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“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.” - Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
Namjoon’s hands are shaking when he knocks on the Genius Lab door. He has the code, but out of respect he never uses it unless he has reason to be concerned. (On a handful of occasions, Yoongi has locked himself in his studio for over twenty-four hours to finish a project, emerging like a corpse from a crypt. When Namjoon saw the dark circles, he insisted on the door code for emergencies. “You need to take care of yourself, hyung,” he had scolded, watching Yoongi slurp broth from a spoon. “No deadline is stringent enough to stop you from eating.”
Nose, cheeks, and ears pink from the heat of the shower, Yoongi gave Namjoon a tiny smile and said, “Good thing it’s your job to check up on me, then.”
A dull pain lingered in Namjoon’s chest as Yoongi left to sleep. My job, he had thought, preparing his own ramyeon. Right, that's it.)
Only a few seconds pass before the handle turns and Yoongi pulls the door open. Namjoon’s heart races when he catches sight of Yoongi’s slender frame swallowed in a black sweater that pools around his hands and thighs. His orange hair peeks out from under a black beanie. Work must be progressing well because he has a relaxed smile on his face as he greets, “Joon-ah.”
Perhaps Namjoon will never adjust to the sound of his name pouring from Yoongi’s mouth, almost garbled, like a rock being tumbled into something shiny and beautiful. “Hi,” Namjoon breathes, feeling inadequate at his sudden loss for words at the mere sight of Yoongi’s face. Pretty, pretty, pretty, Namjoon’s brain chants every time Yoongi blinks and his eyelashes brush his cheeks. “Can I come in?”
Yoongi barely nods, but he steps out of Namjoon’s way and holds the door for him as he steps through. Yoongi returns to his luxurious black leather desk chair. The younger opts for the couch, fishing the thumb drive from his pocket before he sits. “I have something for you,” Namjoon stutters, offering it to Yoongi. “Will you listen?”
“‘Course,” Yoongi replies. Their fingers brush as he grabs the drive and it burns, like touching a hot pan, but Namjoon has years of practice in not reacting. Yoongi wastes no time inserting the drive and ripping out his headphone jack. Namjoon hadn’t considered that they’d listen to the track together and he begins to sweat, palms clamming as Yoongi clicks open the drive folder. There’s only one file.
Doubling clicking the track, it opens on a new tab on their software, pushing whatever Yoongi had been working on to the side. Yoongi ponders the tracks, noting the shape and configuration of them, before pressing play. Knowing Yoongi’s skill, he probably could guess what the song sounds like before the first beat even poured from the speaker.
Yoongi closes his eyes when he listens to Namjoon’s work for the first time. Has since the beginning, when Namjoon was more dependent on Yoongi’s refining ear. He doesn’t really need the elder’s input to complete a song anymore, but he wants it. Seeks his approval on every decision, every detail, no matter how minute. When they were younger, Namjoon and Yoongi would discuss their musical heroes, but Namjoon never told Yoongi when he added him to his list.
The song is undeniably melancholy. Namjoon’s unedited voice barrels over the backing track, like a ship over waves. He hears himself rapping words about love, but more than that — a love that’s bigger than love. About souls, and soulmates. He keeps his eyes trained on Yoongi, breath catching when the elder’s brows furrow after a line about souls echoing through time to meet again and again, always destined to the same fate of death and danger.
The song ends on this note. Yoongi lets the silence linger. When his eyes meet Namjoon’s, they’re both contemplative and sad. “It’s beautiful, Joon-ah,” he states simply, but Namjoon knows from the way he bites his lip that he wants to say more.
“It’s about Achilles and Patroclus,” Namjoon explains. He scoots forward on the couch resting his elbows on his knees. It brings him closer to Yoongi, always gravitating towards him. “Are you familiar?” Yoongi shakes his head, subtly indicating to Namjoon with one hand to continue. Namjoon lets out a rush of air and considers the best place to start.
“It’s a Greek myth, from the Trojan War.” At this, Yoongi grunts in recognition. “Essentially, it was prophesied long before the war that Achilles would die in battle at Troy and he would die after Hector, one of the Trojan princes. According to Homer, Patroclus was his father’s ward and Achilles’ closest friend. The two of them grew up together, confided in each other, and trusted each other completely.” Namjoon hopes that the flash that in Yoongi’s eyes is one of recognition.
