Archive of Our Own ^beta

The ride from the train station to his Airbnb is quiet, which would have been nice if this was any other day, but it just ends up leaving Yoongi with too much room to think about the past three hours, all the meetings he has this week.

Had. Right.

Yoongi stares at his phone the entire way there, slightly convinced that if he looks away for even a minute, he'd miss any notification coming in. Seokjin hasn't noticed he's gone yet, thankfully. No one has. He slipped out of Seoul quietly and quickly enough, considering he only had a couple hours to pack his stuff and head to the train station. There's only so much time until someone realizes, though.

They stop outside the house, and Yoongi thanks the driver quietly, hands him some bills before stepping out and getting his suitcase from the trunk. He drives away, and Yoongi is left to stare at the front gate, clutching the handle of the suitcase.

He takes a breath, puffs of white disappearing into the air, and presses the button on the intercom. There's a small crackle before a voice sounds from the box.

Hello?

"Uh. Hi," he steps closer to make sure they can hear him over the wind, even though it's not that bad right now. "Is this Jung Hoseok?"

Yes, who's asking?

"Min Yoongi. I booked a room here?"

There's a pause before a noise comes from the line just as the gates click open. Ah, Yoongi-ssi. You came early. Come on in.

Yoongi steps back and presses on the gate with his free hand, the cold of it seeping through his gloves and reaching all the way to bone. He takes another breath through the weight in his chest before pushing it open.

A man—Hoseok, probably—is standing in the doorway when Yoongi fully steps inside, watching with a bright grin as Yoongi makes his way towards him, suitcase stumbling over the cobblestone, sending vibrations up his arm. He's wearing loose gray sweatpants with a white long-sleeve shirt, a juxtaposition with Yoongi's black sweater and jeans.

They meet halfway, greeting each other with a bow before Hoseok offers to take his suitcase. Yoongi tells him it's fine, and he nods, shows him inside instead.

The walls of the interior are an off-white, and it's not cramped, but it's not big either. He thinks that maybe it should feel big, that it just doesn't because of how many things take up the extra space.

"Sorry about the mess," he apologizes, though Yoongi can't really tell what mess he's referring to besides the few books scattered across different surfaces. "I thought you were coming later, so I was planning to clean it. Anyway. This is the living room."

He gives him a short tour of the rest of the place, though he's too tired to let it all sink into his memory. He kind of just follows him around, head still pounding, until suddenly, it's over and Hoseok is handing him his keys. He offers to help him unpack his stuff after he shows him to his room, but Yoongi declines the offer, says he doesn't need the help. He didn't bring much with him from his apartment, and anyway, he'd rather be alone.

Eventually, Hoseok disappears downstairs, and Yoongi's left to sit cross-legged on the floor as he unpacks. It doesn't take too long, but he takes a second to rest against the side of the bed once he's done. He stares for a while, at the light leaking into the room, painting the floor in front of his legs a nauseating white. At the cloth thrown over something just underneath the window, the piano keys peeking out from under it.

He shuts the curtains.

There's a buzz not long after Yoongi's laid down on the mattress, but he doesn't move. Just lets it ring even when it starts up a second time, and then—silence.

It's still dark when Yoongi wakes up the next morning, and his limbs ache when he finally moves them, all stiff. He stares up at the ceiling for a while or what he can see of it, with the curtains still drawn, body still and ears flooded with the silence.

He loses track of time.

(Sense of time, really.)

The slow creaking of his bed and the rustling of the bedsheets around him are the only things he can hear as he sits up, and then the creaking of the wooden floors as he prods at them to find his slippers. His head's not so bad anymore, but he feels light when he stands, like he might lift off the ground if he's not careful.

"Morning," a voice says as Yoongi's closing the door, and he jumps a little while turning around. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Hoseok's smiling at him sheepishly. He relaxes and crosses his arms, picks at the fuzz on the sleeve of his jacket, nods. Tries to smile back, but it comes out all weird.

"No, it's fine. Where's the bathroom?"

"Oh, uh," he points to his right with a hand, and Yoongi follows his finger to see the door at the end of the hall, "it's just there."

Yoongi nods again, and Hoseok gives him one last smile before disappearing downstairs.

He goes through the motions:

He gets what he needs from his room and starts up the shower, putting his hand under the showerhead until he feels the water turn lukewarm. Stripping off his clothes, he steps inside, shivering slightly because it's a little less lukewarm and a little more cold, actually, but he puts up with it. The water digs into his back, and he scrubs, scrubs away all the dirt, scrubs away the past few years—tries to, at least.

He moves onto his hair.

Once he's done, he steps out and grabs his towel from its place on the tray attached to the wall, wrapping it around his waist. The mirror is a little foggy, but he wipes away the condensation with the side of his hand, stares back at his reflection when it's clean of it.

Hoseok's sitting at the dining table once he's finished with everything, drinking something from a small mug. He looks up when Yoongi walks around him to get to the coffee machine.

"Good morning."

Yoongi whispers a good morning back, and they go back to their silence as he makes his coffee, too exhausted to say much of anything. He just kind of stares at the little ripples the coffee dripping into his mug makes.

"I was going to go out later," Hoseok starts to say, "if you wanted to come. I could show you around Daegu a little bit."

He takes the cup from the coffee machine. "No, it's okay. You can go without me."

Hoseok hums with another smile before turning back to his mug. Yoongi slips out of the room quietly.

He goes to a supermarket only a few blocks away later in the afternoon, and he steps inside only minutes after leaving, hands shoved into the depths of his pockets. He's in and out, buying only what he needs, but he drags out the walk back.

The grocery bag swings back and forth as he walks, grazing the sides of his legs every few steps. He stops near the crosswalk and turns his head up to the sky. It's gray, clouds hiding the sun from view, and the bare branches of the tree next to him hang precariously above his head.

He doesn't know why he came back here.

(He knows.)

He might have an idea why.

Seokjin invited him over to his apartment the night before he left. Not for any special occasion, just to drink and talk. It'd been a busy couple of months for the both of them, and they hadn't seen much of each other outside of work in a while, which was maybe not so good for Yoongi, and he doesn't think it was for Seokjin either. They wrapped up promotions for his new single, though, so they finally had time to breathe.

He came over with take-out and a couple bottles of soju, and they sat on the floor while they spoke and ate. He joked and laughed with him, and they both skittered around the past few months—past few years, really. Pretended that the thing in his lungs that grew with every new album, every new song, was okay. That it wasn't even there at all.

He remembers drinking too fast, growing tipsier as the night went along, and mentioning something from their past, somewhere around when they were in high school. Remembers Seokjin bringing something else up and how they spent the rest of the night just digging up memories from their graves.

It was pointless, but they talked and talked about what could have been if they never came to Seoul, if they just stayed in Daegu for the rest of their lives, continued making music there and rode that high until they had to go to college and get other jobs. Would they have been happier? Was it worth it, coming to Seoul? Was any of this worth it?

Seokjin called him an Uber home when it grew late, too drunk to drive him back, but their conversation still lingered in his mind for the entirety of the way back. It wasn't like it was the first time those thoughts crossed his mind. He'd dwell on them for weeks, would lose sleep when he let himself get too caught up because maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he was never supposed to leave, was better off making songs that never really reached anyone because at least he was having fun, right?

(right?)

It used to be this thing he could fall back on before people found his music, before they started asking for more, and more, and more and—

Then he started getting bigger and bigger, and suddenly, all he could focus on was running faster, making more, and when he finally got to slow down, he couldn't tell where he was anymore. Every month that passed felt just like the last: come up with a melody, write lyrics, record, release, promote, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. He never had room to think about if it actually meant anything at all.

They dropped him off outside his apartment, and he stumbled all the way through his front door and to his bedroom, falling into the mess of pillows and sheets on his bed and pulling out his phone. The details grew foggy, but he remembers scrolling through houses in Daegu, thoughts all clouded, booking a room in one.

When he realized what he did in the morning, he didn't cancel it. He went through his cabinets and grabbed some shirts, sweaters—whatever he might need—and stuffed them into a suitcase. Instead, he bought a ticket and crawled back to his hometown, hoped that it would accept him again, put him back together so that he could go back to the way things were.

The bag thumps against his knee, tugging him back, and his gaze falls down to the ground.

He tries to adjust.

The next few days are quiet.

Sometimes, he gets scared when he blinks, expecting to see the white walls of his apartment. It's like the only thing different now is that he's in another city, and that's where the differences stop. He tries to shake the feeling off, but it's sticky, insistent.

He settles back into a familiar routine.

He wakes up somewhere around seven, maybe, likes to lie there for a while and just stare up at the ceiling before he fully gets up. He runs around the neighborhood, too, after he gets a little more used to everything, and it's freezing, but the harshness of it is almost satisfying.

It's nine when he usually gets back and takes a shower. He doesn't eat breakfast, but he takes some coffee up to his room when he's done.

He spends the rest of the day up in his room, in his bed, on the floor, just sort of watching as the cups of coffee and the calls from Seokjin start piling up. Yoongi never answers them despite the gnawing feeling at the bottom of his stomach, like ticking. Counting down.

It takes a week for him to sit against the side of his bed and open his contact, finger hovering over the call button.

The line only rings once before it goes through. Yoongi-yah.

He pauses. "Hi, hyung."

You haven't been answering any of my calls, I've been worried about you. I was just about to visit your apartment.

Yoongi's quiet for a moment. "I'm not there right now."

I can visit you later, then. Are you at the studio?

"Hyung." Something in him wants to put the phone down, end the call, but time's running out. "I'm— I'm not in Seoul."

Seokjin goes quiet.

Please tell me you're joking. His voice is calm, but Yoongi's known him long enough to know he feels everything but that. Where are you right now? he asks, but it's really more of a demand than a question.

"Daegu."

Shit—when did you even buy a ticket there? How long are you staying?

"Three months," Yoongi says, "four months, maybe. I don't know."

Yoongi-yah, Seokjin sighs, and he can almost tell the exact face he's making. The exact shape of his frown.

"Look, I just need time. Some space from everything for a little while, too."

Seokjin sighs again. I know. I just wish you told me beforehand, maybe. The company's not going to take this well, but. I'll try to talk to them.

He exhales. "Thank you. I owe you one, hyung."

You really do, he says, pauses before adding, Take care of yourself, Yoongi-yah. 

The call ends, and he takes his phone from his ear when he gets sick of the dial tone, takes a deep breath.

The morning after the call, he takes a cup of coffee and just sits down.

It startles Hoseok a little when he comes down the stairs, sweats and all. He holds a hand to his chest, the other still on the railing. Yoongi looks up, coffee hidden in the space between his crossed legs.

"Sorry, I thought you'd still be in your room." He sighs before walking down the last few steps. Yoongi shrugs. He watches, tilting his cup to his lips, as he crosses the room to the kitchen, ruffling his hair with a hand.

"You're good, and no," Yoongi mumbles, the words bouncing back and forth in the cup. "I didn't really want to stay there today."

Hoseok hums and rummages through the fridge. He brings something out eventually and turns to him. "I'm going out to eat, if you want to join me."

Yoongi opens his mouth to say no, but he stops himself. Thinks about it for a minute. He's invited him out a few times, between all of the static and noise, and Yoongi's never really accepted, but. He needs a distraction, maybe, would be nice to not feel like a ghost floating around for a few hours.

"Yeah, okay."

Hoseok looks up at him with a little surprised look, lips tugging up into a grin, but he just nods. "Okay."

Yoongi doesn't take long to change, just throwing on a black hoodie and jeans and heading to the living room. It takes Hoseok a little longer, though, but then they're walking to the bus stop only minutes later. They talk a little on the ride there, silences falling on them sporadically, before they arrive.

The street is busy around them, teeming with people walking up and down the road or coming in and out of buildings. Hoseok guides them through the crowd until they're standing in front of the restaurant. It's small, squished in between other similar shops, but it's packed. The door opens and shuts as people leave and enter in irregular intervals, and he catches small glimpses of the interior, filled with even more people.

They head inside.

It's warm and busy, the loud voices of the customers filling the restaurant and mingling with the soft music coming from one of the speakers above them. When they don't find any vacant seats near the front, they're guided to one of the booths in the back.

"What do you think?" Hoseok half-shouts over the noise after they give their order to the server.

"About what?"

He waves his hand around, gesturing to the room around them. Yoongi shrugs.

"It's hot," he comments, drawing out a small laugh from him. It's light and airy, much like the way Yoongi's head feels from all the steam.

"Yeah, I guess it is." He rolls up the sleeves of his sweater and props his head up on the back of his intertwined hands. "Have you ever been here before? Or is this your first time visiting?"

He shakes his head. "I used to live here, actually. Just in another part."

He tilts his head a little with an ah, watching him. The server comes back, and Yoongi leans back as they place the meat on their table, bowing his head in thanks before meeting Hoseok's eyes again.

"I can show you around, if you'd like. If you changed your mind," he offers.

He gives a little shrug, eyes dropping down to the grill as he lays some of the strips of the meat onto it, the sound of sizzling drowning everything else out. "Maybe."

Hoseok hums and picks up his tongs to help.

They're quiet as they eat, but it's not an awkward silence, just a little break in between. The food's good, and Hoseok smiles when he sees he's already halfway done, laughing a little before taking some of his portion and adding it to his plate, waving away Yoongi's protests.

"It's good, isn't it?"

He nods.

"Do you want more?" He puts the tongs down, and Yoongi shakes his head, thanking him quietly. He catches his eye over the table as he adds more to his own plate.

"Do you come here often?"

Hoseok shrugs. He pauses to eat a bite of his food, wincing like it burned him and fanning at his puckered lips, as if it could somehow cool him down. Yoongi watches with amusement as he swallows. "Sometimes. Mostly with my dance group."

"You dance?"

"Yeah, a little bit." He shrugs and glances down at Yoongi's plate, now completely empty. Despite more of his protests, he adds more onto his plate. Yoongi looks down at it with a small smile. "What do you do, Yoongi-ssi?"

He pauses, smile falling a little flat, but he says, "Music." He stops before adding, quieter, "Sorta."

Hoseok's eyebrows furrow a little, hands held up to his mouth as he chews. Yoongi's fingers fidget against his sleeve, toying with the hem.

"What's your favorite type of dance?" he asks. Hoseok doesn't say anything about the change in topic, just smiles and goes along with it.

Time passes quickly.

They talk and talk, and it's nice. Their conversations flow a little better than they did before, the silences in between a little less awkward. The food somehow gets better. He ends up eating two plates, and by the time they leave, it feels like his stomach is going to burst at the seams.

Hoseok ends up paying, but Yoongi promises to pay him back later. They head back.

Outside is colder and darker than it was when they first arrived, and he blinks at the sunset as they walk to the bus stop.

"Holy shit," he mumbles, eyes following the crescent shape already starting to slide up from behind the buildings around them. "Holy shit, how long were we there for?"

Hoseok glances at his watch, and his eyebrows jump up a little. He turns his wrist to Yoongi so he could see before pulling it away. "Two hours."

He almost smiles, mouth loose and body warm even in the harsh winter air.

The rest of the way back is quiet. They're both a little tired, he thinks as he watches Hoseok close his eyes next to him on the bus. He taps on Yoongi's shoulder lightly, and he looks over to him.

"Could you wake me up when we get there?" he murmurs, words slurring together at some points, his eyes starting to droop closed again. Yoongi nods, and he gives a small nod back, leaning his head on the window. Yoongi looks away and pulls out his phone.

He's scrolling through his notifications when they go over a particularly big bump, jostling them in their seats. Hoseok mumbles in his sleep, and he looks at him, frowns at the way his brows bunch up every time his head bumps against the window, falling in and out of sleep.

Yoongi hesitates before reaching out a hand and resting his head on his shoulder. They stay like that until they're a few minutes away from the neighborhood, Yoongi tapping his shoulder until he startles awake. Hoseok's eyes blink awake once the bus creaks to a full stop, a little confused. He apologizes as he pulls away from him, rubbing his eyes, but Yoongi just waves it away, explaining.

A small sleepy smile sets on his face, and he thanks him before they get up to leave.

(I told you. They're not happy.

Yoongi hunches over on the bed, staring down at his hand through the dark, vision all grainy. When he doesn't get a response, Seokjin sighs.

They say they want you to come back by next week.

"I can't," he murmurs. "Hyung."

I know. He sighs again, I know.)

Yoongi closes the door, wincing as he massages his shoulder and lets out a small curse. He slips off his shoes and starts walking to the kitchen just as he hears Hoseok walking down the stairs.

"Good morning," he mumbles, eyes closed and lips pouty, as if he just woke up a few seconds ago. He might have, judging from the state of his hair. His bangs are completely pushed back, sticking up, and his mullet looks more like little spikes on the sides of his neck.

Yoongi opens his mouth to respond in kind as he turns around but just ends up tripping on the platform and fully falling down to the ground of the kitchen, all of the air he pulled into his lungs leaving him as he makes impact with the wood tiles. He thinks a bit of his dignity might have also left along with it.

The sound of Hoseok's sandals padding over to him stop as he says, "Shit, are you okay?"

He groans and rolls on the ground so that he's lying on his back, clutching his stomach. "Oh, fuck. Sorry. Fuck."

Hoseok laughs. A hand pulls on his arm, lifting up from the ground. He pauses as he watches him sit down and place a hand on his shoulder, rubbing circles into the skin. "Did you hit your shoulder?"

"No, I'm fine. I think I just slept on it weird."

He sees him pause again, holding out his hands and stepping behind him. They float above his shoulders like maybe they're not welcome. "Can I?"

Yoongi blinks before nodding.

He's hesitant as he lays them on his shoulders but grows more sure when he starts massaging them. Yoongi sighs and closes his eyes, ignoring that it might be a little weird to do this because he's too exhausted to care.

"Hey, so," he starts. Yoongi hums to let him know that he's listening. "I was going to go to my friend's house later today, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me? We were just gonna watch a movie and relax."

He winces as Hoseok reaches the spot near his neck that's particularly sore. He hesitates, something like fear creeping back up his throat.

"I don't know."

He looks down at him and pauses for a moment, and, like he can see right through him, says, "I think they'd love to have you there, Yoongi-ssi."

Yoongi is silent, considering.

"No pressure, but y'know. If you want to." Hoseok's hands have stopped moving now, limp on the curve of his shoulders.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Yeah?" he asks and leans down so that he's looking him in the eye.

Yoongi gives him a small smile. "Yeah. And you can call me hyung, y'know."

Hoseok returns the smile and nods.

"Okay, hyung." With a little pat to his shoulder, he steps off of the platform and to the living room, plopping onto the couch. Leaves Yoongi to stare down at his hands, fingers growing all heavy.

Hoseok types something into his phone as the two of them wait for the door to open, the space between them weighing heavy with the silence. Yoongi's maybe a little nervous, feels a little like crawling out of his body.

The door pulls back after a few minutes of it, and noise spills out into the corridor almost immediately, laughter somewhere behind the person in the doorway, almost a towering kind of tall, deep dimples sticking out at the sight of Hoseok. Their eyes drift towards Yoongi and catch just as someone else pops up behind them, head sticking out from beside their shoulder.

Hoseok turns. "Yoongi-ssi, this is Namjoon," he says, gesturing to the taller one, who nods with a small smile, "and that's Jimin."

Jimin grins, dark brown hair falling in his face, but he just steps aside to make space. "Come in, you can just leave your shoes over there."

They go to gather around the kitchen, and Yoongi kind of just hovers awkwardly near the living room until two people break off from the group to come over, drinks and snacks in hand.

"Yoongi, right?" One of them says, eyes a warm brown, sparkling slightly despite the dim room. "I'm Jeongguk, that's Taehyung." Taehyung waves. "Beer?"

Yoongi nods even though he knows he'll regret it in the next hour or so, accepts the bottle he extends to him with a small smile and settles in the corner of one of the couches.

The rest of them walk over to the living room in a slow stream, Hoseok trailing behind the two of them and sitting in the space between him and Taehyung.

Yoongi takes tiny sips from his bottle as they talk, tries not to feel out of place.

It wears off a little, though, as the night goes on. They're nice. Really nice, actually, and it still takes some time to settle between them, but they don't mention it. They just weave him into the conversation like it's effortless.

Yoongi curls up against the arm of the couch at some point, Hoseok in front of him, leaning against Taehyung a little bit. They're busy watching Namjoon and Jeongguk bicker back and forth over something. He can't really tell what they're saying, a little distracted because Hoseok is pressed up against his knees due to the lack of space the couch offers, drumming a little beat against the tops of them, and—

(he might be a teensy bit tipsy.)

Hoseok catches one of his glances and sends him a small smile.

(maybe a little more than that.)

"Hurry up," Jeongguk calls up from the floor, and Jimin comes out of the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn in hand. He frowns, leaning against the back of the couch and laying his chin on top of Taehyung's head, before taking one and throwing it at the side of his head.

"Brat," he mutters, walking around the couch and sitting next to Namjoon. Jeongguk winces in mock pain.

"Yoongi-ssi, I was attacked, did you see that? You saw that, right?" He complains, touching where he'd been hit.

"Don't drag him into this," Hoseok says, smiling faintly. He leans forward to steal a scoop from the bowl, shoveling it into his mouth, his laughter only growing louder at Jimin's protests.

Yoongi grows a little quiet, just watching, and Hoseok turns to look at him, mouths, everything okay?

He nods, and Hoseok smiles, turning back to the chaos ensuing below their feet. He pulls away from him for a moment to clap his hands. "I'm gonna get more beer, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Then, clapping again when no one objects, he sits up, nudging at Namjoon's back so he can get out and go to the kitchen.

"Thanks, hyung," Jeongguk calls after his retreating figure.

Jimin frowns and pushes him, though he just looks around obliviously. "How come you never call me hyung?"

Hoseok grins when he comes back, handing out the bottles. He slips back in between Taehyung and Yoongi, now fully leaning against Yoongi's knees, and Yoongi thinks that he might be a little tipsy, too.

They put on a movie near the end, something he sorta recognizes, and he shifts a little when he notices Hoseok dozing off next to him, enough that he can rest on his shoulder instead.

He's finished with his second bottle by the time it ends. Most of them have passed out by now, judging by the steadiness of their breathing under the noise of the credits scene, but Yoongi just rests his head against the couch, something restless waking up in his chest. Something like a warning.

They wake up later, when it's time to leave, and he can barely keep his eyes open by the time they're standing in front of the door again, slipping on their shoes.

Taehyung and the others are staying for a little while longer, but they huddle against the entrance to send them off, leaning on each other so they won't fall, though it just ends up making them tilt at a worrying angle.

Namjoon waves weakly, in the center of it all, and says, "Bye, Hoseok. Bye, Yoongi-ssi." The others copy him, mumbling their own goodbyes.

Yoongi smile. "You can call me hyung. Don't worry."

They nod in tandem, sorta freaking him out, but then they're waving again, and they're leaving, and—

There's a pool of sunlight trapped right between his ribs when they fully step outside, and he almost wants to go back, wants to go back to when he first entered the apartment, sober and slightly anxious.

Hoseok shoots him a grin over his shoulder.

"Did you have fun?"

He nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

(Which is an understatement, but he just smiles back.)

(He can't sleep tonight. Really should be able to because he drank two bottles of beer, but it wears off by the time he's curled up in his bed.

He used to play little melodies on his piano on nights like these, until his eyelids grew too heavy to keep up, but he doesn't think he can do that right now. Doesn't think he can play without remembering why he's even here in the first place, without feeling the heaviness in his chest that's begun to accompany the notes.

He just stares up at the ceiling tonight, until the edges of his vision start to swim, until everything starts to drift away.)

The next two weeks or so drag by. The company calls Yoongi a few times, but he just watches them go to voicemail. Time continues its ticking.

He comes down more often now, lingers in the living room before going back up to his room. He tells himself it's only because it's better to move around. He talks to Hoseok, too, whenever he's around.

He's still in his room for most of the rest of the day, but every once in a while, he'll go downstairs to grab himself another cup of coffee, and Hoseok's usually in the living room by then, watching a movie.

He invites him to watch one with him one day, when Yoongi catches him in the middle of scrolling through a list of movies to watch, and it becomes something like an unspoken habit as the weeks pass. He tells himself that he always just happens to be there to grab his coffee, just gets swept up in it.

He tries not to think too much about it.

"Food or tea?" Hoseok calls from the kitchen. Yoongi's curled up on the couch, buried under the pile of blankets Hoseok brought from his room. He's scrolling through his laptop, stuck on what movie to pick for the two of them to watch.

"Is there any coffee left?" he calls back.

"Yeah, but like two cups at most. You drank it all," he complains. There's the sound of water coming from the faucet and then the soft sound of coffee trickling into a cup before Hoseok sits down next to him. "You're buying more yourself next time."

He takes the cup he holds out for him happily, immediately taking a sip, and Hoseok snorts.

"What," Yoongi grumbles, "I need my coffee."

Hoseok smiles before lifting the blankets and huddling under them as well, ignoring Yoongi's complaints that he's letting in all the cold air. He sighs, and it comes out a little worn. "Did you pick a movie yet?"

Yoongi shrugs. "I was thinking we could watch Kiki's Delivery Service tonight."

Hoseok hums. "That sounds good, yeah."

He doesn't really pay attention to the movie, though. Here and there, he'll make a small comment on whatever's happening, getting a little laugh from Hoseok, but he's not really watching. He chances a glance at Hoseok, who's busy staring at the screen. His gaze lingers on him for a few seconds before Hoseok notices.

"What?" he asks, blinking a little bit in confusion.

His throat aches all of a sudden.

"I finished it," he says, frowning slightly as he holds up his cup. Hoseok laughs and pushes him, his hand lingering on his arm for a second.

(Yoongi's not so used to this.)

Eventually, it's over, and his cup is still empty, so he stands to go to the kitchen to refill it. Hoseok protests, though he doesn't make any actual effort to stop him, just wraps the blankets tighter around himself when they fall off. "Hyung, no."

"Hyung, yes." Yoongi looks at him over his shoulder. He puts his cup under the spout of the coffee machine and turns it on.

"Is this, like, on your bucket list? 'Consume all of Hoseok's coffee'?" He hears him laughing from the couch. He shrugs.

"I mean, I had other things, but that's not a bad idea, actually." Yoongi takes the cup and returns to his spot next to him, immediately bundling up under the covers again, mumbling to himself, holy shit it's freezing.

"Yeah, like what?"

Yoongi thinks. "Experience more things, maybe. Like, in general."

Hoseok hums.

"Get matching tattoos with someone."

Hoseok hums again.

He looks at him for this one. "Consume all of your coffee."

Hoseok scrunches his nose this time, but it's still with a little smile. "Please don't. I don't have the funds to enable you."

He snorts.

There's a quiet rapping on the door, and Yoongi looks suspiciously at it through the dark, locking his phone and placing it on the nightstand beside his bed. It cracks open just the slightest bit, enough room for someone's head to pop into the room, and—

Hoseok blinks at him.

Yoongi exhales, holding a hand to his heart. It beats violently against his fingers. "Oh my god, don't do that again. Thought I was gonna get murdered or something. What happened?"

"Sorry," he says with a small smile, stepping inside almost hesitantly. Some of the light from the hallway slips into the room as the door opens further, spilling out onto the floor and the edges of Hoseok's frame. "Sorry, just wanted to ask if you wanted to go on a walk."

Yoongi should say no.

He should say no, but there's something familiar in the way he says it, something familiar in his eyes, something a little weary but restless.

He starts to take a step back when Yoongi doesn't answer. "I know it's late, though, it's fine if you don't want—"

He takes off the covers. "No, it's fine. I'll come with you."

They leave once Yoongi's grabbed a hoodie, and they walk down the narrow alleys of the neighborhood around them without any real destination in mind. Neither of them say much of anything, and Yoongi just watches the branches above their heads shake in the wind.

He shivers a little when it gets particularly strong, and Hoseok glances at him with worry. Guilt, maybe. He pauses in his step.

"You can go back, if you want. I don't want to actually bother you or anything," he says, worrying at his bottom lip.

"I'll be fine. I wasn't sleeping, anyway." He smiles, and Hoseok still looks a little tentative, but they continue.

"I heard walking helps sometimes," he says after a pause. "If anything's keeping you up."

Yoongi looks at him for a minute.

"Is something keeping you up?"

He's quiet again, and it's really only a minute, but it almost feels like an eternity. He pushed too far, maybe. They're not close enough; they're not even that close, really, but then he catches,

"I'll be fine. Just work stuff."

He hums, doesn't prod further.

They stop by a convenience store just near by, and the bell rings quietly above them as they enter. A younger-looking boy looks up from behind the cash register and mumbles a welcome.

They wander through the aisles and sit at one of the tables near the window once they've checked out. They sip silently at their drinks before Yoongi glances at him.

"Do you do this with everyone you host?"

Hoseok looks back at him. "Show them around? Usually. This? Not really." He takes a small pause to turn away and take another sip of his drink. Something like green tea. "You might be the last person I host, actually."

"Yeah?"

Hoseok nods. He looks at him again, with a small smile now. "Do you do this often?"

Yoongi almost laughs, accidentally lets slip out, "God, no. I think my manager would kill me if I did, actually."

"Manager?"

He pauses, does a little shrug. "A friend of mine, he just helps with my music stuff. It's not much," he adds, ignoring the weird taste the lie leaves in his mouth.

"What's it like making music?"

Yoongi should stop talking.

He should stop talking, but something about this, sitting here with him, in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, makes Yoongi want to tell Hoseok everything, makes him want to tell him it's exhausting. I'm so exhausted. But he keeps it to himself. Blames it on the hour.  Midnight always had a funny way of making everything spill out of him.

What he says in the end is, "It has its ups and downs," and Hoseok hums, turns away again.

They fall back to silence.

"You should try this more often, though. Y'know." He holds his hands a little tighter around his cup when the door opens again, cold making its way back in. "New experiences."

Yoongi scrunches his nose. "Yeah, I meant maybe learning how to skate, or like. Sightseeing."

"Is this not sightseeing?"

He gives Hoseok a look, and he laughs, maybe a little loud. The cashier glares at them, and they smile at each other for a second, laughing quietly to themselves, and—

Something stirs at the very bottom of his stomach.

Yoongi has been acting weird lately.

He thinks it started during one of their movie nights. Hoseok came back from the studio particularly late that night, noticeably tired, almost putting salt in Yoongi's coffee instead of sugar. Yoongi caught him before he could, though, taking it from there and having him rest on the couch.

He sets his cup on the table when he's finished making it, turning to glance at his limp figure, before turning back and opening the fridge. He searches through it in search of the hot cocoa mix he bought a week ago, when it was still November despite Yoongi's complaints that it wasn't even Christmas yet.

("It's always Christmas if you really want it to be, hyung."

"That's— that's not how it works?" Hoseok pats his shoulder with a smile and disappears into the kitchen, leaving Yoongi to blink at him.)

He eventually finds it in the very back, tucked away in the corner, and manages to fish it out. The time it takes him to make it isn't that long with the help of the instructions on the side of the container, but it's long enough that Hoseok is already half-asleep by the time he comes back to the couch.

He nudges him awake and holds out the cup for him to grab. His eyes flutter open, taking it with a smile, though it wavers at the edges.

"Took long," he whispers into the cup. "D'you still want to watch the movie?"

"Yeah, do you want to?" he asks, just as quiet, and Hoseok nods. He picks a random one and turns it on. He's not paying attention, too tired himself, and he guesses that it's probably the same for Hoseok, but they keep it on as background noise.

Hoseok's eyes flutter open sporadically, like he's trying to keep himself awake, and Yoongi frowns. "Are you tired?"

He nods, mouth opening and frame stretching wide as he yawns before shrinking back into himself, and he sort of tilts sideways in the process, head falling onto Yoongi's lap. He blinks for a moment before going to sit up.

"It's fine," Yoongi says, "if you want to lie down. I don't mind."

