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It’s been nine years, maybe ten, but sometimes Jimin still hears the echo of his laugh. Sometimes he finds himself thinking about pinky promises and melting popsicles and rooftop nights spent counting stars.
Jimin has never had much luck keeping people around. Just when they start to matter so much he can’t breathe without thinking of them, they leave. He calls it a curse. His second best friend lasts a year before she starts hanging out with a different crowd. His first boyfriend breaks up with him after two months because I’m not looking for anything serious and it seems like you might be. He doesn’t understand that Jimin can’t care about someone without being serious.
Jimin goes through four best friends and two boyfriends. Nobody lasts long. He starts to think he should stop caring about people so much but it’s impossible not to pour his entire soul into someone else when they matter to him. You’re so clingy. He hears that a lot.
It’s his first best friend who stuck around the longest, and might have stayed longer if his parents hadn’t moved. Jimin grows up with Yoongi’s window in the next door house facing his where they hold up nonsense signs during the few hours of the day they aren’t together. Yoongi doesn’t talk much but he never tells Jimin to shut up like everyone else does. Yoongi likes staying at home but if Jimin asks enough he’ll follow him anywhere, even if he complains the whole way.
Jimin is eleven when Yoongi leaves, and it’s the first time he learns what it feels like to be left behind. The first year apart, they stay in touch through phone calls and instant messaging, but the second year Yoongi grows busy with high school and their conversations become more infrequent. Jimin feels like a kid compared to Yoongi, who is already thinking about university and careers while Jimin is still stuck in middle school. When the third year rolls around, it’s like Yoongi drops off the face of the planet.
He stops answering texts and calls and emails and messages and Jimin is left with that restless feeling of not knowing. But life catches up to him and he gets busier and busier until Yoongi is just a fond memory in the back of his head.
Still, sometimes he catches himself remembering Yoongi’s voice and his smile and wonders if he’s doing okay, wherever he is. First best friends are kind of like first loves- impossible to forget. So when Jimin sees Yoongi nine years later, he recognizes him immediately.
Jimin is learning choreography for the upcoming club performance with Jungkook and Hoseok in the park in front of his apartment building because all the practice rooms are booked.
“Not like that. Like this.” Hoseok demonstrates the move, and Jimin replicates it after a few tries. It’s not exactly warm outside, but Jimin is sweating even in his tank top.
“Let’s take a break,” Jungkook says, freefalling back onto the grass.
Jimin removes his phone from his bag to check the time. “Don’t you have a history lecture soon?”
Jungkook snorts. “I’m not going.”
“You never go.”
“Exactly. Why start now?”
“That guy has been watching us for a while,” Hoseok interrupts, pointing up the small hill, where someone is leaning against the tree. “I bet he’s from the other dance club. Trying to scope out competition. Should I fight him?”
“You couldn’t fight a bunny if you tried,” says Jungkook.
“Hey, you little-”
But Jimin isn’t listening anymore. He’s squinting at the stranger, who starts to walk toward them. He has his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, a dark beanie loosely perched on soft pink hair. As he grows nearer Jimin is struck by the familiarity of his delicate face and gummy smile.
He stops a yard away, rocking back on his heels and fidgeting with his beanie. “Hey. Park Jimin.”
“Min Yoongi.” For a second they stare at each other, struck by how long it’s been and how different they look. Then Jimin grins and surges forward for a hug. Yoongi stiffens briefly before wrapping his arms around Jimin and burying his face in his shoulder. When they pull apart, Jimin asks, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m in the city for a while, so I called your parents. They said you were in university. Didn’t think I’d run into you in the park, though.”
Jimin realizes his friends are watching, so he points at them. “Jungkook, Hoseok. This is Yoongi. We grew up together.”
“You were standing there for a while,” Hoseok says.
“I didn’t want to disturb you guys.” Yoongi looks a little sheepish. “So you still dance?”
Jimin nods. “Of course.”
“I’ve learned a dance or two since the last time we met, you know.”
“Oh yeah?”
And Yoongi jumps into the chorus of a girl group dance that has them all laughing. His phone rings, and when he checks it, he swears. “I gotta run. There’s a coffee shop over there.” He points in the general direction.
“I know it.”
“Meet me there at 4?”
Jimin nods. He hasn’t stopped smiling since he saw Yoongi, and when Yoongi leaves with a wave, he finds Jungkook and Hoseok smirking at him.
“He’s cool,” Jungkook says. “How do you know somebody that cool?”
“Shut up.”
---
Jimin arrives at the coffee shop twenty minutes early even though it takes only five minutes to walk. He sits there grinning into his cup, stupidly excited. Yoongi gets there twenty minutes late. He bursts through the door with windswept hair and stops by Jimin’s booth, eyeing his almost finished coffee.
“You’re at a quality coffee shop and you got that sugary thing?”
Without waiting for an answer, he goes to the counter. When he returns, he is holding two mugs of fragrant black coffee.
