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Yoongi was seventeen when he came to Seoul. He left his family’s small rural home in the middle of the night, shoving clothes and instant ramen into a duffel bag. He cradled his laptop to his chest, and he boarded the train that would take him to a city that he knew nearly nothing about.
That night, or rather very early morning, he would marvel at the city before him. He would stare, his lips parted, at the field of lights; the glowing of the apartments’ windows and the shine of the headlights as cars streamed down the roads. He would tilt his head back and gaze up at the glass columns of the buildings and think that maybe he would live there one day. He would watch the people and he would think that they looked happier than they did in back Daegu. He thought that maybe he could be happy too.
***
Months went by and winter came. Snow began to collect on the walkways and frost gathered on the corners of windowpanes. The nights grew longer, the days shorter, and light became hard to come by.
He spent his nights on a stiff couch or stained mattress, curled into himself and trying to ignore the nearly ever-present din of voices.
Rent wasn’t something that he could afford but dignity was cheap, and he could afford losing some to the drug addicts who haunted the condemned apartment that he now called home.
They were mostly artists like he was, but they seemed to take the starving part literally. Track marks climbed their arms next to song lyrics or snatches of poems and their fingers were stained with paint and grime.
He had left Daegu to write music, to escape the repressiveness of a small town and conservative parents, but Seoul was harsh in a way that made Yoongi long for the warmth of home.
The city, he quickly learned, stole and bruised and bloodied.
Nothing belonged to him anymore unless he fought for it. His laptop was stolen the first night, by the girl who slept to his left and overdosed last month. His inspiration was stolen more slowly, in pieces and by hands that were rougher than his.
He began to wander the city to escape the violence and chaos, though it was also to try and find the beauty that he had once found in the tallness of the buildings and the light that flooded the streets.
***
He’d found a coffee shop near the train station that had first brought him to Seoul.
It was narrow and white, crammed between an electronics store and a noreabang, its blue neon sign announcing its presence. It was obnoxious and loud, but it was also open 24/7 and the interior was warm, the florescent lights dim and buzzing.
He’d sit by the window, his notebook laid out on the table and a cup of coffee nestled between his palms. He’d look out, his eyes narrowed against the sallow light.
From there he could see high-rises and skyscrapers, their metal bodies’ jutting into the sky. He could see passerby, their heads ducked, and coat collars upturned against the wind.
They didn’t look happy now, only exhausted, their faces drawn and eyes dull.
He thought about the hope he felt when he had left home and how it now felt so distant that he could barely remember it. How when he looked at the faces of these people, he saw his own face reflected back.
***
The coffee shop became his home.
It became where he tried to write and sometimes slept. It became where he found comfort throughout the long January and the bare February. It was also the place where he found hope in the form of a boy whose hair was the bright color of the forever unarriving spring.
Jimin, Yoongi quickly learned, worked at the coffee shop on weekends. He would come in for his evening shift, bleached blond hair disheveled and cheeks blushed from the cold, letting in a gust of frigid air whenever he pushed open the door.
“Hi, Hoseok hyung! Sorry I’m late!” His voice was clear, almost too cheerful, and it rang out in the small space as he called to the barista whose shift he would be relieving.
In those first few weeks of January, Yoongi found Jimin annoying, and he always seemed to be late.
***
The smell of bitter coffee permeated the air. It mingled with the low hum of neon tube lights and the hiss of the espresso machine, the clacking of cups and the swirl of new wave music from the in-wall speakers. Under usual circumstances, Yoongi would’ve found those sounds to be comforting but today they only gave him a headache.
He leaned forward in his booth, his forearms flat against the table. His notebook lay open to a blank page, its whiteness marred with eraser fragments and graphite scuffs.
He threw his pencil down, huffing out a breath and collapsing back against the turquoise cushions of the booth seat. He pressed his palms against his face, hard enough to make drawing a breath difficult. Hard enough to block out the rest of the world.
January had striped the remaining warmth from the world, turning the air sharp and the sky to a dull gray. The first few weeks brought snow in slanted sheets and the cold wouldn’t leave no matter how many blankets he stole.
There was no heat in the condemned apartment and the weight of the blankets made his skin clammy with cold sweat, yet he had gripped the fabric tightly when the boy who slept on the opposite end of the room had tried to pull them from his body.
His name was Jaebeom. He was a painter.
