from here. He ran away from his family."

Jungkook turns up at that moment, holding a giant chocolate bar in his hands. He holds it out to Yoongi, slightly out of breath again.

Yoongi takes it from him with careful fingers.

It's the first time in this town of ghosts that he's seen people care about each other.

/

His former bands' new album charts pretty damned high.

Yoongi didn't want to see, but even he couldn’t stay away for long enough. Not when the news is literally everywhere on the internet. Not when his former bandmates are blowing up his phone texting in the old group chat that they'd never had the heart to kick him out of.

They don't normally text there. Yoongi knows they have another group chat now, to talk about all the things that matter, and this one stays silent except on holidays and on special days like this - when they have something they want Yoongi to know but are scared to say directly to him in case it looks like they're rubbing it in.

Still - all they want is for him to say he's proud of them. So that's what Yoongi does.

He is proud of them.

He tells them that.

And then he switches his phone off for the next three days.

There isn't a lot to do at home, what with the internet being off limits.

Yoongi thinks a lot about Suga.

Sometimes he watches old videos of him. The personification of power, of revolution, of everything that Yoongi looked up to. He had a chance to be it all, as Suga.

He wasn't the leader of the group, but he was still a part of its soul. Still one of the oldest members. And together they broke records, sent the media crashing to the ground, stood strong as one. They called themselves irreplaceable to the band. They said if a single one of them wasn't there anymore, the band would mean nothing.

Every time Suga couldn't perform on stage, there was always someone saying - HYBE isn't enough, not without Suga.

And Yoongi believed them. He believed SUGA was that powerful, because he looked up to him himself. He saw him as someone who was making a freaking difference. And then Yoongi left, and it didn't matter in the slightest.

He wonders where Suga is sometimes. All that power and nowhere to return to. A stupid kid with a paper crown, shouting about revolt and revolution and then forgotten in the crowd.

He doesn't switch his phone on for three days. He doesn't get out of bed. His skin is starting to itch, since he hasn't taken a shower in too long, and he scratches it. It's uncomfortable, and he scratches.

He can't sleep with the itch, but he can't get out of bed, so he lies awake, scratching at it.

/

Hey, hyung, your fish are doing fine!

You haven't been here in a while, are you doing okay?

Yoongi hyung? Are you busy?

Kim Seokjin is getting prettier by the day [photo attached]

Come and see him!!!! They're getting lonely

Hyung??

Hey, Jungkook. Sorry, I was sick for a few days. I don't think I can drop by any time soon, I'm sorry. Please take care of my fish, I'll make it up to you later.

You're sick? Take care hyung!!

Oh do you want me to bring you soup?

I make really good soup

I think

I mean

I like my soup

So you might too

You don't have to worry, Jungkook-ah, I'm fine. Just a bit anxious.

Oh.

But

Soup is good for anxiety too!

I eat it whenever I have a panic attack

Makes me remember I have a stomach that can feel good things too

…that's an odd way to put it, but okay

Do you want to send me your location? I'll drop by

If you don't mind of course

If you think I'm a serial killer I'm happy to not drop by

But if you think about it that's what I'd have said if I was a serial killer

No wait. That's what I wouldn't say

Wait.

It depends on how many levels there are to my bluff????

Shit how do I prove I'm not a serial killer

It's okay, Jungkook-ah, I'm happy to take the chance

[location sent]

This is where I live! Drop by whenever you want

Do text me in advance so I can put on decent clothes though

Will do!!!

/

It's only when he has someone else in his house that Yoongi realizes how unreasonably big his place is.

At first, Jungkook looks too scared to enter. When Yoongi opens the door for him, he looks like he was trying to hook the bag he was holding to the front gate so that he could turn around and flee.

When he spots Yoongi, he stares at him with wide eyes. Yoongi isn't sure what to say.

"You can come in," he says, at last.

"Are you sure?" Jungkook asks, still quite ready to run in the opposite direction. "I don't want to intrude."

