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He has a fair number of friends. Or, he had a fair number of friends. Are they still friends if they haven’t met each other in over a year? Seokjin pushes the question aside and decides he did make friends well in school. At university – he is still good at making friends, but thanks to his career as an idol, he isn’t doing a great job at keeping them. He has one female friend with whom he can barely maintain eye contact, let alone a whole lasting relationship as a friend.
He checks the simple brown clock on the wall. Has to squint to see properly. It is half past two. The darkness in their dorm doused in soft moonlight. Seokjin should be asleep by now. His members are all asleep. He can see Jungkook sprawled on his separate bed while the others are nestled in their bunks. Just as every other night, Namjoon’s snores remain a constant companion. He turns over to find Taehyung on the bed next to him, mouth slightly open, drool on the pillow. Everyone must be exhausted from all the training and practice.
He too is. Too exhausted to sleep. He will have to be awake in a couple of hours or so and get to practice. The others don’t wake up that early but Seokjin does. Simply because he fears he is lagging severely in all aspects when compared to the rest. In no way he wants to be the performance-hole of the group. If it means less sleep but better results for the team, he will wake up whenever. He will do whatever. He has to. He cannot fail. He cannot be the reason for the team to fail.
Thoughts like these aren’t new to him. In fact, he wouldn’t call them thoughts – they are realities. He needs to remember them to work harder. To shine better. However, tonight he feels more alight and not in a good way.
Earlier that week they had a radio interview. Seokjin is getting better at these shows – he is a good talker, he knows that. He doesn’t fumble for answers and isn’t very shy except when it comes to unanticipated compliments. All was well at this show too until a question about their friendships came in.
Who spends more time with whom and why. Their answers were standard. Yoongi unfalteringly chose Hoseok. The maknae line chose amongst themselves on the account that they went to school together, are roughly of the same age, and share similar interests. Hoseok and Namjoon picked each other, explaining that during the course of song writing they got closer than before. Yoongi agreed to that and said he too has gotten to know Namjoon better because of music. Seokjin chose Jungkook simply because they ate together. Sometimes.
The others had strong basis for their closeness – interests, music, age, work. Seokjin could only think of the previous evening when Jungkook and he went out to eat. They talked too. It was fun for Seokjin. Despite the age gap of five years, Seokjin does see Jungkook as a friend. Perhaps that wasn’t the expected answer from him because both the host and his members responded with pregnant silence before Taehyung interjected and said that Seokjin is close to him as well.
A mild confusion erupted, and it got resolved just as quickly. Everyone forgot and moved on. Everyone except Seokjin.
The maknaes were always together. They got to spend time with each other and had more stories to share. The rapline worked together. Music, writing, and the most obvious one – rapping. They just belonged with one another.
Seokjin fit in neither of the groups. His ideas and thoughts weren’t like that of the rapline. He liked pretty things, didn’t see the absolute darkness and sadness that wrapped the world the way they did. Despite being asked by their agency to play the role of the cold, handsome guy, not an atom in Seokjin was cold. He liked games, he liked pink, he liked talking to his mother and he did not believe in making hip-hop his personality just because they liked hip-hop or performed it. When with the maknaes, he felt everyone’s eyes on him. He is the eldest, he shouldn’t be out there laughing with the youngest ones. He should be responsible, strict, serious even. He definitely wasn’t the last two.
He did not fit in.
The thought made the air around him opaque – like a heavy fog settling on his chest. It made Seokjin forget he existed as a real human. His fingers curled around his sheets desperate to feel something real. He wished he could call his mother and tell her how he felt. But he did not want to burden her. She worries enough with how much weight he has lost over the last few months. To tell he feels alone, so very lonely would only worry her more.
He squeezes his eyes willing for tears to come. Tears seem like the perfect outlet of pain he has been carrying around. Everything is too difficult. The training, the practice, the university, the assignments. Why can’t he have a friend he can drop by and talk to? How can he make himself hear without talking? Can anyone listen to his silence, understand the screams behind his smiles?
Can someone hold him for a while?
#
“Hyung?”
Seokjin shakes awake and he glances at the clock. It is only quarter past three. He slept for less than thirty minutes.
“Hyung?”
Seokjin looks at Taehyung’s form. He is sitting, legs crossed under him, hair in a mess, eyes puffy, struggling to stay open. His tee is too big for his frame, the black overused shorts ride up his thighs. He looks gentle, soft – a flower boy.
“I saw a monster,” Taehyung says too loudly for the night, perhaps his sleep-addled mind is unaware of the loudness.
“Monster?” Seokjin whispers, eyebrows scrunched. He is scared of monsters too.
“It was on the wall, then under the bed. Then – “ Taehyung pauses to frown. “Then pd-nim opened the door and the monster went after him – “
“ – you had a nightmare?” Seokjin asks gently, patting the space between them. “Vv, go back to sleep. It wasn’t real.”
Taehyung pouts, looks around the room in muted fear. “Hyung,” he says loudly again.
“Shh,” Seokjin ushers him to keep low. “Others are sleeping, Vv.”
Taehyung nods, his eyelids drooping heavily. He plops back on his pillow and seems to go back to his slumber immediately.
Seokjin swallows his disappointment. This time he might not manage to fall asleep. One more hour and he should be awake anyway. He turns his back away from Taehyung, to stare out of the untidy glass window. He starts to count to relax, to at least pretend to rest.
A hand falls on his waist and he yelps.
“Hyung”
“Taehyung-ah, wha – “ Seokjin turns around to see Taehyung in his bed, adjusting his body under Seokjin’s blanket.
“Hyung, if we stay together the monster will stay away,” Taehyung says matter-of-factly.
“The monster is from your dream, Vv,” Seokjin reminds him with a light flick on his forehead.
But Taehyung’s already cocooning into his chest, one hand beneath his own head and the other loosely over Seokjin’s waist. “You have your monster too. Don’t you, hyung?” he asks drowsily.
Seokjin’s throat constricts. He has a lot of monsters outside of dreams too.
“We will stay together until we chase them away. Fighting, hyung!” Taehyung rasps into his chest, the curls of his hair tickling Seokjin’s chin.
Seokjin struggles to adjust his limbs with Taehyung around. Once he thinks he is comfortable, Taehyung starts to move away from him. Seokjin almost lets out a scream of pain but –
“Don’t tell Jimin-ie about this,” Taehyung says, his face peering solemnly at Seokjin.
“Why – “ Seokjin asks, smoothing the other’s hair tenderly.
Taehyung looks the other way and mumbles incoherently. Then, “He will make fun of me and – “ There’s a pause and it is for so long that Seokjin thinks he must’ve fallen asleep.
“ – this is ours,” Taehyung whispers so quietly Seokjin wouldn’t have heard it if he was even merely distracted. “This can be ours.”
Like our thing? Seokjin wonders. “Ours, yeah,” he says out loud, doesn’t question what that means.
He catches Taehyung look at him with an upturned, boyish smile – like he is satisfied with Seokjin’s response.
“I will hold you tight, hyung” Taehyung burbles, pulling himself impossibly closer, ensconcing each other like pieces of the puzzle. “I will stay.”
Promise me, Seokjin silently requests. He foolishly wishes.
“I promise,” Taehyung replies like there is some telepathy is at work.
“Vv, good night,” he manages, squeezing the surprise tears out of his eyes as the knotted pain in his chest unfurls into petals.
Maybe he fits in. Even if it is only in Taehyung’s arms. He fits just fine.
- End