“Now this is the real stuff.” He pushes one over to Jimin and slides in across from him.
Jimin sips it, nose wrinkling at the bitterness, but it does have a nice flavor once he gets beyond that. “So where are you staying?”
“The apartment building on the other side of the park. My friend’s roommate moved out so he’s letting me crash.”
“I live across the park from you,” he exclaims. “Down the street from here.”
“Huh.”
“How are your parents? Does your mom still make that chocolate cake, the one with the sprinkles and the cream in the middle? I still remember that.”
Yoongi studies his coffee. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen them.” He curls his hands around the mug, as if drawing warmth from it, and glances up. After a moment, he says, “They kicked me out. When I told them I was bisexual. I was fifteen.”
Fifteen. That would have been two years after Yoongi moved, around the time he had stopped answering Jimin’s calls and messages. He remembers Yoongi’s mother and her warm smile and comforting hugs, and Yoongi’s father with his loud laugh and constant jokes. He can’t imagine the people he knew would abandon their only son, especially because Jimin’s own parents had been so accepting when he came out to them.
“Quit pouting at me like that. It’s all right. It’s been a while.”
“What about your sister? Do you still see her?”
Yoongi holds Jimin’s gaze, leaning back in the booth, absently pushing his mug around. Jimin waits. Finally, “She died. A year after I left.”
The tears slip out at that. His little sister had always hung around them, begging them to play with her. They used to devise elaborate plans to avoid her, but sometimes they would let her tag along. Jiminie, you’re my favorite. “What- what happened?”
Yoongi’s eyes trace the path of Jimin’s tears as they slip down his cheeks. “She was walking home from school. Somebody must have picked her up. They found her body in the river.”
“Yoongi.”
“I used to walk her home every day, you know, because my parents worked late. But after I left they had no choice but to let her come home by herself.”
“It’s not your-”
“It’s okay, Jimin. It’s a little bit my fault.” When Jimin starts to protest, he just shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
There’s something dark in Yoongi’s eyes, something like he’s been lost for a long time without hope of finding his way. Jimin feels a strange sort of guilt that the worst thing to happen to him in nine years was the death of his cat. Nine years are a long time, he thinks, a long time to build a wall between two people. He won’t ever know Yoongi the way he did.
“Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but Jimin has to ask.
“I tried to kill myself, once.” He shrugs. “But I’m okay now.”
Jimin thinks he’s lying, because nothing about the way he looks right now is okay.
“Hey.” Yoongi reaches across the table and wipes Jimin’s tears with a napkin. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this stuff. But you feel too much like old times.”
Jimin coughs to clear the lump in his throat and sniffs.
“So you’re in school. What are you studying?”
It’s such a sudden topic switch that Jimin takes a minute to clear his thoughts before answering. “Exercise science.”
“I thought you always wanted to dance.”
“Dad said I had to major in something more stable. But I’m a dance minor. Do you still rap?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of well-known in the underground scene, actually.” He grins, and Jimin grins back. “I even have a stage name.”
“A stage name!”
“Suga.”
Jimin snorts. “Sugar?”
“Suga, not sugar, you little shit.” Jimin can’t help but laugh. Yoongi flings a coffee-stained napkin at him. “What do you think you’re laughing at, Park Jimin?”
“Nothing. It fits. Because you’re so sweet.”
“Shut up. The guy I’m living with, Namjoon, he’s a rapper, too. His stage name is Rap Monster.”
Jimin scrunches up his nose, pretending to think. “I like that better,” he says decidedly, but only so he can see the grumpy irritation on Yoongi’s face as he crosses his arm and mutters about ignorant brats named Park Jimin.
The conversation falls into an easy flow, and even though it has been so long, it isn’t awkward. Yoongi still doesn’t talk much, and Jimin still talks too much. That much hasn’t changed. Yoongi is still snarky and fun and even though everything else might have changed and his eyes are still a little lost and his laugh a little hollow, Jimin is glad to have him back.
Their time together is over too fast. Jimin has class and Yoongi is meeting Namjoon at the studio where they record their music.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?” Jimin gives a little wave as he backs away down the sidewalk, seriously considering skipping class for a second even though he’s never done that before. But Yoongi is busy, too.
Yoongi opens his mouth to answer, but he reaches out and yanks Jimin toward him by a finger curled in Jimin’s belt loop instead. He removes Jimin’s phone from his back pocket. “How are you gonna see me soon if you don’t even have my number?” he mutters, typing it in with one hand, the other still holding onto Jimin.
Jimin flushes. Yoongi isn’t looking at him, so Jimin lets himself admire his straight nose and smooth lips and slender chin from close up.
“Here.” Yoongi slips the phone back into Jimin’s pocket, and when he looks up and sees pink cheeks and wide eyes, he grins. “Cute.”
He lets Jimin go and walks off down the street with a lazy wave.