“But Achilles was very proud,” Namjoon continues, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt. “And when he got in a fight with his general, Agamemnon, he refused to go into battle. Even if it meant they would lose the war. Even when Greek soldiers were dying left and right. And Patroclus didn’t want that, but even he couldn’t convince Achilles to budge. So they came up with a plan. Patroclus would don Achilles’ armor and ride into battle. Thinking Achilles’ was leading them again, the Greeks’ confidence would resurge and they could drive the Trojans back once more, and Achilles would not have to break his word.
“So that’s what Patroclus did. He put on Achilles’ armor, mounted his chariot, and led the Greeks into a raging battle. Even though he wasn’t as strong a warrior, he was good enough to fool the Greeks. And for a moment, it was magnificent. Until Patroclus decided he could keep going, could drive the Trojans back even further than they had planned. He didn’t leave the battlefield when he was supposed to and he became temporarily mad.”
Unexpectedly, tears start to gather in Namjoon’s eyes. He wipes at them and before he can regain his composure, Yoongi’s calloused fingers intertwine with his own. Namjoon, too nervous to look Yoongi in the eye again, stares at their hands. “Hector killed him. He stabbed him in the stomach with a spear. And Achilles — Achilles couldn't handle it. He wouldn’t let them bury the body. Only when a ghost of Patroclus appears to him and begs to be let go does he allow them to create the funeral pyre. Then, Achilles abandoned his vow, rushed into battle, and killed Hector.” Namjoon squeezes Yoongi’s hand, tight enough that it may hurt but Yoongi says nothing. “He killed him, hyung, even though he knew that meant the end of him.”
Finally, Namjoon glances back up at Yoongi. The elder’s lips are parted as he stares at Namjoon, both dazed and fixated all at once, an unreadable emotion swirling behind those lovely black eyes. “But that also means, hyung, that from the beginning, Patroclus and Achilles’ end would always be the same. Patroclus was a part of the prophecy, too, even if he didn’t realize it.”
Speechless, Yoongi nods slightly, waiting for Namjoon to continue. The younger slides his hand up Yoongi’s arm, marveling at the smoothness of his skin. “Homer never calls them lovers,” Namjoon says, pushing past all the shy barriers attempting to blockade his thoughts. He’s started this, so he must finish it. “But I just think — to avenge someone, knowing it would be your end… you’d have to love that person an awful lot. Right?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi sighs, voice low and quivering. “That’s probably right.”
Namjoon scoots forward again and reaches out to grab Yoongi’s other hand. He encloses the elder’s hands within his own, a rush of bravery flowing from his heart. “The first time I heard that story, all I could think about was you,” Namjoon confesses. Yoongi gasps, swallows, says nothing. “I can’t stop thinking about these two boys who grew into men together, about a man willing to meet his end if it meant that he would be reunited with the person he loves in the afterlife. About what it means to believe that your soul is not your own because half of belongs to someone else and how badly I want that, hyung.”
“You do?” Yoongi asks. Somehow, their faces are now close enough that the elder’s breath fans across Namjoon’s cheek. It smells like tangerines.
“I do,” Namjoon confirms. Then he stares, takes a moment to memorize every curve and dent of Yoongi’s face. Takes in the column of his neck, so beautiful it could be made of marble, and finally the pink of Yoongi’s lips. “I would do any of that, all of that, for you.” Another tear rolls down Namjoon’s face. “I have so much I want to tell you.” His words get caught in his throat. “But please, don’t let me say it if you don’t feel the same way.”
The first time Yoongi kisses him, Namjoon swears he could hear the ocean. It roared into his brain the second their lips met. Maybe it was just the salty taste of their tears mixing together, or the lovely sigh Yoongi lets out that sounds like waves crashing on the shore. As Yoongi surges forward, throwing his body over Namjoon’s until his back collides with the couch, Namjoon’s stomach drops like when a boat goes over a large wave. He feels warmth spread through him as if the sun had just come out, and grips onto Yoongi’s waist as his only lifeline. Unsurprisingly, Yoongi’s lips are soft but not gentle. The elder is insistent as he weaves his fingers into Namjoon’s blonde hair and prods open his mouth further with his tongue. If this is what drowning feels like, Namjoon thinks, then I’m willing to drown.
As abruptly as their kiss begins, Yoongi ends it. He retreats only far enough to rest their foreheads together. When Namjoon opens his eyes, Yoongi is gazing at him with the loveliest smile he’s ever seen. Namjoon strokes his cheek, runs his thumb over his cupid’s bow, delighted to discover that it’s real. “Tell me,” Yoongi instructs. Caged in by Yoongi’s thighs on either side of him, his hands clutching his hair, Namjoon has never felt so free.