Hoseok looks up at him and nods again, settling back down.

"Okay," he whispers and closes his eyes. He watches him, almost distantly, reaching out a hand and threading it through his hair. Hoseok hums, and he feels something inside him splinter, break into tiny little pieces.

(lying, he's lying. it started before that.)

Yeah, it started then.

It's the tiniest change, but Yoongi notices it, the way he tenses up when Hoseok leans on him, suddenly conscious of every move his body makes, hoping he doesn't notice it as well. He tries not to read too much into it.

He notices it again when they're all back in Namjoon's living room. It's the first time in a while that he gets to see any of them, even Hoseok, who's been flooded with work lately. They're all sat in a circle on the floor, eating greasy food that Hoseok brought and drinking bottles upon bottles of beer. They decide not to do anything today, just relax and talk.

If he remembers correctly, he got here an hour ago. Hoseok wasn't able to come with him, but he promised to come later, said that he just needed to practice a few hours more.

Jeongguk is the one who opens the door. "Hyung! You're here." He smiles, leaning his head against the door like he's already tipsy. He glances behind him and frowns.

"Seok-ah's gonna be late, said he was busy working on something. But," he adds, holding up two bags, "I brought beer."

Jeongguk smiles knowingly, mouthing seok-ah to himself. Namjoon pops up behind him, taking the bags from him and ushering him inside before heading to the kitchen. "Oh, thank god. We were running out."

"Hyung," Jeongguk says as he trails behind him, "I've literally been telling you to stop drinking so much of it for days."

"It helps with song-writing." He places the bags on the kitchen island before it's immediately being poked at by Jeongguk.

"You write?" Yoongi asks. He walks around the couch, falling onto the floor next to Taehyung and Jimin who both greet him with a grin. Namjoon hums.

"Wait, is that why there's been so many empty beer bottles in your closet lately?"

He blinks at Jeongguk.

"Why are you in my closet?"

Jeongguk shrugs, taking his hand out of the bag and shuffling over to the rest of the group. Jimin tilts his head, eyebrows drawing together like he's trying to piece together a puzzle, but one of the pieces is missing.

"Wait, why do you write in your closet? That feels like a really bad metaphor."

Taehyung hums, digging through the pack of trail mix sitting open on his lap. "He brings up a good point."

Namjoon throws his hands up in exasperation. "Look—it's just quieter."

Jeongguk snickers at him from next to Yoongi, who's now squished in between him and Taehyung.

"Tae," Jimin groans, "stop eating all the cashews, you know I wanted them." He opens the bag, peering inside and frowning. He pushes it back to Taehyung almost aggressively, and Taehyung stifles a laugh.

Namjoon walks over to the group, both of his hands busy with holding multiple beer bottles, looking, like. Two seconds away from dropping all of them. He blinks down at the four of them.

"Why do I even have couches if all of you are just going to sit on the floor," he says, more to himself than anyone else, and despite the comment, sits beside them on the carpet.

Jeongguk leans over Yoongi to steal a bottle, a crooked grin fixed on his lips as he pulls back and rests against the front of the couch. "It's comfortable, hyung."

"Yeah?" Namjoon takes a sip of his own beer and hugs it to his chest. "Then you should sleep here instead of my bed. Would stop you from kicking me off every time."

Taehyung blinks at the two of them. "What now."

Jeongguk sputters. "No, I do not."

"Yes, you do. I still have bruises from the last time. See?" He extends his leg, leaning over to roll up his pants, but Jeongguk hurries to push him back against the couch again.

"You both do know that we're going to use this against you from now on."

Jeongguk turns to Taehyung. "You slept with him too, though?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't a daily thing."

"Sorry." Yoongi blinks a few times. "Sorry, do you mean, like, you literally slept with in the same bed, or you slept with him?"

Taehyung's face screws up, attention turning to him now. "The first one, what?"

"Okay, I mean. I don't know if I should be offended, but sure."

"You know what I mean, hyung. I'm sure you're... a good kisser." He leans over to pat Namjoon on the knee.

Namjoon blinks at the spot his hand grazed, saying almost distantly, "That made me feel worse somehow."

Jimin opens his mouth to say something, but the sound of the doorbell ringing makes him pause. They all quiet down, their attention moving to the door, and Jeongguk stands to answer it.

"Hyung, hey," he says before stepping back, and—

Hoseok is here, and he looks exhausted, more exhausted than he did this morning somehow. He's looked tired for days now, though he only caught short glimpses of him since he's been at the studio so often, but this is the worst he's seen him. The skin under his eyes is almost darker, circles like bruises, and he looks so pale as he comes closer that Yoongi gets a little concerned.

"Hey," he says, taking Jeongguk's spot beside Yoongi. Jeongguk doesn't complain, though, just sits next to Namjoon instead. He lifts his hand to gesture to the bag he's holding and smiles faintly, "I got take-out."

Namjoon takes it from him and lays it down in the center of their little circle. "You didn't have to, hyung. Thank you."

"I felt bad for being late." He shrugs. "I didn't miss anything, did I?"

"Nah, just that Jeongguk and Namjoon practically share a bed," Taehyung says and grins when Jeongguk groans.

Hoseok smiles at their antics and closes his eyes, pulling back from the conversation. Yoongi watches him silently. He nudges his side, and Hoseok cracks his eyes open just enough that he could see him.

"S'everything okay?" he asks. Hoseok's eyes flit down to the floor, and he pauses, mouth parting like he's going to say something, but he just shrugs. It's not really a response, but he doesn't push further.

Hoseok sends him a small smile and tilts his head a bit so that it's resting on his shoulder, taking his hand in his and playing with his rings. He spins them around his fingers, every brush against his skin leaving a permanent imprint, stares down at them with furrowed brows.

He tells Yoongi when they're on the bus back home a few hours later, in a similar position. They're quiet for a while, listening to the sounds of the cars around them. He thinks he might've fallen asleep, so he stays silent, but then, Hoseok starts talking.

"Sorry if I worried you. It's just—" He pauses, hesitating, like he thinks that maybe he should stop talking. He glances up at Yoongi, who looks at him intently, and sighs, continues. "I have to make another choreo before next week comes even though they told me last minute, and it's bugging me because I just can't get it right, but I don't have the time. It always seems a little off, no matter what I do to try and fix it. I don't even know if it needs to be fixed. Sometimes, I feel like I'm ruining it by trying to fix what's not broken, and there's just— so much. There's so much, hyung." He says it all in one breath, like he needs to get it out or it'll fester inside of him, eat at him. Yoongi knows that feeling well.

"Does that make sense? Am I making sense?" Hoseok asks, slightly breathless now as he looks at him. They stare at each other for a beat before he nods, resting his head on top of his.

"Yeah, that makes sense, Seok-ah. It makes sense," he whispers, and the thing in his stomach swells.

(Sprouts.)

Winter trudges on, relentless. Things stay the same, though a few things do change; Yoongi doesn't run around the neighborhood as much anymore, runs on the treadmills in a gym he found nearby now that it's gotten colder, and he doesn't go out with Hoseok as much as he used to. He's still working late nights at the studio, and Yoongi's busy with—

(nothing. He's busy with nothing, and it's a strange feeling, makes him feel guilty somehow because he should be working on another song, should be churning out as many as he can, but instead, he's sitting in his bed, letting the seconds tick by.)

Days pass and before he realizes it, it's almost a week before Christmas. He almost doesn't notice until he's at the gym, running one of the treadmills. Slowing down, he turns on his phone to change the song but pauses when he sees the date displayed on his lock screen. He blinks and goes still, almost falling before he remembers he's still on the treadmill and turns it off.

He takes the bus back, quick to take a shower and drink his coffee when he arrives before taking another bus to a store a couple blocks away. It's a quick visit, but he tries to take his time picking out decorations.

He comes back a while later, two bags in hand, and gets started. It takes him a few hours to hang up a few of the lights on the walls, his arms not quite long enough to reach the ceiling, so he spends almost a quarter of the time finding something to stand on. Hoseok comes back halfway through, pausing near the door when he sees Yoongi holding up the lights on the ladder he found outside against the wall, and he smiles a little. They talk for a few minutes before he leaves to take a nap in his room.

He ends putting off finishing the lights when he gets tired of going on his toes just to reach the top of the wall and starts working on decorating the rest of the room. He's not the best at it, but he tries to put some effort into not making it look like shit, and he finds that he wasn't too far off from his goal when he's done. Hoseok comes back when he's taking a break on his couch, groaning about all the decorating he's done and how tired he is, which Hoseok laughs at.

"You need help?" He looks down at him with a mirthful smile. Yoongi nods, and they spend the rest of the afternoon finishing up. It takes longer than it should because they get distracted from time to time, bickering about how to properly decorate the room, but they eventually finish. They make hot cocoa after and recline on the couch.

"Yeah," Yoongi says as he sips at his cup and stares at the socks that are dangerously close to the flames raging in the fireplace, "something's gonna catch on fire."

Hoseok nudges his shoulder with his and says, almost nervously, joining him in looking at the fire place, "Don't say that." He looks away. "Anyway, what do you wanna do now?"

"I dunno, you tell me. I don't celebrate Christmas all that much."

Hoseok blinks at him. "That can't be true." He puts his cup on his lap and turns to look at him properly. "That literally can't be true after you dropped everything to decorate this entire room."

"Well, yeah," Yoongi says as he shrugs, crossing his legs on the couch, "I was doing that. For you. I thought you wanted that."

He squints. "But that. That doesn't make—" He pauses in the middle of his sentence, eyes widening slightly. He taps on the couch next to his knee repeatedly.

"What, what happened, you're freaking me out."

Hoseok grins. "You know what could we do? Secret Santa."

Yoongi blinks. "We don't even have a tree to put the presents under."

Hoseok falters, like he's only now realizing that, before regaining his composure and waving him off. "The others will have one. Anyway, you want to do it?"

Yoongi shrugs, and Hoseok grins and sets his cup down on the table, pulling out his phone. "I'll text them, then."

They end up choosing who they're going to get presents for the next time they meet up, at Jimin, Taehyung, and Jeongguk's shared apartment this time. Taehyung is the one who writes their names on little slips of paper and puts them in a bag, going around to each other person they could pull out a name. Yoongi ends up pulling Namjoon, which is hard for no particular reason beside the fact that Yoongi never really has the easiest time thinking of gifts for people.

So, he goes to Hoseok for help.

"Hyung, you know I can't help you, right?"

Yoongi frowns from his spot at the dining table and takes a long sip of his coffee. "Why not?"

Hoseok turns around, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. "I would literally just be buying him a gift myself. Also, may I remind you that I do, in fact, have my own present to buy."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"No."

"What about, like, a small hint as to what he might like?"

Hoseok glances up at him again. "I don't get why you can't just talk to him."

He gives him a look, and he laughs, just turning back to the food cooking on the stove.

"Figure it out, hyung. Figure it out."

So. It's safe to say that Hoseok is no help at all.

He sits on it a few days more before just deciding to go to the store and check what they have there. He takes his time as he checks through the aisles.

Yoongi's almost an hour in before he comes across a corner full of notebooks and stationery, looks through them and sees the stack of stave notebooks sitting in the middle. He stops, remembering,

It helps with song-writing.

A relieved smile sets on his lips.

He buys two of them and some wrapping paper before going home, wrapping the gift there and putting it at the back of his closet. It sits there for a few days more until Christmas arrives when it finds itself sitting under a pile of other gifts in Namjoon's apartment.

(He never got a Christmas tree. No one did, actually, so they just put them into a messy stack on his living room floor.)

They don't open them immediately. Instead, they go to a restaurant to celebrate Taehyung's birthday early because most of them are going to be busy the day before New Year's Eve, Namjoon with a work deadline, the rest with studying. He remembers Hoseok saying something about being busy as well, but he can’t remember any details, the soju starting to kick in.

The evening passes quickly, and he's halfway past tipsy by the time they're done at the restaurant. They argue a little bit over the bill before splitting it amongst the six of them and heading back to Namjoon's apartment.

He ends up lagging behind them from time to time on the way back, content to just watch them in wonder before one of them notices and pulls him back to the group, bickering back and forth with one another. He smiles and laughs with them, his chest warm, melting the thing lodged in the middle of it into something sweet and sugary and sticky, trickling down his fingers as he pushes them into his chest, and he lets himself revel in it, the feeling.

They do eventually open their gifts when they get back, falling into a circle on the floor around the pile, despite more of Namjoon's complaints. They go in turns, finding their present in the mess and peeling it open. Namjoon smiles when he opens his and thanks Yoongi after he reveals himself as his secret santa.

Yoongi gets a few packs of grounded coffee beans along with a coffee mug that appears to have a sort of checklist drawn on it. He immediately looks at Hoseok, who's already grinning at him.

"Now you can't drink more than three a day," he says, tapping on the little checklist on the mug.

"You know I could just, like," he makes a motion, turning the cup around so that the blank part is facing him instead, "completely ignore it.”

Hoseok pushes him, and he grins.

(This isn't so bad, maybe.)

Yoongi's head feels a little bit like shriveling up as he knocks on Hoseok's door, everything a mess of discordant notes, all tinny and strange. He usually has a higher tolerance, but he makes a promise with himself to refrain from drinking any alcohol for the next few months. Maybe the next year, actually; it would hurt less than having hangovers every week.

"Come in," his voice sounds from behind the door, slightly muffled. He opens it as he massages his temple, eyes closed, stepping into the room.

"Hey," he opens his eyes and looks down at the floor where Hoseok sits, "you wanna go get hangover soup? I found a pla—"

His words falter when he registers the mess surrounding Hoseok, clothes and various other items thrown around his room. There’s a few suitcases and bags keeping him from leaving the circle that they enclose him in. He continues to prod at the piles of clothing, taking some, folding them, and fitting them into the bags. Yoongi blinks in confusion.

"What's that?"

Hoseok finally looks up at him, his brows drawing together. "I didn't tell you yesterday?" Yoongi shakes his head slowly, and Hoseok's expression grows more confused, but he starts to explain, "I'm going to be in Seoul for a week or two for a dance thing. Probably going to leave in a few days, so I thought I'd start packing now."

Yoongi pauses near the door, taking in the words. Hoseok stares up at him like he's waiting for him to say something, so he clears his throat. "Oh, yeah. Okay." He nods, leaving Yoongi to watch as he continues packing.

Something weird settles in the center of his chest. It feels like a wake-up call.

"You okay?" Hoseok is still now as he looks up at him, face mixed with something close to concern. Might just be concern.

Yoongi should stop.

Yoongi should stop.

"Yeah. Sorry, I'm fine." He waves him off. "Just my head."

Hoseok hesitates, like he wants to push, but he just says, “We can get that hangover soup later, if you still want.”

Yoongi smiles, but it feels all wrong on his face. “We don’t have to. I’ll probably just be good with some water.”

Hoseok blinks. “Okay.”

He still looks like he wants to say something else, but Yoongi says bye before he can, closes the door behind himself.

"A little bit to the left?"

Yoongi's arms tremble, burning slightly as they press the banner against the wall. Namjoon looks like he's in a similar condition. He glares at Taehyung, who's relaxing against the back of the couch.

"We literally can't move any further left," he hisses through his teeth, though Taehyung doesn't listen, just pushes himself off of the couch and walks over to them.

“Yes, you can,” he argues and reaches up to to grab the bottom of the sign, pushing it the slightest bit to the left, and Yoongi’s stool promptly tips over the platform.

He sends him a deadly look when he regains his composure.

"If you want it so perfect," he grumbles as he rights the stool, still glaring at him, "then why don't you move it yourself?"

Hoseok sighs from where he's sat on the couch, standing up and walking over to the three of them. "Please just leave it if you can't finish this peacefully—" He rests his hands on Yoongi's shoulders and nudges him aside to take his place next to Namjoon— "I'll do it."

They start over again while Yoongi walks into the living room where Jimin and Jeongguk sit huddled around the TV, eyes glued to the countdown displaying on the screen as they blow air into little balloons with text on them that read happy new year!, words expanding with every breath. He settles next to them, though they don't notice immediately.

He sighs. Tucks his knees into his chest and follows their gaze.

"Three minutes," they call to the rest of the group. Jeongguk gets up as the timer continues to tick down and walks over to the window, pushing aside the blinds and opening it. Yoongi inhales sharply as the cool winter air seeps into the room, enveloping them all in seconds, though Jeongguk doesn't seem to mind. He leans in and stares up at the sky, jacket thrashing in the wind and the fireworks above him lighting up his face in an array of colors. Yoongi wraps his arms around himself, digging his fingers into the thin fabric of his shirt.

Taehyung and the others crowd around him when they're done with putting up the banner and filling up the balloons. He watches, far away from them despite the actual distance between them only being a few feet.

(he doesn't really know how he got here.)

Hoseok looks back and meets his eyes. His brows bunch up when he sees that he's still sitting and tilts his head to the side, the breeze like hands raking through his hair, the strands spilling over his face as he gestures for him to join them. Yoongi pauses and just breathes for a moment, watches the lights illuminate the edges of his silhouette in blue and orange, yellow and deep, dark red, and realizes. It settles at the bottom of his stomach, slowly as he takes it in, alive and fluttering around, poking at his insides incessantly, reminding him, I'm here. I was always here.

He takes another breath.

They wrap around him easily when he joins them, gently tugging him and Hoseok to the center, and he looks up as they count down:

(four,)

Fireworks fly into the sky before losing momentum and exploding into bright confetti, disappearing into the black of the night. The cold of the outside runs up and down his spine.

(three,)

The group inches closer, adjusting so that everyone’s able to see the fireworks, but it only causes Namjoon to bump into the wall, the banner next to him promptly falling down. Their gazes are directed to it, groans and complaints immediately leaving their mouths. Hoseok snickers, and he looks back at Yoongi, face splitting into a grin, and Yoongi swears it’s almost as bright as the lights outside.

(two,)

He tries to smile back.

(one!)

(He was never really good at these things.)

Hoseok leaves the next morning.

Yoongi almost misses him on his way out, but a loud noise outside his door pulls him out of his sleep. He wakes up minutes later when he hears yet another noise come from the hallway. He stares at the door, fully conscious now, and slips on his slides.

Hoseok meets his gaze when he turns away from his own door, bags in hand and circles forming under his eyes. He looks like he hasn't slept at all.

"Morning," he greets, cutting through the silence. His voice is steady and calm, but something tells him that he's really feeling the opposite.

"G'morning." Hoseok nods, looks down at his bags and then the stairs. Yoongi fully steps out of his room and into the hallway, only a few steps away from him now. "Let me help?"

They put the bags on the floor when they reach the front door, and Yoongi watches as Hoseok puts on his shoes. Feels weird as the silence between grows larger, expanding until it feels like they're whole worlds away from each other and not just a few steps. It feels wrong, somehow.

He slides up the wall when he's done, pushing himself away, and glances at Yoongi. His lips part, tongue running over his bottom one before he presses them together again, like he doesn't know what to say. He does it again, but a honk comes from the other side of the front door before he can say anything. They turn to look at it.

Hoseok declines his offer to help him with putting his bags in the trunk of the taxi when they step outside, so Yoongi just watches from the sidewalk, hands burrowed in the front pocket of his sweater. The breeze runs through his hair and pushes against him, surrounds him, makes him feel colder than he already is. Hoseok slides into the car after closing the trunk, and before he realizes what he's doing, Yoongi steps onto the street and puts a hand on the top of the door before it can shut. Hoseok stills and looks up at him, waiting him for to say something except Yoongi doesn't really know what he wanted to say in the first place, if he even wanted to say anything.

There's a pause.

"I'll see you later," he says weakly, and Hoseok smiles, nodding and responding with his own goodbye, before Yoongi steps back onto the sidewalk, jamming his hands back into the pocket. Hoseok pulls the door shut, obscuring his view of him, and the engine starts. He sees him raising his hand to wave, and he waves back, watching them drive until they disappear from his line of sight. He retreats back into the house. It's silent.

Yoongi goes on with his life, still runs every morning and sits in the living room with a cup of coffee. He goes out with some of the others when they offer, and he calls Seokjin more often now, but the silence afterwards still leaves a bad taste in his mouth, makes him feel like time’s going backwards.

Hoseok’s staying in Seoul for a week or so. It’s not the worst, but it weirds him out, when he comes back from his run and doesn’t see him drinking tea at the kitchen or laughing at something somewhere upstairs. When they go days without talking.

The days drag by. He has more time to think now, if anything. He thinks about the past month, everything he has to do.

About his feelings for Hoseok.

He can’t remember when they first sprouted in his stomach, but they've grown now, grown tall enough to wrap around his lungs every once in a while. He feels it whenever his phone rings with a new notification, and he sees that it's Hoseok texting him. When he facetimes him at one in the morning because he just got back to his hotel, and he can't sleep, so Yoongi tries his best to stay awake to keep him company.

Even though it's still something like a crush, sometimes, he looks at him and thinks,

I could fall in love with you

and it should scare him.

It should scare him because he shouldn't fall in love with someone that quickly, shouldn't be able to, but he is. It feels like free-falling, sort of, falling in love with him; he can't stop now. He thinks it might scare him a little bit.

(scares him a lot.)

Just.

A little bit.

(What have you been up to lately?

Yoongi pauses, his phone still in between his ear and his shoulder. The question sticks in his mind, even when he's lying in bed later that night, trying to sleep.

What have you been up to lately?

Yoongi doesn't know.)

(Yoongi watches from the bean bag in the corner of the room as Namjoon scrolls through his projects, finished and unfinished, trying to find one to show him. He invited him over a few hours ago, originally to just hang out and talk over some drinks and food, but somehow, their conversation eventually ended up turning into them going into his room, deep into a discussion about music theory and their projects. Well, Namjoon’s projects. Yoongi’s more off to the side, spitballing ideas at him while he plays him whatever he’s been working on.

He watches, and for a second, he sees himself there instead, a version of him that still lived in Daegu, eyes bright with this sort of passion that seems unattainable to him now as he focuses on the screen. He blinks again, and the image disappears.

He opens his mouth, blurts out without really thinking, “Don’t you ever get scared that it’ll change one day? Like, that making songs won’t be as enjoyable anymore.”

Namjoon starts in his chair. He turns and meets his eyes, slipping his headphones off and around his neck. He’s quiet for a while before he sets his gaze on the floor and says, “I don’t really know how I could answer that. I don’t think it’s something that could vanish so easily for me? I think that, if I stopped—” He pauses, face scrunching up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to gather his thoughts, before continuing, “If I stopped, it’d be like cutting off a part of myself.” He pauses again before nodding, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and looking back down at his laptop.

Yoongi sinks into the bean bag, blinking.)

jeongguk // 7:45 a.m. — hoseok's welcome home party committee!!!!
good morning
how are we all doing

namjoon // 7:46 a.m.
there is actually no reason why u should be awake rn

jeongguk // 7:46 a.m.
im being systematic hyung

taehyung // 7:47 a.m.
why now

jeongguk // 7:47 a.m.
literally
am i not allowed to do that

yoongi // 7:49 a.m.
what is this
whats going on

jeongguk // 7:50 a.m.
hyung!
perfect timing
okay i think we can start now, since everyone is here

jimin // 7:51 a.m.
do i just,,
not exist anymore
is that what this is

jeongguk // 7:51 a.m.
lol hi hyung

jimin // 7:51 a.m.
don't even

namjoon // 7:51 a.m.
wait
isn't he coming in like 4 days?
why are we planning the party now

jeongguk // 7:51 a.m.
why not.
anyways
ideas
yoongi-hyung

yoongi // 7:51 a.m.
ur funny
im not talking to any one of u before my coffee

jeongguk // 7:52 a.m.
do u not talk to hoseok before that

yoongi // 7:54 a.m.
does it matter

jeongguk // 7:54 a.m.
i mean

taehyung // 7:55 a.m.
i'd just like to point out the fact that he never actually answered the question

namjoon // 7:55 a.m.
interesting

jimin // 7:55 a.m.
very

yoongi // 7:56 a.m.
what

jeongguk // 7:56 a.m.
wait but actually
getting back on track.
hoseok's welcome home party:
ideas anyone
the floor is open

namjoon // 7:58 a.m.
uh i could bring some food i guess?
everyone's gonna come right

jimin // 7:59 a.m.
yeah ofc

taehyung // 7:59 a.m.
mhm

yoongi // 8:00 a.m.
i sorta live here for the time being so

namjoon // 8:01 a.m.
great, then we could all try to bring something
jimin, tae, you two good with bringing the drinks?

jimin // 8:02 a.m.
yeah im fine with that
tae?

taehyung // 8:02 a.m.
same

namjoon // 8:02 a.m.
great, then jeonggukie and i will bring the food

jeongguk // 8:03 a.m.
no one is allowed to say anything

taehyung // 8:03 a.m.
wdym
we werent gonna say anything what

jimin // 8:03 a.m.
yeah
jeonggukie

jeongguk // 8:03 a.m.
i despise all of you

namjoon // 8:05 a.m.
??

taehyung // 8:05 a.m.
sometimes it amazes me how just
horribly oblivious you are

namjoon // 8:06 a.m.
huh

yoongi // 8:06 a.m.
are we finished
could i like
actually drink my coffee now

jeongguk // 8:06 a.m.
yeah i think so
we're good right

jimin // 8:06 a.m.
mhm, i have to go back to sleep anyways so we could talk later if we need to
like, yk
when it's not 8 in the morning

jeongguk // 8:07 a.m.
was that really necessary

("You're going to catch something."

I haven't gotten a cold in years, I'll be fine.

"Yeah, but you also don't usually sit in bathtubs, do you?" Hoseok looks at the camera, meeting his eyes, and wraps his arms around himself to cover the incessant shudder of his shoulders. It’s a poor attempt.

You don't know that. Yoongi gives him a look, and he rolls his eyes, smiling. At least there's a TV in the bathroom. Bet you don't have one there.

"That's also the only TV there, though. Also, you do realize you're only insulting yourself, right?" Hoseok pauses and looks away, like he's just remembering that. He turns back to him.

I'm hanging up on you. He pulls his phone away from where it's sat and sets it up so that Yoongi is only able to see the upper half of his face as he looks down at him.

"Wait." He laughs. "Don't, I'm sorry."

Hoseok rolls his eyes again, stifling a smile.)

(Hoseok pauses in the middle of his thought.

Fuck, sorry, it’s like— two a.m. You’re probably tired. Sorry, shit. I’ll let you sleep.

Yoongi pulls his phone away from his ear to look at the time, brows bunching up when he sees he’s right. He pushes himself up on his bed so that his back rests against the frame and puts his phone back against his ear. Says, “I’m not that tired,” instead of I'll be fine, and I want you to stay, and I miss you, and it hurts, and I'm scared, I’m so scared.

Hoseok goes quiet. Yoongi almost wants to take the words back, fit them back into his mouth somehow, but then, soft—

Okay, hyung.

(Yoongi wakes up a few hours later to find his phone close to dying, the soft sounds of Hoseok's breathing cutting through the silence of his room.))

The bell rings ceaselessly, and Yoongi sighs a little bit. He sits up from the dining table and leaves his cup to sit there unfinished as he goes to open the front door. Jeongguk grins at him, face red from the cold. The others crowd behind him, in a similar condition. Yoongi lets out another sigh, stepping aside as they enter, taking off their shoes and walking into the living room.

"You could've just sent a text, y'know, instead of breaking the doorbell," he mumbles as he trails behind them, though they ignore him.

Yoongi huffs and shuffles back over to the table as they start to decorate the space. He sits down and takes a few sips of his coffee, fingers drumming against his thigh.

Hoseok comes back today.

He almost didn’t realize until he checked the date this morning. There wasn’t much to do while he waited, so he tried filling the empty spaces in his routine with random things. He ran two extra laps, went to the park, a coffee shop some blocks away, but none of that seemed to calm his nerves.

Someone tugs at his chair, pulling him out of his train thought, and he looks up to see Jimin looking down at him. He places the cake he’s holding on the table.

"C'mon. I'm not letting you just sit here, you're helping us decorate."

Yoongi frowns, about to decline, but Taehyung appears beside him and pulls him out of his chair. "Up and at 'em." He nudges his back every few steps until they're in the living room, standing over Namjoon and Jeongguk, who are busy at filling and hanging up the balloons.

"Look—" He turns to him just as he hands him a packet of plates and silverware, pats his shoulder, and goes to help Namjoon and Jeongguk. Yoongi blinks and squints at Taehyung's retreating back.

It takes him longer than it should to finish. He technically finishes it in a few minutes, but he's stopped by Taehyung when he goes to sit on the couch, who points to one of the plates on the coffee table. "That's a bit crooked, hyung."

He redoes it about two more times, glares at Taehyung when he's finally finished. He smiles nervously at him and turns around before he could annoy him further, sitting back down next to Namjoon.

"Is Hoseok here yet? It's been, like, an hour since we started setting up," Jimin says. He's sprawled on the couch, arm hanging over the edge. Yoongi shrugs and pulls out his phone.

yoongi // 6:56 p.m.
when are you coming?
the cake's getting cold

hoseok // 6:59 p.m.
wait im like
two blocks away
also,, are cakes not supposed to be cold

Yoongi locks his phone and places it on the coffee table. "He's two blocks away," he says behind his shoulder as he walks to the bathroom.

"Thanks," Jimin calls back before he shuts the door behind himself.

He goes to the sink and turns it on. Water rushes out from the spout, slips around his hands and flows down the drain. He leans forward to wash his face, leans back and stares at his reflection in the mirror, the water tricking down from his chin and to his neck. Soft chatter sneaks in from the thin gap between the door and wall, interweaving with the faint sound of the jazz song Taehyung put on, before it all suddenly stops. There's a commotion, and he pauses.

When he steps out of the bathroom, he sees Jeongguk and the others crowded around someone in front of the door, talking loudly. He stops, feet rooting to the ground as he catches a glimpse of the person in front of them when they part, and—

Hoseok's here.

Hoseok's here, and he's smiling, bright brown hair bouncing with every laugh that they draw out from him. He doesn't look as tired and distant, and Yoongi's heart squeezes underneath the grasp of the vine wrapped around it because—

He's here. He's here.

He pauses in the middle of his conversation with Namjoon when he spots Yoongi standing motionless near the living room. A bright grin sets on his lips, and he places his bags down to make his way towards him. Yoongi takes a step forward, body functioning properly again, just as he hugs him. He tilts a little from the impact and stumbles a few steps back, but Hoseok just laughs.

"I missed you," Hoseok whispers into his neck. Yoongi can feel him smile against his skin.

(he kinda sorta can't breathe.)

He lets go after some seconds, and the others give them a look, tugging Hoseok away from him and to the middle of the living room. He follows the group when he can move again and settles next to Taehyung on the couch.

"How long did it take you to decorate?" Hoseok looks around at all of the balloons and banners, pulling his knees to his chest.

"Longer than it should've," Jimin says as the whole group pointedly looks at Taehyung and Yoongi. Taehyung sputters from next to him.

"Yeah, I think you two need to, like, have an intervention or something because it's becoming a problem."

"What do you want us to do, hold hands and talk about peace?" Yoongi shoots Namjoon a look.

They pause.

"You do bring up a good point with the first one."

He blinks. "You know that was a joke, right?"

"Yeah, but," Jeongguk says, turning to him from his spot on the floor beneath where Yoongi sits on the couch, "you do realize we're going to make you do this every time you argue now, right?"

"But wouldn't it get tiring, though? They argue a lot," Namjoon voices.

"I bet you ten thousand won they won't forget."

"I would appreciate if you guys didn't talk about us like we aren't here, thanks."

"How about fifteen?" Hoseok joins in, and Yoongi looks at him incredulously.

"Not you too." Hoseok snickers, shrugging. He groans and stands up to go to the kitchen. "Whatever, I'm getting a drink."