---
They see each other often after that. Jimin texts him much more than he should, and Yoongi barely responds, but occasionally when they’re together he will mention something that tells Jimin he reads and remembers. It’s been years but Yoongi feels like home. Being with him again reminds Jimin of how well their personalities always meshed.
Jimin meets Namjoon eventually, who is smart and goofy and seems a little surprised at how close Yoongi and Jimin are. The first time Jimin visits their apartment, when Yoongi disappears to the bathroom, Namjoon says, “I’m glad he found you again.” And Jimin isn’t sure why but that makes him warm with happiness.
Yoongi likes to stop by Jimin’s dance practices, where he becomes acquainted with Jungkook and Hoseok. Jungkook is still in awe that Jimin knows somebody like Yoongi, and Hoseok and Yoongi make each other laugh.
Despite how easily they fall back into friendship, there are moments when Jimin is reminded sharply of how much Yoongi has changed. There’s a hollowness in his eyes that can’t be chased away. Sometimes Jimin won’t hear from Yoongi for three or four days straight, and just when his worry becomes all-consuming, Yoongi will show up at his door with a black eye and a casual, “I’m starving, I hope you have food,” like nothing has happened.
Yoongi gets in a lot of fights at the club where he spends his nights, and mostly for stupid reasons.
“He asked me why I had pink hair.”
“He said he didn’t like my jacket.”
“He took my seat.”
At that Jimin had snorted and said, “There aren’t assigned seats at a bar.”
And Yoongi had snapped, “But I always sit there.”
And then one day Jimin figures it out. He’s prodding Yoongi, asking why he gets in so many dumb fights, and Yoongi is laughing it off. They ask for it. But then, quietly, when he must think Jimin can’t hear him, he says, I hate myself. And that’s when Jimin realizes that Yoongi spends a lot of time thinking of ways to punish himself.
---
“I tried to get out of it, you know, I told him I couldn’t do it, but he kept saying how good it would look and how impressive my solo performance would be if I did a backflip halfway through and I just ended up saying yes but now I can’t do it, I’ve been practicing every day.”
He’s playing video games in his apartment, sitting on the ground in front of Yoongi, who’s perched on his bed smoking a cigarette. Yoongi isn’t saying much today but Jimin has a lot to say. He knows Yoongi is listening because every now and then he’ll make a comment or pat Jimin’s shoulder.
“But if I can’t do this stupid flip then my performance just won’t be as good, and I want it to be good, I want it to be the best because I’ve been waiting for the chance to do a solo for so long and now I’m just going to mess it all up-” His car skids off the track and Yoongi’s speeds on past it, taking first place. “Fuck.” Jimin tosses his controller across the room. “I’ve got to practice more, I just have to practice but I’m tired and there’s not enough time-”
Yoongi runs his fingers through Jimin’s hair, slowly, fingers close to his scalp. He falters, and Yoongi does it again, and doesn’t stop, and Jimin’s voice loses its tension until eventually he stops talking altogether. For someone who fights so much, Yoongi has awfully gentle hands. He leans back against Yoongi’s legs and closes his eyes and Yoongi strokes his hair, soothing him. He can probably learn how to backflip if he tries hard enough. He can probably do anything if he tries hard enough.
“You’ll come to my performance, right?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
---
He’s in lecture one day when he gets a call from an unknown number. At first he ignores it, but a text message follows: hey this is namjoon call me back asap it’s about yoongi and it’s kind of urgent. Jimin stuffs his books in his bag and flies out of class without a second to waste.
“Can you come over? Yoongi isn’t doing so good. He gets like this sometimes, just can’t drag himself out of bed, but we have a show tonight and I know when Yoongi pulls himself out of this slump he’ll regret missing it.”
Jimin bounds down the stairs, two at a time, and bursts out of the building. “How long has he been like this?”
“A few days.”
That explained why Jimin’s texts had gone unanswered. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just talk to him. If anyone can talk to him right now, it’s you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
He bounces from foot to foot at the crosswalk, making a break for it as soon as the traffic slows. Urgency churns his stomach. As he runs across campus all he can think about is that Yoongi told him he tried to kill himself once.
Namjoon lets him in, pointing to Yoongi’s closed bedroom door. Jimin opens it quietly, peeking inside. Yoongi is sprawled on his stomach, arm dangling off the side of his bed, loosely clutching a can of beer. Cigarette butts fill a plate on the floor. His eyes are open but he stares at the ground blankly.
There’s a stuttering of pain in Jimin’s chest. Yoongi has been like this for a few days. Jimin should have known. He could have done something. He should have tried calling instead of texting or coming to visit or something, just something.
“Yoongi,” Jimin murmurs, pushing aside empty beer cans to kneel beside him. No response. He runs a careful hand over Yoongi’s hair. He wants to ask if he’s okay but that’s a stupid question so he just sits there, looking at him, a lump in his throat. “Yoongi. Look at me.”