Yoongi shakes his head. "It's fine. Come on."

Jungkook unhooks the bag from the gate, still looking doubtful as he walks up the front steps. Yoongi hears his breath hitch when he steps into the house.

It's not - that cool, is it?

"I didn't know you had money," Jungkook admits.

Yoongi's eyebrow twitches. "I'm sorry?"

"I mean - " Jungkook looks flustered. "Not like that! It's just you spent a lot of time at the store. So I assumed your job wasn't very demanding. Or that you were a student."

Yoongi tilts his head. "Actually I'm unemployed right now," he says. "But my old job paid really well."

"Why'd you leave it, then?"

Yoongi shrugs. "It was messing with my head."

"Ahh," Jungkook says, like he gets it.

He looks out of place, in Yoongi's house. Like the rooms are suddenly too big, too unlived in. Yoongi doesn't have a lot of furniture, just empty open spaces. Everything he actually uses is stuffed into his bedroom and his kitchen.

He doesn't do much else, besides lie in bed and cook. Looking at any other part of his house makes it seem like no one lives here at all.

It's a far cry from Jungkook's little home, where every corner just has so much of Jungkook.

Jungkook sets the bag he's carrying on the kitchen counter carefully. "I just made it before I left," he says, still looking out of place. Uncomfortable. "It's probably too hot to put it in the fridge, so. You can heat some up and eat it now if you want."

"Thank you," Yoongi says softly, and he means it.

He means it so much that his chest hurts with it.

"It's fine, hyung," Jungkook says. "I hope you feel better soon."

Yoongi doesn't reply.

There's an awkward silence for a moment.

"I'm sorry," Jungkook says, voice soft, apologetic. "I hated it when people said that to me too."

"What?"

"I hope you feel better," Jungkook repeats. He's pulling at the end of his sleeve, looking in a completely different direction from Yoongi's face. "I know it doesn't make a difference."

"I mean." Yoongi stops. "It's - good intention?"

"Yeah, but." Jungkook hesitates. "It just sounds like shit when you feel like shit."

Yoongi smiles a bit, half-hearted. "I mean, I guess," he says. "But you brought me soup. You could tell me I'm a good for nothing lobster and it wouldn't matter because all I'm looking at is the food."

"That's a terrible outlook," Jungkook tells him, but he's smiling a bit too. "Also what did lobsters ever do to you?"

Yoongi shrugs. To be honest, lobsters have done precisely nothing to him.

He remembers about how in too many places, lobsters are boiled alive because everything tastes better that way. He thinks about that experiment with the frog in water, where the water is slowly boiled and the frog doesn't notice and eventually dies.

He thinks about Suga.

/

"This fish is glaring at me," Yoongi confesses at last.

"Hm?" Jungkook asks. He's on the floor again, his feet resting on the desk he keeps his bills on. It looks like it should be uncomfortable, but he's super focused as he blows people up on his phone screen.

"This guy," Yoongi says, pointing at the fish directly. It gives him the stink eye and doesn't move.

"Which one?" Jungkook asks, still distracted.

"Big one with a swollen head," Yoongi says. Yoongi bets he uses the swollen head to keep all his attitude problems.

He should probably be embarrassed that he's picking a fight with a fish, but he's too busy feeling disrespected.

"Big one with a swollen head," Jungkook repeats to himself, still making no move to turn around. And then, "Is he ugly?"

"Uhhh…"

"There's one of them who's ugly," Jungkook says. "Then the other guy is a sweetheart."

Yoongi decides that the one glaring at him must be the ugly one, because the other fish is peacefully minding its own business, bumping gently into a rock.

"Jungkook called you ugly," he tells the ugly fish.

It still glares at him, but now Yoongi feels too smug to care.

"Hyung," Jungkook says, still kind of distracted. "Don't pick on the fish."

"He started it."

"He started it?"