They had shared cigarettes and bottles of stinging soju and Yoongi had stabbed a piece of broken glass through his stomach.
The feel of breaking skin and the catch of bone haunted his thoughts and now those thoughts returned, stronger and harsher in the dim lighting of the coffee shop.
His hands began to shake. He could feel the beating of his pulse under his skin, in his wrists and in his throat.
He could still feel the hotness of his blood as it had seeped between his fingers-
“Hey, Hoseok hyung!”
The door to the coffee shop swung open, the chimes above it clanging. A drift of snow and icy air blew through the small space. Yoongi startled, his hands falling to his lap and his knees banging the underside of the table.
Ugh, he groaned, burying his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. He watched Jimin with narrowed eyes though he was glad for the distraction.
Jimin brushed back loose strands of hair and Hoseok said something to him in a low voice, his eyes glancing in Yoongi’s direction. Jimin’s mouth turned down at the corners, his brows pinching together, but he nodded and said goodbye to Hoseok as he left.
Yoongi had grown accustomed to the pitying looks, to the gazes that turned to disapproval if he stayed in one spot for too long. Since the incident, Yoongi had sought shelter at the coffee shop: taking comfort in the odd mixed scent of nutty coffee and sweet milkshakes and the familiarity of the voices talking loudly behind the counter. He’d waste his won on pots of black coffee, only leaving when he could no longer ignore the sharp ache of hunger.
He watched now as Jimin approached his booth, his hand curling around the strap of his backpack. He began to stand.
“What are you doing?”
Yoongi paused, surprise blooming in his chest at the question.
“Leaving. That’s what you came over for, isn’t it? To tell me to leave?”
Jimin’s eyes widened, his lips falling open, and Yoongi nearly laughed at the innocence of his expression. He looked so young, so decent that it made Yoongi’s chest ache. Made him think of a time that felt so long ago, when he had a place to call home and hands that weren’t calloused from the cold.
“I was just going to ask if you wanted another coffee.”
There was a pause, long and drawn out. The sounds of passing traffic grew loud in the small space, the clock above the barista station ticking away seconds that began to feel like hours.
“I can come back,” Jimin offered and then, more quietly: “But I’ll have to ask you to leave if you don’t order within the next hour.”
His gaze fell to the black and white tiled floor, his fingers twirling the pen that he was holding in nervous circles.
“It’s the owner’s rule,” he said, and the statement sounded like an apology.
Yoongi hesitated, his hand hovering above the pocket of his hoodie.
He could leave. He could save his won for something that he truly needed, go back to the apartment with a full stomach and get drunk on the cheap liquor that always seemed to be in abundance or he could stay. He could escape a while longer and pretend that the panic attacks didn’t reach him here.
The thought of returning to the apartment made Yoongi feel ill.
He dug a hand into his pocket. His fingers gripped crumpled won and he placed them on the table with more force than necessary.
“Espresso. Double shot.”
Jimin took the notes quietly. His lips parted, as if he were about to speak, but Yoongi was already staring at his notebook, his jaw angled stubbornly.
He looked up as he heard footsteps. Jimin placed a tiny mug of espresso on the table, and then a cartoonishly large cup of drip coffee next to it, the steam curling in the space between them. “The coffee’s on me,” he said, sliding into the booth across from him. “We make it by the gallon, so the owner won’t notice a missing cup.”
“So, are you from Seoul?” Jimin asked.
Sharp retorts to the sudden intrusion were on the tip of Yoongi’s tongue. It was a reflex, to be harsh. Harshness got you what you wanted, it kept you alive, while kindness only brought suffering. He’d learned that the hard way.
Instead, he answered Jimin with a short shake of his head.
“Daegu,” he replied, hoping that that would be enough to either stave Jimin’s curiosity or scare him away.
It seemed to do neither.
“I moved here from Busan.” Jimin replied enthusiastically. “My parents wanted me to go to college here. They think Seoul is the end-all be-all, you know?” He laughed a little, the sound making Yoongi look up at him.
His chin rested on his open palm, eyes shining, and lips upturned at the corners. His hair was still mussed from the wind, his cheeks tinged pink.
Yoongi’s mouth felt dry.
Jimin’s gaze was focused on him and the weight of it made him shift in his seat. He seemed to be waiting for something—maybe an agreement or a reaction—but Yoongi wasn’t sure which.