He doesn’t. So Jimin folds his arms on the side of the bed and rests his chin on top, and he talks. He talks about his classes and his favorite professor and the lazy kid in his group for a Chemistry project and the time his first boyfriend broke up with him through a text and that night when they were ten and Yoongi and Jimin had snuck into their neighbor’s yard to take a dip in his pool but they didn’t know his dog was standing guard.
After a while Yoongi’s eyes flicker to Jimin and he watches him speak. That’s enough of an improvement to keep Jimin going, and he grows more and more animated with every story.
“Do you remember that time you put on that mask that pumped fake blood and threw rocks at my window and tried to scare me when I came to see who it was?”
“You screamed like a baby.” Yoongi’s voice is quiet.
Jimin freezes, but he doesn’t want to lose the momentum so he exclaims, “I did not!”
“You screamed so loud I could hear you through the window.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And then you yanked your curtains over the window and ran screaming to your parents and I got in trouble.”
“Well, you deserved it.” Jimin pouts. Yoongi ruffles Jimin’s hair with a tired hand. “Did you eat anything today?”
“Not hungry.”
“You have a show tonight.”
“I don’t feel like going.”
“But I want to see you perform,” he whines, pouting more. “Namjoon says you’re so cool on stage. And I haven’t heard you rap yet.”
“Maybe another day.”
“Please.” He shakes Yoongi’s arm. “Please.”
“Go away, Jimin.”
“I’ll do whatever you want. You can boss me around for a whole day. A whole week, even. I’ll buy you food and massage your feet or something.” The slightest of smiles appears on Yoongi’s face so Jimin keeps going. “I won’t text you any more stupid cat stickers. I know you hate them.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“Uh, I’ll address you as Rap God Min Suga for a week. Two weeks.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I’ll organize all your beanies for you. Your shoes, too. How about a girl group dance? I’ll do girl group dances in public. I’m good, see?”
He jumps up to launch into an enthusiastic cover of Sistar’s Touch My Body. In a minute, Yoongi laughs. It’s quiet and weary but it’s something.
“Hey.” Namjoon stands in the doorway. He glances between them, looking a little lost. “Are you-”
“He’s performing tonight. Right, Yoongi?” Jimin pulls his cutest pout and puppy dog eyes.
“Yeah, whatever, brat.”
Jimin almost trips over himself in relief as he rushes out of the room. “I’ll make you lunch. I only know how to make instant noodles. You have instant noodles, right?”
“Thanks,” Namjoon whispers when he passes him, a note of amazement in his voice.
---
Suga and Yoongi are not the same.
Suga moves across the stage like he owns it, energetic and charismatic, connecting with the crowd. Jimin is entranced by the way his face scrunches up when he raps and the way he licks his lips between verses. Yoongi is a grumpy teddy bear, but Suga is almost intimidating.
At one point he meets Jimin’s gaze across the crowd. It’s like everything else disappears. Jimin is trapped with wonder, Yoongi’s voice crawling under his skin.
After his performance Yoongi meets him by the bar, and Jimin finds it quite difficult to express how he feels when Yoongi says so how did you like it? Yoongi is in a much better mood now, still high off performing, and he chats amiably with anyone who approaches him. But he keeps his arm slung casually over Jimin’s shoulders, his warmth making Jimin’s cheeks flush, and doesn’t leave his side all night.
---
It takes him two weeks but he finally gets the flip down perfectly. He’s smiling so big his face hurts when he leaves the arts building with the other dance club members. To make things even better, Yoongi is taking him to the studio today to watch him work on a new song with Namjoon. Jimin has wanted to see them make music since the day he found out Yoongi still rapped.
He plops down on a bench outside the building, tucking his knees into his chest. The night grows cool, but he’s still warm from practice.
“Aren’t you going home?” Hoseok asks.
“Yoongi’s meeting me here. He’s going to show me the studio today.”
“I’ll wait with you.” Hoseok sits down next to him.
“You don’t have to. He’ll be here any minute.”
“It’s all right. I want to say hi.”
They chat about choreography and biology homework and the new video game Jungkook bought until twenty minutes pass and Yoongi has not come.
“Maybe you should call him.”
No one picks up. “He probably just got caught up in something. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
“You should go home. It’s getting late. He can always meet you there later. If he comes.”
“He’s going to come.”
He knows Hoseok doesn’t believe him. Ten more minutes go by and Jimin feels bad for holding Hoseok up. He convinces Hoseok to leave, promising that he will only wait fifteen minutes tops before going home, so Hoseok walks away with a last skeptical glance at Jimin.
Jimin doesn’t wait fifteen minutes. He waits an hour, until he is shivering a little and his eyes are droopy and he nearly falls asleep with his head pillowed on his arms.
“I knew you’d still be here.” It’s Hoseok again, in his pajamas and a coat, holding out a jacket for Jimin. “Come on, it’s time to go.”