"Wait, actually," Jimin calls, "could you get the bottle on the dining table? I bought it just for this."

Yoongi answers with a hum before walking around the couch. They continue talking as he slips his slides back on that he left near the carpet. He sees the bottle of champagne on the table and takes a step forward but ends up hitting the platform with the front of his foot and fully falling down to the floor. They pause as he lands on the floor, wincing.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" he hears Jeongguk say, mixing with the sound of someone padding over to him. Hoseok stands over him, grinning as he groans again.

"He's fine." He extends a hand when Yoongi rolls onto his back. "Dude, get up."

"Fuck you," he hisses, though he accepts his help. Once he's back on his feet, he turns around to grab the bottle, but Hoseok puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him back to the living room.

"Sit, I don't trust you enough to not trip on that again." He turns back, ignoring Yoongi's huff, and takes the bottle from the table and walks back to the living room. He makes a move to open it once he's in the center, but Jimin stops him.

"Wait, lemme pop it," he says as he holds his hands out, making a grabby motion. Hoseok rolls his eyes at him but gives him the champagne, anyway. Jimin grins and sits up, letting Hoseok return to his spot next to him.

They watch silently as he struggles to get it open.

"Just give me the bottle," Jeongguk eventually says. He reaches out a hand, and Jimin relents with a disappointed frown. He pops it open after a few tries, and they all screech as some of the champagne splashes on them. Jeongguk grins and laughs at their reactions.

Things slip back into place.

(The cold air bites at Yoongi's skin as he looks down at his phone and chooses one of the songs from his playlist. He slips on his earbuds and warms up his muscles for a few minutes before he feels eyes boring into his back. He glances behind his shoulder and almost jumps when he sees Hoseok also stretching behind him.

Yoongi blinks at him. "What are you doing?"

Hoseok grins as he holds his ankle behind him with a hand, thigh pressing against his calf. "Running with you."

They’re back in the living room an hour later, Yoongi laughing at Hoseok who lies in the middle of the room, tugging off his sweat-drenched headband and groaning, "How the fuck do you do that every day?")

(Sweat drips down Yoongi's face as the steam from the grill continues to wrap around him. It mixes with the steam from the other grills, making the room stuffier than it already is. He leans back against the booth and watches Hoseok tie his hair up into a high bun. He looks to the side where the rest of the restaurant sits, and Yoongi stills as he catches sight of the tattoo behind his ear.

It's a constellation, though he can't tell of what. His gaze fixates on it until Hoseok looks back at him.

"I have a few more," he says when he notices him staring at it, then adding, almost like an afterthought, "I'm thinking of getting other ones." He turns his attention back to his plate, leaving Yoongi to stare at him in confusion, trying to find the hint of another tattoo on him but coming up short.

He lies in his bed a few hours later. What he said rewinds in his head like a broken record, and the image of his tattoo lingers in his memory. He thinks about reaching a hand out and tracing the lines of it, cupping his face in his hands.

The edges of the vines tickle the sides of his lungs.)

(Hyung! Come out with us, we're gonna get some coffee.

"Can't, I'm busy."

Please? Jeongguk has to go to class, and besides, it's been so long since we last saw each other.

"It's been six days."

Yoongi can practically hear Jimin frown from over the line. Exactly.

He sighs.

We'll pay for yours too, if you want, Taehyung throws in, and he considers the proposition before relenting.

"Fine. Text me the address."

Yoongi goes to change after the call ends, chooses one of his cardigans over a white shirt, the grayish blue one, and a pair of faded jeans he has resting at the back of his closet, puts it on and leaves his room when he's finished. As he passes by Hoseok's door, he pauses.

Could you wake me up tomorrow? Have to wake up early to go to the studio, and my alarm hasn't been working in, like, days.

He backtracks until he's standing in front of the door, twisting the doorknob and easing it open. It lets out a slight creak as he steps inside and treads softly to his bed, where Hoseok sleeps soundly. His body lies engulfed in the mass of blankets on the mattress, though his right side is completely exposed, like he kicked that part off in his sleep. Yoongi crouches down next to him and lightly shakes his shoulder.

Hoseok inhales sharply as he wakes up, tilting his head so that he's facing him, eyes fluttering open. A little smile sets on his lips when they focus on him, whispering in a croaky voice, "G'morning."

He sits up slowly, and Yoongi catches sight of his bed head as his hand drifts into it, ruffling it so that it looks a bit more normal, though it doesn't really do much to help. Pretty pretty pretty sings throughout his head.

Yoongi stills.

Feels his heart beat in his throat, a steady rhythm:

bu bum bu bum bu bum bu bum.)

Yoongi sips at his coffee as he waits, almost feverishly. His slurping resonates throughout the coffee shop, prompting the people around him to send him a few looks, and he bows his head apologetically. His gaze lingers on the table.

There's a noise from in front of him, like someone pulling back a chair and sitting on it, then fingers drumming against the tabletop.

"Hyung," Jimin sing-songs. "Wake up."

He grunts and straightens up.

"You're in a good mood today." Taehyung snorts. He doesn't try to come up with a retort, not really in the mood to.

One of the employees comes to their table with their order, and Taehyung and Jimin both reach for their cups, slipping into a conversation between themselves while Yoongi finishes his own.

The coffee runs down his throat, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue rather than lessening the weight of the words digging into it like he hoped. He slips out something like a whimper, and Taehyung pauses in the middle of his thought to turn to him, must see the distress on his face because then he asks, "You okay?"

Yoongi breathes in, no longer able to hold it back anymore, and blurts out, "What would you do if you realized you were in love with someone?"

Taehyung freezes, and the pair both stare at him.

Jimin sets his cup down on the table after a few beats, stays silent like he's considering before he says, "Tell them how I feel."

"What would you do if you realized you were in love with someone but couldn't tell them how you felt?" he amends.

He squints at him. "This is about Hoseok-hyung, right?"

"Does it really matter?" he tries, but they both just give him a look. He shrinks in his chair and says in a small voice, "Maybe."

They all stare at each other for a minute before Taehyung moves to bury his face in Jimin's shoulder, groaning, "Fucking finally, oh my god. It took him so long." Jimin pats the top of his head and wraps an arm around his shoulders comfortingly, patting that as well.

Yoongi blinks. "What."

Taehyung pulls away, still facing Jimin, a smile now tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Jeongguk's gonna be so mad."

"So you're going to just," Yoongi says, "completely ignore my question."

Jimin looks back at him. "I already told you my answer, hyung."

He groans, growing frustrated, and covers his face with hands, an image of Hoseok smiling at him all soft and pretty reappearing in his head.

Fuck.

He thinks about it for a minute, confessing, tests out different responses, but every scenario he comes up with always ends the same way: Hoseok rejects him, and they both tip-toe around each other for the rest of his stay, until he has to go back to Seoul, until he has to forget about him. But he doesn't think he wants to do that, no matter his response. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

"I don't think I can," he whispers into his palms, and the words splinter at the edges, fear and anxiety filling him because he doesn't really know what to do with it all.

(I don't think I want to.)

They're silent.

(want to stay like this for a little longer.)

He feels them slide next to him on the booth more than he hears them, surrounding him on both sides, and he looks up as they move to wrap their arms around him, pulling him into their remedial warmth. Jimin leans his head against his shoulder, while Taehyung rests his on the top of his head, and his heart calms somewhat. Beats slower and returns to its spot in the middle of his chest, even just for a moment.

(do you want that too?)

He closes his eyes.

((do you want me too?))

He tip-toes around his feelings for the next few days, reluctant to say anything further whenever Taehyung and Jimin bring it up. Life goes on like it usually does; Hoseok still dances around the kitchen while they make dinner, makes him join, sometimes, and twirls him around to the music playing from the small radio on top of the fridge, gliding around the room like a gentle breeze.

He keeps it inside of him, in this box that he buries in the pit of his stomach. It still manages to spill out when he's not paying attention, but—

(Hoseok drifting into the living room, hair all soft and messy from having just woken up and voice this sort of combination between raspy and warm as he mumbles his plans for the day to himself)

but—

(his lips jutted out into a small pout because he can't seem to reach something on the top part of one of the cupboards, tugs Yoongi into the kitchen like he could do it for him, though he just ends up helping him up by his waist, the touch quick but Yoongi swears it leaves imprints on the skin even after he's let go)

but—

(the little stars in his eyes that appear whenever he looks at the others, like they're stars themselves. makes him want to be able to look like that to him as well, bright molten gold)

—Hoseok doesn't notice.

(He doesn't really know if that's a good or bad thing.)

Taehyung and Jimin notice, give him a steady look whenever they catch the ends of the vines peeking out that says, why are you doing this to yourself?

(He doesn't really know that either.)

The heat of the hotteok in his hands bleeds through the wrapper around it and melts into his skin, leaving the rest of his body to suffer in the cold. Winter maintains its grasp on Daegu, snowflakes floating down to the cement around his feet in a flurry, covering the ground in lumps of white. It's gotten better now, at least compared to what it was like when he first arrived. Spring is coming soon, after all, and he can feel the slight hint of it in the air, soothing the cold ache in his bones.

Hoseok pauses beside him to throw away his wrapper into the trash can in the middle of the sidewalk, and he looks over as he takes another bite of the hotteok, warmth spreading throughout his mouth. Hoseok looks back at him when he pulls it away. He rests a hand on his stomach as his eyes fix on the snack.

"Do you think they'd give us another one if we went back?"

"Yeah, I mean," he rocks back and forth on his heels, and Hoseok's eyes follow his hands up and down, "I doubt they'd refuse your money."

"They probably ran out," he mumbles, almost distractedly, "y'know. With all the people." He lifts his shoulders into a shrug before falling silent as he continues to stare. Yoongi stares back at him.

He brings the hotteok closer to his chest. "I'm not giving you mine, if that's what you mean."

A small disappointed pout appears on his lips, and he turns away as Yoongi continues eating. As he's turning, his gaze snags on something above his head, and he pauses. Yoongi quirks a brow when the silence persists, and Hoseok opens his mouth to say something, but the words come out muddled as a large group walks past the two of them.

"What?"

Hoseok shakes his head and juts his chin towards something above his head. He twists around to see that he's gesturing to a small tattoo shop. He blinks as he takes in its exterior, finding it familiar somehow. He ends up in this area a lot when running, so he probably came across it a few times.

"Your bucket list."

He takes a pause, brows scrunching up in confusion because he doesn't remember saying anything about getting a tattoo, but— but then, it clicks in his head, and he turns to face him.

"You remember that?"

Hoseok seems unfazed as he nods and asks, "Do you still want to get one?"

Yoongi blinks again. He never took the time to think about it in detail, despite what he said then, never thought about what kind of tattoo he would like to get or where, nevermind who he'd get it with. Hoseok looks at him like he's waiting for him to say something.

"With you?"

He shrugs. "Sure. I was planning to get another one, so."

There's a silence as Yoongi considers. Hoseok shifts, the movement something close to nervous.

"But only if you’re okay with that, you don't have to if you don't want to. Sorry, I don't mean to pressure you into it. I could—" He takes a tentative step back, like he's trying to retreat from the conversation— "I could go alone another time. That's okay, too."

"No, it's just," he starts. "I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. Getting matching ones."

Hoseok gives him a strange look, something in between confusion and relief.

"Hyung." A small smile tugs at his lips. "I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't want to."

The hotteok rests in between his hands, half finished. It burns the skin of his palms now as he continues to neglect it, but the cold rushes in between the gaps between them and the wrapper, lessening the pain. He takes a breath in, feels his lungs nudge something, and exhales as it slowly wraps around them again. It wouldn't be so bad, a part of him whispers, leaving your comfort zone. It could be a nice change.

"Yeah. Okay, let's do it."

"Yeah?"

Small clouds of white appear in front of his eyes, obscuring his vision for a few seconds before dissipating. Hoseok's smiling at him. "Yeah."

They don’t go immediately. He finishes the rest of his food by the trash can while Hoseok scrolls through his phone.

He’s a little bit nervous.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to do this. It’s more like he never got many chances to when he was in Seoul, had to get his first one somewhere that the company wouldn’t be able to see as easy. They were always sort of scared of the prospect of a picture of him being leaked, despite how low the chances actually were of that happening.

Their focus shifted from his appearance to his lyrics eventually, subtly. Yoongi noticed it, though, when they slowly started to reject more and more of his ideas because they were too risky, the fans might not like this, nevermind the critics. His songs became more censored, more generic. The weight on his chest grew heavier.

It built with every lyric change, every album release because he didn’t know what it was to him anymore, couldn’t tell if it actually meant anything at all. To him, to anyone. It built and built until something just snapped.

(Yoongi never told Seokjin, but he knows he figured it out before he even realized it himself.)

He doesn’t notice he’s just been staring at the ground until Hoseok nudges his shoulder, takes the empty wrapper for him and drops it into the trash. He looks up.

“Let’s go?” It inflects at the end, more of a question than anything. Yoongi nods after a beat.

He takes him to another studio not too far away. I know one of the people there, she’s really good, Hoseok explains with a small smile. They turn down an alleyway until they reach a smaller shop, and it makes sense, with all the stigma still around it; most tattoo shops are still tucked away.

There aren’t many people inside when they enter, a small bell ringing from above their heads. The interior is warm, walls dressed in a light shade of brown and little lights hanging from the ceiling, casting hazy gold streaks across the floor. Two people rest at the edges of the room, sitting idly as they wait to be called up.

They talk quietly at the front until one of the employees comes up to them, tattoos circling up their arms and hair dyed a mellow blue. 

“Hoseok! You’re back, it’s been so long.”

Hoseok smiles sheepishly. “I meant to come back earlier, sorry.” He turns to Yoongi for a moment. “This is Yoongi, by the way. Yoongi, this is Suran.”

She glances at Yoongi and nods. “Nice to meet you, Yoongi-ssi.”

He nods back. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

She glances between the two of them. “Are you both getting tattoos, or just one?”

“We’re getting matching ones, actually,” Hoseok says, looking at Yoongi for a second and looking away. “We don’t know what we want, though.”

Suran hums and steps back, crouching down until she’s out of view. She sets a small binder in front of them when she pops up again, patting its cover. “That’s fine. I have to take care of something in the back, but you can look through this in the meantime. I’ll be right back.”

They’re eventually left to flip through it, and Yoongi sifts through the pages while Hoseok watches beside him. The samples in it vary from small sketches to large portraits, and he becomes slightly nervous when he doesn’t find anything that draws him in until he lands on the last page. His eyes scan down the sheet until they reach one of the pictures and stop.

The sketch is simple—a vine of lilies grow up the page, blooming from a bud to a full grown flower. It’s colorless, more of an outline than a full drawing, but it’s enough to put the thought in his head.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Suran says when she returns, noticing the way his eyes stick to the picture. Yoongi doesn’t look up, but he listens. “The lilies. They’re supposed to symbolize transformation. Love, too, but mostly transformation. I like to think that the transition between the sprout and the actual lilies says that it’s a process, but that’s really up for you to interpret.”

Hoseok shifts closer to get a better look when they’re done speaking, whispers more to himself than Yoongi, “That’d look pretty on you.” 

He gazes down at the picture and thinks,

This. This is the one.

Suran leaves again to prepare things for them, taking the binder with her after Hoseok and Yoongi both agree on getting it on their fingers and sign a few forms. They sit down while they wait.

They talk quietly until they’re called up some minutes later, and another employee guides them into the room where Suran stands, preparing something at one of the tables pushed up against the wall before she sits Hoseok and Yoongi down at the chairs situated in the middle of the space. Hoseok turns his head to meet his eyes, sending him a small smile as they start.

They clean off the area of his index finger first before they put the needle against his skin, where the stencil starts, and his free hand fidgets against his thigh as the sound of buzzing fills the room. It’s painful at first, when it meets his skin and pierces through it, and he squeezes his eyes shut when it starts to feel like it’s vibrating against the bone there and winces slightly, hears Hoseok wince as well.

He opens his eyes once the pain subsides, lessens until it’s merely a numb ache, and locks eyes with Hoseok. His eyes crinkle as he laughs softly, extending his other arm and opening up his palm to him, and Yoongi slips his fingers through the gaps between Hoseok’s, feeling them rest over the back of his hand and squeeze every time he lets out another wince.

(And it doesn’t hurt, not as much as his first time, but they stay like that for the rest of the session.)

When they’re done, she applies a layer of ointment to the raw skin and places a clear bandage around it, telling them what they should expect for the next few weeks throughout the whole process, before they’re back outside. Hoseok presses the pads of their fingers together, adjusting them until they connect, until it looks like there’s one long vine tying the two of them together. A smile spreads across his face.

(He lies in bed later that day, holds it up above his head. Sunlight filters through his windows, casting thick streaks of gold over the plastic, and the tattoo sparkles under his gaze, like there’s magic trapped within its lines. He presses it against his chest, right over where his lung sits, heavy and warm, feels the vines wound around it extend and latch onto the lilies.

They come to life.)

(Jimin twists his finger around, examining it once Hoseok’s fully closed the bathroom door behind himself. He looks up at Yoongi.

“Hyung.” His lips turn down into a frown, not quite disappointed, not quite sad. Somewhere in between. Yoongi doesn’t want to think about what it means. “You need to tell him.”)

“Hyung,” Hoseok calls from the kitchen, sounding disappointed, “I think we ran out of tea.”

Yoongi looks up and sees him standing in front of the sink, frowning into a container like it just hurt his feelings. He stands from the couch and slips his phone into his back pocket. “I could run to the store and get some for you, if you’d like.”

Hoseok glances at him, his hand pausing midway through placing the canister down on the counter for a few seconds. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind,” Yoongi says with a shrug.

A strange expression sets on his face as he watches him slip on his sweater he’d thrown onto the cushions of the couch. Yoongi pauses on his way to the door to turn to him.

“Which ones did you need?”

Hoseok is silent for a beat, motionless next to the sink, before he blinks and shifts. His arms move awkwardly, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them all of a sudden. “Uh—green would be great.”

Yoongi hums and continues his walk to the door, slipping his shoes on. 

He’s gotten a little more used to the neighbourhood now, knows more places than he did his first few weeks here, so he chooses to walk there. The store's relatively close to them, anyway, and he still remembers the way from the night he and Hoseok visited it.

He enters the store after a few minutes of walking through the snow, shivering slightly when the air from the vents slips past the fabric of his sweater and sinks into his skin. The employee sitting at the front glances up at him and greets him with a tired good morning before returning their gaze to the textbook in front of them, to which Yoongi just responds by nodding and picking up a cart from the stack next to the door.

The store is dead silent except for the low hum of the vents from above him and the song playing in the background, the softness of the two sounds mingling, making him feel like he’s the only one quite awake as he strolls through the aisles. The music fades out eventually, the last few notes lingering in the silence, and his eyes slide across the boxes covering the shelves until they snag on the words green tea. He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and steps forward, reaching out a hand to place the pack into his cart just as a new song comes on.

His hand falters once he hears the first few notes, fingers almost recoiling back into his palm.

It rings out crystal clear, no customers around to drown it out, and it melts into his bones, familiar despite how long it’s been since he’s last heard it. He takes a sharp inhale of air and feels it sear his lungs from the inside out, though he keeps it inside of him, lets it rot there as his voice comes over the speaker.

The bell rings from above the front door. The employee lets out yet another half-hearted greeting. Yoongi slides the box into his cart and heads to the front.

Hoseok gives him a weird look when he gets back, slipping the bag off his arm and onto the table with an expression that he guesses to be concerning enough to prompt him to ask, “Are you okay?”

Yoongi doesn’t really hear him at first. He stands still near the dining table before he feels a nudge to his side and glances over to see Hoseok standing beside him now, his spot on top of the counter left abandoned. He repeats the question, and Yoongi nods, though he can’t really tell if that’s the truth. He gives him a small smile when he hesitates, and Hoseok pulls away after a few moments, retreats back to the counter to make himself a cup of tea and offers him one as well but relents when he shakes his head.

He stays in the living room for a few minutes before Hoseok has to leave, says something about having to go to the studio to check something on his way out. The door closes behind him, and the room falls into a heavy silence. It digs into his ears, and he stands up with a sigh, heading up the staircase.

Yoongi pads into his room, listening to the creak of the floorboards as he walks to the bed and sees his headphones resting on top of the comforter. He slips them over his ears before turning to face the door again, but his gaze catches on the wall parallel to the bed mid-turn, slips down until it stops on the piano leaning against it. It all comes flooding back.

Don't you ever get scared that it'll change one day?

The song continues in his head, taking off from where it faded into mushy silence when he’d left the store, and his eyes slide across the keys, the notes so vivid that Yoongi almost wants to reach out and hold them between his hands, press them into the folds of his palms, but instead, he stays still. Instead, he keeps his hand by his side, scared of them crumbling to pieces around him, scared of not being able to put them together again like he always had.

Like, that making songs won’t be as enjoyable anymore

He remembers writing the first few measures a few months after he moved to Seoul, blissfully oblivious to how everything would turn out, and finishing it in the span of four days, releasing it only a few weeks after his debut. It was everything to Yoongi then, making music, and he was sure of that. It was clear why he was doing it, but slowly, the lines started to blur until all he could make out was a mess of feelings and thoughts and whispered words that he kept inside of him, bleeding together until he could no longer make any sense of them.

I don’t really know how I would answer that. I don’t think it’s something that could vanish so easily for me? I think that, if I stopped—

Yoongi’s a little scared, but he thinks it’s less now. It’s not quite what it had been, no longer the heaviness that settled and resettled at the bottom of his lungs, but it’s still there, albeit only a quiet ache.

If I stopped, it’d be like cutting off a part of myself

It’s something similar for him, too, Yoongi thinks. There wasn’t one singular point in time when he figured that out, and he thinks that maybe he knew it the whole time, that he was just too busy running away from everything to notice.

Namjoon had said something else to him before he left, trailing behind Yoongi to see him out. He was quiet for a while as Yoongi paused in front of the door to put his shoes back on, like he was mulling something over. He didn’t pay him any mind until he said, out of the blue, “I would start over.”

Yoongi had paused, blinking at him in confusion, before Namjoon went on, opening the door for him and stepping aside so he could pass, “If that happened. I would start over.”

The words resided at the forefront of Yoongi’s thoughts for the rest of the way home where he spent trying to figure them out, and it was only when he arrived that he realized what he meant by them. They burrowed a little hole in the back of his mind where they could rest, coming out at night when his room was dark and lifeless. He thought, do I get to start over again, too? He thought, can I start over again, too?

It returns to Yoongi now, and instead, he thinks, running doesn’t help. He thinks, running make it worse. He thinks, I want to start over again, too, and it’s enough. 

He doesn’t notice that he’s already started walking towards the bench until he feels the wood come into contact with his knee. His gaze flits away from the piano and down to the seat before he moves to sit down. He reaches up to take his headphones off and lets them rest around his neck, before they hover over the keys, hesitant and unsure.

If that happened. I would start over

He takes a quick inhale of air when the ends of his fingers meets them, and—they’re cold. They’re really cold, but his fingers adapt to it, positions themselves so easy that it’s almost like it hasn't been months since he last played. Yoongi pushes down with a finger, the sound that comes out resonating throughout the room, swirling around before dissipating into the air. He takes a pause before continuing. 

It’s slow; he hasn’t played this song in a while, so he lets the notes go on longer than they should to try to recall the next few measures before continuing, stilted and clunky but there, at least. Still, slowly, he starts to get the hang of it, lets it flow out of him rather than pausing to remember what to play next, and he relaxes. His fingers skate over the keys without doubt now, and he lets his eyes close every so often, lets himself be pulled under by the tide, feels it pull back in intervals before washing over him again and again, slow, fast, slow.

It rolls out from the pads of his fingers and over the piano keys, spilling onto the floor and grazing the hem of his pants, soaking it. It trickles out in a steady stream until it feels like his legs have been submerged, and he waits for it to stop, for it to die out into nothing, for it prove itself to be just his imagination, but it never comes. And he sits there, and he plays and plays until it feels like there’s an ocean inside of his chest, all of his thoughts and feelings bleeding into each other, into this glistening blue, pushing and pulling. Healing, this time, too. 

It slows, eventually, calms down until it’s nothing but a gentle strain, and he lets his eyes open, breath fading in and out in the background like a metronome. It lasts like that for a few seconds while he watches the sunlight flicker over the back of his hand, tendons flexing and easing under its glow, before it comes to an end. He sits still as the notes seep into the floorboards, keeps his hands bent over the keys for a few seconds longer, stares for a few seconds longer and searches for any remnants of the heaviness that might’ve settled in between the curve of his ribs when he wasn’t paying attention. He finds nothing but calm.

(I’m going to start over. I'm going to get it right this time.)

Yoongi takes another breath when he hears a clatter come from somewhere behind him, jumps on the bench and slides off in the process. Hoseok stares at him from where he’s standing in the doorway, eyes wide and back bent slightly like he had been trying to pick something up before Yoongi noticed him, and his gaze darts down to the floor to see the keys he had dropped. They go back to him.

They stare at each for a long time before Hoseok finally speaks. “Shit, sorry. Are you okay?”

Yoongi just stares. Hoseok clears his throat.

“I forgot my keys to the studio, so I came back. I found them, by the way.” He pauses in between the words to crouch down, picking up the pair of keys before standing up. He holds them up with a small sheepish smile, shaking them slightly, causing them to clink against each other. Yoongi blinks, and he stops after a few seconds, clearing his throat again. “Anyways. I heard noises coming from your room, so I came and saw you. Sorry if I was intruding; it looked private, but I couldn’t help but listen.”

He just stares at him for a little while longer, watching as his eyes search around Yoongi's face, before shaking his head slowly, blinking. “You’re fine.”

Yoongi stands up from the ground, dusting off his clothes when he feels Hoseok step closer. He looks up, startled, as he places a hand on the curve of his cheek, grazes his thumb up and down the skin below his eye, and only when he does that does he notice the slow tears falling from his eyes. Hoseok looks down at him, eyebrows bunched together, and he stares back, breath hitching in his throat because they’re so close to the point where he can just barely feel his breath fan against his face, can see the way his lips are just slightly parted.

“You’re crying,” he notes in a soft voice, and the words come out slightly airy. Yoongi can’t tell if it’s because he probably hurried back from the bus stop to get his keys or the lack of distance between them. His hands pull away from him, but he doesn’t take a step back.

They look at each other for a long time. He’s so close.

(Yoongi thinks he might do something he’s going to regret.)

“The studio,” he breathes out, and Hoseok blinks, expression twisting into something like confusion before it twists again, like he just remembered that, and he takes a step back. His chest loosens with a tinge of relief, yet a part of him almost wants him close again, close enough that if he were to tilt his head the slightest bit, they would meet in the middle.

Hoseok hesitates like he wants to say something, worries at his bottom lip before just saying, “I’ll see you later?” and if it was another day, he would respond with something light. I live here, I don’t really have a choice. But it’s not, so instead, he just nods. His eyes linger on him for a few seconds longer before he nods back and disappears into the hall.

He releases the breath he had trapped in his throat and drops his head, stares at the floorboards.

Jeongguk drops onto the booth in between Yoongi and Namjoon after a few songs and leans over to grab a bottle from the table in front of them before Namjoon stops him with a hand. He pulls him back and whispers something that sounds a lot like presentation tomorrow, don’t drink too much, fingers ruffling his hair. Jeongguk hums, and Yoongi’s gaze slides across the room until it pauses on Hoseok for a few seconds, who busies himself with the task of choosing a new song to play. He nurses his bottle of soju to his chest, brings it to his lips every few seconds.

The room slightly spins around him as he stares up at the disco ball twirling around from where it hangs from the ceiling, makes him feel a little bit like he’s going to throw up, but he tries his best to keep it down. They haven’t been here for long, but he can tell that the others are probably already past tipsy too from the way they move around, languid and loose. Bright blurry dots litter the walls and floor, flickering as the globe spins and spins, glimmering and glistening under the weight of his gaze.

They met up with the others about an hour ago, originally just to walk around and eat because it was going to be the last warm night for a while, at least until spring, so they wanted to take advantage of it. They ended up walking for a little while before coming across a karaoke place at the edge of Namjoon’s neighbourhood and—despite Yoongi’s protests—booking a room there. Hoseok sang a few songs by himself before he pulled Jeongguk up from the couch, singing a few more with him and switching out with some of the others when they got tired. Yoongi just watched from the couch.

He tilts his head back now, presses the rim of his drink to his lips, but only a few drops come out. A frown tugs at the corners of his lips as he peers into the bottle and sees it’s empty, but he’s pulled back by the sound of Hoseok announcing something into the microphone. He looks up just as he presses play, sees the song on the screen before he hears it.

His body goes ice cold before the speakers even have the chance to come back on, hears the first few measures and closes his eyes as he presses his forehead to his knees, face hidden in the crevice between his chest and his thighs. There’s a tap on the top of his shin, and he peeks up to see Hoseok grinning down at him, microphone outstretched, and he thinks to himself, almost like a wish: god doesn’t have this sick a sense of humor.

Taehyung sends light punches against the side of his leg, mostly conscious now, egging him on, though he can barely catch what he’s saying, elongating the syllables until they’re almost incomprehensible. Jimin, who rests against his shoulder, stirs awake, head sliding a little bit off of Taehyung every time he moves.

“C’mon,” Hoseok half-shouts over the music, wraps a hand around his forearm and pulls him up from the couch and to him. He feels his grin against the top of his head. “It’ll be fun. Promise.”

Something moves around in his lungs as he leads him to the front and hands him the microphone, leaving his side for a moment to retrieve the one he had left on the edge of the table, familiar in its heaviness. He wills it to still, but it only becomes more noticeable, sees it in the way his hands fidget with the microphone idly. Hoseok restarts the song, and the intro starts up again.

The start is a little long—which was planned. Hoseok sends him a smile before lyrics show up on the screen, puts the microphone in front of his lips to sing first—and that feels planned, too.

He could back out if he wanted to, could give it back to Jeongguk, but Yoongi knows that he can only keep the facade up for so long. There will come a day when he can’t lie anymore, to anyone. Pictures will be released, and people will know. They will know.

And he trusts them, anyway, he thinks as Hoseok looks over at him, smiling obliviously bright. Taehyung gives a weak whistle as Hoseok’s turn slowly comes to an end, Namjoon and Jeongguk nodding their heads to the song as they watch.

He takes a breath.

And raises the microphone to his lips.

His eyes close as he sings the words, doesn’t need to see the lyrics when he knows them by heart. He stares at the black, feels his body sway and regain its balance, hears the slight whispered curse even over the music, and his grip on the microphone tightens. 

It expands in his chest, strong enough to break away from the vines filling the empty spaces of it, and Yoongi almost doesn’t want to open his eyes when it’s Hoseok’s turn again, but he does anyway. He blinks a few times as his eyes readjust to the flickering lights before he sees them all staring at him, eyes wide and mouths a similar size. Hoseok is silent even as the song continues, and he squirms under their gazes, feels more exposed than he wants to be.

“You’re—” Jimin starts, fully awake now, though the words die out before he can finish his sentence. Yoongi doesn’t know what else to do but give a small nod, and Namjoon makes a small noise in the back of his throat, hiding his face in his hands, abashed.

The song fades into cramped silence, and Yoongi holds the microphone to his chest. He keeps it there for the entirety of his explanation.

(He can feel Hoseok’s eyes on him every once in a while throughout the rest of the night, hovering.)

They stay there for a while longer, and it’s awkward at first when they skitter around him, hesitating in between words when they talk to him, but the rest of the night goes smoother as they grow comfortable around him again.

They end up calling themselves Ubers when they decide it’s time to go, not sure they’re sober enough to walk back home, Taehyung with Jimin, Jeongguk with Namjoon, and Yoongi with Hoseok. He watches, standing beside Hoseok near the curb, as Jeongguk slips into the car after Namjoon, waving before he closes the door behind him. A silence falls on them once they’re alone, persisting even after their own Uber has arrived.