He sipped at his espresso even though it was still too hot.
“Did you come here for college?” Jimin asked when he realized that Yoongi wasn’t going to respond.
College. That word had been the cause of many arguments between him and his parents. It had been the cause of raised voices and sharp words, of broken glass and bloodied knuckles. It had been why he left home, and it was why he couldn’t return.
Go to college or get out. That’s what his father had told him after he had torn the pages of his notebook, the ripped paper laying on his bedroom floor like fallen snow, the penciled lyrics dirty flecks.
It had been a word that had made him sick to hear.
Now, it only made him laugh.
“No. Don’t go to college.”
“Oh, what do you do then?”
None of your business, he wanted to say. Why do you care?
He couldn’t remember the last time that he spoke to someone like this; conversationally, pleasantly. At the apartment, they didn’t speak like this even though they lived together. It was dangerous to get too close to the others. It was dangerous to get too close to himself and Yoongi wanted to tell Jimin that. He wanted to tell him that he could still feel the blood under his nails even though he’d scrubbed his hands under boiling water. He wanted to tell him that he didn’t know what he’d do to survive anymore.
But instead, he found himself saying:
“I write music. Song lyrics and shit. Came here for the…-” He gestured vaguely with his hand, “…aesthetic, I guess.”
The words came out more sarcastic than he had intended. His voice scratched his throat when he talked; out of practice and unused. A small part of him, the part that was still young and self-conscious, felt embarrassed at his lack of social skills. He reminded himself that Jimin was the one that had wanted to talk to him in the first place.
Jimin only laughed though, the sound sudden and loud in the quietness of the coffee shop.
“Do you sell any? Songs, I mean.”
His eyes were expectant, wide and bright like a child’s. There was something about his innocence, about the openness of his face and the sound of his laugh, that made Yoongi want to lie.
“A couple,” he replied, noting the way Jimin’s eyes widened, his smile broadening.
“Oh my God, that’s so cool! You know, I’m a dancer. I go to Hanyang. I could do, like, a promotion for you. You write me a song and I dance to it,” Jimin said, leaning forward across the table, a smile in his voice.
Yoongi knew that he was joking. He knew that he should laugh or say something sarcastic, but his mouth was dry again. Something akin to embarrassment crawled hotly up his neck.
He could see that. He could see Jimin as a dancer; it showed in the fluidity of his movements and the lightness of his steps. He could see him on a stage, limbs loose and swaying to a steady tempo, the timbre breathy and light.
“Wait, how old—?” Jimin began to ask but he was cut off by a voice coming from the back of the coffee shop, its tone edging on annoyance and calling for Jimin to cut the chit-chat.
“Sorry, that’s my boss. He lives upstairs.”
He gave Yoongi an apologetic look as he began to gather his pen and notepad. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said over his shoulder, beginning to make his way to the customers at the next table.
Yoongi tried not to watch as he took their order. He tried not to think too much about the warmth in his cheeks or the racing of his heart. He tried not to notice how, for the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel freezing cold.
***
The nights of February were some of the coldest that Yoongi had ever felt.
Most nights; his thoughts led him into a freezing and fitful half-sleep, his limbs feeling as though they were submerged in water, icy and pulling. Most nights, the thoughts that came were thoughts about his family, how disgusted they would be to know how their son was living. How some nights he snorted the white powders or swallowed the fizzing drinks when everything became too much. He imagined the pinched skin between their brows, the thin lines of their mouths, and the shame they would’ve felt to know that he’d rather live like this than attend college.
Tonight, however, he dreamed and somehow that was worse.
He dreamt of glass, of the metallic smell of blood and spilled liquor. He dreamt of a hand, his hand, slicked in crimson and holding a shard of broken bottle though when he looked up, it wasn’t Jaebeom’s face looking back. Instead, it was Jimin’s, his lips parted in an O, his eyes wide and hurt.
When he awoke, his chest felt tight, the sheets suddenly too heavy. The darkness of the room was paralyzing, freezing his body, his limbs, his chest, until his lungs were burning for air.
He needed air. He needed to breathe.
He found himself outside of the apartment building, shivering in his thin pajama pants and threadbare hoodie. He found his feet, clad in only house slippers and socks, taking him down a familiar street; one that was adjacent to the train tracks, their metal skeleton and gleaming under the moon, the wind carrying the distant call of a train horn. He found his hands pushing open the door to the coffee shop, bells chiming restlessly above his head.