“But-”
“He’s not coming. Get up.” Hoseok rarely sounds so serious. Jimin stands quietly as Hoseok pushes his arms into the jacket and slings Jimin’s bag over his shoulder.
“He promised he would come.”
“Not everybody keeps their promises, Jiminie.”
---
He’s studying biology with Hoseok when someone taps lightly on the door. It’s Yoongi, holding a grocery bag, and Jimin is so happy to see him he forgets to ask what happened the other night.
“What’s that?”
Yoongi tosses the bag on the counter, nods to Hoseok, and face-plants on Jimin’s bed. “Coffee. Got tired of seeing you use those shit beans.”
He complains about Jimin’s low quality coffee beans every time he comes over. Jimin removes two packets of ground coffee beans from the bag, the nice kind, organic and expensive. He glances over at Yoongi, who has turned his head so that his cheek rests on the bed and he can stare at the pile of books sprawled on the floor around Hoseok with a wrinkled nose, and Jimin can’t hide the stupid grin spreading across his face. He bounds over, wrapping his arms around Yoongi’s head, smothering him, and plants a sloppy kiss on his hair.
“Thanks, Yoongi.”
Yoongi shoves him away with a disgusted noise, but he’s smiling, too.
“I’m going to make some right now.” He finds three mugs and sets up the coffee machine but finds he’s out of sugar. “I’ll be right back!” he calls, bouncing out of the apartment with a cup in hand.
The girls next door think he’s cute, and he’s so naturally friendly that he hasn’t managed to get across his lack of interest yet, so after they happily fetch him a cupful of sugar, they engage him in a ten minute conversation about school.
The building walls are thin enough that he can hear when his neighbors upstairs have sex, and he knows exactly what shows his neighbors to the left watch at what time. So when Jimin stands in front of his own door again, touching the handle, it’s easy to hear Hoseok say, “You might have known him when you were kids but you don’t know Jimin like I do.”
Jimin can’t remember the last time Hoseok was mad. And even when he’s mad, there’s still a light air to it, like in another moment he will laugh it off and forget. But now he sounds so far from the joking boy Jimin knows that he isn’t sure if it’s even him. So he pauses outside the door to listen.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yoongi drawls.
“When Jimin cares about someone, he cares about them. He throws everything he’s got into caring. He’s the most loyal kid you’ll ever find, but he falls too hard, too fast.”
“If you think he cares about me too much or something, you’re probably wrong.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.” Jimin grips the doorjamb, fingers whitening. “This might be a joke to you, but it’s not to him.”
“So what are you trying to say?”
“Don’t give him false hope, okay? If you’re going to hurt him in the long run, just back out now.”
“I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
“Jimin invests his whole being into the people he loves. He’s gotten fucked over pretty bad because of that. I’m not about to see it happen again.”
He’s not sure if he’s mad at Hoseok or touched, or confused that he has been looking at Yoongi a certain way and didn’t even know. But he is sure that he doesn’t want to hear any more, so he opens the door, plastering a smile on his face. Hoseok is standing, and he turns on his sunshine grin when Jimin enters, as if nothing has happened.
“Are you leaving already?” he asks Hoseok, who has his backpack on.
“I forgot I have a paper due in two hours.” He rubs the back of his head. “Sorry, Jiminie.”
He pats Jimin’s back on the way out. Yoongi gets up, stretching and adjusting his beanie. “I’ll help you with coffee.”
---
Jimin is seconds from falling asleep when someone knocks on his door.
He stumbles out of bed, cursing, because he has three exams tomorrow and he already spent half the night studying and he was really hoping to sleep for a few hours because his head feels like it’s on fire. He’s too tired to even wonder who could be visiting this late and tugs open the door, rubbing his eyes.
“Jimin.”
It’s Yoongi. Yoongi with a line of bruises along his cheekbone, and dried blood crusting around his nose, and swollen bloody lips, and a cut on his head. Yoongi leaning against the doorjamb, looking beat.
“Did you get in a fight?”
“Something like that.” Jimin doesn’t miss the way Yoongi’s eyes flicker down to his bare torso and then away. Yoongi straightens, clearing his throat. “Never mind, actually. Sorry for waking you up.”
He turns to go, but Jimin grabs his wrist and pulls him inside, kicking the door shut. “Let me clean you up.”
Jimin slips on a hoodie but leaves it unzipped because he’d be lying if he says he doesn’t enjoy the attention. He rummages in the kitchen cabinets for his first aid kit, which is pretty extensive considering how often he injures himself doing flips in the park. Yoongi is slumped against the wall beside Jimin’s bed, legs stretched out before him. Jimin kneels next to him, dipping a cotton ball in hydrogen peroxide.
“I can do it myself.” Yoongi reaches for the first aid box, but Jimin swats his hand away.
“This is going to hurt,” he warns before pressing a cotton ball to Yoongi’s cuts. Yoongi inhales sharply.