Yoongi slides in first, sitting at the far left of the car so that Hoseok has enough room. He gets in after him, sits at the far right and closes the door, though he still doesn’t move when the car starts up. The seat in between them sits empty, and it feels almost foreign to Yoongi, how far apart they are. It feels weird in a way that he doesn’t like, scares him slightly because it feels like the start of something. He pushes it out of his mind.

The silence finally breaks when they’re halfway through the drive.

“Why didn’t you mention it?” The words are nothing more than whispers, but Yoongi manages to make them out over the low rumbling of the engine. It’s vague, but he knows what he means.

Why didn’t you mention you're Suga?

He looks over at the sound of his voice. Hoseok’s staring at him, expression something between confusion and hurt, and—Yoongi really doesn’t want to have this talk right now.

“Let’s not talk in here,” he whispers back as he takes a quick glance at the driver in front of him, but he continues, a little less sober than he thought.

“You know I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

His stomach fills with worry, feels it creep up his spine, whispering in half-coherent fragments, can’t, it’s enough you told them, Seokjin, how would he react?

“I know, I know. Seok-ah, it’s just.” It grows and grows until it feels like it’s poking at his skin, and— “Look, it’s just not something I like talking about.”

The words come out sharper than he intended, and he can practically feel Hoseok flinch from the other side of the car, wishes then that he could pluck them out of the air where they linger, make them a little softer. He grimaces slightly, curls into himself slightly. Sorry, he whispers as they turn the corner, only a mile away from their place now, Seok-ah, sorry. M’just— tired.

Hoseok is silent for a moment before nodding in the corner of his vision. It’s okay.

(He can’t help but think to himself as they turn another corner, trails his hands up and around his sides, digs his fingers into the flesh, it’s so cold.)

A distance grows between them. It’s subtle, but he notices the shift, finds himself noticing it more and more as the days pass. He sees it in the way he pulls away from his touch, shying away whenever he’s a little too close, sees it when he hesitates in the middle of talking to him, midway through a retort when he just suddenly stops, grimaces and retreats from the conversation. He sees it in the silence that lingers between them.

He sees it again when they’re on the couch one day. They have Kiki’s Delivery Service on, ignoring that it’s the third time in a month that they’ve watched it. They’re near the middle of it when he feels Hoseok’s head dip to rest on his shoulder, and he blinks and looks down. Hoseok stills, like he just realized something, and pulls away almost immediately after. He almost shrinks when he’s properly sitting up again, and Yoongi notices the exhaustion in his expression.

He heaves a small sigh before bringing up a hand to pull him back to where he was before, whispers scoldingly under the sound of the movie playing in the background, though there’s no malice behind it, “If you’re tired, just tell me, Seok. I don’t mind.” He wants to say more, but he doesn’t, just hopes that he hears what sits hidden in between the words.

Hoseok is tense for a while, but he relaxes eventually. Yoongi's attention drifts away from the movie, away from the steam from the tea resting between his hands that kisses the curve of his face, Hoseok’s breathing mingling with the faint sound of strings playing from the TV, the warmth of the blanket covering his lap. It all turns into a faint hum, and he’s so close to falling asleep when he hears a whisper, pulls him back before he can.

“M'sorry for making it seem like you had to tell me,” Hoseok mumbles, soft and slow, like he’s close to falling asleep, too. “Didn’t have to, but m’glad you did.”

Yoongi looks down at him, pauses before saying, “It’s fine, but.” Hoseok’s breathing slows, steadies, and he rests his head against the top of his. “Thank you.”

(He wakes up later to find they’re still in the same position, Hoseok leaning against him, his faint breaths an indicator that he’s still asleep, his head on top of his. He glances down at the tea still sitting in between his palms, though it’s gone cold now, listens to the end credits play in the background.)

Things go back to normal, and it almost feels like Yoongi’s able to breathe again. He starts to play piano more regularly, which helps. He practices some old songs, tries to find ideas for new ones, though nothing really comes out of it. Hoseok watches, sometimes, when he wants, and he gets used to turning around after a session to find him lying on his bed, half-asleep.

He tries to call Seokjin every few days or so, when they both have the time to talk, though their conversations become shorter and shorter as they run out of things to say. 

Yoongi hasn’t told him about Hoseok, yet.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to, he thinks. He does. It sits in the marrow of his bones, spreads throughout the rest of his body like wildfire, how he makes him feel. He makes him feel like ground shaking, about to give way, like he might fall under any moment. Makes him feel like love, makes him think of love when he looks at him.

A lot of things changed between them after they moved to Seoul, is the thing. They managed to avoid it before, how distant they’d gotten, but it’s caught up to them now. The thought visits him every now and then when the words tangled inside of his head become too much to bear, when he tries to go to Seokjin about it before remembering, and reminds him—

isn’t this what you wanted?

reminds him—

didn’t you already see that things would end up this way?

(He wonders how he would react if he ever tells him about the past few months, about how easy he fell in love with someone he just met, how scared he is. He wonders if he ever actually will.)

Seokjin texts him one day, when he’s lying in bed with nothing better to do than to scroll on his phone. It buzzes in his hand for a second before a preview of the message shows up at the top of the screen. He taps on it.

seokjin // 9:57 a.m.
forgot to ask but
when are you coming back?
the company wants us to start working on another release

He stares at the words for a few minutes, feels those thoughts resurface and burrow its way into his head, brings a few more with it as well as he realizes:

Yoongi leaves at the end of February.

Really, he only has a few weeks left until he has to catch a train back to Seoul, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to him because he knew what he was getting himself into this whole time, and yet. Yet, he let himself hope that maybe things would end up differently, despite all odds.

He doesn’t reply for a while. Instead, he ignores it. Instead, he plays piano and gets up in the morning, tries to find new ideas for songs. Instead, he watches them crumble to pieces in his head before they could turn into anything intelligible, over and over again, almost gets used to it after a while.

Instead, he stops playing for a while when he can’t see past anything but his mistakes and the bin that sits next to the piano, filled to the brim with what once used to be gentle melodies, now nothing but wads of ink-stained paper.

(Hoseok gives him a steady look as he puts the cup of tea down in front of him with tentative hands. “Is everything okay?”

No, he thinks. It feels like I’m searching for something that might not even exist, and I know this feeling isn’t forever, but it feels like it. It feels like it, and I’m scared.

“Yeah, my head just hurts,” he says.)

instead—

He draws the blinds shut until his room sits in darkness, stares up at the ceiling until his vision fills with splotches of gray and black, pretends that time is still.

instead—

He sits on the floor of his room when he’s alone, holds a hand to the center of his chest and tries to breathe, thinks, everything is so exhausting. Thinks, I’m losing hope in this.

instead—

He stops running for a while. He stops doing anything for a while, really, and it scares him, at first, because he knows nothing good ever comes out of this, but he can’t seem to muster up the energy to make everything fit back into place.

(seokjin // 8:21 a.m.
yoongi?)

instead—

He watches as the sea inside of his chest dwindles into nothing but a small tide, watches as it ebbs and flows, pushes and pulls.

(seokjin // 3:29 p.m.
just.
text me back when you can
please)

instead—

Yoongi watches the sky rise and fall through the cracks between the blinds, all manners of gray, and gets tired of it all after a while, thinks to himself, an old refrain, I can’t keep doing this.

He opens the blinds and keeps them open, even when his eyes start to ache a little from the light. He goes out with Hoseok when he can, thinks it helps somewhat, seeing more than the darkness that presses against the walls of his room. Thinks it makes a little worse sometimes, too.

It’s not quite spring yet, somewhere preceding it, deep into winter where violent winds still rush through the city, and the moon still sits at the fringes of the sky, waiting for its turn to rise. Yet, at the same time, spring peeks out from where it’s been hiding for the past year, trees at the edge of blooming now, buds scattered about their skinny branches.

Things come back to life outside in slow motion as he watches melodies come undone in his hands.

(dread sinks further into his skin with every second that passes)

Yoongi feels the press of Hoseok’s arms on the dip of his shoulders, and he turns to meet his eyes, a pool of warm brown, sees his own reflected in them. They close for a moment as he half-whispers, M’gonna go get some food for breakfast. Yoongi hums, and Hoseok slips away, disappears into the hallway, his footsteps a muffled pitter-patter against the wood of the stairs.

He looks back at the keys, the thin stripes of orange that settle over them, folding and flickering.

He lets out a small sigh and presses the heel of his hands to his eyes, rubs away the exhaustion trapped behind them before bringing them down to the keys once again. They curl over them in an instant, and he presses down at random, travels back and forth in a kind of slow descent into chaos. He closes his eyes and lets his hands move on their own, notes swirling around in arbitrary intervals and bleeding into each other, and—

Yoongi pauses for a moment and opens his eyes to look down at his fingers. He repeats the last few chords, slow, mind buzzing back to life. He continues to play, chord progressions and little harmonies seeping out from his fingers, and it’s a little rough at parts, but—it’s something. He plays and plays and gets a little scared, but—it doesn’t stop. It grows again, high enough to submerge the edges of his ribs, and it stays there.

He hears a creaking later, when he starts to feel a little less awake and a little more like slipping out of consciousness if he goes any further, so he stops. A knock follows the sound, and he turns to see Hoseok’s head pop into the room, fingers folded over the doorframe.

“Hey, it’s a bit late for breakfast now, but,” he says with a sheepish smile, stepping inside, “we can just make lunch. Are you busy?”

Yoongi draws his hands back and looks down for a few seconds, lets the weight of his exhaustion finally fall onto him, notes how heavy it’s gotten since the morning and shrugs.

“Not really.” He pulls the fallboard down over the keys, flattening his palms over his thighs and turning his attention back to Hoseok, who grins now.

“Great,” he holds up the bag wrapped around his wrist, “‘cause I’m gonna need some help with this.”

Yoongi doesn’t play the rest of the day.

He makes stew with Hoseok, which takes up most of their afternoon because they ran out of the one thing they needed to make the stew with, but despite improvising, it doesn’t end up that bad. It’s just a little saltier than he’d like, but he can ignore it.

They eat at the table, slipping into a comfortable silence as they fill their bowls. Yoongi looks up as Hoseok sits back down, and his eyes catch on his plate, lips quirking downwards.

“Take some more,” he says as he nudges the pot towards him, “that’s barely anything.”

Hoseok looks at him for a moment and pushes it back to where it was before, shaking his head. He sends him a small smile, eyes crinkling with something he pushes out of his mind.

“I have a thing with my dance friends later, I’m just saving room. Don’t worry,” is what he says, a sleepy murmur despite the fact that it’s almost the middle of the afternoon, as he leans over his bowl slightly to take a bite.

Namjoon texts him later, when they’re done, reclining on the couch, their knees slightly knocking together because of the lack of space. They don’t talk, comfortable with just sitting in each other’s presence.

namjoon // 2:55 p.m.
yooongi

yoongi // 2:57 p.m.
r u drunk

namjoon // 2:57 p.m.
eh im only  like
a quarter fot he way there

yoongi // 2:58 p.m.
yeah i can tell
what did you need?

namjoon // 2:59 p.m.
u to finally  come over
we can drink beer and talk, yk
if that sounds appealing

yoongi // 2:59 p.m.
if we skip the beer part, sure
jeongguk told me you already had two bottles this week and im not looking to add to that number

namjoon // 3:00 p.m.
well,,yea

yoongi // 3:00 p.m.
joon it’s monday

namjoon // 3:01 p.m.
ok tell me that when u haven’t drank 2 times that amount in coffee
hoseok should really stop enabling you btw, but
fine

yoongi // 3:02 p.m.
you know, for a second there, i was really considering turning down that invitation
but im gonna be nice
ill be there in, like, five minutes

He locks his phone and slips it in the pocket of his sweatpants, a faint frown flickering on his lips, though he knows it’s not genuine, that he’s missed their discussions. It’s been a while since he’s seen him. It’s been a while since he’s seen any of them, actually, other than Hoseok. He almost feels bad, removing himself from everything like that, but he stops that thought before it could go any further.

Hoseok looks up from his phone when he pushes himself off the couch, one leg slipping out from underneath his other and hovering over the floor.

“Where are you going?”

He crouches down to put on his shoes after he’s reached the hallway leading to the front door, glancing over his shoulder to look at Hoseok as he straightens up.

“Namjoon’s place to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” he says with a shrug. He takes his jacket from the coat rack near the door and slides it over his shoulders. Hoseok hums and returns to his original position on the couch, folded over his phone, legs crossed.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he says just as Yoongi unlocks the door, hinges letting out a low groan. He hums back, and they exchange a few see you laters before he fully steps outside, their conversation disappearing into the rustle of trees around him.

Namjoon, to his surprise, is not actually that drunk when he gets there, opens the door without swaying as much as he thought he would. Still, he makes sure to warm up the soup he bought on his way to his place as soon as he enters, despite his protests. They talk as he busies himself with getting a pot from one of his cabinets and filling it up with water, mostly about music. It’s different now, in a way; it feels better than it did, feels a little less like he’s lying to him.

He says he’s working on a new song, and Yoongi listens, offers some advice every once in a while but otherwise stays quiet, watching the inside of the pot as he stirs. Namjoon tries to help him with making the soup at some point, but Yoongi just shoos him back to where he was sitting at the kitchen island, giving him another glass of water to drink as he waits.

“What about you?” Namjoon asks, putting the glass to his lips as he looks up at him. “Are you working on anything new?”

Yoongi lets out a noncommittal hum from where he’s leaning against the counter, thinks about telling him but decides against it. He doesn’t really like talking about his projects when he’s in the middle of working on them, something about the expectations it adds that discourages him.

He never gets the chance to respond, though, because then there’s a violent rapping on the front door, causing both of them to start. Their eyes slide over to it as the knocking continues, followed by the sound of someone yelling, hyung open up. Yoongi hums again, turning back to him with an impassive expression.

“Were you expecting anyone?”

Namjoon shakes his head slowly, eyebrows bunched together, and looks at him. “No?”

Jeongguk’s grinning when he pulls the door open, face moving like he was in the middle of saying something, and Yoongi snorts when it falls upon seeing him there in the doorway. There’s the sound of a chair scooting backwards before Namjoon appears behind his shoulder.

“What happened?” He looks over his shoulder at Jeongguk, who gives him a betrayed look.

“You did not just forget that I was coming.”

Namjoon glances up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to remember Jeongguk ever mentioning that before a look of realization dawns on his face, fading away into a sheepish smile.

Jeongguk stays and helps Yoongi finish the soup while Namjoon lounges on the couch. They finish in a few minutes and decide to put on a movie to spend the rest of the time watching. Jeongguk chooses it, one that he says he’s been wanting to watch for a week but couldn’t because of classes, and they sit on the couch, buried under the pile of blankets Namjoon got from his room and eyes glued to the TV, their worries sitting somewhere else for the time being.

One movie turns into another and another movie turns into a marathon until Jeongguk’s fell asleep against Namjoon’s shoulder, and Yoongi has to go. He peels away from the couch and stretches his arms, his side of the blanket falling off of him and exposing his body to the cold of the apartment. 

Namjoon rolls his head over to look at him, and Yoongi whispers to him that he has to go when he regains the energy to speak. He nods as Yoongi stands up from the couch, nudging the side of Jeongguk’s face to whisper something to him once he stirs. He nods and waves goodbye to Yoongi before disappearing into the hall next to the living room. They pad over to the door, and Namjoon watches as Yoongi slips on his shoes, a series of yawns leaving both of their mouths in a sequence.

He gets back later than he intends to and finds Hoseok sprawled over the couch, leg thrown over the back cushion and a hand hanging off the side, as he removes his jacket. Hoseok rolls his head over to look at him pause in the threshold between the hallway and the living room.

“You got back late,” he notes. Yoongi just shrugs, smiling slightly as he leans against the wall, and tells him about Jeongguk coming over and watching a few movies with the both of them. Hoseok hums, and it sounds a little bit drained. He pushes himself off and walks to the kitchen, glancing at him from time to time as he sets down his stuff on the dining table.

“How was it with your dance friends?” That earns a groan from him, and he lets out a little laugh, rummaging through the grocery bag only to find the few extra servings of soup resting at the bottom.

“We drank the absolute most, and now,” he says, bringing up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, “I have the biggest headache.”

(He makes two more bowls of soup.)

He comes back to it the next morning, slipping out of bed and back over to the bench, hesitant, stiff. It takes a few minutes, but he still remembers the melody, and before he realizes it, he’s back in that flow, playing without giving it much thought. It lasts longer this time, and he doesn’t realize how long it’s been since he’s started playing until Hoseok stops by his room.

He’s in the middle of scrawling something onto a piece of paper when he hears his voice come from the doorway.

“What are you working on?”

His hand pauses in the middle of a measure, and he looks over his shoulder. Hoseok rests against the doorframe, hair drawn back into a low bun and shirt hanging off his figure, slightly slipping off his collarbone. Yoongi gives him a little smile and turns back to the keys, writing in a few more things before capping his pen and placing it on the lid of the piano.

“Just a small project.” He shrugs. 

Hoseok tilts his head a little, a hint of curiosity in his eyes as he glances at the papers in front of him. He steps forward slightly, almost unconsciously. “Could I hear?”

Yoongi doesn’t respond for a few seconds, and he steps back.

“Only if you feel comfortable, of course. Sorry,” he says, a little quick, with a wince, “you don’t have to show me if you don’t—”

“Seok,” Yoongi interrupts, giving him a warm smile. Hoseok pauses, “It’s fine. Not right now, but I’ll play it for you when it’s finished.”

He nods, returning the smile before leaving him to continue playing, going off to make himself lunch. 

Yoongi gets into a sort of groove.

He gets himself a proper notebook the next time they go to get groceries, one with measures already written in it, growing tired of drawing his own lopsided ones, and he spends the rest of his afternoon transferring his notes into it, fixing little mistakes when he sees them.

As the days go by, his room slowly descends into a sort of mess, though he doesn’t mind it too much. He sits at the bench for hours, drawing the blinds shut until there’s not a speck of light in his room, wrapping a big blanket tight around him, letting it swallow his frame and spill over the floor. Balls of paper litter the ground around the piano as a result of his shit attempts at getting them in the bin at the edge of the room, and a variety of empty mugs and paper cups occupy the lid of the piano, courtesy of Hoseok, coffee stains decorating their rims. 

(You’re literally not going to be able to sleep tonight, Hoseok says as he places another cup into his outstretched hands, giving him a concerned look when he immediately takes a large gulp of it.

Yoongi swallows and puts it down next to the army of cups populating the top of the piano, looking back up at him, Yeah, that’s. That’s sorta the point, Seok-ah.)

His hair sits askew and his glasses off kilter, slipping down his nose every few minutes, fingers smudging and staining with ink from the pen he uses to hastily scribble down notes and ideas into his notebook.

It scares Hoseok the first time he enters his room, not yet used to it.

(How the fuck can you see in this, holy shit, Hoseok says, half bent over, hand out to stay balanced.

Yoongi shrugs, in the middle of writing something down. I don’t.)

It scares Jeongguk, too.

(Jeongguk stops midway through the door, causing Hoseok, who trails behind him, to bump into his shoulder, and whispers slowly, wide eyes sliding across the room, What the fuck.

Hoseok whispers something like, Yeah, he’s been like this for days, and he blinks, another what the fuck leaving his mouth as he turns and walks right out of the room. Hoseok pats the top of his head before following him, though Yoongi just gives him a distracted mumble as he shuts the door behind himself.)

The rough days stay, the ones where his ideas take a little bit more to flow and the notes come to a halt. They linger in spite of how far into the song he is, and it frustrates him when he has to take a break from the song for a while before revisiting it.

The next time it happens, it doesn’t go away. 

He’s reached the end by now, and it should be a good thing, but—he can’t find a satisfying way to close it, is the thing. It itches at him the longer he works on it because nothing really fits, and it keeps getting longer and longer the more he avoids it, so he spends a few hours just trying to come up with an ending. He gives up halfway in, settling for an ending that’s not entirely satisfying but is good enough, and goes downstairs when he’s done.

He has to close his eyes for a few seconds when he reaches the bottom step, the sunlight seeping into the room through the kitchen windows blinding him. Hoseok’s standing there when he opens his eyes, facing the counter, the light casting a halo-like glow around his frame. He pulls one of the chairs back when he reaches the kitchen and falls onto it, laying his head on the cool wood with a yawn.

“Hey.” Hoseok glances back at him, smiling when his eyes land on his hunched figure, soft and tired. “Did you finish the song?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “M’just giving it some space to, you know, breathe a little before I go in and edit it.”

Hoseok nods, looking back at the counter for a second before turning back to him, holding up a teapot now. “Want some? It’s chamomile.” He puts it back down on the counter. “We could watch Kiki’s Delivery Service for the fifth time, too, if you want.”

“Please.” Yoongi hums, and Hoseok reaches up to open one of the cabinets, grabbing another cup and placing it beside the teapot.

He gives it a few days, spending that time alone and cleaning up his room, or with Hoseok and the others, whether it’s to go out or just stay inside and talk. Editing it takes around the same time, and he feels content with the end product when he finishes, though he spends a few more hours just playing it.

The sky is a light shade of periwinkle, peeking through the cracks between his blinds and fluttering over the piano keys, when Hoseok enters his room, flopping onto the bed with a huff. Yoongi looks back at him.

“How do you still have good ratings?” he mumbles, lips pursing. Hoseok rolls over onto his side with a sloppy smile, propping his head up on the palm of his hand.

“Because they love me.” He blows him a kiss, and Yoongi rolls his eyes, turning to the piano again.

There’s a silence as he plays a piece from the song that he particularly enjoyed writing. It slows until his hands come to a stop, retracting to rest on his lap, and Hoseok hums, eyes closed.

“Sounds good, hyung.”

Yoongi smiles at him as he struggles to stay awake, hand sliding off his face every few seconds before it goes back underneath his chin. “Do you want to hear the whole song? Finished it a couple hours ago.”

At this, Hoseok opens his eyes, slow and drowsy. He nods and straightens up on the bed, legs tucked to his chest as he watches him face the piano, hands hovering over it for a second, two, and then—

It’s steady at first, almost empty in its languidness, painfully careful and calculated. It creeps up his spine and down the slant of his fingers, feels like it’s so close to splintering, to dying out into nothing but a silent scream. It feels like the space between autumn and winter, cold and dying, like the feeble promise of repair.

It speeds up a little, slowly still, carefully still, but it’s clear, the way the tone shifts into something more raw, uncensored. It grows louder, too, notes mixing together, throwing all caution to the wind until it’s turned into this growing mass, unintelligible yet mesmerizing, until it’s no longer winter, until it’s something adjacent to spring, instead, warm and blooming and burning up and alive. 

It’s slow and fast and slow, a soft melody and then one that overpowers the silence haunting the room before calming, like an ocean, the one inside of him, but as persistent as the vines growing around him, confusing but so warm and feeling. He figures it out as he plays, nearing the end, why he had such a hard time finishing it, and he smiles a little bit. It feels bittersweet.

The sky is dark when he reaches the end, a calm melody that lingers even after he’s done playing, and—he’s okay with it now, he thinks, knows that it would’ve gone forever if he kept trying to capture a feeling that doesn’t even exist yet.

“Shit,” Hoseok whispers, and he looks over his shoulder at him. His eyes are wider than they were before, more open, and there’s something flickering there, might be flickering in his own, too. A blanket of warmth settles across his chest. “You should release this.”

Yoongi smiles and says, “Yeah, maybe.”

(really means: I don’t think I will. I want to let it stay in this moment, between the two of us)

They talk a little bit more, filling the silence with their idle chatter and little melodies that Yoongi plays on the piano. Hoseok eventually falls asleep after a while, and it confuses him when he falls silent before he turns around and sees him passed out on the bed.

He stands up and pads over to him, crouching down until they're face to face. His lips are jutted out into a small pout, hair falling over his eyes and hiding them. There's something serene in his expression that pulls at his chest, all syrupy and warm. He reaches a hand out and pokes at his cheek with a gentle finger.

"Seok-ah," he whispers, watches as he stirs, the words coming out a little fonder than he intends them to, and he reels it back in before it’s too noticeable. "Hoseok, do you want to stay here or go to your bed?"

Hoseok’s eyes crack open for a few seconds, looking up at him, before they close, and he nods his head with a faint hum. He blinks and smiles. “That doesn’t really tell me anything, choose one. You have two options.”

He’s quiet for a while, and he almost thinks he fell asleep again, but then there’s the sound of his voice cutting through the air, grabbing his attention in spite of how hushed it comes out. 

“Here.”

Yoongi hums and pulls away from him. “Okay. Okay, I’ll sleep on the couch, then.”

He rises from the floor, just about to turn around, when he feels fingers wind around his wrist, fingertips brushing the inside of it, skin hot hot against the outside. Hoseok’s eyes are still closed, unmoving, as he mumbles, “Sleep here. Easier,” and—

Yoongi almost doesn’t say yes. He thinks about it for a few seconds, sharing the limited space of his bed for the next few hours, tucked into the spaces of each other, and he almost says no, but a part of him whispers, friends do this, too, it doesn’t mean anything. he doesn’t have to mean anything by it.

He steps back towards the bed and curls up in front of him, limbs tensing when he fully realizes how much space there really is for the two of them. Hoseok’s chest presses against his back, expanding and contracting and then pushing against him once more. He thinks that he should be cold, no blanket to cover them, but the warmth coming from Hoseok is enough to keep the cold at bay, and he falls asleep in a matter of a few minutes, the soft rhythm of his breaths gently tugging him to oblivion.

When he wakes, there is light and the resting face of Hoseok, the subtle pressure of him pressed up against Yoongi, his hand thrown over the dip of his waist, another somehow caught in between the strands of Yoongi’s hair, his ankles that tangle with his own. 

There’s that feeling again, too, the one that feels like there’s not quite enough air in his lungs.

jeongguk // 1:21 p.m. — hoseok’s very top secret birthday party committee
i’d like to direct everyone’s attention to the task at hand:
planning hoseok’s birthday party

namjoon // 1:23 p.m.
are we really gonna make a whole new chat for this

jeongguk // 1:24 p.m.
personally i think

taehyung // 1:24 p.m.
it’s confirmed guys

jimin // 1:24 p.m.
oh myg od

jeongguk // 1:25 p.m.
this is
this is great. MOVING on.
personally i think that we should make it fun and have it be a surprise
so, it would be great if none of u let it slip to hoseok that we’re even planning this
and yes, that goes for u too, mr. worldwide

yoongi // 1:26 p.m.
tell that to taehyung

taehyung // 1:27 p.m.
personally im not very amused

yoongi // 1:28 p.m.
ok.

jeongguk // 1:28 p.m.
what id really like to know is where the handholding is
do you want me to lose my money

taehyung // 1:29 p.m.
but how would that,.,,how would that even work

yoongi // 1:29 p.m.
it wouldn’t that’s why it doesn’t count
right jeongguk

jeongguk // 1:31 p.m.
r u trying to intimidate me
bc if u are, it’s not working

yoongi // 1:32 p.m.
fuck off

jimin // 1:33 p.m.
oh actually that reminds me
and hear me out:
what if we get a cake and write “ily” on it with frosting and, like,
have yoongi hold it

yoongi // 1:34 p.m.
no
also? what part of “fuck off” made you think of that

taehyung // 1:35 p.m.
i second that motion

yoongi // 1:35 p.m.
ok fuck off
,,
ah

jimin // 1:35 p.m.
what part of “fuck off” made you think of that, he says

namjoon // 1:38 p.m.
i do want to explore the cake idea a little more though
if you guys don’t mind

yoongi // 1:38 p.m.
i very much do mind, thanks
anyway, i wanted to talk to you guys abt smth

jeongguk // 1:38 p.m.
yes we know
u have BIG feels for hoseok
i believe we’ve already established that

yoongi // 1:39 p.m.
ok well it wasn’t about that but

jeongguk // 1:49 p.m.
pause,,
what theu fcuk did u just say to me

yoongi // 1:49 p.m.
ok ngl
i thought u all just died there for a second

jeongguk // 1:50 p.m.
well yeah
we were trying to PROCESS what u hjst threw at us
you cant just say something like that and expect us to be ok?? like what

namjoon // 1:50 p.m.
i FUCKING called it

yoongi // 1:51 p.m.
okay but actually, why and how did you all know before i did
this is actually getting ridiculous

jeongguk // 1:51 p.m.
hyung,, u got matching tattoos /and/ u wrote a song for him
i think it was pretty obvious

yoongi // 1:52 p.m.
how’d you know that was for hoseok

jeongguk // 1:52 p.m.
lol u just told me

yoongi // 1:54 p.m.
i
ok wow
i think i genuinely hate you now

namjoon // 1:54 p.m.
i do want to return to that, but just backtracking—
“you all”
what did you mean by that
who did u tell before us

jeongguk // 1:55 p.m.
wait actually, yeah
now that you say that, taehyung and jimin haven’t said anything in a while,,,

taehyung // 1:56 p.m.
oh yeah
he already told us

jeongguk // 1:58 p.m.
he
he what

jimin // 1:59 p.m.
yeah we knew for like
a while now lol
im actually surprised none of u found that out earlier

namjoon // 2:00 p.m.
would min yoongi like to explain to the group why he told only TWO of its members about this

jeongguk // 2:01 p.m.
this is favoritism,,,this is literal favoritism

jimin // 2:02 p.m.
jeongguk you literally would’ve known if you had actually came to drink coffee with us
your right to complain was revoked a long time ago, GET OVER IT

jeongguk // 2:02 p.m.
favoritism
im telling u

yoongi // 2:03 p.m.
actually
i do in fact regret saying anything at all

namjoon / 2:04 p.m.
ok well. too bad. anyways
how are you gonna tell him
since im guessing that’s why we even know now

yoongi // 2:04 p.m.
what do u mean

namjoon // 2:04 p.m.
,, yoongi
you are gonna tell him right
pls answer

yoongi // 2:07 p.m.
look.

namjoon // 2:07 p.m.
YOONGI

yoongi // 2:07 p.m.
FUCK OFF IT’S NOT THAT EASY

namjoon // 2:08 p.m.
oh my god

jeongguk // 2:08 p.m.
he’s doomed
hyung ur doomed

yoongi // 2:09 p.m.
i hate all of you
SM

jimin // 2:10 p.m.
so WHY DID U TELL US THEN
LIKE
U SAY ONE THING AND MEAN SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY

jeongguk // 2:11 p.m.
so i can see that we’re all getting a little bit heated

yoongi // 2:11 p.m.
FUCK OFF

jeongguk // 2:11 p.m.
ok wow

taehyung // 2:11 p.m.
i just
looked away from my phone for like two seconds
why are we yelling

namjoon // 2:12 p.m.
you know what
this is fine
who even tells people their feelings anymore, we’re in the 21st century

yoongi // 2:13 p.m.
really

namjoon // 2:13 p.m.
NO??

yoongi // 2:14 p.m.
some for reason
i thought u were actually serious

jeongguk // 2:14 p.m.
“some for reason”
yoongs
i know ur eyes are prob strained from all the writing u do in the dark but holy shit
i didn’t know it was THAT bad

yoongi // 2:15 p.m.
no it was just from reading all of ur bullshit

taehyung // 2:16 p.m.
why is it that we can never stay on topic here
like, i feel like that’s becoming a problem

jeongguk // 2:17 p.m.
ugh ur right but
my library shift is in, like, a couple of minutes,,,,
ugh

yoongi // 2:17 p.m.
thank god

namjoon // 2:18 p.m.
i have to go, too, but i am TEXTING you later

yoongi // 2:18 p.m.
right right

There’s a noise downstairs, and Yoongi’s eyes open, curious. The song he has playing drifts into his ear through his earbuds, on the verge of falling onto the bed next to his head, though they still somehow manage to hang on. Another sound follows, something like a clatter, has his brows draw together and his spine straighten as he lifts off the bed.

