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Yoongi doesn’t believe in ghosts.
He doesn’t. So when his closet door swings open after he closes it, he grabs a screwdriver and tightens the knob. When his TV turns on by itself, he fiddles with the wires and checks the remote. When things start to fall off the shelves, he visits the apartment upstairs and tells them to stop playing their music so loud.
Sometimes things go missing. He’ll swear left and right he put his favorite beanie by the coffee maker, but days later it turns up bundled in a pair of underwear.
Namjoon says Yoongi’s getting old. “You need to graduate already. College is driving you nuts.”
Hoseok’s convinced he’s haunted, and he won’t come anywhere near his apartment.
“You should see a medium,” Hoseok says when Yoongi shows up to class grumbling about finding a mug in the bathtub.
“You should get your brain checked,” Yoongi returns.
It takes four months for him to really get frustrated. He’s flipping through radio stations one afternoon, and he stops on one he likes only to have it switch to a station playing trot. He changes it back and lasts thirty seconds before trot is on again. When it happens a third time, he flings the radio on the ground. There’s a dull thump and the sound of something rattling.
“If I wanted an annoying roommate I wouldn’t be living in a damn studio,” he shouts, grabbing his jacket and storming out. It might be a laugh- that sound he hears follow him out. A shiver scuttles up his spine and his skin prickles with goosebumps.
But then he feels stupid, because there’s no such thing as ghosts, and Hoseok must be getting to him.
The next morning his coffee mug floats.
He’s reaching for it while he reads to take a swig when he realizes he’s grasping at air. He looks over and it’s there, hovering inches above his hand, wobbling a little like someone with shaky hands is holding it. Yoongi stares until his own hands grow shaky. Then he stands so suddenly he must startle the ghost because the mug topples over and drenches his hand and sleeve in coffee.
He yelps, heartbeat stuttering as his skin turns an angry red. Ice cold water soothes the burn temporarily, enough for him to pick up the phone, call Hoseok, and ask him what the hell a medium is and where to find one.
324.
Yoongi glances at Hoseok’s text message, then back at the black numbers on the door. It’s the right apartment. Their university sticker hangs lopsided under the peephole. He sighs, shoving stray hairs back into his beanie, and raises a hand to knock.
He drops it, turns around, and heads toward the exit. Min Yoongi does not believe in ghosts. But the burn on his hand itches and he’s absolutely sure it’s impossible to wash coffee stains out of white shirts (and even if it isn’t he is far too lazy to try) so halfway there he spins on his heel and returns to apartment number 324.
It takes him three minutes of internal argument before he calls himself a fucker and knocks.
The boy who opens the door is not what he expects. He looks like a freshman, first of all. Yoongi sweeps his eyes over bare feet, faded sweats, and a cute nose. This kid can’t possibly be the medium.
“I’m looking for Jungkook.”
The boy raises an eyebrow that disappears into his dark bangs. “You’re Yoongi.”
Yoongi waits.
“I’m Jungkook.”
“Are you joking? Hoseok sent me to a kid?”
“I’m not a kid. Anyway, what are you, a sophomore?”
“I’m twenty-three,” Yoongi snarls, grabbing the door frame. “If that was a stab at my height-”
“And you haven’t graduated yet, old man?” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “If you don’t want help, you can leave.”
He kicks the door, and Yoongi wants to let it close, but a whole cup of coffee was wasted that morning, and that’s no small thing. He sticks his foot in between the door and the doorjamb. Jungkook smirks and retreats into his room. With a muttered curse, Yoongi follows.
It’s a studio apartment, like Yoongi’s. He steps over a pair of dumbbells and veers around haphazardly strewn clothing. A few posters hang over the messy bed, across which is an impressive stereo system. The kitchen is markedly cleaner. Hoseok said Jungkook accepts food as payment, so Yoongi ventures a guess that Jungkook doesn’t use it much. Jungkook sits at a small table, pointing to the seat across from him.
Yoongi reclines, crossing his arms and looking anywhere but at Jungkook.
“So you want a reading done.”
“Obviously. Why else would I be here?”
“Are you trying to find out anything in particular?”
“I’m not giving you any hints. You’re probably a fake anyway.”
Jungkook wrinkles his nose and looks a little bit like a bunny. “Like I said before, you can leave.”
Yoongi sniffs. “Never mind, whatever. Just do it.”