He goes on to spread ointment on the cuts and cover them with tape. Yoongi’s eyes are trained on his face the entire time, to the point where his skin begins to prickle.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asks eventually.
The corner of Yoongi’s mouth quirks up, but he doesn’t answer. Jimin dabs a bit of ointment onto the cut on Yoongi’s lip, and Yoongi winces.
“Sorry.”
“Kiss it and make it better.” Yoongi pouts his swollen lips.
Jimin snorts, standing up and tucking the first aid kit under his arm. “So why’d you get in a fight this time?”
“This guy said dogs were better pets than cats.”
He looks down at Yoongi for a moment, wondering if he’s joking, and laughs. “No way.”
“He said dogs were loyal and cats didn’t give two shits about their owners. Can you believe that?”
Jimin throws his head back in laughter. “You’re just messing with me.”
Yoongi doesn’t say anything. Instead, he’s looking up at Jimin, smiling, something akin to wonder in his expression, and Jimin’s laughter fades in surprise.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Yoongi looks down at his hands, but he’s still smiling a bit, and his hair is falling into his eyes, and even though he’s all beat up he’s still pretty.
Jimin brings him an ice pack for his face. “Go to sleep. You can have my bed.”
“We can share. There’s room.” Yoongi lies down and pats the space next to him as proof. When Jimin hesitates, he pats it again.
So he lies down next to him, still in his hoodie, hyperaware of every move Yoongi makes. Yoongi falls asleep in minutes, but Jimin lies on his side and watches him. His brows are furrowed slightly, even in sleep, and the bruises look nasty. Once Yoongi told him he liked getting in fights. Jimin can’t imagine why he would enjoy going through that pain.
Jimin runs a careful hand through Yoongi’s hair, and when he doesn’t stir, Jimin does it again. When his eyes start to droop he slings an arm around Yoongi’s waist and buries his face in Yoongi’s shoulder and falls asleep to the sound of Yoongi’s breath.
He is gone when Jimin wakes.
---
His performance is the next day. Yoongi doesn’t answer the reminder text he sends. Jimin thinks little of it; Yoongi hardly ever answers. He prepares for his solo anxiously, going over his moves backstage even though Hoseok assures him a million times that he’s doing fine. In between his jittery practice, he peeks through the curtains at the audience. Maybe the tenth time he does, Hoseok pulls him away. By then the auditorium is as full as it’s going to get.
“He’s not coming, Jimin.”
“He’s just late. He promised.”
Hoseok’s frown is troubled. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t do this to yourself.”
Jimin shakes Hoseok’s hand off his shoulder. His stomach hurts. He’s not sure if it’s from nerves or Hoseok’s words. I wouldn’t miss it. Yoongi had promised. Why does he care so much if Yoongi comes or not, anyway? He slaps his cheeks lightly and reminds himself to focus. He can’t mess this up.
And he doesn’t. He nails his solo, and Hoseok nails his. Jungkook is waiting for them afterward, offering to treat them to dinner, but Jimin is searching through the crowd for Yoongi’s gummy smile and when he can’t find it, he finds he has lost his appetite instead. He pleads tiredness and goes home.
---
Yoongi answers the door. He leans against the doorjamb, arms crossed, and makes no move to invite Jimin in. His bruises have faded slightly.
“How are you feeling?”
Yoongi shrugs one shoulder. “Did you need something?”
“You didn’t come last night. I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“Last night?” Yoongi chews on his lip thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling like the answer might be written there. “What was last night?”
Jimin tries to pretend that doesn’t hurt. “My performance. My solo. You promised you would come.” He sounds like a whiny kid and he hates himself for it.
“Oh. I got caught up in some stuff.” Yoongi’s eyes are fixed on him, now, and they look bored.
It’s the same as always. He’s gone and done it again. He cares about Yoongi more than Yoongi cares about him. “Right. Sorry for bothering you.” Jimin’s tone is bland; he schools his expression into blankness, stuffs his hands in his pockets. But he’s an open book, he knows he is, and his eyes are a little wet. He backs up.
Yoongi steps forward, raising a hand, as if he’s going to reach out to Jimin. But then he drops it and closes the door. Jimin shuffles toward the stairs, blinking away his tears before they can fall. His last boyfriend broke up with him because he wanted to do everything together and he called him too much and he thought they would last forever or something. Clingy, annoying, you never give me any space. His best friend from the end of high school ditched him as soon as they got to university because he was tired of hanging out with Jimin all the time. I swear it’s like I’m your only friend.
He can’t help it. He doesn’t mean to care so much but when someone catches his heart he gets too excited and he misses their face when they aren’t near and he misses their voice if it’s been too long and he will do anything for them, really, he will, but it turns out most people don’t want that kind of burden. You’re so nice it makes me feel bad.
Sometimes he hates himself. He knows he is annoying but he doesn’t know how not to be. He’s lucky Hoseok puts up with him, but sometimes he fears that won’t last long, either. Jimin has trouble keeping people around. He can tell Yoongi will be the next to go.