Hoseok is standing next to the coat rack when he reaches the floor of the living room and looks to his right, busy peeling off various layers of clothing and hanging them up. He goes to say something but stops when he notices that, by his shin, sitting on the platform the kitchen is built on, there’s a small heart-shaped box, dressed in a sparkly red, and on top of it, a bottle, filled with a shade of red so dark that it almost appears as black.

Yoongi checks the clock next to the fridge and blinks. “You’re back early.”

Hoseok starts at the sound of his voice, halfway through taking off his scarf, and spins around to look at him. He exhales soon after, body visibly losing all of its tension, and brings his hand down to his chest for a moment before properly dropping the scarf onto one of the hooks. “They cut the meet short, something about Valentine’s.”

He blinks again and looks back down at the small pile on the kitchen floor. Hoseok follows his gaze and shrugs, like he doesn’t remember how they ever even got there, before grinning at him.

“One of my friends thought we were dating, y’know,” he says, picking up the wine bottle and turning it around, the light from the window reflecting off the glass. “I think it was because I kept mentioning I lived with someone. He gave me this for the both of us.”

Hoseok steps onto the platform after collecting the box and places them both on the table, walking past to get to the sink where he reaches up into the cupboard above his head and grabs two wine glasses, while Yoongi just busies him with trying not to overanalyze the first sentence. Just barely manages it.

“I kinda feel guilty, though,” he continues when he’s done rinsing them off, “letting them go to waste. So.”

Hoseok turns and walks back to the dining table, Yoongi following him until they’re both standing on opposite sides of it. He struggles a bit with getting the cork off the bottle, and he just watches as they lapse into silence, very much confused, though he just lets Hoseok focus.

He does eventually get it open, and the cork falls onto the table beside the box with a small pop, a slew of mumbled curses leaving his mouth before he resumes. “Anyway. I didn’t have the heart or the small appetite to tell him the truth, so. You’re going to be my valentine now.” He gives him a closed smile.

“Do I get a choice?”

He shakes his head. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p.’ He pours the wine into their glasses and gives him his when he’s done, nudging him into the living room with the chocolate in hand, though he leaves the bottle behind.

He puts on a song after they situate themselves on the couch, sitting on separate ends of it and eating from the box in between them, and Yoongi gives him a look as he hums to the sound of the trumpets in the background, eyes closed and lips stretched into a satisfied smile. 

(he wonders if there would be sunlight dripping from his fingers if he touched the tips of them to his lips.)

Yoongi looks back up.

“I feel like you’re a little too invested in this.”

Hoseok hums again, though it’s not to the melody this time, and says, though it lacks any hint of regret, “You’re right, this was actually my way of confessing the whole time. I would say I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but—” he shrugs.

“Wow,” Yoongi says dryly, “how could I ever say no to that.”

Hoseok opens his eyes to grin at him, tilting forward to take another chocolate, though he holds this one in front of Yoongi’s lips. He blinks down at it with a confused look.

“Which is why you should take this chocolate, y’know, as a way to properly say yes.”

It hovers in front of him a few seconds longer before he leans in, a little tentative as he sinks his teeth into it, pulling back a little quicker than he means to. Hoseok doesn’t notice, though. Instead, he grins once more and steals the next piece Yoongi picks up, his lips scraping the pads of his fingers, a little satisfied hum sounding from the back of his throat, makes him feel a little dizzy as he leans away.

It goes like that for some time, making a few jokes here and there as they consume the entirety of their glasses, and with every minute that passes, the more his attention starts to drift.

Drift to Hoseok’s fingers when he gives him more of his pieces of chocolate despite it not being necessary, slightly sticky as they melt in his hands. To his lips whenever he steals Yoongi’s, how they slightly graze fingers again and again, and—it’s fine. This is fine. He’s learned to hold it back by now, and after all, it’s not like it’s any different to how they usually are.

(It’s different.)

Hoseok laughs at something, though he doesn’t know what, eyes crinkling soft and almost fond, and a spark lights up in his chest. He looks away quick and reaches over to take his glass from the coffee table, bringing it to his lips. He tips his head back but frowns when nothing but a small drop slides down his tongue, pulling back. He places it back on the table and stands, mumbling to Hoseok that he’s going to get a refill when he asks.

He, of course, doesn’t get as much as five steps in before he stumbles on the platform and falls to the ground, and—it really shouldn’t be a surprise to him at this point.

Yoongi doesn’t try to get up this time, just rolls onto his back and wallows silently, Hoseok’s footsteps slowly growing louder as he walks up to him. His face appears in front of him for a few seconds, floating somewhere above his own, far away, until it’s not so far away, until he stumbles as well and lands on his chest.

He lands firm against his diaphragm, and the air he managed to regain rushes out of his lungs on impact, leaving Hoseok’s as well. They blink at each other for a moment before his face breaks into a sheepish smile and a soft laugh escapes his lips, chest shaking with it.

“Fuck, how do you do that every day?” The words vibrate against his sternum and the skin of his neck as he hides his face in the junction between it and his shoulder. He pulls back to look at him, smile still there, though their laughter has quickly melted away.

Hoseok’s legs straddle his own as he presses against Yoongi, elbows on either side of his head, only inches away from him, though every part of their bodies melt into each other to the point where he can’t tell where he starts and he ends.

He stares at him for a few seconds, minutes, lets his eyes trail down the planes of his face, taking him all in: the soft slope of his nose, the hair that slips from behind his ear and tickles Yoongi’s cheek, the deep, dark brown of his eyes. They stop at his lips and stare at the reddish pink plush of them for a few minutes longer than he should, starts to wonder if they feel as soft as they look like until he can’t quite get air back into his lungs.

(he wonders if he can see the blood slowly trickling across the floorboards.)

Hoseok stares back with a strange look in his eyes. His breath, which he expects to be ghosting his face in slow intervals, isn’t there, almost as if he’s holding it, and Yoongi is far from being drunk, but he almost convinces himself he is as the distance between them grows slimmer and slimmer, even though he remains unmoving underneath him. It stops when their noses brush, something like electricity shooting up his spine at the lightness of it, has him wanting to lift up and close the distance completely, has him thinking about how easy it would be, but—

He shouldn’t do this, is the thing. This isn’t going to end well, is the thing.

(but—)

“The wine,” Hoseok whispers, almost strained, and he snaps out of his haze.

He leans away and rolls onto the floor beside him, disappearing from Yoongi’s view until the only thing he can see is the ceiling and the edge of the light that hangs from it, bright and blinding. He just lies there for a few seconds as he feels something splinter to pieces, lets it burn his eyes as he counts his breaths, a silent one, two, three.

Hoseok is standing above him a few seconds later when he finally looks away, extending a hand for him to take, and he watches it almost distantly before helping himself up, watches as it returns to his side, a little awkward, brushing off the dust on his clothes.

He should be relieved, Yoongi thinks as Hoseok walks away to pick up the wine from the table, but instead, all that he is left with is a sinking feeling. Hoseok doesn’t say anything about it, pretends like everything is normal, like it didn’t just happen, and it has him confused at first. He wonders if it wasn’t obvious to him, if he wasn’t as open as he thought he was, but it comes back to him then, how uncomfortable his words had sounded.

(The box of chocolates sit untouched for the rest of the night.)

Days pass, and Yoongi doesn’t mention it either, though it haunts the spaces between his words, heavy and lingering. Neither of them acknowledge it.

They talk and laugh and make time for each other when they can—that part’s not different, but. Something is off, and he can feel it, thinks that it’s just him some days. He talks to Namjoon when he invites him over, sometimes Jeongguk, Jimin, and Taehyung, too, when they’re free from classes, but he doesn’t tell them about it.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust them but more that there’s just this line that he doesn’t want to cross, a familiar thing. He can feel himself regressing back to his old ways as he lets it all go on longer than it should, letting everything bleed into his skin over and over again, but this time—he doesn’t try to erase the marks they leave.

Days pass, and Yoongi tries to accept that maybe he doesn’t feel the same way because that’s not the part that hurts the most, though it still pricks at his skin, little flickers of pain. What sticks with him, though, drifts to the forefront of his thoughts when he’s alone in his room, is how fast he let it get to this point, how fast his feelings grew for him, like it was spring, and everything was blooming.

It fades into winter now, cold and honest, and it should die, should wilt under the tips of his fingers, but it stays, even when it hurts to, even when he doesn’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.

Days pass, and—

(Yoongi tries to keep a distance.)

The house is dark as the five of them stand in front of the door, somewhere in between the hallway and the living room, though he can’t really tell. The only light comes from the candles sinking into the cake in his hands with every second that passes, exactly twenty-six, courtesy of Jeongguk, and Yoongi’s pretty sure it’s a fire hazard with all the wood around them, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds it steady to his chest.

They flicker every once in a while, bright, fading, and then bright again, illuminating the words in the middle of the cake with their orange glow, little scrawls of yellow frosting against a white background: happy birthday, we love you.

(It’s not that bad, Jimin argues as he puts the cake in his hands, quickly retreating so he has no choice but to keep it there. See, it’s ‘we love you’ now.

Yoongi gives him a look as Jeongguk takes advantage of his situation and starts adding candles around the message, practically beaming. Yeah because that makes a difference.)

Namjoon and Jeongguk shuffle in place in front of him, restless, and whisper amongst themselves, turning back periodically to look at Jimin and Taehyung, who stand on either side of him, in a similar condition. He can’t really see anything past their heads, despite the sheer quantity of candles decorating the expanse of the cake, but he sees the door open, light from the sunset and the street lights outside flooding into the room, waves of cold quickly following suit, and then the outline of someone walking in.

They immediately burst into shouts around them when the hallway light turns on, and Hoseok looks up at the noise, though he doesn’t have any time to react as Jeongguk and Namjoon start tossing confetti at him, most of them landing at his feet, though a few do end up snagging on his hair with a bit of effort, to his clear dismay.

(What kind of store runs out of party poppers? Taehyung complains as he sits on the floor of the living room, cutting away at small sheets of paper and turning the little uneven pieces into confetti with the help of Namjoon, who he's pretty sure is this close to cutting a part of his finger off by accident.

Oh, thank god, Yoongi says under his breath, though he still catches it, sending him a glare in between snips just as Jimin walks over to them and shoos Namjoon away when he cuts dangerously close to his hand, continuing where he left off.)

They separate eventually, part until he has a good view of Hoseok. His eyes widen when he sees the cake and all of the candles before shrinking and crinkling at the edges, face splitting into a bright smile as his eyes trail up to meet Yoongi’s.

“Who talked you into holding that?” he jokes after his eyes flit over the message on top of the cake, looking back at him with a hint of mirth.

Yoongi closes his eyes, face heating up, though he tries to convince himself it’s just because of the heat from the candles wafting over to him. “Let’s just get this over with. My neck is, like, fully coated with sweat right now.”

There’s a small laugh before he hears him step forward. Yoongi cracks his eyes open just as Hoseok’s close, his lips tugging into a tiny smile as the others sing something close to the happy birthday song, offbeat and very much offkey, though his expression is more fond than pained.

It comes to an end not long after, to Yoongi’s relief, and Hoseok’s eyes flutter open, lips forming a little circle as his breath fans over the candles. They fizzle out into nothing but tiny specks of bright orange, waves of smoke rolling out and disappearing into the air as they travel closer to the sides of his wrist, and he pulls back with a satisfied smile. They stare at each other for a few seconds until Yoongi takes a step back, Hoseok eventually doing the same.

“They’re at it again,” Jeongguk whispers to Jimin, which Yoongi catches and responds to by promptly flipping him off when Hoseok’s back is to them, taking the cake from his hands and placing it on the dining table. Jeongguk just pretends he didn’t see and follows him into the kitchen.

“How much,” Hoseok starts to ask as he stands behind the cake, extracting the candles from the frosting one by one with an expression that looks like he’s suppressing a sigh that’s growing bigger with every candle he plucks out, “did you spend on this. Because I’m very concerned right now.”

Jeongguk hums, pulling himself up and onto the table while Yoongi walks past to get to the sink, searching the drawers for something to cut the cake with. “A lot, actually, so I think your concern is reasonable.”

They all take their places around the table as he comes back with a knife in hand, Yoongi, Jeongguk, Hoseok on one side and Namjoon, Jimin, and Taehyung on the other, falling silent as he slices it into little sections, the knife disappearing into the cake in irregular intervals.

“It’s just something about the way he cuts it that’s bothering me, I think,” Namjoon says, breaking the silence. Taehyung nods.

“Agreed.”

Yoongi doesn’t even bother to look up at them. “I hope you both eat shit,” he says in a monotone just as Jimin leaves for a few seconds to get the plates, returning shortly after with a stack of them and a bag of forks.

“I call dibs on ‘love,’” Taehyung immediately calls when he places them down beside the cake, bending over to steal the top dish. Jimin makes a humming sound and looks intently at Yoongi.

“Mhm, and I think Min Yoongi, and specifically,” he adds in a sort of ominous tone, the tiny smile on his face making it all the more worse, “Min Yoongi should take ‘we.’ Right, Min Yoongi?”

“Please stop saying my name like that.”

“Say your name like what, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jimin turns to the cake, plopping the piece with we written on it onto one of the plates and handing it to him like promised. Yoongi just stares at it for a second before giving up and walking over to the couch.

He scoops little pieces of it into his mouth and closes his eyes, resting his head on the back cushion as he listens to them move about in the kitchen, talking low under the sound of cabinets creaking open and drinks being mixed. He feels the presence of someone in front of him after a while of it, though he doesn’t open his eyes to see who it is, even when he feels a violent poking at his cheek.

“You guys,” Taehyung calls, his finger still digging into the side of his face, though it’s still now, “I think he’s dead.”

He looks up at him with a scowl and swats his hand away just as someone passes by. “Fuck off.”

“Aw, hyung. At least wait a few years until your retirement.”

Jimin falls onto the floor below his feet, Taehyung following suit, and looks behind his shoulder at him to say in between bites, “Both of your hands, please. Together.” He shrugs beside Jimin and tugs Yoongi’s hand into his, twisting around slightly to reach. Yoongi makes a face.

“I thought it was Hoseok’s birthday,” he grumbles, falling over slightly every time Taehyung leans down to take a hesitant sip of his drink, accidentally tugging him forward, “not pick-on-Yoongi night.”

Hoseok stops beside Jimin to look down at the two of them, Namjoon behind him with a concerning amount of beer bottles in between his fingers. “I don’t see why it can’t be both.” He makes to take a step over them before he stops, goes back to where he was standing and squints at Taehyung when he pulls his cup away from his lips with a disgusted expression. “If it tastes that bad, why are you still drinking it?”

He looks pained as he shrugs and puts the cup down on the coffee table, and Hoseok looks away to make his way over to the spot on the couch directly beside Yoongi, rejecting Namjoon when he offers him one of the beers in his hands. Yoongi does the same, and Namjoon shrugs, distributing the rest of the drinks to the others when Jeongguk joins them, taking a seat on the other couch afterwards.

The cake, he finds as the night goes on, has an almost abhorrent amount of sugar, which doesn’t really settle well in his stomach the more he takes in, so he lets it sit on his lap for a good chunk of the party. He hands it to Hoseok, eventually, when he figures that it would be a waste to just throw it away and gives him what remains on the plate when he asks. Hoseok eats it happily, and Yoongi wonders how he manages it.

They turn the lights off when it gets later, though they keep the light over the stove on so that it isn’t complete pitch black. Jeongguk makes a joke when he comes back, sitting back down beside Namjoon and pulling his knees to his chest, says that they should keep Yoongi from going into the kitchen for safety reasons, and they laugh, tipsier than they were at the start of the evening. Yoongi just looks at Hoseok, almost unconsciously. His gaze is trained on the ceiling as he takes a large sip of his soda, not paying attention to them. Yoongi looks away.

He retreats from the conversation for a while, growing a little tired, though it’s just a subtle ache for now. They pull him back in every now and then, but he stops making the effort to stay in it. Hoseok doesn’t pay too much attention to him, only fully regards him when he groans something about not wanting to stand up and looks over, leaning against the arm of the couch.

“I wonder who could help me.” He’s quiet for a second or two before he begins to prod at his side. “Hey. Yoongs.”

“No.”

Hoseok continues. “Excuse me. Carry me over there, please.”

Yoongi makes a face. “No.”

Jeongguk looks over at him with a certain expression and dares to say, “Yeah, hyung. Carry him, what’s the problem?”

He glares at him before mumbling, low and seemingly calm, “Gonna go check the pantry for something to eat other than this, m’starving.” He doesn’t actually want anything, already ate while they were setting up, and Namjoon gives him a wary look as he stands up from the couch, aware of that, too. Yoongi ignores him.

He stays near the pantry for a moment longer after he pretends to search through it, leans his back against the kitchen counter and takes a breath in, eyes falling closed. He holds it there for a second before letting go. It leaks out from the space between his lips, and he opens his eyes.

He can see the outline of Jeongguk and Namjoon’s heads bent towards each other over the top of the couch, how they disappear every few minutes whenever either of them laugh. Jimin sits on the floor to their right side, pressed up against the other couch next to Taehyung, whose shoulder he rests his head on, eyes closed and lips up in a little smile that grows a little bit every time he adds to the conversation. A similar smile grows on Hoseok’s lips, too, as his hand swims through Taehyung’s hair, though it’s more fond than amused.

They look like they fit together so easily, and Yoongi can’t help but feel like he will lose his place there with them just as easily as he was let in, that they will slip away just as quickly as he found them, easy, like he was never there in the first place. His chest swells with dread at that because he knows that it’s more than just a fleeting thought, that it’s one that will linger inside of him, waiting until it finally crystallizes and comes to life.

Yoongi tries to breathe in the meantime.

He goes back after a few minutes pass, steps over Taehyung and Jimin and sits back down on the couch. He miscalculates the distance between him and Hoseok, though, and ends up a little closer to him than he intends to. The sides of their legs brush together as he sinks into the couch, and Hoseok takes a quick glance at him, but he doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the others. He waits for him to move away, but it never comes. 

(He learns not to tilt his face towards him eventually, pictures of wide eyes and bright fluorescent lights flashing through his mind whenever Hoseok catches him staring, force him to look away.)

The banter grows more and more hushed as the night slips by until everyone but Hoseok and Yoongi have passed out somewhere in the living room around them. They let the silence stay for a while, a little tired themselves, though neither of them make to stand up from the couch or move away from each other. He’s less tense now, the press of their legs quieting down to a silent murmur in the background, though it quickly comes rushing back when Hoseok lets out a small hum, and he makes the mistake of looking at him.

They haven’t gotten any further away from each other since he sat down, and the realization cuts through his thoughts when his eyes set on him, their faces only a few mere inches away from each other, makes him draw in a little breath. His eyes are closed, eyelashes grazing the curve of his cheeks, and they flutter open at the noise until his eyelids give way to the light and dark hues of browns that make up his iris, all bleeding into a sort of fuzzy collage, mellow and dark molten gold.

They stare back at him, and he quickly realizes that one of them is leaning into the other when the distance grows shorter and shorter, though he doesn’t know who. Yoongi thinks it might be him, and a part of him screams what are you doing as he stays there, body unresponsive to his attempts to move away, so he takes a hand instead and gently pulls his head to his shoulder, slipping past the dark strands of his hair. He regrets it after a second passes and his heart doesn’t calm, can almost hear it cut through the silence of the room, and he thinks that he must notice because then Hoseok shifts against his shoulder, almost tense. 

“Sorry, hold on—”

He pulls away from him, standing up from the couch a little quick and almost stumbles over Taehyung’s shin, and Yoongi pulls his knees to chest to let him pass. He keeps them there as Hoseok pauses, turns around to face him again, though it’s with a strange look this time.

“I’m, uh. I’m gonna get some blankets for them.” He looks towards the other couch where Jeongguk and Namjoon rest, folded together in the cramped space. “So they don’t get cold.” The last few words come out weird and almost hesitant, confuses Yoongi, though he just nods. He stays unmoving for a while longer before nodding back, something glinting in his eyes, though he doesn’t get to figure out what because then, he turns and disappears up the staircase.

(Yoongi wakes to a buzzing next to his head and the sound of bells digging into his eardrums. He keeps his eyes closed for a few minutes after he regains consciousness, groans as the noises persist before he reaches a hand up blindly to stop it, though he only ends up hitting the side of it against the mattress. A small headache blossoms across the front of his head despite not being hungover at all.

He opens his eyes and immediately squints because he has definitely not adjusted to the brightness drowning his room in gold-tinged white. A weird feeling settles on him when he’s able to open his eyes a little bigger, though everything is still hazy, not used to this much light in the morning because he usually wakes up early. He brushes it off.

The ringing comes to a sudden stop, and his mind wanders back to it. He sits up a little on the bed, little cracks sounding through the room as he twists around to see his phone sitting next to his pillow, open to his lock screen. He grows more confused as he sees the time displayed there. Usually, he would wake up around the same time Hoseok would, got used to hearing the sounds of creaking as he passed by his room to go downstairs, the sun starting to peek from behind the window’s curtains slipping past his door, ajar, and covering his frame in glowy stripes. Not quite blinding but still warm.

He doesn’t get the time to give the thought much attention, though, because the buzzing starts up again, the caller ID replacing his lock screen. Another confused expression clouds his face before he takes the phone into his hands.

There’s a small click as the line connects.

“Jeongguk?”

There’s a prolonged pause before he hears him speak. “What’d you do?”

Yoongi blinks, squinting at how clipped the words come out. “What? Jeongguk—I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hoseok is here.” He sounds a little more exasperated now than irritated, though the edge in his words is still there, and he sits up fully.

“He’s what?” The silence finally registers in his head at that moment, the lack of creaking outside his door or sizzling of food cooking on a pan downstairs enough to cause something to stir awake in him, alarmed. “Jeongguk, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m calling you,” he says with a little huff. “He won’t tell us what’s wrong, but I had a feeling it might have had something to do with you.”

Yoongi’s brows bunch up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The line goes silent for a second before he says, more serious now, “Look—whatever is going on between you is none of my business, but I’m not just going to turn a blind eye when it turns into this. You need to tell him sooner or later, hyung, or else, you two are going to keep hurting each other.”

He almost lets out a sigh as the words process in his head, certain thoughts being pushed back to the center of it, but he just slouches over, runs a hand through the mess of his hair. “That’s easier said than done, Jeongguk-ah.”

“I’m not telling you that because I think it’s easy, I’m telling you that because it’s going to be worse if you don’t.”

The words escape past the junction between his ear and the phone and echo throughout the room, and he closes his eyes, thinks, what could possibly be worse than this.

Jeongguk says one last thing when he figures Yoongi won’t respond, softer this time, before the line goes dead.

“Just. Talk to him. Please.”)

Yoongi hunches over and rubs at his eyes with his free hand, the other one preoccupied with stirring. They remain closed, burning slightly, though he only peels them open to check the stove once in a while. The soup is far from ready, a deep pool of orange-tinged water, covered up by little bits of seasoning they sprinkled on, but all he really wants to do is sit down and take a moment to just close his eyes and breathe.

His eyes slide over to Hoseok unconsciously, almost as if they have a mind of their own.

He stands a good distance to the left of him as he cuts an assortment of things on a small board, all manners of carrots and lettuce and parsley, big and small, absorbed in the motion. He knows he’s been looking at him for far too long, but he can’t really seem to bring himself to care enough to look away before he’s caught, the fatigue weighing on him too much for him to see past.

Yoongi is eventually brought back, though, when he feels a rush of pain blossom across his hand, searing. He winces loud and looks back at the pot in time to see the patch of red spreading throughout his finger, bright and angry, and the stray drops of water sliding down the side of the pot. The flame underneath it burns brighter for a few seconds when they reach the bottom, turns a bright blue.

There’s a clatter before he feels a tugging on his hand, and he looks up to see Hoseok assessing the burn with worried eyes, lips moving quickly as he chides him, though he can’t quite hear what he’s saying. He turns his finger over, and Yoongi just looks at him, too tired to argue.

It’s a strange feeling when he realizes that this is the closest they’ve been in days, to be so used to it that it’s only weird when he’s not just an arm away. They talk, still, and act like normal, but he can’t help but feel like something is unutterably wrong.

There are a few things that have changed, have been digging at his side with blunt nails, painfully drawn out. There are the mornings they spend in silence, though it’s not the kind of silence he’s gotten used to, dissolved into something strained, forced. There are the afternoons when he catches the outline of his body lingering by his door through his periphery, watching as he plays little bits of songs, too tired to play anything in full, before vanishing into his room and closing the door behind him with a small, resounding click. Yoongi’s hands would falter, then, pausing in between notes, slowing down before they came to a shaky stop. There are the movie nights, too, that have dwindled down into nothing but rejected reminders here and there.

But, he looks at him now as he holds his hand close and twists it around, over and over again, like nothing else matters more than taking away his pain, like the past week never happened, and he can’t help but forget it, too. The burn isn’t serious, not really. A few bright patches on the skin of his finger are the only things that remain as evidence of it ever happening, coloring the vines wrapped around it in a pale red, pain fading away into a dull stinging. He’s sure Hoseok knows that, too, but he doesn’t pull away.

It almost feels foreign to him, how warm it feels to be looked after.

He had a few relationships, when he was still in high school and didn’t quite know what he wanted to do with his life, when everything felt too big and unnecessary. They were short-lived and didn’t meant anything, really, but he let himself think they did. He had a few relationships, even though they never felt real to him, couldn’t figure out why.

Then, he grew up and finally realized that—they never were real, that they were only there for him to escape the bone-deep ache he’d feel in his body with every breath his lungs would suck in, no matter how big the feelings either of them had felt. It did the opposite, really, in hindsight, added on to everything and suffocated him. It suffocated them, too, and he could see it in their expressions afterwards, the relief. 

It turned into a different kind of suffocation when he moved away and started keeping to himself, like all of the water that had pressed in on him constantly just rushed into his body instead, drowned him from the inside out and every garden that had grown there. He got used to that drowning feeling after a while of it, felt it pull away sometimes, though it was never truly gone.

The thing is, this doesn’t feel like that. The thing is, this feels warm and violent and gentle. This feels like a tidal wave washing over him again and again, a dizzying rush of thoughts and feelings and want. This feels like bright colors, mixing, bleeding, a little blurry around the edges but beautiful, and—Yoongi almost lets himself hope for a second, that things will be okay, before it cracks and crumbles almost immediately, an image of eyes looking down at him, tense and regretful, appearing behind his eyelids when he blinks. Hoseok isn’t looking at him when he opens them.

you two are going to keep hurting each other

Yoongi takes a breath and says it anyway. “Jeongguk told me about the other day.” Hoseok doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, and Yoongi’s a little scared, but he continues, shaky and quiet. “If I made you that uncomfortable, why didn’t you tell me?”

His face contorts, twisting in confusion and then something like realization before it goes completely blank, and his anxiety grows tenfold in the silence, but then—

“Is that what you think I went there for?” It’s quiet, disappointed almost, and scared. A tired smile tugs at his lips as he sees Yoongi’s own expression twist, confusion apparent in it. “Do you want to know why?”

Hoseok looks away when he doesn’t say anything, lets his arms cross in front of his chest, shoulders hunching forward the slightest bit as he looks down at the floorboards. His mind sits at a standstill, exhausted, and he just waits from the impact. Braces for it.

“The night of the party, when everyone was asleep.” He pauses and just leans against the counter, unmoving, before he glances up at him. Something dances in his eyes, open and vulnerable and scared, almost, renders him frozen for a moment, too. “Yoongi, I—”

Yoongi thinks silently about how Seokjin will react when he tells him everything. How he came here just for everything to stay the same, just for him to come back to Seoul and fall back into the exact same cycle he ran from. He wonders if he’d laugh. He would, if he were him, but all he can do now is try not to feel sick.

“I thought I could ignore it for a while. And I tried to, I tried pretending like it didn’t affect me, but I— couldn’t because it did. It did, and god, I felt so pathetic because I couldn’t even look at you without thinking about the way you smile, or the way you laugh when you think nobody notices. Or how much I wanted to kiss you, and it.” He stops, takes a breath in, shaky, and Yoongi wants to step closer, make sure he’s hearing him right, but he can’t move. “It’s hurting me, and I just need to know for sure. Hyung, I need to know, if you want that, too.”

It clicks in his head for a second, and it all comes rushing back to him; the look in his eyes when he looked at him that night, strange and soft, the one that took its place when he stood from the couch, the confusion in it. How he leaned in, and Yoongi just pulled away like that—they all piece themselves together. Hoseok looks back at him, hands gripping the sides of his arms, worried eyes digging deep into his own.

He takes a step forward, brings a hand up to cup his cheek and wipe away at the drops forming in the spaces between his eyelashes with a thumb. Hoseok takes a shaky breath in and blinks at the touch, and some of them slip down the curve of his cheek. He thinks, almost distantly, about how they were in the same position once, wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t let him leave.

“If I said I did, would you let me?”

Hoseok doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, just looks at him, before he gives a small nod, and Yoongi tilts his head up in an instant.

The distance between them shrinks, closes until their chests are flush to each other, and Hoseok makes a small noise when they meet in the middle, hands going to his sides to steady them, backing into the counter. It’s quick at first, wanting, but Hoseok gives a tiny squeeze to his waist, slows it down until it’s softer, more gentle.

His eyes fall shut as he gets lost in it, feels his hands slide up up up, brush the nape of his neck, slip through his hair and tug. He hums into the kiss, and Hoseok swallows the sound, kisses him soft and open-mouthed, until it feels like everything all at once, until he’s clay between his fingers, pliant and weak-willed. Feels that tide graze his ankles, watches as it rises and submerges him, lets that feeling take over for a bit.

He pulls away eventually when he runs out of air, though he can’t find it in himself to complain. Hoseok’s eyes are just barely open when Yoongi looks at him, dazed, his lips slightly parted and swollen, and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. He lets his hands slip down to the base of his neck.

“I thought you didn’t like me.” Hoseok’s expression muddles with confusion, so he continues. “You pulled away, and I— I was so scared.”

His eyebrows bunch up before smoothing out, like he finally realized what he was talking about, and Hoseok’s fingers untangle from his hair, though he can still feel them brush the ends as they rest against his nape. “Hyung. I thought you were drunk, I didn’t want to take advantage of you when you were like that.”

“Seok,” he says when the words register in his head. “Fuck, I barely drank anything. I thought you were going to kiss me. I wanted you to, so bad, but then— then, you pulled away, and it hurt, and I thought you knew—”

Hoseok tilts forward suddenly and presses their lips together into another kiss, just as soft and tender as the first. The words die on his tongue, turn into a small involuntary gasp, instead, as Hoseok licks into his mouth. Hoseok is the one who breaks away this time, rests his forehead against Yoongi’s and whispers, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He just shakes his head with a smile, strokes his cheek with a thumb, though there’s nothing to wipe away this time. He keeps his gaze there before looking at his eyes again, those irises that melt into the warmest shade of brown, honey sweet, and the words slip out of his mouth before he even has the time to think them through. “The song I wrote—that was for you.”

Hoseok whispers a curse, eyes flashing with something as they search Yoongi’s. “You can’t just say that.” Yoongi smiles even wider until it’s more of a grin, light-headed and dizzy with it. Hoseok’s eyes lack the worry they held only a few minutes ago, now replaced with a sort of wonderment. “You like me?”

Yoongi’s chest tightens at the question, and he kisses him, once, twice, puts what he can’t quite communicate into the soft presses. Whispers, “So much.”

Hoseok breathes in, slow and steady, looks at him with so much fondness that Yoongi can’t help but feel like he’s drowning again. It feels so good.

He leans down when he lets go of the breath and nuzzles his face against the curve of Yoongi’s shoulder blade. “Good.” His lips move against his skin, a barely-there touch. “Good because I like you, too.”