The inside was warm, but his fingers still trembled. He sat in a booth, his chest hitching with breaths that wouldn’t come.
He clasped his hands and rested his forehead on them.
The world seemed to be spinning.
He heard the soft thump of someone placing a mug on his table. He looked up and saw dark eyes rounded and watchful, pink lips downturned at the corners. He recognized the Champion sweatshirt, the way it was too long in the sleeves, covering his palms. He recognized the round face, the tan of Jimin’s skin even though it was still cold outside.
“I didn’t order this”
His voice came out thin and sharp. He wanted to tell Jimin to go, that he couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe but the words were stuck with the air in his chest.
“It’s lavender tea. It helps with nerves.”
Jimin’s voice was soft and coaxing. He stepped closer, placing the mug between Yoongi’s hands. He smelled of herbs, of the sweetness that the first few weeks of spring brought.
***
After that night, after Yoongi had finished the mug of tea and his hands had stilled, Jimin began to watch him more closely. He began greeting him when he came in the coffee shop and suggesting drinks, particularly teas, that Yoongi would scrunch his nose at. He began asking what Yoongi was writing in his notebook, breath warm against the skin of his neck as he leaned over his shoulder to see.
In those weeks of lengthening days, when trees began to bloom but the air was still cold, Yoongi tried to push him away. He told him that herbs made him sick and that what he was writing were college essays even though both of them knew those statements to be untrue. He shoved away his reaching hands and quickly shook his head to questions. He thought that maybe Jimin would get tired, that he would give up and return to being an idle thing in his life.
Yoongi thought that maybe he was something better observed, something too pretty to be touched like the changing of the seasons.
***
Yoongi awoke to the light tapping of rain on his skin. His eyes opened to a grey sky, the clouds heavy and dark with a storm. The bench beneath him was stiff against his spine and, as he sat up, his muscles strained.
The park around him was lonely in its emptiness, the trees bare and the soft plunking of raindrops, unheard by the rest of the world. Yoongi stood, tightening his hoodie and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, ready to find a place that was warmer and drier. Somewhere to rest his aching shoulders and stave off the tight feeling of hunger in his stomach.
The night before last, the police had raided the apartment since it’d been marked for demolition, the light of their flashlights glinting off used needles and still-wet canvases, their voices loud among the cracked walls.
Most of them had got caught, too high or exhausted to run very far, but Yoongi had ran until his legs burned and his chest ached. Until the apartment was five blocks behind him and more like a whisper of a bad dream than something real.
He’d been sleeping on concrete and benches ever since, surviving on triangle gimbap and rice. The cold had receded slightly, turning the snow to dirty slush, allowing dead slices of grass to cut through the white, but his money was dwindling, and he didn’t know if he’d survive the next snowstorm.
He hoped that he went in his sleep.
He began to walk, his shoes crunching on melting snow, but a voice called his name.
“Yoongi!” the voice called again, startling nearby finches into flight.
He felt a hand on his arm before he could decide to keep walking. It tugged lightly at his sleeve and, dimly, Yoongi realized that that was the first time Jimin had ever touched him.
He flinched, pulling his arm to his chest.
He hadn’t been touched since leaving Daegu, the warmth of his mother’s hands only comforting him during sleep. He’d almost forgotten what that warmth had felt like or how human touch could be more than rough pushes and aggravated shoves on a crowded subway car.
Jimin looked at him for a moment before speaking, the rain dampening his blond hair.
“What are you doing here?”
Yoongi took a step back, adjusting the strap of his backpack. He pressed a palm to the hollow of his eye until the pressure there dissipated, the tears burning his throat.
“Nothing.” He paused, taking in the way Jimin looked at him with worry, his face pinched. “Taking a walk.”
Jimin’s eyes were disbelieving though not unkind. Yoongi knew, from the unease in them, that he had seen him sleeping on the park bench. He’d seen the way that he’d gingerly moved as he sat up and the way that he gripped his backpack to his chest even in his sleep, as if he were accustomed to waking up without a roof over his head and a bed to keep him warm.
Tentatively, Jimin reached out again, his fingers curled in uncertainty, and placed a hand on Yoongi’s arm. The warmth of the touch spread to each of his limbs and throughout his chest, reminding him of golden sunlight and a spring afternoon.