---
The second time an injured Yoongi shows up at Jimin’s door, he’s also drunk. It’s been two weeks since Jimin confronted him, two weeks since he spoke to him, but Jimin forgets everything when he sees Yoongi standing there.
“Jiminie!” He surges forward, stumbles a bit, and flings his arms around Jimin’s neck. But almost immediately he winces. “Ouch.” He pulls away. “Got kicked in the back real bad, Jiminie, this guy was wearing the heaviest pair of boots I’ve ever seen in my life, one of the ones with all the ridges on it, and it hurt so much I thought I was going to die.” His words are a little slurred, but it’s how much he’s speaking that tells Jimin he has drank too much.
Even though Yoongi is grinning, Jimin is unsettled. He sits Yoongi down by the bed, pulls on a shirt, and fetches the first aid kit. There are bruises along Yoongi’s jaw, a cut just under his eye, and flecks of blood around his mouth. But it’s the way he’s clutching his stomach that worries Jimin.
“Did you get kicked in the stomach?”
“Got kicked everywhere, Jiminie, every part of me.” He’s thrown his head back to rest on the bed, eyes closed. There’s a dark bruise on his neck. “They got me on the ground, you know, four of them, kicking me everywhere. Everywhere. Everything kept going dark, I think I was blacking out.” He laughs, but Jimin’s eyes are burning and his stomach feels sick as he imagines Yoongi lying on the pavement coughing up blood.
“Take off your shirt.” He’s worried about internal bleeding and wonders if he should take Yoongi to the hospital because he’s in way over his head here and his hands are shaking so much he’s not sure if he can be any help at all.
Yoongi wiggles an eyebrow, then winces and stops. He tries to pull off his shirt, but it’s clear it hurts too much, so Jimin lifts it to his armpits and then removes it gently, one arm at a time. Yoongi’s stomach and ribs are a mess of bruises, and when Jimin pulls him forward to look, he finds even more spread across his back.
“How many times did you get kicked?” He whispers it, and he can’t look at Yoongi, busying himself with tearing open packets of gauze.
“Told you. Everywhere. A million times. A billion times.”
He takes a deep breath and steels himself before turning to Yoongi and wiping the cuts on his face with cotton balls. Yoongi hisses. “Why did they do it? What happened?”
“Oh man, Jiminie, you should have seen her. The hottest girl in the whole damn bar sitting all alone at the counter. Turns out she wasn’t alone.”
It’s something about the way he says it, but Jimin pauses. He leans back to meet Yoongi’s gaze. “You did it on purpose.”
Yoongi’s chuckle grows into full blown laughter, which stops when the pain hits him. But Jimin knows Yoongi. The laugh doesn’t reach his eyes. “Why would I hit on a girl if I knew she had a boyfriend twice my size plus friends? You’re acting like I wanted to get beat up.”
“Didn’t you?”
Yoongi only holds Jimin’s eyes for a few seconds before turning his face away. Jimin continues his ministrations, thinking too hard about the way Yoongi had said, that day Jimin finally started to understand, I hate myself.
“Felt bad, Jiminie,” he mumbles. “Felt really bad I missed your dance.” Jimin chokes out a breath, fingers tightening into fists. “I wasn’t busy, you know. I did it on purpose. Because being around you scares me.”
“Why?”
“You’re too good for me.”
He rests his forehead lightly on Yoongi’s shoulder just long enough to say, “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah.”
“I think we should go to the hospital. I don’t even know how you walked here. You could have internal bleeding, some of your ribs might be cracked, and I’m not a doctor and I don’t know what to do-”
“Just do whatever you’re doing. That’s more than I usually get. Usually I just lie on my floor or somebody else’s floor or maybe just the ground until I can move and then I pop some pills and that’s all, that’s enough. I don’t know why I come to you.” He’s rambling, now, but Jimin doesn’t care. He wants Yoongi to keep talking because it distracts him as he stuffs gauze up Yoongi’s nose and brushes ointment over his cuts. “I probably shouldn’t. Come to you, I mean. But I can’t help it. Something about you.”
“Maybe the fact that I put up with all your shit,” Jimin says dryly, and Yoongi grins.
“Yeah. But I think it’s, you know, if something were to happen to the sun. Like the sun blew up or something. And there wasn’t any light left in the whole world. Does that make sense? If the sun were to disappear it wouldn’t matter because your smile shines bright enough for me.”
Jimin fumbles the bottle of ointment. It falls, rolling beneath the bed, and Jimin ducks down to grab it. His hands are trembling so much he almost drops it again. He’s hearing things. Or Yoongi is so wasted he doesn’t even know what he’s saying.
When he comes back up, Yoongi hits his arm lightly. “Hey! That was good, wasn’t it? Get me my lyric journal, I’ve got to write that down. If the sun were to disappear it wouldn’t… what did I say again?”