Two days pass and turn into a blur, a sort of fever dream. They don’t explicitly talk about it for a while, but they return to a sort of normal. Hoseok brings it up eventually, a few mornings later, when Yoongi wakes to find him in the kitchen, preparing himself his usual cup of tea. He steps tentatively on the platform, eyes squinted at the space between it and the living room, before he’s eventually standing in the kitchen beside Hoseok, still in one piece.

He doesn’t look at him immediately. His eyes are closed as he leans slightly over the counter and stirs his tea with a slow hand. There’s this weird sensation that ripples across Yoongi’s chest, like a string pulling at his insides, pulling until they unravel. He forgets for a second before it comes back to him, and the pulling melts into a pleasant warmth.

Hoseok starts when Yoongi’s arms loop around his waist, his torso pressing against his back as he rests his chin on his shoulder, tenses. His head turns until he’s looking at him, eyes blinking open slowly, and he eases in his arms once he sees it’s Yoongi. They’re only a few inches away now, and Hoseok tilts his face towards his the slightest bit until they meet in the middle, like gravity. It’s only for a second before he leans away, a sugary sweet smile gracing his lips, and Yoongi pushes back forward almost instantly, sluggishness slowly drifting out of him.

“Hm, you’re—” Hoseok lets out a distracted hum and detaches their lips suddenly, like he got a little too lost into it, too, unwraps his hands from his waist until Yoongi’s standing back beside him, shakes a hand through his hair. “Shit, you’re distracting me.”

Yoongi shrugs with a pleased smile. “I don’t see the problem.”

Hoseok sends him a quick look, frowning playfully, before it fades. A hesitant expression quickly replaces it. “Nothing, but.” He pauses and worries at his bottom lip. His hands wrap around the sides of his cup. “We never really talked about everything.” He lets go of it with one hand and gestures to the both of them. Yoongi blinks.

“Okay, I mean.” He shrugs and steps around him to get to the corner of the kitchen, where the coffee machine sits. “We can talk about it now, if you’re good with that?”

Hoseok nods after a few beats, takes the spoon out of his cup to take a sip, puts it back in the cup with a pleased hum. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

He waits for him at the dining table while Yoongi brews himself a cup of coffee, though it takes a little longer than he means it to.

(The bag of coffee beans is placed extra high today, and Yoongi’s pretty sure it’s Hoseok’s doing, since he’s the only one who drinks coffee between the two of them. There is, also, the poorly-hidden smile he wears when he comes back to help him grab it, which instantly gives him away.)

They talk, once they float away from the kitchen and to the comfort of the couch, mugs now in hand. It’s slow and drowsy and comfortable, even though the thought of it was a little bit terrifying to Yoongi at the start, confrontation and laying his heart out for it to be poked and prodded at. He feels better, though, now that he knows he’s not alone in that feeling. They both agree that they want something that’s not just a fleeting thing, and something in his chest calms at that. There’s not much else to figure out other than that, so they drift away from the discussion, though they do come back to it once later on.

“Oh, uh,” Hoseok starts, like something he’s been trying to remember has just made it back to him. The surface of his tea ripples as he pulls it closer to his chest, splashes against the middle of the mug. “You’re not. Staying here, right? After.” The way he leans back against the arm of the couch makes it look like it’s just a passing thought, but he shifts every few seconds, and Yoongi gets the sense that it’s more than that.

The truth is, Yoongi doesn’t have an answer to that. It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it at all. It’s more than crossed his mind a couple of times, but the thoughts that would follow were never really productive. There’s something that holds him back from staying, something else that holds him back from leaving, too, though the longer he focuses on it, he thinks that they might be one and the same. 

The truth is, Yoongi doesn’t have an answer to that, but he has a feeling, bright and selfish and wanting, so he says,

“I want to.” His eyes flicker back up to Hoseok’s, and he wets his bottom lip with a quick swipe of his tongue. “I want— I want to stay,” and he means it. The words somehow feel right when they fully leave his lips, no longer just a rampant thought roaming his head.

Hoseok looks back at him just as steady. “Yeah?” he shifts closer to him, until the front of their legs press flush to each other, and the prettiest smile dances across his lips. “Okay.”

(The next few years look a little something like this—

1 and a,)

He tells Seokjin a few hours afterwards during their first call in a week or so. He answers quickly, only two rings until he hears the small beep come over the phone.

He’s silent for a while after Yoongi finishes talking, and he almost mistakes it as the line going dead, but then his voice sounds from the speaker, clear and serious.

If you need to. If you’re sure about this, I’ll support you, Yoongi-yah.

They end the call when there’s nothing left to say, and he leaves it feeling a little less like the ground’s going to give way underneath him.

The last few days of February are searching for apartments when he catches the time to, burying himself under website upon website of potential places, even when it’s two a.m., and he should be sleeping. They’re visiting a few that catch his eye, sometimes with Hoseok when he can, and growing disappointed when he sees that it’s not really all that he hoped it would be, or, if it is, when he finds that it’s already been rented by someone else. 

Either way, Hoseok takes him somewhere afterwards to take his mind off it all for a moment, sometimes the small restaurant he found when he was coming back from the grocery store one day, one where the workers greet customers by name, and hazy swirls of steam from their bowls mix into a heavy fog at the center of the room, or the park to just walk around and watch the leaves find their way back onto the trees.

The last few days of February are losing himself in lists of various apartments, going down the line until he finds another one that he likes, turning his laptop to face Hoseok, who sips his tea from across the table. Asking, doesn’t this look pretty, Seok? has a little balcony, it’d be nice, before he receives a sleepy nod, a fond smile. looks nice, hyung.

He finds one that lingers in his thoughts even after he goes to visit it, alone this time. It’s a two-bedroom apartment, nothing big, but there’s something about it that calls out to him. He doesn’t tell Hoseok, scared that he'll jinx it, but he tries looking for other ones, just in case. He knows, though, when he finds himself comparing the next one he looks at to the last, what his decision is going to be.

Somewhere in between all of that, he gets a call from Seokjin.

They’ve agreed to terminate the contract, but. I think you’re going to have to come back to Seoul for a few days, just to settle a few other things. It’d be easier.

Yoongi packs his bags. The ticket doesn’t take long to buy, so he tells Hoseok as he’s in the process of filling his suitcases with clothes and everything else he has scattered around his place. He still has a day or two before he has to go, so he goes back to sort things out with the apartment, which is still vacant, thankfully.

He can’t sleep the night before, everything he’s been ignoring for the past two days coming back to him all at once, and it feels like he’s waiting for the other shoe to fall. For Seokjin to call him back in the middle of night just to tell him that they took it back, never even really meant it at all.

The day comes and rushes past until it’s somewhere around the afternoon, and Yoongi’s sitting in the backseat of a taxi, Hoseok beside him. He insisted he come with him to the train station to see him off, said that it’s just the proper thing to do, and Yoongi gets the sense that’s not the only the reason, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows he wants Hoseok there just as much as he wants to be there.

They don’t talk, just lean into each other, fingers entwined and palms pressed to each other. It’s only once they arrive that they let go to get his stuff from the trunk, albeit only for a few seconds. Still, it’s long enough for his palm to go cold, like it’s missing something vital, but the feeling goes away when Hoseok travels back around the car and slips his hand back into his. It’s a needed warmth, he thinks.

The sun’s been out for most of the past week, but the sky is overcast when he looks up, a churning sort of gray, unpleasant and bleeding. He doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or not.

They step inside the station when they have everything, and only is that when Yoongi fully realizes how much he remembers of it, from the gray monochrome of the trains to the loud voices that press in on his ears, the crowd that fills every nook and cranny of the open space to the point where they have to weave themselves through the crush of people to get to the front. It pulls him back to when he first stepped out into the chaos, disoriented and overflowing with dread for something he could only delay.

He comes back now with a different sort of dread.

Hoseok slows down to a stop in front of him, and it’s hesitant, forced, how he places his bags on the ground. His chest feels a little tight when he realizes what he’s staring at. In the corner of his vision, he can see Hoseok’s eyes sliding over to his.

“That’s the one, right?” It’s just barely audible over the noise. Yoongi gives a small hum when he manages to make sense of it, though there must be something about the way it comes out because then, Hoseok’s giving his hand a small squeeze.

Yoongi tears his gaze away from the train quick and lets out a breath, sees the hesitance in the look Hoseok has on his face before Yoongi is being pulled to him. They fit against each other easy, too easy, and another breath escapes past his lips, shuddery and small, as his hands skate up to his upper back, slightly twisting the material of his shirt. There’s a whisper, little puffs of air brushing the side of his neck and his ear.

“It’s only a few days,” he reassures, though it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself of that. Yoongi doesn’t reply. 

There’s a shout from somewhere near them, someone calling to the flurry of people congesting the expanse of the station. People are boarding, a part of him thinks faintly, he only has a few minutes to get on, really. He should let go.

The conductor makes one last final call. 

Hoseok’s fingers lose their purchase on the dip of his shoulders, going a little loose, and slip down to his waist. 

“Go.”

He entertains the thought, pretending he didn’t hear the whisper, staying pressed to him where it’s safe and warm and free from expectation, but he knows that he can’t. Yoongi finally opens his eyes and takes a step back. He turns away, quick before he could convince the last part of him to stay, to let the train leave without him, and picks up his bags from the floor.

The train is almost as packed as the station outside, and it takes him a few pained minutes longer to find a seat before he eventually does, one right near a window in the middle of the car. Hoseok is still standing there when he sits, searching the windows for him before they lock eyes. He raises a hand. The train screeches to life, and Yoongi only barely manages to raise his own before they begin to gain speed, his outline fading away into a blur of green and gray.

He leans back into the seat and closes his eyes when they start to grow dizzy from it, slips on his earbuds. The world turns near-silent.

The two hours that it takes to get from Daegu to Seoul feel like a few seconds when he’s startled awake by the noise of passengers standing up and gathering their suitcases, quiet thumps and not-so-quiet chatter. He leans away from the window and winces when a series of cracks sound in the air, coming from either his neck or his back. Might be both, too. The exhaustion finally catches up to him from having not slept at all until now, and with it comes the regret. He grimaces.

The station in seoul, managing to prove his initial belief wrong, is filled with even more people somehow, and he’s quickly swallowed up by the masses after he retrieves his own things from the rack above his seat and steps off the train. He calls Seokjin when he grows tired of trying to see past the crush of bodies.

I’m near platform 4? I think. Where are you?

Yoongi pauses and looks up, squinting. The effort is in vain, though, head growing foggier in the mess. “Can’t really tell.” His words are met with silence. “Hyung?”

He goes to say something else before he feels a hand rest on his shoulder, and Yoongi turns around. Seokjin stands there, smiling small and close-lipped. He takes his hand back and tucks it into the pockets of his jeans. “Hey, stranger.”

His car is parked near the station, but it still feels like a mile away, the arm he uses to drag his carrier along the asphalt behind him starting to ache, as well as the bag that weighs on his shoulder. Seokjin takes them both from him when they reach it and puts them in the trunk, lets him rest in the passenger seat before getting in the car after him.

Seokjin’s eyes fix on the road once they start moving, and he starts up the radio, quiet, can barely hear it over his soft humming and the beat his fingers drum against the leather of the steering wheel. It mixes with the sound of the city around them, bleeding, white noise. 

They drive over a bump that jostles them both in the car. Yoongi looks away, closes his eyes. He doesn’t fall asleep this time.

Seokjin nudges his shoulder once they arrive, and the familiar sight of his apartment fills his vision instantly after his eyes blink open. An unpleasant feeling sets in his stomach, like his insides are turning, but he just helps him with taking his stuff up the stairs and inside without a word.

He offers to take them both, but Seokjin just moves him aside and takes the carrier from the trunk and closes it, leaving him with his bag to carry up. Still, he’s more than a little exhausted by the time they step inside and let his things fall into a little heap on the floor. He has to hold himself back from doing the same.

Seokjin observes him for a moment from where he stands, leaning against the back of his couch. “I was going to go somewhere to eat. If you want to come.”

Yoongi considers it as he looks down at his bags, then up at the rest of his apartment, at the stiffness of it. It would be better to unpack early, but he nods instead. Rubs at his eyes. “That sounds good.”

He takes him to the small noodle bar they used to frequent when they first moved to Seoul, still figuring everything out, and it hasn’t changed at all from what Yoongi remembers of it, still the same feel. It’s late in the afternoon, so they don’t spend too much time there, but it’s nice, being able to talk to him like this after so long.

Seokjin pauses when one of the employees come by, eyes dropping down to where Yoongi’s hands reach for the bowl they put on their table. He blinks a few times.

“Is that new?” he asks. “The lilies.”

Yoongi looks down at his finger. He thinks he got used to seeing them at some point, doesn’t feel that weird anymore when he catches sight of the flowers, like they were always there.

He hums in response.

Seokjin takes his own bowl and nods. “When did you get them?”

Yoongi pauses, thinks of warm hotteok in the cold and fingers tangled with his. The bowl of ramen burns slightly in between his palms. “A month or so ago, maybe.”

He hums back.

They leave when the sun starts to slip down the sky and press against the tips of the buildings scattered across the city, just walking for a while.

He tells him, at some point, that he’s seeing someone. 

Seokjin just smiles. He asks, “What’s he like?”

Yoongi can’t help but smile back. “He’s the sweetest. You’d like him a lot.”

They talk quietly as they wander around, a little more about Hoseok, though the conversation drifts to other things before they decide to call it a night.

Yoongi steps back into his apartment after Seokjin drops him off, lets the door click shut behind him as he leans against it with a yawn. He thinks idly about what Seokjin mentioned when he was stepping out of the car, something about what he’s supposed to do tomorrow, though he’s too tired to remember what right now, so he just slips his shoes off.

(Later, when he’s lying in bed, bags now moved to rest against the door of his closet, he finds a text from Hoseok, a few hours old,

hoseok // 5:38 p.m.
are you there yet?

He types up a quick response and locks his phone, stares at the screen until his eyes begin to droop, body growing heavy, until he can feel himself slipping away.)

February stumbles into March, and with it comes the meetings. His company, though they’d reluctantly agreed to terminate their contract, had never really agreed to hand over copyrights, Seokjin explains on their way to the building the morning after his arrival, and they most likely won’t without arguing back.

He’s right, Yoongi later finds out after the first meeting. They don’t so much as consider signing the paper he gives them, which isn’t much of a surprise to him, but it still manages to hit a raw nerve. He’s left to pack up the things he left in his studio afterwards, and he does so quickly, not wanting to stay there for any longer.

Seokjin drives him back when he has everything. He doesn’t say anything about the short replies he gives, or how he doesn’t talk for most of the ride, but Yoongi can tell he knows.

The meetings that follow don’t go any different, but Yoongi can see their conviction starting to crumble. He gives it time.

The rest of his days there are putting his things into boxes, all of the trinkets and furniture he’s accumulated in the past few years, talking to Hoseok while he sits on the floor of his living room and organizes everything into their respective boxes. Seokjin comes over sometimes, (when the only thing that sits with him is the silence of his apartment), to help.

He donates most of them, keeps the rest, which, granted, isn’t much, but he doesn’t mind. Everything is stored away into their own box by the end of it, his apartment completely barren, save for the mess of boxes he’s pushed to the side of the living room, his mattress, and the bags he still has yet to unpack. There isn’t much of a point anymore, though, so he just leaves them the way they are, heavy and still in wait.

The last meeting arrives on the day before he leaves for Daegu. He wakes up early and sits on the floor of his bedroom, feels the silence press in on him, unpleasant but familiar. He goes on a quick walk to clear his head and finds Seokjin by his apartment when he comes back, leaning against the passenger side of his car. He goes with a sour feeling, low in his belly.

But they give in this time, and anger pushes up to his throat when he catches we have the other artists, anyway, it won’t be too big of a hit in passing, but there’s also so much relief. He has to sit back down on his bedroom floor when he gets back and just process it, the heaviness missing from his chest.

(2 and a,)

His train leaves later in the day, so Yoongi and Seokjin spend the time beforehand heaving boxes down his stairs and into a loading truck. It takes the better part of their afternoon, and by the time they’re done, it feels like his legs have left him, and he’s just floating over the floor. The sun beats down on them, a strange sensation after countless months of cold, and Seokjin groans from where he sits on the bottom step of the staircase.

“Fuck. I forgot how much of a pain moving was. You couldn’t have, like,” he rests a hand on his opposite shoulder and makes a face, “called anyone else to help you?”

“Eh, I kinda wanted to torment you specifically,” he says, in an airy voice as he recovers against the railing.

The truck drives off after some time, and they’re left to head to the train station. His arms are a bit stiff from lugging all of the boxes down the staircase, but he tries to not fixate on that as they squeeze through the crowd and to their platform. 

Seokjin doesn’t help him with carrying his things this time, pretended like he didn’t see him holding out the carrier for him to take when they stepped out of his car, and Yoongi complains about it the whole way there, though he’s pretty sure he’s drowned him out by now. They stop by the entrance to his train, and Seokjin glances at him.

“Visit me once in a while, y’know.” The words are serious at first before he clears his throat and continues, “As compensation for all the muscles you made me tear.”

Yoongi hums and feels the smallest hint of a smile graze the edges of his lips. “Uh-huh.”

Seokjin huffs and looks away for a moment. “I’ll try to visit you, too, I guess. Since you’ll probably miss me.”

It grows wider. “Yeah?”

Seokjin looks at him with a certain expression, his response tugging one corner of his lips up into a half-smile, soft before he looks away, and it’s no longer in sight. “Whatever, you little shit.” He shakes his head, though the words lack any malice. “Thought you had a train to catch.”

Yoongi nods and looks away, too, looks at the flood of people streaming in and out of the station. The bags don’t hold as much weight as it did when they first arrived, but there’s still a slight phantom pain in his shoulder, a quiet ache. His fingers slip up to grab the strap, tight around it.

“Oh. Haha, yeah.”

Seokjin’s eyes flit to his and study him for a second, how his shoulders slightly tense at that moment. He doesn’t say anything, but he raises a hand, rests it on his shoulder, and it’s almost exactly like the first time they were here together, almost as comforting. Like he doesn’t need Yoongi to put all of the thoughts in his head into words because he already knows, translates his own into the faint touch. He’s glad for it.

It’s Yoongi that pulls back from him this time, though, before the doors can close.

Seokjin’s already disappeared into the crowd by the time he gets to the window.

(Jeongguk’s bought more candles, by the way. Hoseok’s voice floats around the taxi, and Yoongi relaxes under the hushed lilt of it, the familiarity of his hand in his and their sides pressed to each other. Just wanted to tell you before he reduces the entire place to ashes. Joon said he would take care of it, but he’s too busy enabling him. Honestly, I’m just thinking of investing in another fire extinguisher at this point? Thoughts, assessments.)

It takes a while for the things he kept from his old apartment to arrive, so he stays at Hoseok’s for a couple days more. They come around the fourth day, somewhere around the afternoon, and he enlists the help of Hoseok, Namjoon, Taehyung, Jimin, and Jeongguk to carry it up into his apartment, all reluctantly agreeing to assist him.

What should really take a few hours, at most, turns into something that takes twice that amount, which—okay, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to Yoongi at this point, but. Still.

He can’t quite remember when the arguing first starts, but before he knows it, Namjoon is sat on top of one of the boxes in the middle of the sidewalk, a couple minutes deep into a lecture about god knows what, Taehyung watching from the side like he’s ready to jump in and start a whole argument, and the others—honestly, he doesn’t know where they are anymore.

“Joon.” Yoongi looks at the way the box is slightly creasing underneath his legs, growing increasingly exasperated by the whole situation. “Joon, you’re, like, fully crumpling it.”

Namjoon pauses to look at him, hands losing their animation and freezing a few inches away from his chest. “It’s a couch.”

“In,” he argues. “A box. It’s essentially just a box right at this moment. And you’re crumpling it.”

He stares at him for a few beats. turns back to Taehyung, unfazed, and continues from where he left off. Yoongi sighs heavily and turns to follow the voices drifting from the apartment, trudging up the stairs with a slew of mutters leaving his mouth the whole way there.

Amazingly, they manage to finish before the sun sets, though Yoongi can see the moon peeking out from where it’s been hiding the whole day when the boxes have all been moved inside, slowly crawling up the dim edges of the sky, so he doesn’t really know if it counts, but. Whatever. He doesn’t get a few seconds rest, though, before he’s instantly sent to buy whatever snacks or drinks he can get. They send Hoseok along with him, too, thankfully, but he still mutters about it the whole way out the door.

They find a small convenience store a few blocks away after a while of walking and search the aisles for anything they might like, coming out of it with a bag full of food and a couple bottles of beer. The air is crisp and still as cool as ever, but he can’t bring himself to mind it. Hoseok gives him a wide grin, little clouds of white floating in front of his face, nose and cheeks all red from the cold.

Jeongguk is standing in the middle of the living room when they get back, and Yoongi squints. Looks at the banner that’s manifested itself into existence on one of the walls, reading in big, scrawled letters: happy housewarming party! He looks back at Jeongguk, expression unchanging.

“When did you even get paper? We were gone for a few minutes, at most.”

At that, a grin appears on his face, and almost as if it’s on cue, Namjoon groans from where he lies on the floor, face down. His hair slightly sticks to the nape of his neck, a sort of sheen to the skin there. Yoongi doesn’t ask.

They resort to sitting on the floor, with the lack of places to sit and all, though it’s not much different to how they would usually settle themselves if they were somewhere else. Namjoon immediately takes one of the bottles and pops it open when he regains the energy to move before reverting to his original position on the floor, only sitting up to take a sip every few minutes. 

Yoongi watches with amusement, though he pushes the rest of the drinks a safe distance away from him.

In the middle of all the light chatter and drinking, he catches the small hiss that Taehyung lets out when Jimin elbows him. He makes a face at him, Taehyung making a face back, and their facial expressions quickly dissolve into a weird mix of raised eyebrows and intensely squinted eyes. Yoongi blinks, not quite sure how they’re able to understand each other, before Taehyung sighs and stands up.

He tilts his head towards Hoseok the slightest bit. “Is it just me, or are they acting weird?” He fully looks at him after thinking about it for a second. “They’re acting weird, right?”

Hoseok hums and gives him some semblance of a shrug. "I just don’t question it anymore.”

When Taehyung comes back, it’s with a purplish rectangular box. It’s small, only a little bit bigger than his hands, slightly crumpling the ribbon wrapped around the surface. Jimin stands and steps up to the banner before pulling it down to reveal another one roughly the same size, spinning around to grin down at the group, like any of them can read what it says. He blinks a few times before the words appear a little bit legible:

happy housewarming party! (except, it’s actually a surprise birthday party!) ((that is also still a housewarming party!))

Yoongi looks at them.

“You know, you could have just said ‘happy birthday’ and left it at that, right?”

Jeongguk shrugs and follows Jimin and Taehyung to the kitchen, forcing Namjoon into coming with him. He lets them without a word, leans his head against Hoseok’s shoulder when he grows a bit tired.

It’s dark, the only light coming from above the stove, a warm hue of deep orangish gold that illuminates the edges of Hoseok’s face. He looks down at him when Yoongi settles closer to him, and he catches the hint of a smile dancing across his lips before Hoseok leans down and presses them against his. He doesn’t give it much thought; the others probably aren’t paying either of them much attention, busy with bickering and taking the cake out of the box to prepare, but there’s a sudden clatter, a whispered curse.

They pull away quickly, but not quickly enough, he guesses, because by then, they’re all already staring at the two of them, wide-eyed. Jeongguk stands between the kitchen and the living room, a small plate in one hand and his other hand suspended midair, folded like it’d been previously holding onto something else. Something like the fork beside his feet, maybe. 

Namjoon is the first to break the silence. “I feel like maybe I’m missing something?”

Jeongguk blinks. Once, twice, before his mouth twitches, like he’s just coming back into himself, and words tumble out of it, quick as the satisfied smile appearing on his face. “I fucking called it.”

Taehyung glances at him. His eyes have gone back to their regular size, but the knife he had been using to cut into the cake now dangles between his fingers. Yoongi looks at it with worry. “We all called it.”

Jeongguk’s smile doesn’t even falter as he leans down to pick up the fork and places it down on the island. “I fucking called it, and I believe all of you,” he turns to wave a finger at them, “owe me twenty bucks.”

“You’re,” Taehyung raises his hand that holds the knife and points it at him. Yoongi follows the movement with yet more worry, “full of shit.”

“Tae,” he says. “Tae, please stop waving that around before, y’know. You poke someone in the eye with it.”

He keeps his gaze trained on Jeongguk as he says, “I’ll do what I want, thanks,” though he sinks the knife into the middle of the cake and lets go of it not a moment later. The argument carries on, cutting back and forth from Taehyung, Jeongguk, and occasionally Jimin, who takes advantage of the situation to pluck the little strawberries from the sides of the cake and add them to his plate periodically, before Namjoon looks at Yoongi and Taehyung suddenly, a wide grin breaking out across his face, almost in realization.

“Whatever you’re about to say,” Yoongi starts, “please keep it to yourself.”

“You two,” Namjoon says, promptly disregarding the attempt. “never held hands. And I just won both of the bets.”

Jeongguk stops in the middle of his sentence to look at him, face quickly falling. Jimin shares the same look as his hand falters above his plate, and Yoongi doesn’t think Namjoon has ever looked happier.

“Suddenly, I love today.”

Jimin and Jeongguk groan in tandem. “Shut the fuck up.”

Yoongi scowls. "I hate all of you.” He turns back to Hoseok, who’s smiling at all of them, expression filled with amusement. “This is all your fault.”

He looks at him, and the smile grows bigger, smugger almost. He leans in, and Yoongi swears he gets butterflies for a second. “You know you liked it.”

Jimin makes a gagging noise as he leaves the kitchen, his abnormally full plate in one hand, fork in the other, scrunching his nose. “Look. I’m glad that you two finally got your shit together, but dear god, please don’t turn into one of those couples who make out everywhere and unironically wear couples shirts.”

“You did that with Tae two Christmases ago,” Namjoon points out when he joins them on the floor, giving him an unimpressed look. Jimin sputters, and a light dusting of reddish pink settles high on his cheeks, though it goes unnoticed by Taehyung, who trails behind Namjoon.

“From now on, I’m making it my personal mission to wear matching outfits every single day just to spite you.”

Yoongi nods. “Stop drinking all of my coffee, he said. I don’t have the funds to enable you, he said.”

“Priorities.” He shrugs. Yoongi scrunches his nose before Hoseok laughs and pulls him back to lean against his shoulder, slipping his fingers through his hair, tips scratching at his scalp. He ignores the complaints the others give and closes his eyes with a hum, face relaxing into a smile.

The night passes by too fast for him to hold onto, and soon, they’re all passed out on the floor of his living room, crushed cans of beer littering the space around their bodies. Yoongi wakes up next morning to the pain that sprouted in his neck during the night, the muffled sound of snoring.

The others are still asleep, but they wake up a while after he stands from the floor, tidying up a little. Hoseok is the first to wake up, when he’s busy washing the dishes they left on the floor, hair a mess of fluff that slightly obscures his eyes and arms an impossible warmth as they wrap around his torso. They don’t talk, but he prefers it that way, being able to just listen to the breaths he takes, wants to live in the spaces in between for a moment longer.

Everyone else drifts back to consciousness around the time they both finish cleaning up. They see them moving around the space and stay to help with everything, so they start on opening the boxes. The quiet stays, too.

They don’t get a lot done before most of them have to go, but Yoongi is still thankful for the help, though they wave off his thanks on their way out of the door. Hoseok lingers, and they take care of the rest.

Seokjin calls somewhere near the end of the morning. He’s sweaty and tired and annoyingly sore, so he takes advantage of it to take a break, which Hoseok doesn’t fight against, in a similar condition himself.

Yoongi plops himself onto the floor in front of one of the boxes, letting out a small huff of exhaustion when he goes to lean against it. They still have yet to pull the couches out from their boxes, but he’s too tired to really give that thought much attention.

Hoseok goes to the bathroom, so Yoongi’s alone with Seokjin for a bit. He asks him about the new apartment, and Yoongi gives a few short replies, flips him off when he teases him for it. It’s only when they’re a few minutes into their conversation that Hoseok comes back. He walks around the box he rests against to sit down next to him and leans forward slightly when he sees Seokjin on the screen of his phone, which Yoongi’s placed to lean against another box in front of them.

“Hi!” A smile tugs Seokjin’s lips up, big and excited, and he glances at Yoongi.

Yoongi gives him a blank stare before it dawns on him. He grimaces slightly. “Oh, uh. Hoseok, this is Seokjin. Hyung, this is Hoseok,” and he adds, “the person I told you about.”

“You have no idea how nice it is to see you. He truly never goes out,” Seokjin says and ignores the glare he receives from Yoongi. 

Hoseok grins. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Seokjin-ssi.”

“I just want to make it known,” Yoongi declares, “that that’s a complete lie.” Seokjin narrows his eyes at him.

“I mean,” Hoseok starts, “I also remember not seeing you at all the whole first week after you arrived, so I'm not sure if you really have any room to say anything?”

He tilts his head, and Yoongi scrunches his nose, glares at him. He hopes it’ll persuade him into backing down, but Hoseok just laughs, utterly unaffected, and leans forward to plant a feathery kiss on his cheek. He places another one on his other cheek when Yoongi flushes a little bit, laughing another time.

“I’m still here,” Seokjin says when it goes quiet. “Just by the way.”

Hoseok grins at him when he pulls away.

They talk longer than they should, but it’s okay because he’s pretty sure he needs a solid day before he can go back to unpacking his things. Hoseok doesn’t look that excited to continue either.

Their conversation slows after a while, though, and after a pause, Seokjin says, “I’m still insulted Yoongi didn’t introduce us sooner. He told me a lot about you.”

Hoseok glances at Yoongi. “I hope good things.”

At that, Seokjin’s lips turn up into a smile, the one he always makes before he pulls some shit. “Well, actually—”

He reaches for his phone before he can finish, waving with his other hand. “Okay, love you, bye bye.”

“You can’t silence me forever, Yoongi—”

There’s a beep as the line goes dead, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence, and he pulls away. Turns back to Hoseok.

He’s smiling at him, all smug. “So. I hear you talk about me a lot.” 

Yoongi scrunches his nose, his face flushing again, and Hoseok laughs. He sighs. “Whatever. We still have the rest of the boxes to unpack.”

Hoseok groans at the reminder, but he stands up nevertheless. Yoongi doesn’t. He stays on the floor for a couple seconds longer, eyes closed, and Hoseok nudges his shin with the side of his foot a few times before he finally opens them and holds out his hands, making a grabby motion. Hoseok squints but pulls him up, anyway.

“My arms are going to snap by the end of this, and you’re the one who’s going to have to cover my hospital bills,” he huffs. Yoongi shrugs and proceeds to sprawl himself over Hoseok’s back, arms snaking around his waist until there’s no room left between them. They waddle around the space for a few minutes, Hoseok complaining the whole time, though he never tries to worm out of his hold.

(3 and a,)

Living in Daegu again is weird for a few reasons.

He finishes moving all the things he brought with him from Seoul around after a few days, but his apartment is still notably empty afterwards. It makes sense, of course. He got rid of everything else he owned, so he already knew it would end up like this, but. He has mixed feelings.

It’s nice some days, a refreshing thing, brimming and overflowing with possibility. But it’s also not so nice on the days it starts to feel more cramped than anything, like it’s something so fragile and permanent that he’s afraid of fucking it up somehow, afraid of tainting it. The days where the novelty of it all feels isolating.

Daegu is a bit more familiar, but he still finds it disorienting at times. He’s gotten better with that feeling, but it’s different, still, strikingly so. It still has that distinct feel of home he’s been aching for, but it’s not quite home, the part of it he lives in now.