“I’m in love with you, hyung,” Namjoon finally says. Yoongi’s responding smile is so brilliant that it could blind someone, the kind of smile he saves for private moments like this. “I have been for a very long time. That kind of soul-crushing, life-altering love. The kind that makes me want to take up a sword and rip apart anyone who tries to hurt you. The kind that makes me believe that in any version of my life, I would still love you.” Namjoon carefully brushes a tear away from the corner of Yoongi’s eye. “I love you that much.”
He shouldn’t be so surprised when Yoongi kisses him again, but he is. He’s surprised by how right it feels, how their lips slot together as if they were made to fit. Namjoon hopes he’ll never adjust to the attention Yoongi gives to his kisses, the slow drag of it. It’s more addictive than anything Namjoon has ever done. “Oh, Kim Namjoon,” Yoongi murmurs. The sound of his name sends a shudder down Namjoon’s spine. “You hopeless romantic.” Namjoon blushes, his smile turning shy. Shier still when Yoongi teasingly pokes one of his dimples. “I don’t have an allegory for you,” Yoongi admits, apologetic. “But I do have a confession.”
The anticipation rips through Namjoon’s resolve. Normally, he loves that Yoongi’s slow cadence, but for the first time, he can’t stand Yoongi’s silence. “What is it?” He asks brusquely. Yoongi chuckles, tenderly taking Namjoon’s face in both his hands.
“I love you that much, too.” Afraid that his heart will burst otherwise, Namjoon kisses him a third time. This one is searing, years of pent-up want flowing out of him with unfettered abandon. Now that he’s tasted this, Namjoon cannot consider a life without it. How could he ever do anything else in a day but kiss Yoongi? When Yoongi already knows how to drive Namjoon crazy with tiny nibbles to his bottom lip, his fingers playing with the hair on the back of his neck, how could Namjoon be anywhere else?
Yoongi leaves the studio hand-in-hand with Namjoon, assembles the members, and tells them that he and Namjoon have been idiots for a long time, but no longer. It’s hardly a discussion after that. Besides now alternating nights at each other’s apartments, and occasionally holding hands when the cameras are away, nothing between them really changes.
(“I don’t think we should pretend that we’re starting at the beginning,” Yoongi had said that first night, tracing patterns on Namjoon’s bare chest. “I don’t want to pretend that I don’t already know you’re what I want.”
Namjoon kissed Yoongi’s temple. He’d discovered today that Yoongi’s hair smells like cotton and quickly gotten addicted to the scent. “How do you start something in the middle?” Namjoon had challenged.
“Well, tomorrow we’ll go on our first date,” Yoongi elaborated. Namjoon smiles at the thought of the two of them tucked into the corner of a nice restaurant, maybe sharing a dessert. “And at the end of it, I’ll tell you I love you.”
Laughing, Namjoon squeezed Yoongi tighter to him. Perhaps if he held him tightly enough, he would never forget what it felt like to have their bodies melded together like this. “That makes sense to me.” Yoongi lifted his head and stared at Namjoon with a new expression that Namjoon would come to recognize as love.
“Will you tell me now?” Over the course of that day, Yoongi had asked several times to hear it again. Another new discovery that made Namjoon fall even more for the quiet, private man he considered his best friend.
“I love you,” Namjoon repeated. Yoongi asks him to repeat it again and again until they both fall asleep.)
Namjoon realizes that he’d been living like Yoongi was his soulmate for quite a while. Now, there’s blessedly more kissing and intimacy — he thanks the gods he knows what Yoongi looks like naked and pliant in his arms — but his feelings, though intensified, are the same. Yoongi gazes at him the way he always has. Apparently, Namjoon was too lovestruck to notice.
A few months later, Yoongi lounges in Namjoon’s studio while the younger polishes a track. He starts sifting through the books on his shelves and withdraws one titled ‘A Song of Achilles’. Though the book is in English, he flips through it and glances at the sections Namjoon has marked up. Namjoon notices this, turning in his chair to fondly watch Yoongi take interest in his things. He assumes Yoongi’s ignorance of this until Yoongi reads aloud, “I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell.”
The elder flits his gaze to Namjoon and smirks, cheeks turning red. “I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
Yoongi closes the book, stares at Namjoon, and smiles.