Work Text:
- 5
Yoongi thinks Taehyung must be the most beautiful sleeper he’s ever met. Once he’s really settled, and fully asleep, hugging a pillow or a stuffed animal or even a bundled blanket (or another person, if he’s lucky), his face softens and his hair is a mess over his forehead, and he’s beautiful . Yoongi knows he’s staring now, and he can feel Hoseok and Jimin watching him in turn, but he can’t bring himself to care because Taehyung’s arms are wrapped securely around a hoodie he deemed too hot to wear, and he’s leaning back against the car headrest, only slightly tilted to fit against the window too, and he’s so beautiful. When the car finally stops, Yoongi gently shakes him awake, and Taehyung yawns, sits up, and smiles at him, and Yoongi accepts that he’s not just a beautiful sleeper, he is beautiful.
- 4
When Yoongi writes music he’s a firm believer that he, or the person he’s writing for, should feel the music. Every note, every word, all of it should speak to him in ways that light that emotion in his soul on fire. So when Yoongi writes music, he writes how he feels. He knows this, but he also knows the others know this, so when Namjoon asks what he’s working on he insists that it’s not ready to be seen yet, because every song is gentle and deep and warm, emotional ballads written about a boy with fluffy dark hair and gentle eyes that smiles like the sun and likes to cuddle when he sleeps, and he knows the others know that he writes what he’s feeling, so he hides his music as adamantly as his thoughts.
- 3
Yoongi likes cooking. There’s something relaxing about making old dishes that he knows will turn out a certain way, and there’s something exciting about making new dishes and taking a chance at having no idea what the outcome will be. Yoongi likes cooking more when the person he’s cooking for gives him big, bright, boxy smiles and says thank you with his mouth half full of food still, praising anything Yoongi puts down in front of him. Yoongi likes cooking, but he thinks he likes Taehyung more.
- 2
For someone who claims to like sleeping so much, Yoongi really doesn’t sleep very often, and never well. He never really bothered to figure out why, making easy assumptions about stress or simply being too busy, or busy minded. It was never enough of an issue in the past few years to go to the doctor, so he learned to live with it, running off an average of four hours of sleep every night, five or six if he was lucky. On the contrary, he sees Taehyung sleeping all the time. Every time they aren’t busy lately Taehyung is there, passed out on the couch, arms folded on the kitchen table, sleeping like a student in the back of class, or even curled up on the floor or dozing off sitting or standing straight up. One day Taehyung chooses the spot by Yoongi on the couch, falling asleep almost immediately after sitting down and drooping over onto the older man’s shoulder, and Yoongi remembers being warm and calm and then he remembers waking up for practice, Jimin leaning over them and shaking them both awake. When Taehyung stretches he stands to help Yoongi up, and doesn’t let go of Yoongi’s hand all the way to the car.
- 1
Maybe it’s a little silly, the way Yoongi avoids the more casual ‘I love you' that the others seem to have grown accustomed to, but for Yoongi ‘I love you’ has always been special. It doesn’t matter how it’s being said, if it’s to a friend or a lover or a family member, he firmly believes that ‘I love you’ should be saved until someone needs to hear it, or he needs to say it. He believes this, and despite their teasing, the others know that’s how he feels and have never made him feel pressured. Maybe that’s why, after a long paragraph letting Taehyung know that he’s so proud of him, with a simple and friendly ‘I love you’ at the end, what he gets in return (nearly ten minutes later) is a picture of Taehyung, smiling but with tears on his face, holding up a little finger heart, and a text sent along with it that reads ‘I love you too, hyung’. It makes Yoongi smile, but it hurts too, knowing that Taehyung doesn’t mean it in the way he does.
+ 1
Yoongi is tired. He’s always tired, but it’s different now. There’s a weight in his chest, and it’s not painful but it’s anticipatory, waiting for him to do something, anything, to lift it. He’s so tired, and he’s sure that’s why he does it without really thinking about it. He’s sitting beside Taehyung in his studio, scribbling down lyrics that he’ll likely never use, when he looks up at Taehyung with determination.
“I wrote you a song,” Taehyung lights up at this, “Well, sort of. Not like that, it’s not for you to sing, it’s just… for you,” Yoongi clarifies, and instead of looking at all disappointed Taehyung looks more intrigued and thrilled than before, albeit a bit nervous.
“Can I hear it?” The younger man asks softly, and Yoongi nods, leaning over to grab his laptop. The track is titled simply ‘for daegu and for home’, and Taehyung raises an eyebrow, “For Daegu and for home? Is Daegu not home?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, passing Taehyung headphones, “I don’t want to listen, I’ll just sit and wait,” he mutters, leaning back. He’s sitting crisscrossed on the couch now, facing Taehyung, so when he leans back he curls to rest his back against the armrest and Taehyung would’ve cooed at how cute he looks if he wasn’t carefully pulling the headphones over his ears and pressing play.
It’s quiet for the next two or so minutes, and Yoongi recites the song in his head as Taehyung listens. It’s different from what Taehyung was expecting before, Yoongi’s sure, because right when Yoongi’s vocals come in, Taehyung's eyes widen slightly. It’s not a rap, mostly, anyway. It’s almost entirely singing, and Yoongi knows he isn’t the greatest singer, but he worked tirelessly for this recording to sound right.
It’s a ballad of sorts, softly sung lyrics about sleepy car rides and gentle eyes. It’s about warm arms, and perfectly intertwined hands. It’s about tired grins and soft touches. The rap comes in abruptly, frustrated but oddly content, bars upon bars of words with an underlying “It’s hard, to be a secret, but it’s easier when the secret I’m keeping is all my adoration for you” , and then, quickly, it’s soft again, and it’s about a home away from home, it’s about Daegu being a beautiful person, it’s about the kind of person you take home and show off proudly to your parents. It’s about risk and emotion. It’s about happy tears and it’s about ‘I love you’. From start to finish, it’s a song about love.
And then it’s over, almost as quickly as it had begun, and Yoongi doesn’t have the chance to look up and process what Taehyung might be thinking, because Taehyung’s set the laptop aside in the blink of an eye and pulled Yoongi into the warmest hug he’s ever felt, Taehyung’s arms firmly around his neck, face buried against him. Yoongi’s own arms come up tentatively, hands resting on the small of Taehyung’s back, “You mean it, hyung?” His voice is incredibly soft and Yoongi nods, “I love you too,” Taehyung whispers after a brief moment of silence, and Yoongi remembers the outro tag he’d recorded, a quiet,
‘I love you, always’.