"I swear. He keeps glaring at me."

"Maybe because you're creeping him out?"

"I'm creeping him out?"

"You're a hundred times his size and you're staring at him, of course you're creeping him out."

Yoongi considers it. "Oh," he realizes. And then, to the fish, "I'm sorry."

Jungkook snorts. "If you're bored you can feed him," he says. There's a series of gunshots on his screen and he hits buttons frantically, presumably trying to stay alive. "It's about time anyway."

"Apparently you're hungry," Yoongi tells the fish.

It gives him a look, like took you long enough.

Yoongi does not like this fish, okay.

"What's he called again?" he asks, as he carefully measures out the amount of food Jungkook had told him to give them.

"Who?"

"Fish with a swollen head."

"Oh. They're flowerhorns."

He's been here long enough that he knows how much food to give most of the fish, how often they need feeding, how often the tanks need to be cleaned and the water temperature needs to be measured. Once he's done feeding the flowerhorns, he goes around the room, to feed the guppies, the goldfish, the zebra danios, the betta fish, the catfish.

Even in the dark, they're all so beautiful. So alive, in their own worlds.

Yoongi's existence doesn't matter to them at all, they're just - there. He's just here. Worlds apart, but somehow, just for a while, a part of something together.

Even the ugly fish that keeps glaring at him.

"I should just hire you," Jungkook says. He's sitting up now, cross legged, like he'd been considering getting up to help Yoongi but got distracted again by his game on the way up. "Hyung. Drop your job and work for me."

"I don't have a job, you brat."

"Great. Just work for me, then."

Yoongi gives him a suspicious look. "You'll pay me to sit around and trash talk your fish?"

"I mean." Jungkook considers it. "Sure."

"Huh."

Yoongi stares at the fish in the tank he's feeding, considering. The fish swarm around, excited by the food, and it's fast disappearing. They're all so pretty.

A world apart from him, a world apart from the life he's lived till now. This little shop in the middle of nowhere, hidden in the shadows, that's somehow home to so many creatures that are too beautiful for Yoongi to comprehend.

"Would you - " his voice is quiet, careful. "Would you really hire me?"

There's a pause, as Jungkook turns off his game. Yoongi chances a look at him, and he's staring up at Yoongi with something like wonder. Eyes peaking out from under his bangs, too wide for his face.

Then he grins, eyes crinkling.

Yoongi's heart skips a beat.

/

Working with Jungkook is significantly more different from…following Jungkook around every day for no good reason.

For one thing, Jungkook actually makes him work now.

It's not a lot of work, since Yoongi still has a lot more to learn - but all the stuff that he can do, Jungkook makes sure he does. Feeding the fish, giving them vitamins, changing out water. Keeping track of bills, because Jungkook hates math and didn't ever finish high school.

It surprises him how easily Jungkook shares that information. He just mentions it in passing, like it's something he expected Yoongi to know already.

Sometimes Yoongi wonders how young he was when he ran away from home.

It turns out Jungkook is also uneasy around most of his customers. Adults in particular. He's great with kids, which is most of his customer base - he runs around with them in obvious excitement and rats off facts about his fish like they're second nature.

The kids get to see his baby fish, too, even though those aren't for sale.

But he's shy around adults, and on the occasions that those adults are men - he's almost entirely quiet.

Yoongi's learned to deal with them in his place.

It's odd working with Jungkook, because while Yoongi does a lot of work - it doesn't feel like his job.

Yoongi can just - come and go as he pleases. He does come in the morning, and only leaves when Jungkook locks up, but there's nothing making him do it except the fact that he wants to. Sometimes he leaves abruptly, in the middle of the day, because the walls are too close and he can't breathe. Sometimes he gets caught rubbing the same corner of the same tank over and over again because if he doesn’t do it just right someone he knows will die.

And Jungkook doesn't mind. He doesn't hold Yoongi's odd malfunctionings against him.