Yoongi ducked his head to hide the tears that swelled at the corners of his eyes. The rain was coming harder now, the drops heavy and soaking through to his skin.
“Yoongi,” Jimin gripped his arm tighter, his name nearly a plea in his mouth. Desperate fingers dug into the thinness of Yoongi’s bicep. “You know, if you need a place to stay… or clothes or food… you can ask me.”
A part of Yoongi wanted to pull his arm back; to struggle against the warmth that was Jimin and the grasp of his hand on his arm. He didn’t understand Jimin’s concerned questions or the way his eyes saddened when he looked down at Yoongi’s tattered shoes.
His kindness scared the part of Yoongi that had been trapped in a too-long winter though another part of him wanted to embrace the touches and the questions. A part of him wanted to feel warm again.
“Tea would be good.”
***
The rain had stopped by the time the two boys reached the coffee shop. The grey sheet of clouds had begun to part, leaving small spaces where the sun could shine through. The rays were dull, a faint glow against the pavement, but, to Yoongi, they seemed much brighter.
The tears had dried on his cheeks and the air felt lighter against his skin. He did not flinch when Jimin’s knuckles brushed his own or when his hand found his across the table. They sat in silence, their eyes meeting over sips of lavender tea.
The sun began to fully show, warm and bright through the windows of the coffee shop. Yoongi felt the warmth of it on his face and arms and, for the first time in much too long, he felt as though there would be an end to the coldness of winter.
***
Spring came and trees grew heavy with the pink of blooming buds. The air turned sweet and the sun melted away the last smatterings of frost that clung to the earth. The days grew long and the sky turned bright. Yoongi spent most afternoons curled up on a park bench, now not because he didn’t have a place to sleep but because the blush of the sunset and the pinkness of the trees made the lyrics come faster, his hand becoming stained with ink as it slid over the page.
He visited the coffee shop more often, though not because he needed to feel safe or warm. He went because Jimin would be waiting for him, his smile bright and his skin smelling of home.
He’d visit mostly during the evening when the gold light of afternoon began to bleed into the deep periwinkle of night. The coffee shop would be mostly empty, its patrons sipping the last of their drinks before dispersing. Jimin would pull him to his chest and smooth his hands along his back. He would kiss each of his cheeks and Yoongi would scrunch his nose in protest, even as he let him press quick kisses to his mouth. Until Jimin’s boss, Jin, yelled at him to get back to work.
***
Their bedroom was bathed in warmth from a lazy, midmorning sun. Its light fell across the bed, turning the white sheets to a buttery gold. Jimin’s hair was dappled with it as well and Yoongi ran his fingers through the strands, pulling at them lightly and smiling when Jimin stirred at the touch.
Most of their mornings were late and spent in bed with cups of tea and a shared breakfast. Jimin was always tired from late-night shifts at the coffee shop and Yoongi was happy to oblige his laziness; happy to feel the softness of his kisses and the warmth of his hands on his skin.
Now, Jimin pressed his eyes closed before opening them, his brow furrowed against the brightness of the sun. His gaze focused on Yoongi and a small smile pulled up the corners of his mouth.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice still rough and thick with sleep.
There was a beat of quiet as Yoongi brushed away loose strands of hair from his face, his touches still tentative and unsure even after so many months.
Then, Jimin seemed to find his voice, to gather his thoughts, and in a soft voice he asked: “Remember when we first met, and I asked why you came to Seoul? You gave me some stupid answer like, ‘for the aesthetic’ or something. But why’d you really come here?”
They’d never talked about Yoongi’s past even though Jimin had tried to get him to. Yoongi had told him that it was something better forgotten, something that was no longer important, and Jimin had stopped pushing him after that.
He didn’t understand why he would want to bring up something that reminded him only of pain but Jimin had always been so curious, so eager to know every detail.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought that it’d be different here. That it’d be more welcoming or that I’d be happier somehow.”
That it’d feel more like home. I thought that it would feel more like home.
“Is it?”
Yoongi pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, the skin dimpling where his teeth bit into it. He shrugged, his eyes lowering.
“Yeah, it’s different,” he said finally, hoping that, somehow, Jimin would hear the words that he hadn’t spoken. That he would know that Seoul was different because of him.
“Well, I think it was fate.”
Yoongi thought that he might be right.