Jungkook leans forward, resting his arms on the table, and stares. Yoongi looks at the table. Clears his throat. Shifts in his seat. Glances at Jungkook. His gaze is so intense heat rushes to Yoongi’s neck, and he flinches away. He pulls off his beanie to run his hands through his hair, then tugs it back on to fiddle with his rings instead.
“Are you- are you doing it?”
“Yes. Now sit still.”
“Don’t you need like a crystal ball or tarot cards or some shit?”
Jungkook snorts, moving the bangs from his eyes with a slight flick of his head. It should look stupid but it doesn’t. “I’m a medium, not a fortune teller. Do you want the reading done or not?”
Yoongi slouches further, scowling, and endures the staring for what must be forever. And then Jungkook smiles.
It’s out of nowhere. A bright light Yoongi can only bear to look at for a moment. He has dimples. Yoongi blinks, but the image is burned on the back of his eyelids.
“I like him. Your ghost. He’s funny.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“He’s really sorry about the coffee. He just thinks it’s funny when you’re mad. He didn’t mean to spill it.”
Yoongi swallows. He sits up, removing his beanie so he can hold it in his hands. He has a coffee stain on his sleeve. Jungkook could have made an educated guess. “That it?” He’s not sure if his voice shakes or if he only thinks it does.
“His name’s Taehyung. He’s also sorry about all the things he keeps dropping. He’s clumsy. He’s not sorry about the mug in your bathtub, though, because that was funny.”
“Are you fucking with me? Because it’s not funny.”
Jungkook blinks, like he’s a little surprised. “Of course not. Do you want to talk to him? He’s been trying to talk to you, but you don’t listen.”
Yoongi stands so quickly his chair hits the ground. He makes a beeline for the door. “Ha. Ha. Cute. I knew you were a fraud.”
He’s at the door when Jungkook says, “Wait. Yoongi.”
He pauses, hand on the doorknob.
“Taehyung says stop switching the radio off. He really likes trot.”
He slams the door behind him when he leaves. Min Yoongi does not believe in ghosts. And Min Yoongi definitely does not get scared of them.
(He crashes at Namjoon’s place that night.)
“Taehyung.”
He rolls it around his tongue like it’s a foreign word, not the name of his old neighbor or that quiet kid in his high school photography class. He says it like it’s the name of a ghost haunting his apartment. Yoongi has been living here all year but nothing looks the same anymore. There’s a strange lens distorting his vision and he thinks sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
He steps inside, letting the door fall shut behind him, and says it again. This time it’s a question. The only chair at his kitchen table moves three inches he can’t deny. With his head in his hands, he sinks to the ground and leans against the wall.
“What am I going to do with you?”
The radio turns on. It’s trot.
Yoongi groans. If he’s going to be haunted, it could at least be by a less annoying ghost.
He meets Jungkook at a café near campus, and if it’s more because he’s desperate for help than because he still owes Jungkook for the visit, no one has to know. Yoongi orders them coffee and the biggest sandwiches on the menu. They sit outside where the wind curls through their hair.
“How’s Taehyung?”
Yoongi glares. Jungkook laughs into his coffee mug. “How’d you get into this whole medium thing anyway?”
“I didn’t get into anything. I was born with it.”
“Why do you do readings? Do you always help people who think they’re haunted?”
“Sometimes people just want to talk to their loved ones who’ve passed. But that doesn’t usually work. It’s easier to connect with ghosts who are physically here, like Taehyung. Well, not physically.”
“So. Uh. Hypothetically speaking-”
“You wanna know what to do about Taehyung.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re sitting here asking me all these questions, right?”
Yoongi’s going to argue but Jungkook looks determined. “Hypothetically speaking. Say there is a Taehyung haunting me. How do I get rid of him?”
“Well.” Jungkook chews thoughtfully. He really does look like a bunny. “We have to figure out what’s holding him to your place.”
“Can’t you ask him?”
“He probably doesn’t even know. Most of the ones like Taehyung are attached to an object or something. So if we put the object to rest, we’ll put Taehyung to rest, too.”
“What’s that even mean,” Yoongi grumbles into his sandwich. His head feels too full of nonsense.
Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Did you buy anything used recently?”
He scratches his head. “I don’t remember. Maybe.”
“I’ll need to come over. So I can talk to Taehyung properly and try to find what’s keeping him.” The wind blows Jungkook’s bangs into his eye, but his hands are busy with his sandwich. In vain, he tries to shake them away.