He waits for Yoongi to be okay again and smiles at him when he comes back.

He never tells Yoongi that they're in this together. Because when Yoongi drops, he's alone. He's the only one in his head.

Jungkook is there, in a different world. A glass width away.

But he's there.

/

"Are you sure that's all?" Yoongi asks, watching Jungkook lock the shop up.

"Of course, hyung," Jungkook says. "No one is going to need anything after 8PM."

"But it's a weekend," Yoongi protests. "You only close at 10."

"I'm hungry," Jungkook complains. "And you are too, let's just go eat. Two hours early won't kill us."

It doesn't feel right, closing up so early, but then - Jungkook must be starving if he's willing to leave like this on a weekend. He gets most of his customers on weekends.

Yoongi follows him quietly. It's cold, much too cold. Jungkook is buried in an oversized sweatshirt but he's still huddling into himself, and without thinking Yoongi reaches over to pull his beanie lower over his ears.

Jungkook blinks, letting him adjust it, and then takes it from him to pull down himself.

"What do you want to eat?" he asks, voice soft in the cold.

"Anything's fine," Yoongi says. Deciding what to eat is always the stuff of nightmares. Yoongi has a fixed order he gets from every restaurant he knows because figuring out what to eat from the choices on the menu paralyses him completely.

"Okay," Jungkook says easily. "How about lamb skewers?"

"Sure."

The place Jungkook takes him to isn't somewhere Yoongi's been before. It's quiet, empty. So much warmer than being outside.

They settle in a quiet corner, and Yoongi shrugs off his coat, folding it in half and laying it to the side.

They sit in silence for a while. Jungkook holds his hands out towards the grill, in some effort to warm them up.

"You've been here before?" Yoongi asks.

"Mhmm," Jungkook says. He's been a bit quiet today. Oddly so.

A second passes.

"I wanted to buy you food," he says.

Yoongi frowns. "All of a sudden?"

Jungkook gives him a sheepish grin. He can never keep his hands in one place, when he's nervous. His fingers tap at the table, he fiddles with the beanie over his head. He doesn't meet Yoongi's eyes.

"It's my birthday," he mumbles at last, a bit embarassed.

Yoongi stops.

Jungkook laughs a bit, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'm sorry, I made this weird. I didn't want to tell you."

"What the heck?" Yoongi says. "Why wouldn't you tell me - shit, happy birthday. We could have done something."

Jungkook reaches for the bottle of soju pour himself a glass. "I didn't know what we'd do," he admits quietly. "I - I've never celebrated before."

He's looking at Yoongi with a horrible mix of hope, of vulnerability, and -

Oh.

Yoongi keeps forgetting.

All the time that Yoongi had spent, surrounded by too many people who loved a persona he'd been forced to create - Jungkook had been here alone.

No family, no friends. Just a kid with his own little shop, and a kind woman across the street who promised to beat up bad guys.

"It's alright," Yoongi says. "There's a first for everything. We have, what - three hours? Let's make this day a good one."

"Let's eat lots of food," Jungkook says brightly, already looking more excited than before.

"That…wasn't my point, but of course. Eat all you want. Hyung will pay."

Jungkook blinks. "But I brought you here to buy you food."

"You can buy me food for my birthday," Yoongi dismisses. He's never very hungry, anyway. There's something oddly fulfilling about watching Jungkook eat, it makes Yoongi feel like there's something he hasn't failed at.

Yoongi rolls up his sleeves, setting to work on the meat. Jungkook watches him through the hair in his face, wide eyes following his movements.

"How old are you now?" Yoongi asks, because he realizes he's never really asked.

"Twenty two," Jungkook says.

Twenty two. A full four years younger than Yoongi. If he hadn't finished high school, then -

"How long have you been here?"

Jungkook considers it. It takes him way too long to remember.

"I think about six years," he says at last.

Six years. Six years, in this town of ghosts.