It’s a big city, after all, not as big as Seoul, but it feels like it every so often, when he has to weave his way through the crowd congesting its streets, or when his gaze snags on the sky, blindingly bright, on the buildings that just barely graze it, so far away that it’s dizzying.

(The first month drags by, and it’s a bit lonely, the persistent quiet that fills up the empty spaces of his apartment, but he’s learning to give it a different meaning. It’s a process.)

Still, it’s not all bad, of course; there are a few things he comes to like: his neighborhood, for one. It’s a small one, one where trees and flowers and shrubs of all sorts decorate the expanse, one where vines trail up the bottom of buildings, and everything glints under the sun.

Yoongi remembers how it felt only a month and a half ago to stand there in the middle of the apartment, that unraveling in his chest as he took it all in. It looked like it came out of a dream, the way light flooded into the room and left everything glowing. It felt and still feels like one, too, both past and present tense, warm and welcoming.

There’s the auntie in the apartment next door that Yoongi befriended some amount of weeks after moving in, too, though in all honesty, he only has a vague idea of how he ever met her in the first place.

He thinks it was during one afternoon when the air outside was a pleasant kind of warmth. It wasn’t very common, even though spring was only an inch away, so he took advantage of it and spent some of the day just walking around the area around his neighborhood.

It was on his second lap around when he saw the outline of an older woman knelt on the sidewalk just around the corner, hunched over. He turned and saw the mandarins that she was hurrying to pick up before they had the chance to roll away, strewn over the ground near a torn shopping bag.

He stopped to help and handed her the rest, receiving a smile and a relieved thanks in return. Her hair slightly hid a part of her face, coming undone from where it was tied into a low bun, but he could see the corners of her eyes crinkling with delight through the gray wisps, a whole lifetime of laughter behind the lines. Yoongi just bowed and said that it was really no problem before he continued on his walk.

Yoongi hadn’t thought much of the encounter, even when he helped a few more times. or, well, at least until he realized that she lived in the apartment right next to his. It was a similar afternoon to the one of their first meeting, though the warm weather was becoming more common as April lumbered on, and he was locking the door to his apartment when he heard a small noise from somewhere behind him.

The lady was standing there when he turned around, in front of the door to the apartment just to the right of his, and he blinked a few times in confusion before waving. She’d just smiled and gave a small wave back before walking down the stairs.

After that, she started appearing everywhere more and more, and it came to the point where it was a normal thing to see her walking through one of the parks near their neighborhood, or sitting on her balcony, eating from a small bowl of tangerines and reading a book.

So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise when Yoongi sees her only a week later, moving around the space of the little restaurant he’d wandered into, plates and bowls of all kinds occupying her hands, but it still catches him off guard. She catches him standing in front of the door after placing the plates in front of the many customers scattered across the room and grins as she wipes off the sweat gathering above her eyebrows, urging him to sit down somewhere.

He finds out later, when she comes back with a whole assortment of foods and places it on his table in spite of his protests, that her name is Ms. Han (Most people call me that, but you can just call me auntie, she says when she comes back with even more to place on his table. Yoongi doesn’t try to protest this time. You seem like a good kid), and she’s been the owner of this restaurant for almost a decade now. Has a grandson around his age that she hopes will take over for her someday.

“You two would make a cute couple, actually. I can give you his number, if you’d like?”

Yoongi laughs and shakes his head, tells her about Hoseok. She nods with that kind smile of hers, has Yoongi promise to introduce him to her someday.

He starts to visit her restaurant more often, and she treats him to discounted meals every time he comes by, though he tries to refuse it the first few times. He can’t really complain, though, because everything she cooks is concerningly good, but he still makes sure to pay her back by helping her with errands and such.

Life isn’t so bad.

(1 and a,)

His apartment starts to feel less empty around the time spring comes to full bloom, the weather no longer bouncing between freezing and mildly warm every other day. The empty space fills over time, starts to overflow with all of the little things he’s been accumulating since March, random trinkets and decorations he got from visiting the stores just across the street from him or was gifted to him by the others.

There is, also, his plant collection, whose inception he blames entirely on Namjoon specifically, but. He’s getting ahead of himself.

It starts like this:

It’s early in the evening when he hears a knock on the front door. He doesn’t give it much thought because Hoseok and Jeongguk like to come by a lot, but when he opens the door, he can tell there’s something particularly off about this certain visit.

Something like the plant Namjoon struggles to keep from falling out of his arms as he stands in front of the doorway. Yoongi stares for a moment.

“Why.”

Namjoon sends him a pained grin through the leaves obscuring his face before slipping past him and to the living room. He nearly stumbles into the painting of a sunset hung on the wall, the one that Jeongguk made for him, Taehyung and Jimin proudly joining in by painting the sun in the middle, a little dot. He somehow manages to swerve around it, though, and Yoongi blinks once, twice, before following him.

“Okay, so,” he starts, wandering around the room as he searches for a place to put the plant down. “You know how I work at that one bookshop downtown?”

“I mean,” Yoongi squints, “No. You never mentioned that. But sure.” 

Namjoon shrugs and places the pot down near the middle of the living room, on top of the rug Hoseok picked out for him just weeks ago, the one that’s white and particularly soft. Yoongi grimaces, and he must see the change in his expression because he nudges it onto the floorboards.

“Okay, well. I do,” he continues, “and I was on break one day, right? So, naturally, I walked out to go to the coffee shop right across the street ‘cause I was starving. Like, genuinely starving, it’s actually kind of concerning now that I think about it.”

“I don’t see how any of this is relevant to why you showed up at my doorstep with the biggest plant I've ever seen.”

“That’s also your opinion,” Namjoon retorts. Yoongi narrows his eyes at him, though it goes ignored. “Anyways. I was standing by the crosswalk when I see this tiny plant stand right beside me, and I must’ve been staring because one of the people running it comes up to me then and hands me one of their plants, and like, a business card.”

Yoongi blinks. “And you just accepted it.”

“Yeah, so,” Namjoon says, unfazed, like it’s completely normal to accept random two feet tall plants from strangers, “I tried to find a place to fit it into my apartment, but I couldn’t. Hence.” He then gestures at the ground where the pot sits and looks at Yoongi with a certain look in his eyes, which is when he realizes.

“No.” He pushes himself off of the counter. “Joon, you know I don’t garden.”

“Everyone starts somewhere,” he tries. Yoongi gives him an unimpressed look. “Look, I don’t have the heart to throw it away, and I thought that, since you need more decorations or whatever, I could give it to you.”

Yoongi thinks on that for a minute, eyes narrowing at him once again. He doesn’t actually need more stuff, but he guesses it wouldn’t hurt to keep it.

Namjoon gives him a relieved smile when he gives in and agrees to take care of it, calling out a quick you won’t regret it as he rushes out the door and disappears into the night.

Yoongi has a bad feeling about this, but he decides to trust him with this just this once.

Night fades into morning, and he trudges out of his room, half-awake and probably looking like a mess, though he can’t quite muster up the energy to care. He steps out of the hallway and crosses the room to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

He’s turning when he sees something tall in the corner, tensing up for a second before he remembers his conversation with Namjoon. His mind blanks as he swallows down the water and places the cup down on the kitchen island. 

Water. He should water it, right?

yoongi // 8:35 a.m.
i should water it right

namjoon // 8:42 a.m.
uh if ur talking about the plant yes
….i think
hold on

He puts his phone down to search his kitchen for a bottle before he eventually finds one hidden in one of the cupboards. There’s a series of buzzes, and he spins back around after filling the bottle up with water from the sink.

It turns out to be Namjoon, and he holds back a deep sigh when he sees the paragraph he just sent, only giving it a brief skim before promptly locking his phone and shuffling over to the plant.

Miraculously, it doesn’t die within the first few days. 

It doesn’t die at all, actually, and he would thank the unnecessarily long text from Namjoon detailing everything it might need, but the truth is, he actually does enjoy taking care of it.

Which is, naturally, when he falls into The Hole.

(Why… The Hole. Yoongi narrows his eyes as Jeongguk and Hoseok nod their heads in tandem.

'Cause. Jeongguk shrugs. You were straight up gone for, like, a week.)

More specifically:

There’s a floral shop just across the street from his apartment, small enough that it usually goes unnoticed by most people walking by, though it catches Yoongi’s eyes one early afternoon, when he’s sitting on his balcony with his third cup of coffee that day. It comes as a fleeting thought at first, going there and picking out a few plants to buy for himself, before he laughs it off and goes back inside.

Except—

The thought lingers. Multiplies until there’s two of them, three, four, until it crosses Yoongi’s mind whenever he steps out onto his balcony, whenever he goes into his living room to water his plant. 

The plant.

Namjoon’s plant that Namjoon’s having Yoongi take care of because Namjoon doesn’t have the space for it. Right.

It’s nice to have another hobby, is the thing. It’s calming in a way, to wake up every morning and just sit in the sunlight and take care of it, and it forces him to get out of bed on the days where he really just feels like passing out for a few hours, or a few weeks, preferably.

So. Why not get another one, y’know?

“Yeah, I mean,” Hoseok says with a shrug when he brings it up to him one day. They’re sitting on Yoongi’s couch, an hour into their weekly movie night, and he’s rubbing small circles into the part of his wrist that’s grown a bit sore from all the hours he spent playing piano. “If that sounds like a good idea to you, sure.”

(Jeongguk gasps and whips his head around to look at Hoseok with a betrayed expression. So it was your fault.

Hoseok shovels the rest of the tteokbokki into his mouth. Yoongi has to hold back a snort.)

In theory, it should be a good idea. It starts out as one, actually, but at some point, he starts researching different types of plants, and before he knows it, it’s one in the morning, and he’s neck-deep into a botany-research-nightmare hole.

Hence: The Hole.

(See, Hoseok manages after two coughing fits, at least, shooing Jeongguk away when he offers him a napkin. It's genius.

Predictable is what it is, Yoongi argues.)

It concerns the others for a while when he manages to make every conversation of theirs for a week straight about plants, though Namjoon never seems to mind, and by the time he recovers from his trance, he already has a whole collection of plants swarming and filling up every nook and cranny of his apartment.

Almost.

There’s a room just in between his bedroom and the bathroom across the hall, though it’s barely big enough for Yoongi to really call it that, and it bothers him slightly, not quite knowing what to make of it.

“You could turn it into a studio,” Jimin suggests when he brings it up. “Since you already have your keyboard there.”

Yoongi shrugs, lies and says that he might.

It’s not that it’s a bad idea, just that he doesn’t make music anymore. He still plays piano here and there, whenever the fear of losing the ability creeps back into him, but he hasn’t tried writing anything since February. Still, it’s not something he thinks is worth discussing, so he keeps quiet.

Jeongguk eyes him from where he’s settled in the armchair adjacent to Yoongi’s.

They’re at the little coffee shop a few blocks away from Yoongi’s apartment, the one he’s usually persuaded into going to with Jeongguk and his roommates every couple weeks or so. It’s also the same coffee shop Jimin and Taehyung first dragged Yoongi to. They, as it appears, won’t let him live it down.

The two of them are sat in the corner, in their little bubble of calm away from all the noise and chaos as they wait for the rest of their group to arrive, though Yoongi is starting to feel the opposite. Jeongguk has that look on his face, the one he gets whenever he’s about to say something serious, sort of like the look Namjoon usually wears, except it’s not perpetual and doesn’t make him look nearly as confused.

Yoongi doesn’t know whether he should find it sweet or terrifying that they both share the same habits. He’s sort of too busy hoping the others arrive before he has the chance to say anything.

“I talked to Jimin,” Jeongguk begins, “a few days ago.”

Fuck that, then.

His fingers tap against the side of his coffee, not quite holding the cup. Steam billows out from the opening, hot and enveloping, despite it no longer being winter. Yoongi hasn’t quite adjusted to the change yet, still feels odd in the warm weather even in the middle of April, so it’s only when it flickers back to winter every so often that he feels a bit better.

“He told me about the room you have in your apartment. The empty one.”

Yoongi hums, does his best to hold himself back from sinking and disappearing into the chair.

Jeongguk raises the cup to his lips to take a sip before he pulls away suddenly, face twisting in pain, and gingerly puts it back down on the little table in front of them. “Do you want to do that? Turn it into a studio.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, not in the best mood to have a discussion about it with him, though he knows that Jeongguk will get him to sooner or later, and if not him, one of the others.

But his eyes flick back to Yoongi’s, sharp and observant, and he’s reminded of their call only a few days after the birthday party they held for Hoseok, how serious he had sounded. Not that he can’t be serious at all, but it still feels strange to see, like he morphs into a different person in a way, quiet and pensive.

“I don’t know, I mean.” Yoongi shrugs. “That’s not something I can just decide, I need some time to consider it, probably.” Jeongguk nods, though he stays silent, like he’s leaving room for him to continue, and Yoongi’s face twists in confusion when he does, a flood of words slipping out of him like they’ve been waiting. “Like—it was nice and all, writing that song for Seok because nobody expected anything from me. It was like I finally had room to just breathe, but this? This is so much different. People will expect things from me this time, and I can’t bring myself to write anything else because it still scares me, I think. The idea of fucking it all up if I tried again, that if I released more songs, I’d only realize I—”

The words stutter to a halt, a dam sealing over, and his hands are shaking more than he remembers they were before he opened his mouth to speak. The breaths he takes come out shaky and airy now, fingers feeling all prickly, little needles poking ceaselessly into the skin, so he busies them with holding his coffee to his chest. Cold seeps into the pads of them, into the space between his ribs.

Jeongguk watches him for a while with his knees pressed to his torso and his fingers tapping against the top of them. He gives a small hum and bends over to pick his cup back up, wincing when it burns him again, so he crosses his legs, instead, and puts his coffee in the gap.

“I think,” he starts, “you’re scared of something you’re not entirely sure will even happen. And that’s holding you back.”

He pauses when Yoongi shifts in his armchair, shoulders hiking up defensively and mouth opening to say something back, except that nothing comes out. His shoulders fall, and Jeongguk studies him for a moment longer.

“Are you sure that’s the only thing that is?”

Yoongi closes his eyes and pretends like that doesn’t brush a raw nerve, takes a breath and ignores the steady look he gets from Jeongguk when he opens them again, patient and expecting.

There’s another thought that surfaces every now and then, scares him into thinking there’s nothing left in him. Like all of the music and words have been plucked from his body, vertebra by vertebra, until all that’s left to hold him up is blind hope for something he lost a long time ago.

And he knows. He knows that isn’t true, knows that feeling isn’t forever, but that’s really fucking hard to remember when it feels like it.

“You don’t have to make it your job,” Jeongguk says after a while of getting no response. It’s quieter, like he can see how tense Yoongi’s grown but still wants to add more before taking a complete step back, “making your own songs. That’s not the only option. It might be worth it, trying something new.”

Yoongi doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks away and tilts his head back to take a big sip, cup slippery between his fingers with all of the condensation trickling down the sides, a trail of cold running down his throat.

(And he’s right. He knows that, he knows. He just—needs time. It’s a process.)

Ms. Han doesn’t immediately notice Yoongi when he visits her a week later, slipping in through the door without much of a word and settling in his usual spot near where the employees cook, clouds of steam wafting over to his table and wrapping around him, and he doesn’t try to get her attention either, not wanting to disturb her.

She hurries around the space, vanishing into the backroom with heaps of dishes and bowls covering the length of her arms before reappearing with even more, so it’s only when the restaurant is somewhat empty that she finally sees him leaning against the back of his chair, arms crossed and mouth slightly hanging open as he slips in and out of consciousness.

Yoongi startles awake when she nudges at his shoulder, though she’s already gone by the time his eyes blink open. He’s confused for a moment, but then the backroom door swings open, and she’s walking back to his table with a small bowl of soup and a whispered promise to come back with more. He doesn’t try to object this time.

It’s quiet today, and Yoongi feels a bit bad when it’s time for her to close up shop, but Ms. Han just waves him away when he offers to help.

“It’s getting late, anyway, and you look exhausted.” She sends him a warm smile as she undoes her apron. “Go home, I’ll be fine.”

There’s barely any wind when he steps out, door shutting behind him with a click and a muffled chime of the bells above it. 

His eyes fall shut, and he takes a few breaths, hands burrowing deep into the front pockets of his hoodie.

Namjoon looks like a mess when he finally answers his door. His hair looks as if it hasn’t been washed in days, and it sticks up at an odd angle, like he’d been running his hand through it for a few minutes straight. A pair of headphones hang in an awkward position on his neck, a few inches away from falling to the floor, and he’s drowning in a t-shirt that looks vaguely like it should be Jeongguk’s. Might actually be Jeongguk’s.

“Hey,” a confused expression clouds Namjoon’s face when he sees Yoongi, and he blinks a couple of times, “what’re you doing here?”

Yoongi raises his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “Didn’t really feel like going home.” He doesn’t say more, and although Namjoon sort of looks like he wants to probe, he doesn’t. Just gives him a small nod and steps aside so he can pass.

“I’m working on a thing right now, and I haven’t had the energy to clean in days, so maybe just. Ignore the mess,” he says as he rubs the back of his neck and walks over to the kitchen like he just learned how to, nearly bumping into one of the counters in the process. He turns around with a smile once he’s recovered most of his dignity and leans awkwardly against the same counter. “D’you want, uh. Some water?”

Yoongi stares at him for a couple seconds. He doesn’t quite smile, but he nods, feeling a little bit lighter.

“What are you working on?” he asks after taking a sip of the water he gives him a minute later and whispering a small thank you into the glass.

Namjoon shrugs. “Just a small project.” He’s quiet for a second or two before he pushes himself off the counter. “Do you want to listen?”

Yoongi hums and holds the glass in between his palms as he follows him to the living room. It’s not as bad of a mess as he’d initially expected, but it’s not far from it either. His laptop rests in the center of the chaos, several crushed cans of Red Bull strewn over the floor, as well as a worrying number of empty ramen cups, and—

Yoongi squints. “Is that alcohol-free beer?”

Namjoon nods solemnly beside him. “Yeah. Jeonggukie replaced all my actual beer with,” he pauses to squint, as well, “... I actually don’t know what that is anymore. I think it might just be poison.”

Namjoon doesn’t look the least bit fazed as he clears the space in front of the couch and sits himself on the floor. “Anyways. It’s sorta rough,” he notes, taking the headphones around his neck and extending it towards Yoongi once he’s settled on the couch behind him, “but I could use an outsider’s perspective.”

Yoongi accepts the pair from him and slips them over his ears, everything fading into white noise. He watches Namjoon slide his finger around the touchpad of his laptop before he clicks on it, and the quiet is quickly replaced with the first few notes of a song.

He’s not wrong when he says that it’s rough. The start is fine, a calm synth laced with a muffled drum beat, but it’s the middle that sounds a little empty, like it’s missing something. It’s short, too, ends kind of abruptly, and he must look confused as he takes off the headphones because Namjoon speaks again.

“Yeah, I still need to figure out the ending, but,” he shrugs, “that’s what I have so far. Thoughts?”

Yoongi hums, drums his fingers absentmindedly against the sides of his crossed legs. “I definitely agree that it’s rough, but what you have so far sounds good.” Namjoon nods and takes the headphones from him. He turns back to his laptop and messes around with the settings for a few seconds before Yoongi leans over his shoulder to point at the screen. “There’s something missing, though, in the middle.”

Namjoon glances at him and asks, “What’d you think is missing?” His tone isn’t sharp; he asks like he genuinely cares about what he has to say.

“I could see what you were trying to do with stripping it back, but,” Yoongi continues, shrugs and slips off the couch to sit next to him and point towards the screen, “there should be a little bit more in this part.”

Namjoon thinks on that for a second before nodding again. He gives Yoongi back the headphones, and they end up going further into the song, shooting ideas back and forth, editing parts and writing down ideas for some new ones to add. Not all of their ideas are good, but neither of them really care, just having fun with it.

It’s only when they’re a few hours into it that Yoongi finally realizes it’s well past midnight. He whispers a curse, and Namjoon turns to look at him, gaze snagging on the clock and a whispered curse of his own leaving his mouth.

He already missed the last bus, so he calls an Uber instead and helps Namjoon clean up in the meantime. Their conversation drifts away from the song and to random things they came across in the past week, and Yoongi feels a bit better by the time Namjoon’s seeing him out the door, his Uber having finally arrived.

The city blurs past the window beside him, light spring rain running down the glass, and he tilts his head back against the headrest when his eyes begin to droop. Thinks about the past few hours, editing with Namjoon and how calm he’d felt in that groove they slipped into.

It feels like a lifetime has passed since he moved to Seoul, but it comes back to him then, all of the nights he’d spent up in his studio when he was still working under his label, producing and writing until he felt like he was fading into the background.

It would always worry Seokjin when he found him there, barely able to keep his eyes open, but the habit more or less stayed as the years passed, became one of the things about Seoul he genuinely enjoyed, even when it wasn’t so easy to write. He had fun producing other songs, too, ones that weren’t his.

You don’t have to make it your job, making your own songs.

The car slows to a stop, and Yoongi stares at the back of the headrest in front of him. Blinks a few times. 

Huh.

He takes his phone out from his hoodie pocket and unlocks it when he’s stepped into his apartment, sending a quick text by pure adrenaline before stumbling over to his bedroom, barely able to close the door before it runs out, and he collapses onto his bed.

Seokjin replies the next morning.

yoongi // 1:37 a.m.
hey di d u ever find someone to take my recording equipment

seokjin // 11:04 a.m.
you’re making music again?

Yoongi stares at the message for a moment, hands hovering over the keyboard. A tiny smile settles on his lips in spite of the nervous tingly feeling in his fingers.

yoongi // 11:10 a.m.
something like that

seokjin // 11:10 a.m.
ill send them over in a couple days
be easy on yourself, yeah? love you

yoongi // 11:11 a.m.
love you too
and thanks

Seokjin stays true to his word, and it arrives outside of his apartment only four mornings later, when he’s on his balcony, hunched over as he waters the forest of plants surrounding him and drinks from a cup of tea. Hoseok bought him a collection of packs a few weeks back, all different types; peppermint, ginger, black, chai, green. Yoongi drinks them every once in a while, makes licorice for himself and Hoseok when he comes over, makes chamomile when he can’t go to sleep because it helps.

Other times, he makes it when he can’t make his usual cup of coffee, whether it be because of a shortage or because his coffee machine broke again, which is actually more common than he’d like it to be.

The coffee machine he has now is still intact, thankfully, but he can’t really say the same for his coffee supply. He’s sort of out of it, though, after getting virtually no sleep the night before, so he pushes off buying more until another day, just hopes the caffeine in black tea is enough to last him the day. Probably not. Whatever.

He’s reached the last plant when he notices a truck drive by through the leaves obscuring his view past the balcony railing. It rolls to a stop just in front of his apartment, and he straightens. Holds the watering can in one hand and his mug in another as he watches it. He sets them down and slips back inside.

Hoseok comes by sometime around the afternoon, when he’s moved all of his equipment inside, midway through arranging them around his studio, though he’s not sure if he could quite call it that yet.

He stops what he’s doing to answer the door, immediately recognizes the little pattern he knocks against the door, undeniably his. He thinks idly about just getting him a spare key for a moment as he steps around the boxes scattered across the living room floor. Pauses with a tingly feeling in his fingers and saves the thought for later, when he’s not in the middle of anything or running only on a cup and a half of black tea.

Hoseok’s wearing a loose t-shirt and some sweatpants when he opens the door. There’s a small duffel bag at his feet and a few drops of sweat running down his neck and under his shirt, but that doesn’t stop him from grinning and falling forward. “Hyung.”

Yoongi catches him against his chest with a small humph, his skin a sticky kind of warm under his fingers, even through the shirt. He huffs. “Did you not take a shower before you came here?”

“Nope.” Hoseok loops his arms around his waist, locking his fingers together against the small of his back, and presses closer. Stills. Pulls back with a confused expression. “Why are you sweaty?”

“Ah,” Yoongi says vacantly, and Hoseok raises an eyebrow at him in amusement, one corner of his lips quirking upwards.

“Ah,” Hoseok echoes once Yoongi’s shown him the mess that is his living room, all boxes and barely any floor. “Wait, what—” He turns to him with drawn eyebrows. “I thought you finished unpacking in, like. March.”

Yoongi hums. “I did, this is a different thing.” He slips his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and takes a pause. “For my studio.”

His expression flits from confusion to recognition and then surprise, blooming across Hoseok’s face in the form of a smile. “You’re writing again?”

He shrugs, smiles. He means it this time when he says, “I’m getting there.”

Hoseok stays while Yoongi finishes up, takes a quick shower in his bathroom. He’s wearing a gray pair of sweatpants and one of Yoongi’s knit sweaters when he comes out a while later, drowning in a dim ocean blue. It’s thin, big to the point where it almost falls off one shoulder and covers his hands until the very tips of his fingers, and one of Yoongi’s favorites, though he thinks he wouldn’t hesitate to give it to him if he just asked.

He settles beside Yoongi on the living room floor just below the couch and tilts until his head falls onto his lap. The hem of the sweater rides up at the movement, but he just looks up at Yoongi and nudges a finger against where his jaw meets his neck, not caring enough to pull it back down. Mumbles, like the exhaustion has finally caught up to him, “What’re you looking at me like that for?”

Yoongi stares. He shakes his head and slips his fingers into his hair to scratch lightly at his scalp. “Nothing. That just looks pretty on you.”

Hoseok’s eyes slowly flutter until they fall shut, and—

(—he grins so wide it feels like coming home.)

(2 and a,)

Yoongi takes his time getting used to working with his equipment again over the last of late spring. It's only been a couple of months since he’s last used them, so he hasn’t entirely forgotten everything, but enough time has passed to make him feel a bit unsettled at first. He has a feeling it might not just be about the equipment, but the feeling ebbs after the second week or so, retreats.

Getting songs to work on is harder.

He expects it, when two songs becomes the most work he gets in a month, if any at all, because there’s nothing left for him to fall back on. No name, no audience, no label. But, it doesn’t take away the way his stomach churns with nerves whenever things are moving too slowly, though, as if they’ll stop and never pick up again.

There are months when Yoongi gets more work than usual, maybe three, four, five songs, but it never stays consistent. There will always be the months that follow where he doesn’t get any work at all, when his studio is dead silent around him, but Yoongi still waits. waits like something will appear out of thin air for him to direct all of his thoughts to instead. Waits like he’s not wasting his time.

He writes slowly. The words accumulate over days and weeks, never all apart of any one song. He fills a notebook that sits heavy on top of the desk in his home studio, and it waits like he’ll use those words one day. Waits like that isn’t so far away a possibility.

Yoongi doesn’t write in it like he used to in his old notebooks, most of them he’s already thrown out or tucked away at the back of his closet because he can’t look at them too long without traveling back too far into the past. But he remembers how it felt back then, pushing every word like they were as light as air, quick before they could decompose and grow heavy. Now, they just stumble and twist into a mess. He learns to stop when it gets that bad, when it feels like they’re being ripped out of him. Steps out onto the balcony to just take everything in, between the growing mess of leaves and over the scattered groups of people walking by, caught up in lives of their own.

Sometimes, the mess isn’t there, and instead there’s just quiet, like nothing has changed. It’s early winter again, and the snow has still yet to melt from the hollows of his bones.

Hoseok is almost always there when Yoongi feels himself inching towards old habits again, comes over and pours them tea because coffee makes Yoongi antsy when he gets like this, drinks way too much until it builds. Sometimes, he sits him down and lets him pick out a movie for the both of them to watch on the days Yoongi doesn’t want to talk right away, prepares their cups in the kitchen in the meantime.

He puts on a movie, and they huddle close on the couch, the press of him against Yoongi’s side all warm and good. Hoseok still asks before he sits because sometimes, touching is a little more suffocating then good, like being pushed further beneath the water.

Hoseok respects it, whenever he says no. He keeps a distance but stays by his side until he can’t stay any longer, and only is that when he leaves. But today, Yoongi says yes, reaching out for him with the hand he’s not using to clutch his tea close to his chest, and Hoseok’s settling on the couch beside him and slipping his fingers past the spaces between Yoongi’s not a beat later.

They don’t talk until the end of the movie, when Yoongi’s relaxed enough under the cover of the blankets stretched over the two of them and what’s left of the tea has started to go cold on his lap, ginger sharpening every tiny sip he takes every so often.

It’s quiet, no more background noise to take his mind away from things, but it doesn’t disturb him as much as it did hours ago.

Yoongi speaks and lets his word take up the space of the darkness filling up the room to the very brim, curtains pulled and lights switched off, and Hoseok listens, lets him talk until some of the weight on him is gone, waits before he says anything. It doesn’t take away everything lurching around in his stomach, but—it helps. He’d tell him that, but Yoongi thinks Hoseok already knows.

Several months and songs and birthdays and celebrations later, and it’s December again, bags of varying sizes piling up to rest against Yoongi’s bedroom door somewhere near the middle of the month. He has a trip planned to go up to Seoul and visit Seokjin, since he’s been meaning to ever since he left.

Leaving is easier this time. Hoseok still comes with him to the station, but the atmosphere has shifted since February, since last November. Seoul has gotten warmer. The station is still brimming with people, but it’s not as suffocating. Seokjin picks him up again, and he stays over at his apartment, in the guest bedroom he has.

It’s the fifth day when it creeps back up again. He’s alone in the apartment, Seokjin out with his family for the day.

He almost doesn’t call, but he decides against it because he’s done that before, let it build under his skin until every touch to it was fire shooting up his body. He’d really rather not right now.

Hoseok doesn’t mind it when he finally does call him. They talk until it’s nearing midnight, and Yoongi feels guilty when they both finally agree to call it a night, tries to apologize, but he just waves it away, like he isn’t a burden.

The feeling stays up to the end of his visit, just talking to him not quite enough, and he packs up all his stuff again. They watch one more movie together the night before Yoongi’s train leaves for Daegu and order takeout, neither of them wanting to go out and do something else. 

It grows a little when he’s back in Daegu, searching the tops of people’s heads in the crowd for dark, messy brown. Hoseok isn’t anywhere to be seen.

yoongi // 10:22 a.m.
hey where are u?

hoseok // 10:24 a.m.
what do you mean

yoongi // 10:25 a.m.
i don’t see you at the station?
are u here?

hoseok // 10:25 a.m.
huh didn’t i
wait
fuck i didn’t tell u about the u.s. thing did i
shit

Yoongi stops. Someone bumps into his shoulder, and he winces, bowing his head in apology, but they just keep walking, mumbling something under their breath. A new message pops up.

hoseok // 10:26 p.m.
i’m not in daegu rn
i have another dance thing in the states? i just left yesterday
i thought i told you hyung, i'm so sorry

yoongi // 12:28 p.m.
seok. it’s fine
i’m fine don’t worry

hoseok // 12:28 p.m.
no it’s not
hyung

yoongi // 12:31 p.m.
text me later?
sorry it’s probably late there huh

hoseok // 12:32 p.m.
it’s not
a little bit maybe, but it’s only like,,,,11
tae should be somewhere there
get home safe, yeah?
if you need anything, just call me
im probably only going to be here for a week or two, but still. 
anything. ♥

yoongi // 12:34 p.m.
i will, seok
thank you 
♥

Taehyung is waiting for him near the edges of the crowd, a good distance away from the mess surrounding the coming trains. He’s buried under a thick gray coat and a dark blue wool scarf that just grazes his chin.

He looks up from his shoes when he senses Yoongi walking towards him, gives him a small grin.

“Where’s everyone else?” Yoongi stops in front of him and readjusts the bag hanging from his shoulder, fixing his own scarf where it got caught underneath the strap.

Taehyung shrugs. They start walking.

“Jimin’s in Busan with Jeongguk. Namjoon-hyung’s in Ilsan,” he says and, when Yoongi gives him a look, adds, voice imperceptibly lower, “visiting family.”