Yoongi reaches out and brushes his hair aside, fingers lingering briefly against his forehead. “When can you come over?”
It’s the first time Yoongi has seen Jungkook with a crack in his composure. He looks a little lost, like he’s trying to remember what he was going to say, and Yoongi smiles. “Uh- whenever. Now. I mean, after this.”
His place is quiet when he enters, but as soon as Jungkook walks in behind him, a book falls off the desk.
“He’s excited. Since you don’t talk to him.”
Yoongi scoffs, whipping the various journals where he writes his lyrics out of sight. “What are you going to do?”
Jungkook moves through the kitchen first. He glances in the cabinets, touching a chipped plate, and runs his hands along the counters. He’s in his element; every step is confident. Yoongi wonders what it would be like to break his cool composure.
Every now and then Jungkook nods, or makes an affirmative noise, perhaps responding to Taehyung. He progresses into the living area, patting the side of Yoongi’s bed and shifting through the side table’s drawers. Yoongi stands in the corner, fidgeting, biting his tongue to keep from telling Jungkook to stop touching his stuff. At the desk, Jungkook pauses and sits down, eyebrows raised. He stays there for so long Yoongi gets anxious.
“Where did you get this?” He points at the radio. The break in silence is unnerving.
Yoongi struggles to remember. “I think I got it at a thrift- oh.”
“This is it. It must have been his before he died.”
“It’s the damn radio? So that’s why he’s always turning it on.”
Jungkook traces light fingertips along the edge of the radio, then frowns. “I think he’s attached himself a little bit to you, too.”
“Are you kidding me?” He can’t imagine why anyone would want to attach to him.
“This’ll be hard.” He tucks the radio under his arm and heads to the door. “We’ve got to find his grave. If we bring this with us, he can come.”
Yoongi isn’t sure how he feels about searching for a maybe-ghost’s grave, but Jungkook’s already leaving.
“He could be buried anywhere. Miles away. Everyone’s cremated these days anyway.”
“He wasn’t. He says it’s close. Did you get the radio at the thrift shop down the street? Because he went to school here.” Jungkook halts at the staircase, and Yoongi nearly bumps into him. He glances over his shoulder, the corner of his lips curved down. “We might have had classes with him.”
Yoongi doesn’t like thinking about death. He has a rocky relationship with the idea of impermanence. That’s why he makes music- to fight that idea. To link himself to the world. But now he thinks about a boy he might have passed every day and never known, one who liked trot and playing pranks on people and probably laughed a lot. If he closes his eyes he can almost see him. For the first time Yoongi thinks maybe music isn’t enough to make him last forever.
They find Taehyung’s grave tucked underneath a small tree in a family plot after climbing a fence to get in. Yoongi hisses when he sees the dates; he can’t help it. One year ago. Before he realizes it, he has bent down to touch the gravestone and rearrange the fresh flowers around it. Jungkook kneels next to him, clutching the radio like a baby. His eyes are closed. Yoongi studies the crease between his brows, his slightly fluttering eyelashes, the curve of his cheeks and the serious set of his mouth.
When Jungkook opens his eyes, Yoongi asks, “How do you do it? Deal so closely with death?”
Jungkook shrugs. “You get used to it.”
Yoongi is hit with a sudden protective instinct. It’s an alien feeling. Yoongi doesn’t know Jungkook, but he wants to. He wants to trace his hand along the smooth skin of his face and teach him about permanence, because all he seems to know is the opposite.
Jungkook places the radio on the ground. “I think I’ve severed most of his link to this. Being near the grave helps. He’s connecting to his body. But he has to let go of you.”
“How?”
He tugs on the end of his collar and stares at Yoongi’s ear instead of his eyes. “I need to kiss you.”
“What.”
“Ghosts can’t attach to me. It’s part of being a medium. So if I transfer my energy-” He mumbles something about souls coming out of mouths when you die and auras and energy but Yoongi isn’t listening.
“All right.”
Jungkook leans forward. He hesitates, brows furrowed, so Yoongi closes the distance between them and kisses him. It lasts three seconds (Yoongi counts) but he’s already decided he could get used to this. When Jungkook pulls away, his face is a little red and he turns to face the grave immediately. Then he closes his eyes again and focuses. Yoongi is content to watch him.
“Look.”
Yoongi follows the direction Jungkook is pointing. Behind the grave, it looks like there’s the silhouette of a boy waving.