And yet, he smiles at Yoongi like he hasn't learned not to hold onto anyone at all.

/

The weirdest part of Jungkook's job, Yoongi thinks - is the fact that he has to stop his fish from eating their own offspring.

"I don't understand," Yoongi says, for maybe the tenth time, as he watches Jungkook catch baby guppies in his tiny net. "Shouldn't they - shouldn't they just. Not eat them?"

Jungkook gives him a look. "They're small," he says. "They look like food."

"How do these species survive outside of tanks?" Yoongi asks, incredulous. No part of it makes sense. What kind of parents just eat their own kids and then expect their bloodline to go on.

"I've never really thought of that," Jungkook admits. "Hey, you can at least say these guys mistake their kids for food. Betta fish mate and then eat their husbands."

Yoongi is so thrown by the statement that he doesn't even start explaining how fish don't have husbands.

"Is there anything else alarming that you need to tell me?" he asks.

Jungkook actually thinks about it. "Nah, that's about it."

He has a bunch of separate tanks to raise baby fish in, and they're his pride and joy. He carefully scoops the baby fish from the tanks of the parents and then hands the container to Yoongi.

Yoongi places it gently in the other tank, not pouring it in just yet.

"Fish suck," Yoongi decides.

"I can always fire you if you want."

"Fish are great," Yoongi decides instead.

Jungkook snorts.

"It's not just fish," he points out. "What species actually likes their offspring anyway."

"Dogs," Yoongi says. "Humans. I don't know."

"At least fish eat them," Jungkook says. "Instead of trying to raise them in this weird excuse for a planet and then giving up on them when things don't go their way."

There's an awkward moment of silence.

"Here," Jungkook says abruptly. He motions for Yoongi to come closer. "Help me catch the rest of these fish."

"What?" Yoongi starts. "No way."

"It's not hard, hyung," Jungkook insists. "And you need to learn eventually."

Yoongi shakes his head. "I might hurt them."

Jungkook frowns. "No, no. It's easy. Come on."

Yoongi lets him drag him to his side, placing a container in his hands. He holds Yoongi's hand as he gently lets it into the water, and then slowly lets go of him.

"Now try to catch it," Jungkook says. "But gently."

It takes Yoongi ages.

His heart is hammering in his throat, scared of hurting the fish, scared of Jungkook thinking he's useless. It takes him a lot longer than it does for Jungkook.

But finally, finally, he's holding a tiny fish in his hands.

Yoongi stares at it in awe.

It's - just a baby. Tiny, misshapen, barely any colour to it. It's eyes are so wide it's almost comical. Yoongi is a little bit in love.

The amount of affection he has for it startles him.

His thoughts race a mile per minute, holding the container with the baby fish. Jungkook is looking at it as well, like a proud parent or something. Again, the fondness Yoongi has for him takes him by surprise.

When Yoongi left the band, he left before it could kill him.

It's a line he rehearses sometimes. I left before it could kill me.

He left before it could kill Min Yoongi.

He left after he killed Suga.

But then - without Suga, there was nothing left of Min Yoongi to kill.

But standing here, holding a tiny fish in his hands - he's starting to realize that isn't the truth.

/

It's always odd, being alone in his house, because Yoongi is still alive.

After so many years in the public's eye, being out of sight took him a long time to get used to. It's hard to wrap his mind around, because no one is looking at him, but Yoongi is still alive.

He still exists, when there's no one there to see it.

He's halfway through cooking dinner, sauce sizzling on the stove and meat chopped and cleaned. He checks the refrigerator for garlic paste, and thankfully, it's there. He can't afford to mess up today.

Jungkook is coming over, for dinner.

Jungkook is bringing back his fish.

Honestly, Yoongi isn't sure that he's ready. He's still scared, he doesn't trust himself. But - he knows a little more than before. He's cared for these fish for months together.

He should - he should be okay.

He spoons some of the paste into the pan, stirring it in with ease.