He nods. It makes sense. Holidays are coming up soon, after all. Yoongi isn’t close with his parents like that, not after he left for Seoul and definitely not after he came out to them, so he doesn’t visit them. Seokjin has always been the one between the two of them with the better relationship with his parents, anyway. 

It doesn’t hurt as much as it did back then, but he still feels this small thing in his chest as they reach the entrance, this strange thing. Longing for something long gone, maybe. He doesn’t ask, but he thinks Taehyung might feel something close to that, too.

Hoseok ends up having to stay a while longer, but the rest of their circle come back in broken intervals, Namjoon, Jimin, and then Jeongguk. They spend all of Christmas and Taehyung’s birthday and New Year’s at Yoongi’s, barging into his apartment with bags full of food, drinks, and little decorations. They manage a way to have Hoseok there, too, and each of them take turns with Yoongi’s phone, walking around and talking with him there like he isn’t a whole ocean away and then some.

This isn’t the first time Hoseok’s left Daegu for longer than he usually would, but he’s always stayed in the country. He’s been getting more recognition this past year, though, so it makes sense he would go beyond that. And Yoongi’s happy for him, don’t get him wrong. He deserves this so fucking much, and it wouldn’t sit right with him if he kept him here. Besides, it’s not like they have to be around each other every day.

But it’s different when a week passes, and every message they’ve sent each other since Yoongi got back to Daegu always seem to be hours apart. When they sometimes go without talking for days because Hoseok’s been caught up with choreographing, and Yoongi’s been getting more steady work, which is good but also means that he barely has any time for anything else.

The crash is worse this time.

It hits him when he’s on his third day at the studio, and suddenly, it’s all too much, the sleep he’s gotten all too little. He hasn’t seen sunlight in days, and it’s finally taking a toll on him, lines all jagged and wrong, stomach turning like he’s going to hurl, like he has anything left in him to empty out. The list of things he’s consumed in the past few days doesn’t go beyond a pack of ramen and an immeasurable amount of coffee.

He tries to swallow it down, all the words he can’t seem to get right when he’s spilling them onto the page, all the things sticking to his throat, always growing and growing and growing and— 

Hoseok already has enough on his plate. Yoongi doesn’t want to pile his own shit onto his.

“Yoongi?”

That doesn’t last very long.

“Seok.” Yoongi wants to hang up maybe, rewind a few seconds and never press call. Hoseok sounds so tired. “Seok-ah.”

“Yoongi-hyung.” It’s quiet for a moment, then the sound of sheets rustling over the line, like he’s sitting up. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing, I’m just—being stupid, sorry. Sorry, did I wake you?”

He hums over the line. “Yeah, but s’okay. S’fine, should’ve woke up a while ago, actually. And you’re not.” There’s a small yawn, and then Hoseok’s voice again, fuzzy and heavy with sleep. “What’re you doing up, anyway? It’s one over there, right?”

Yoongi looks up at the clock and the small bright red numbers glaring at him. They blur together, and there’s that feeling again, feels like pressure building behind his eyes, something trying to dig out from behind them.

He places the heels of his hands over his eyes and rubs them until little splotches of light form behind his eyelids. They draw slow circles around his vision.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Yoongi takes a breath and releases it. Takes another and releases that one, too. He loses count of the seconds in between. “I’m having trouble with another song.”

Hoseok doesn’t say anything. He continues.

“The deadline is in four days, and I thought I would be fine, you know? I got through half of it just fine, but then I just—I don’t know, I hit a wall, I think. And it sucks. It’s like no matter what I do, no matter how far I get, I'll always have to take ten steps back, and it sucks.” The words crack towards the end, so he stops, gripping his hands together.

“Oh, hyung.” A hiccup escapes out of his chest, and he presses a hand to his sternum, like he could just let it fill up all of the space there until everything else comes spilling out, every single rotten flower. It’s a stupid wish. “Breathe with me, yeah?”

Yoongi nods even though Hoseok can’t see him. Doesn’t take away his hand, but he follows. Counts up and down until his breathing calms.

“—There you go,” Hoseok whispers. He says something else, but Yoongi doesn’t quite catch it, eyes already beginning to droop.

“Stay here with me?” he manages. He doesn’t remember when he moved, but his head rests against the pillow now, phone just a few inches away.

Hoseok pauses.

“Okay, hyung.” Yoongi can almost feel the low hum of his voice through the phone, can act like he’s just right there if he closes his eyes. “I’ll stay.”

(and he does.)

(3 and a,)

It’s the same for Hoseok, too, in a way. When he stays at the studio for hours on end because he has deadlines of his own, expectations of his own. Sometimes, there isn’t a solid reason behind it. Sometimes, his smile is all foggy and wrong, and there isn’t really a reason behind it. Not one that he can put into words, at least. Not one that he can change.

He doesn’t talk about it every time, but he reaches out. Quietly, but Yoongi’s learned to recognize when he needs someone else there with him. Knows not to force him into talking, lets him take his time to gather the words. If he wants to. If he needs to.

Sometimes, Yoongi’s scared that it’s not enough, what he’s doing. If Hoseok wants that at all, wants him there at all, but he tries anyway. He lets him talk on his own time, holds him when he needs someone else to carry his weight for a little while.

Sometimes—

Sometimes, Hoseok doesn’t reach out.

Sometimes, the smile stays there, all foggy and wrong, and the hours he spends at the studio grow longer than they should, but he doesn’t reach out.

Yoongi texts him before he comes over because sometimes, Hoseok just needs the space. Comes over if he says yes and pours the both of them tea. Just sits with him if he needs that. Listens if he needs that.

It doesn’t fix it, but Yoongi will be there just as much Hoseok wants him to be.

It’s enough.

(1 and a,)

Holly comes a little later.

Hoseok’s wandering around his room when Yoongi cracks his eyes open. His limbs feel heavy, even with most of the weight that had rested between his arms gone, and he’s pretty sure it’s barely morning from how faint the light is against the floor next to his bed, but Hoseok’s wide awake, toothbrush trapped between his teeth. And looking for something, it seems.

He sits at the side of his bed once he finds it, right near Yoongi’s torso, and Yoongi reaches up, slips his arms around his waist and rests his weight against his back.

Hoseok does a half jump in surprise, but then he turns and meets his eyes, his shoulders relaxing. A sleepy smile takes over his expression almost immediately.

“I thought you were asleep, sorry. Did I wake you?” he whispers after pulling his toothbrush away. He shouldn’t find it cute, Yoongi thinks idly, the way the words come out around the white foam in his mouth.

He closes his eyes. “Come back to bed. S’cold. And you’re warm.” He adds, still sorta half-asleep, his drowsiness weighing on every word, “Like a furnace.”

Yoongi feels it more than he hears Hoseok laugh, feels the low hum of it right in his chest. Solid. He can practically see his eyes crinkling, all pretty.

“Can’t, have a meeting I can’t miss.” His hair brushes against the side of Yoongi’s face when he turns away. He cut it sometime last month, and it’s getting long again, long enough to cover his eyes and then a few centimeters. Yoongi kind of hopes he doesn’t cut it again. He’s certain Hoseok would look good with anything, but he likes waking up and watching the light catch on the dark brown stands scattered across his pillow, falling over his eyes. “Go back to sleep, hyung.”

“They won’t mind if you’re a little late,” he murmurs. His eyelids are heavy when he lifts them, looking up at him through his eyelashes when he turns to look down at him again. “You can stay a little while longer.”

Hoseok’s smiling as he slips one sock back on, reaches for the other one that escaped to the end of the bed and ends up tugging Yoongi along. He pulls back.

“You’ll see me in a couple hours, I think you’ll be fine.”

“What am I supposed to do when you’re gone, huh?”

Hoseok raises his shoulders in a small shrug, jostling him a little. “Get a dog,” he mumbles, amused, “I don’t know.”

He frowns and pulls his arms away, falls back against the mattress with a grumble. 

The grin Hoseok sends him is bright bright bright.

Yoongi closes his eyes again. 

“Y’know what. Nevermind. Have fun at work, asshole.”

There’s another laugh, muffled this time. The toothbrush, he guesses.

It’s not because Yoongi found any truth in the joke, but Hoseok’s words find their way back to him after a few days, when he’s in a bus on the way to the studio and his eyes catch on a small building. An animal shelter just across the road.

He remembers wanting to adopt a dog when he was still working under his label, remembers not having the time to, deadlines upon deadlines looming with no visible end. It’s different now, though. Producing’s a lot more flexible.

Yoongi gives it some thought.

“Do you want to?” Hoseok asks over the voices filling the restaurant. It’s particularly busy today, and employees slip in and out of the backroom every now and then, Ms. Han taking over things in the kitchen.

Steam from the bowl of soup in front of him crawls up his neck.

His chest is warm warm warm, but for a different reason.

“Yeah,” Yoongi says. He sets his spoon down. “Yeah, I do.”

Hoseok smiles.

He does some research. A lot, too much. How often he might need to take them to the vet, best breeds for certain lifestyles and surroundings and living arrangements, how much exercise certain breeds might need, any plants that might not be so safe for them. (He later donates the ones he finds around his apartment.)

The others tease him for it, how it parallels the whole plant situation, and it doesn’t really bother him, but it gets him thinking a little.

“Do you think I'm doing too much?” 

Hoseok turns. Water drips down his neck, reaches the collar of the black t-shirt he has on in a matter of seconds. Yoongi’s maybe, though it might be Hoseok’s. Their closets have practically fused with how many clothes Hoseok has at Yoongi’s place and Yoongi has at Hoseok’s, so he can’t say.

“What.” The sink switches off, and Yoongi shrugs where he’s leaning against the bathroom counter. “What? No. Is it because of what the others said?” There’s something like regret in the deep brown of Hoseok’s eyes. Yoongi didn’t mean to put that there.

“No, no,” he says quickly, pushes away so that he’s closer to him. “Sorry. I know they didn’t mean it like that, it just—got me thinking, I guess. If I'm doing enough. Too much.”

The regret recedes, and Hoseok’s face softens.

His hands slip around Yoongi’s waist and draw him even closer. They rest on his hips when there’s inches between them instead of feet, fingers just barely grazing the skin underneath his sweater.

“Hyung. You’re doing fine.” He lightly bumps their foreheads together and looks up at him through his lashes, eyes so kind, so warm it feels like he’s burning up from the inside out. It hasn’t really stopped feeling like that yet.

“Yeah.” Yoongi nods and shifts so that the side of his head rests against his shoulder. Closes his eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

He pays a few visits to an animal shelter just a couple blocks away the week after, a little more confident.

A few dogs catch his eye. They’re gone the next time Yoongi comes by.

It’s his third visit when he comes across another, small and brown and wide-eyed. He pads over to the door when Yoongi crouches in front of his cage and peers up at him, curious. A little tentative.

One of the employees unlocks the cage, lets him out, but he doesn’t come close immediately. Takes his time sniffing around Yoongi and Hoseok a little before approaching the two of them. It’s only when he’s inches away that Yoongi notices the small gold collar peeking out from behind his fur.

Holly, it reads.

He was abandoned when he was only a few months old, the employee tells them. He's one now.

Holly crawls over his lap and curls impossibly small. Hums when Yoongi starts scratching behind his ears.

“Seok,” Yoongi whispers. He turns. “Seok-ah.”

Hoseok’s smiling down at Holly, running his own fingers through his fur. “Yeah.”

It takes a little under a week to have everything ready, a bit shorter than it would’ve been since Yoongi already started preparing his apartment a little while ago. He’s in the process of finishing a few tracks, though, so it goes slower, but the others still visit every so often to help whenever he catches a break in between sessions.

(And it’s not often that he does, but he can’t be more grateful.)

It takes a little under a week to have everything ready, but then they are, and Yoongi and Hoseok go back to the shelter, and—

(Holly’s still there.)

He lingers in his carrier for a couple moments after they set him down, looks around at Yoongi’s apartment with big eyes. They give him some space to walk around when he steps out, still a little tentative, a little confused.

Hoseok leaves after a while, once Holly’s found the little bed in the corner, the one that Jimin and Taehyung gave him covered in blankets and a few extra toys, and settles there. Yoongi stays beside him on the couch, eyelids heavy and knees pulled up to his chest, and the rest of the day passes like that.

Holly lingers by his own bed for the next few days, but Yoongi wakes up every morning to find him curled up atop or beside him. It scares him the first time, when he wakes to this heavy weight on his chest, only to find Holly sprawled over his shoulders, fast asleep.

Hoseok stays over one time after a late night Ghibli marathon, and both him and Yoongi wake to Holly settling across the two of them over the blankets. He smiles when Yoongi grumbles about not being able to breathe, knows he actually doesn’t mind the weight around him. It’s warm and grounding.

Hoseok mumbles something, but Yoongi’s already drifting again, so he just hums distractedly and burrows his nose further into the neck of his t-shirt. Hoseok laughs.

(He does move Holly’s bed to his room the next day, and nothing changes, really. Holly still goes over to Yoongi’s bed every night, and Yoongi still leaves some space empty for him.)

The others all meet him after the first week, Holly a little better adjusted to everything.

He circles Namjoon’s legs when he comes by one slow afternoon, and Namjoon grins, dimples coming out of hiding. He does the same with Jimin and Taehyung, and they coo and crouch down to Holly’s height to introduce themselves. Every so often, Yoongi catches them stealing a few treats from the kitchen and offering them to him.

“Stop trying to bribe him,” he says, though they just stick their tongues out at him and sneak a few more to Holly when Yoongi has his back turned.

Namjoon’s already over when Jeongguk drops by, washing the cups they drank coffee from on Yoongi’s couch, talking about the book Namjoon read that’s been haunting him, an artist Yoongi found he thought Namjoon would like.

Jeongguk’s holding up a small canvas when he answers the door, a picture of a dog sprawled over the arm of a couch on the front that looks suspiciously close to the photo of Holly Yoongi sent to their group chat only a few days ago. He grins.

“Why is everyone trying to bribe him,” Yoongi grumbles as he follows Jeongguk to the center of the living room, now the one holding the small canvas. “Is no one concerned about what he actually thinks?”

Namjoon crosses the room, walking past with Holly happily trailing behind him. Jeongguk’s whole face melts. “I didn’t.”

“Exactly. All of you should be more like Joon-ah.”

“Debatable,” Jeongguk argues, already bent down to scratch the top of Holly’s head. He looks up to grin at Yoongi. “Hang that up over his bed, will you?”

Yoongi squints.

They all start to come by more often, which is nice, but also Yoongi has a feeling they’re just there for Holly at this point.

(I'm actually kind of hurt you think that, Hoseok says, sounding very much not hurt. Y'know, as my boyfriend of almost two years.

1 year and six months, Yoongi corrects. Jimin and Jeongguk make a gagging noise from the kitchen.

Aw. Hoseok looks up. Holly stirs a little when his hand stops combing through his fur, but he’s smiling. You're counting.)

Yoongi teases them and all, but he’s grateful, all of them more than happy to watch over him when he goes to visit Seokjin in Seoul. They send pictures, too, just in case he starts to miss him, and little videos of Holly scurrying around or curled up under the morning sun. Ms. Han sometimes offers to look after him, too, when they can’t.

Holly’s grown to like all of them, but he still gets nervous whenever he’s gone for too long, even if Yoongi’s just at the studio. It doesn’t really go away completely, but it eases with time. Once he knows Yoongi’s not going to leave.

He grows a few habits, too, with time. Like, slipping into his studio whenever Yoongi’s too caught up in a track to notice until he turns around a while later and finds him there, curled up small and tiny, tucked in between the wires crawling across the floor. 

Like, running into his studio whenever he has too much energy to contain and barking while he works. Hoseok finds it entertaining every time Yoongi has to re-record another take afterwards, makes a joke of telling Holly to disturb him when he goes to work on a track.

Like, following everyone around the place. It’s usually Yoongi, and the others don’t miss the opportunity to mention how they even turn at the same time. Like, sprawling across the studio floor with Yoongi when everything’s a mess in his head, too much and not enough all at the same time. Scares Hoseok the first time he finds them there. Yoongi just laughs.

Time goes on. He grows.

(2 and a,)

It’s late September when Seokjin visits him in Daegu, nearing the middle of fall already. Yoongi picks him up from the airport when he arrives, helps get his luggage into the trunk of their taxi. He asks how the company is as they drive, how some people are doing. They talk quietly.

Seokjin’s only staying for a week before he has to go back to Seoul, so Yoongi’s already prepared his spare bedroom for him. Holly sniffs around his legs as Yoongi shows him around before ultimately deciding he likes him, too, and he follows them around. They don’t do anything on the first day but talk because Yoongi can tell Seokjin’s a bit exhausted, with his flight and work.

It’s on the second day that they all meet.

Outside is windy and gray the next morning, so they both make the executive decision of staying home again and making some food to watch a few movies with. Holly hops onto the couch between them once they’ve both sat down and lazily blinks up at the tv.

They’re three and a half movies in when there’s the distinct sound of keys jingling and hushed voices from the hallway leading to the front door. The instrumental mostly drowns it out, but then the voices grow louder, and people are suddenly stepping into the living room.

Yoongi and Seokjin pause to look up, meeting the stares of Hoseok, Namjoon, Jeongguk, Taehyung, and Jimin.

There’s a bout of silence.

“Seokjin-hyung? What are you doing here?”

Yoongi pointedly looks away when Seokjin turns to send him a shocked look, picking up the remote and pausing the movie in the middle of Sophie’s line.

“Did I miss something?” Namjoon says to the room. “Am I just really bad at remembering people?”

“No, I think Yoongi just didn’t mention him at all,” Taehyung responds and moves his arm around Jeongguk to reach Namjoon’s shoulder, giving him a little pat and pulling away. Seokjin sends him another shocked look, but Yoongi’s already looking down at Holly.

“Did you hear that?” He blinks up at him for a moment before jumping off the couch and sauntering over to where the others stand. Someone (it’s Hoseok) snorts.

“Honestly, I’m quite offended,” Taehyung says, leaning down to scoop Holly up into his arms, “but I’ll just do his job for him, I guess. I’m Taehyung, these are my roommates, Jeongguk and Jimin.” They both grin and give little waves on either side of Taehyung. “That’s Namjoon, and you already know Hoseok. It’s very nice to meet you, Seokjin-ssi.”

Seokjin nods. "I would say he told me all about you, but actually, he told me nothing.”

They all turn to him in tandem, and Jeongguk gasps. "Hyung."

“Lies,” Yoongi argues.

“Unbelievable.” Jimin shakes his head disappointingly. “I can’t believe this.”

Seokjin pats his shoulder and stands from the couch, his side of the blanket falling into a small pile on Yoongi’s lap. “Help me make dinner, and maybe we’ll consider forgiving you.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness,” Yoongi says, all while pushing himself up from the couch and following Seokjin into the kitchen. “I did nothing wrong.”

The others end up staying while they make dinner, and they help, too. Namjoon puts on one of his playlists while they talk, and they all pause to grin at Holly when he barks out a few notes of one of the songs. It’s loud and warm, how both of Yoongi’s worlds collide, and he can’t help but smile at how easily they all get along.

They sit on the living room floor when everything’s been prepared, all crowded on the rug and surrounding the coffee table. Hoseok sits beside him, Holly sprawled over his lap, and his smile is soft as he watches him contently.

Namjoon and Jeongguk, as always, end up sitting close to each other, their knees overlapping and Namjoon nearly just on his lap. Seokjin makes a little comment about it, asks how long they’ve been dating and takes a sip from his water afterwards, all nonchalant.

They all look towards the two expectantly.

(Wait—are you not dating? He later asks, the hand he’s using to hold his water pausing when neither of them respond, just turning bright red and looking down at their food.)

They leave a few hours later, and Yoongi sees them out while Seokjin takes care of cleaning up, turning the others down when they insist on staying to help. Jeongguk’s the last to go, and Yoongi waits by the front door until he appears in the hallway, his jacket already slipped on.

He pauses in the threshold. Turns back to look at Yoongi for a second.

“You two are good for each other.” Jeongguk pauses, eyes down towards the floorboards before he looks up at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever really said that to you.”

Yoongi smiles. “You and Joon are good for each other, too.”

The look on Jeongguk’s face turns a little wistful at that, a little sad but not completely. There’s some hope amongst all of it, too. He looks back down. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, listening to the voices just down the stairs and the water running a room away, and Yoongi doesn’t push. Just hugs him goodnight and watches him return to the others. 

He trusts that they’ll figure it out.

(3 and a,)

The two of them change a bit, shift and resettle and grow into themselves as time drags.

Movie nights aren’t as often anymore, with Hoseok getting that promotion and Yoongi spending most of his days in his studio, building from the ground up again. They learn to take some time alone, too, though they still see each other most days, and it’s not bad, the change. They still meet in the middle afterwards. They still grow together, too.

A few things stay.

Hoseok still visits every few days or so and pretends like it’s only to see Holly.

(Forgetting someone?

No. He smiles when Holly lifts up to rest his paws against his shin, ignoring Yoongi entirely. No, I don’t think I am.)

He still watches him, too, whenever Yoongi’s not at home and Hoseok is able to.

(Let me see Holly please.

You know…I’m starting to feel like you only call me for your dog.

Yoongi squints at the camera. …Touché. Hoseok smiles.

There’s the sound of rustling before Holly appears on the screen, jumping onto Hoseok’s chest from where he’s lying on the carpet. His eyes close when the light hits them, and Hoseok smiles again, adjusting.

You're lucky I'm his favorite.)

He still makes ginger tea every morning and sits at the kitchen until Yoongi wakes up and gets himself a cup of coffee and talks with him for hours.

They still like to just sit in each other’s presence, too, when they’re too tired to say a word. Sometimes, there’s no reason for it, but they end up like that anyway.

They still call way too late at night when neither of them can sleep, even when Hoseok’s still in Daegu, even when they’re only minutes away from each other. It’s not that often, but it happens often enough that it’s his first instinct when he’s been awake for longer than he wants to be.

On the week of their two year anniversary, Yoongi takes Hoseok to the States. Chicago, to be specific.

It’s a three day trip, but they make the most of it while they’re there. They walk through Millennium Park and visit Cloud Gate on the way. They visit Navy Pier, too, and they get some food to eat while they walk. They’re not out for long on the second day because it’s freezing, but Yoongi can’t stop smiling once they’re back in their hotel room. 

They go to a museum on the morning of the last day, and they walk around for a while, stopping in front of the paintings they like. They look at each other at the same time, and Hoseok just smiles.

They spend the rest of the day trying to find a Korean restaurant that tastes close enough to home until they eventually do, late into the afternoon. There aren’t too many customers when they come in, and they sit in one of the booths as they talk. They finish their bowls in minutes and almost consider getting another, but then it’s seven, and they have to go back to their room if they want to get enough sleep for the flight the next day, so they leave.

Hoseok treats him to dinner and a movie at Yoongi’s apartment once they’ve came back, and they pass chocolates between each other, wine on the coffee table and Holly between the two of them.

Things still get bad.

Hoseok still chews at his cuticles whenever they get particularly bad, and Yoongi is still there to take his fingers away and bandage them up every time. Hoseok is still there for Yoongi, too, whenever he feels like crawling out of his skin. He sits with him and listens. Holds that weight for him like it doesn’t bother him at all.

The vines are still there, roots somewhere deep in his chest. They grow bigger still, flowers blooming and spilling out of him, growing and growing to the very tips of his fingers.

Sometimes, he still can’t believe Hoseok feels the same whenever he sees him moving around his apartment, or waking up beside him, eyes fluttering open and glowing a deep warm brown under the sunlight before he grimaces and crawls back under the sheets or catches Yoongi staring, smiles big at him, smiles blinding. When he’s pressed flush against him, above him, staring up at him. (You're unbelievable, Yoongi whispers, sometimes).

Hoseok still laughs like thunder. Makes him feel like a summer storm, warm and brewing. They still look at each other like nothing’s changed.

There are new things, too, little things they discover about each other as the years go by.

The tattoo a few inches above Hoseok’s hip, a fire starting. Smoke curling up to his midside. Sometimes, he catches it in the morning, the edges of it under the sunlight.

There’s also the tattoo Yoongi has on his injured shoulder, little tendrils and flowers coming out of the scar he got there from his surgery years ago. Hoseok traces the outline, sometimes, fingers always scorching to the touch, like he could make it come alive. Like he’ll pull back, and the wound will close, and the flowers will fall away. He doesn’t ask what it means, just asks when he got it. Yoongi tells him some of it, anyway, appreciates that he didn’t push.

They get new tattoos, too, individual ones and matching.

Hoseok gets a vase of bellflowers done on the side of his forearm, deep purple, and Yoongi gets two of his own, one of the philodendron plant Namjoon got him and the other of his childhood piano, at the bottom of his upper arm. Seokjin takes a moment to look at it when he shows him, silent, a soft smile that's just barely visible.

They get one done on the both of them, a drawing of Hoseok’s tea mug with the tag of a teabag hanging off the side, Yoongi’s coffee mug just beside it, half-drunk and stained around the rim. tendrils wrap around the bases, connecting them and overlapping into a mess.

It’s early on when they first say I love you.

Yoongi’s in the kitchen, making his morning coffee, Hoseok right beside him, already sipping at his tea and bickering back and forth with him about the new flavor he bought.

“All I’m saying is that you should try it.” He holds the mug out for him, and Yoongi eyes it warily, leaning against the counter as he waits for his own cup to fill.

“I think I'd rather go without coffee for a week.”

“Fine, then.” He pulls it back to his chest with a smile. “But the offer’s still there if you ever want any.”

“Look—I love you and all, but no.”

The smile falters on Hoseok’s face. Yoongi almost doesn’t realize.

“Yoongi?”

His entire body goes cold.

“Sorry,” he says, like the words haven’t been rolling around on his tongue for months. Like it was a mistake. “Sorry, I—”

But Hoseok steps closer. “You love me?”

Yoongi blinks. There’s a storm forming in the middle of his stomach again, and he’s a little terrified with the prospect of loving him this much, and he should slow down. Feels too soon, but he means it more than he thought he could. 

Hoseok just waits patiently, eyes soft, watching him with a sort of wonder, like he’s surprised. Like he isn’t kind and funny and thoughtful and gentle all at once.

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Yeah, Seok. I love you.”

They stare at each other for a while before Hoseok calmly places his mug down on the counter, not even looking at where he put it, and slips his hands behind his neck, pulling him forward. It startles Yoongi a little, but he relaxes into the kiss, loosely wrapping his hands around his wrists.

He pulls back eventually, smiles so soft and devastating and happy and relieved.  “I love you, too.” Says it like he’s releasing something.

There’s the little things, too.

The way Hoseok wakes up every morning, for one. What he looks like when he opens his eyes under the morning light, the way his hair stretches out over his pillow. How the light catches on the strands and makes them glimmer. The raspiness in his voice when he greets Yoongi. The warmth in the corners between their bodies, curled around each other and breathing soft, breathing quiet.

Hoseok’s clothes everywhere in his apartment, his shoes at the door. His jacket on the arm of the couch, in his closet, at the edge of his bed.

The way Yoongi’s clothes fit on him whenever he puts them on, his own in the washer.

His laugh.

His smile.

The look on Hoseok’s face when Yoongi catches him staring. Thinks that his face probably looks the same, too, whenever Hoseok catches him.

The way he cares for Holly and the others. How he looks at the six of them, maybe not like molten gold but something close. Looks at them with only love, forgiving and soft.

Yoongi remembers the night Namjoon and Jeongguk told them they were together, how they were just waiting for the right time, at least until Namjoon finished grad school. How they all hugged to celebrate the news, patting each other on the back until Jeongguk started arguing with them. Namjoon just standing there, making little comments here and there with a smile. He remembers the way Hoseok smiled, too, like all was right in the world.

(They talked about it later that night, huddling close together on the bed as they whispered to each other, Yoongi vaguely wondering what Hoseok saw when he looked at him, if he could see through him with a simple glance. Hoseok just smiled, a little sleepy at the edges. Whispered, I'm glad they figured it out.

Yeah. Me too.)

They still have fights, from time to time.

They had their first argument some months in, over something small that felt bigger in the moment. He doesn’t remember what it was exactly about, but he remembers feeling tense, something with producing stressing him out. Remembers how everything seemed bigger than it actually was, heightened. How scary it was when they started arguing. They had disagreements here and there, but it never grew into anything big.

They apologized afterwards, and Yoongi agreed to take a step back from producing. They both agreed to talk before it got that bad.

It happens again, several times over the years, but they work it out. They stay.

Time goes on again. They grow.

(1 and a,)

It takes him a while to release his first song, but then he does, late into winter, on the precipice of spring again.

Hoseok’s there that night. 

They’re on Yoongi’s bed, and he’s right there behind him, arms wrapped tight around his waist and whispering little reassurances into his shoulder every so often. Yoongi just sort of stares at the screen, hand holding pressure on the keypad.

He thinks there’s still a little part of him that’s scared despite everything, and it makes sense. He’s been working on this for months, has been accumulating the lines for years. Had to dig his old notebooks out from the back of his closet and flip through the pages. Had to sit with it for a while.

He thinks about the weeks it took to really sit down and get all his words out. All of the days he’d spent holed up in his studio, Holly sometimes there with him when there was no one to watch over him. How long it took.

But it’s different now. He has Seokjin and Hoseok and everyone else right beside him, but more than that—he’s changed a lot in the past few years. He no longer feels the need to share every song he writes, takes a step back when he feels the burnout slowly creeping in.

There are still days when everything turns to static, but he’s learned to give himself time, gets through it step by step.

Yoongi vaguely thinks back to his texts with Jeongguk and everyone else, the plans they have later in the night, a little celebration after the release. About how Seokjin came all the way for him, for this.

Thinks about how things will stay the same after this. How the days will go on, whether people respond well or not, though he’ll be fine with either.

The clock turns to nine.

Yoongi lets go.

(The party goes well. Not all of the comments on the song are positive, but he skips over the negative ones this time.

Time goes on.)

(They look a little like—)

New projects. Early mornings at the studio. Pages brimming with words.

(They look a little like—)

Crumpled papers. Foggy smiles. Cutting words.

(They look a little like—)

New apartments. Celebrations. Echoing laughter.

(They look a little like—)

Grasped hands. Silence. Whispered apologies.

(They look a little like—)

Sunlight through half-drawn curtains. Ruffled sheets.

Hoseok’s face as he rests behind where Holly is curled up between them. Not quite morning yet, but Yoongi’s awake, and he watches as the first morning rays slip into their room.

They look a little like the lilies Hoseok got him on their three year anniversary that still sit in a little vase next to their bed, their faces turned up to catch the light, soak it all in. They’ll have to place them somewhere else when summer comes, but they keep them here for now.

They look a little like the lilies on their fingers and the ones they saw on one of their walks weeks ago, still in winter, but they were blooming, anyway.

They look a little like afternoons at Ms. Han’s restaurant with Hoseok or with the others or just by himself. Late mornings at the plant shop Yoongi and the others found, eventually befriending the owners, an older couple. Sitting on the cold tiles underneath the plants as they talk, grinning at each other, knees pulled all the way up to their chests.

They look a little like slow mornings with Hoseok, cups in both of their hands. Tea and coffee. Dancing with him sometimes, too, jazz playing from somewhere in the kitchen around them, their shadows shifting across the floor.

They look like dinners every month with the seven of them, stretching late into the night. Look like the afternoons Yoongi spends at Namjoon’s or Namjoon spends at his, always deep in discussion. Sharing mandarins with Ms. Han as they talk on her balcony. Doing laundry on Hoseok’s living room floor and tripping on the platform to his kitchen every single time.

They look a little like watching the seasons change from winter to spring, summer to fall. Coming to terms with it.

They look a little like—

(gardens in his chest singing, mending, growing;)

—warmth.