The front door opens.

"Hey, hyung!" Jungkook says cheerfully, stumbling in. Yoongi sets down his ladle to help him out, but Jungkook manages to set the empty tank on the floor by himself. Then follows the bag of fish, carefully propped to the side.

Yoongi looks at him, and - it jars him for a second. This person. Smiling at him.

Smiling at Min Yoongi.

The shadow that's left.

The question snaps out of him before he can stop it.

"What are you running from?"

Jungkook looks puzzled, smile freezing a bit. "Hm?"

"Six years ago," Yoongi says. "What - why would you come here? You're so - "

You aren't meant to be forgotten, Yoongi wants to say.

You're so alive.

What could have gone wrong, for someone to forget you?

"No one comes here if they aren't running from something," Yoongi says.

Jungkook smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He pulls his beanie down a little lower over his head. "You don't know that."

"I do," Yoongi says. He hesitates. "It's the reason I got sent here."

"Ahh."

There's a pause. They both stand in the quiet. The sauce sizzles behind Yoongi, urgently, and he reaches for the ladle in an instant to start stirring it again.

Jungkook doesn't speak for a long time. Yoongi doesn't think he will.

He's pushing boundaries, maybe. He doesn't need to know this.

His face burns a bit. He shouldn't have asked.

"I ran away from home," Jungkook says at last.

Yoongi stops, turning slightly to face him. "Why?"

Another pause. "I - I kissed a boy."

Yoongi turns fully.

There's something - tense, in Jungkook's voice. Like this is a secret he couldn't keep to himself, that he doesn't want to hide. A secret he's too aware that he shouldn't have to hide - but has learned the hard way to keep to himself anyway.

"Oh," Yoongi says.

It's - not what he expected at all.

Jungkook looks at him, on guard, and with too much vulnerability in his eyes at the same time. His fingers are tense, afraid, like he's wondering if he should bolt.

Yoongi wishes he'd met him earlier.

He wishes he'd been there to tell him it was okay.

"Those kinds of parents, huh?" he asks, voice dry.

Jungkook lets out a breath. "Yeah," he says, but it's still a bit shaky. Like he can't dare to hope that this is real.

"Yeah, well, fuck them," Yoongi decides, turning off the stove.

"You don't think - you don't mind? That I'm - " He hesitates. He doesn't say gay.

Yoongi gives him a steady look. "Jungkook-ah," he says carefully. "Do I really look straight to you?"

Jungkook's eyes widen in disbelief, and for a second he just stares at him, in complete and utter confusion.

And then it's there again - that wide grin. Eyes crinkled, in the way that makes Yoongi's heart hurt. "I should have known," he says. His voice is still shaky, still tense, but - it's filled with hope. "I should have known from your obsession with Kim Seokjin."

Yoongi is affronted. "What the heck, that was a perfectly healthy obsession - "

"Sure hyung, sure, sure."

"Yah," Yoongi complains, but Jungkook is laughing, and Yoongi's heart is warm.

They're in their own little world. There's too much outdoors, too many things they've both run from, but right now, they're both here.

Nothing else seems to matter.

For the first time, Yoongi realizes - they aren't ghosts. They aren't the shadows that are left, they aren't the remnants of what they'd been.

They're what they were before they lost themselves.

Jungkook - wasn't someone meant to be forgotten. He was just himself.

Hiding in the shadows, just to be himself.

And Yoongi - maybe he'll never compare to Suga. Maybe he's a mess, who can't walk straight on the sidewalk, who can't figure out what TV channel to watch without being paralysed by his own indecision - but the remnants Suga left behind is the same Min Yoongi that brought Suga to life.

He isn't just a ghost. He isn't just a shell.

He's - he's here. In his own home, with someone he'd give anything for, with five tiny creatures in a plastic bag that he can care for with his whole heart.

Still alive, when there's no one there to see it.

Still here.

/