“You’re in my apartment, I don’t have your journal,” he mumbles. Jimin hates himself for feeling even a twinge of disappointment. Of course Yoongi doesn’t know what he’s saying.
“It wouldn’t matter because your smile shines bright enough for me. That’s what it was. I could use that. Or, I’ve got a better one.” He catches Jimin’s wrist from where he’s trying to tape over one of Yoongi’s cuts, and this time the lighthearted tone has left Yoongi’s voice, and he’s staring at him with such intensity Jimin shivers. “Your eyes are the night sky with my wishes as stars caught in them.”
Jimin’s breath catches, and he’s aware of how close they are, so close he could count Yoongi’s eyelashes if he tried.
“See. Even better.”
“Do you want to write that one down, too?”
“No. That one’s just for you.”
A moment passes where their breaths mingle and Jimin’s heart beats so loud he’s sure Yoongi can hear it. But then he gently removes his wrist from Yoongi’s grasp. He fetches him an ice pack for his bruises and the strongest painkiller he can find, then tucks him into bed. Yoongi flinches when he first lies down, but eventually the strain on his face eases and he falls asleep.
This time Jimin doesn’t stay with him. Instead, he curls up by the glass balcony doors, arms wrapped around his knees, and stares out at the sky wondering what could possibly drive Yoongi to compare his eyes to something so beautiful.
---
When he comes back from his morning class, Yoongi is gone. He texts twice to ask if Yoongi is feeling all right, but he doesn’t expect an answer, and he doesn’t get one. And even though he didn’t catch a second’s sleep the night before, when he lies in bed that night he stares at his ceiling for an hour before he gets up and lies down by the balcony doors because he’s not sure if he’s imagining it or if his bed really does smell like Yoongi. And he doesn’t bring his pillows or his blanket because those smell like Yoongi, too, so he lies there on the cold ground and doesn’t sleep again and thinks about Yoongi’s low voice and all the words he’s said to Jimin, good and bad.
He knocks on Namjoon’s door the next day. Namjoon says Yoongi isn’t home. Jimin knows he’s lying, but there is nothing to do but nod and leave. He can’t nap because Yoongi’s laugh echoes in his head and he can’t focus on his homework because he’s thinking about the way Yoongi said that one’s just for you and he misses a step at dance practice because he’s busy wondering if Yoongi is in pain. All he wants to do is sleep but he lies awake, again, images of Yoongi smiling on a movie reel before his eyes.
That’s when he starts to realize he might be a little bit in love with Min Yoongi.
---
And of course he can’t stay away after that. Namjoon is leaving when he walks down their hall, and he sighs when he sees Jimin.
“I know he’s in there. I just need to talk to him.”
“Fine.” He lets him in, pausing at the door before he leaves to say, “He’s in a bad mood, so watch out.”
Jimin slips his shoes off by the front and knocks on Yoongi’s half-open door.
“Go away, Jimin.”
“I wanted to see if you were doing okay.”
“I’m fine. Now go away.”
Jimin slips inside, anyway. Yoongi is sitting by the window holding an ice pack to his side and a bottle in his hand. He hasn’t been taking care of the cuts on his face; they have hardly healed.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing. I missed you.”
Yoongi’s gaze flickers to Jimin and away just as quickly. “You’ve seen me. Is that enough?”
Jimin steps closer. Yoongi tenses. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Push me away.” When Yoongi stays quiet, Jimin continues. “Sometimes it’s like you’re so happy to be with me and then all of a sudden you can’t stand me. And then the other night, the stuff you said-”
Yoongi stands, tossing away the ice pack. “What’d I say? What’d I say, Jimin?” he challenges, and Jimin is too taken aback to respond. “I was drunk. Delirious from pain. Do you think I had any idea what I was saying?” There’s nothing in his face to comfort Jimin, no sign that he’s the same Yoongi who told him his smile could light up the world. “Have you ever considered that maybe I push you away because you’re annoying?”
A punch to the gut would have hurt less. All the air is knocked out of Jimin and his chest tightens. “You don’t mean that. You’re doing this to punish yourself. I know you.”
“You don’t know anything about me!” he shouts, spinning in a burst of anger and flinging the bottle in his hand away. It shatters on the ground between their feet. Jimin is so startled he stumbles back and steps on a stray shard.
Sharp pain shoots through his foot and he cries out. He loses his balance and falls, pulling his foot into his lap to look at the damage. Yoongi flies to him, falling on his knees beside him, uncaring of the glass. He pushes Jimin’s hair back from his face, brushes his hands along Jimin’s arms, like Jimin has been hurt everywhere and not just his foot.
“Jiminie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”
Everything’s happening so fast and Jimin isn’t sure what to feel besides the pain in his foot so he just stares at Yoongi, wide-eyed. Yoongi drops his hands suddenly, as if remembering he isn’t supposed to be nice, and turns away.
“Just go, just get out, get away from me.” His voice comes cracked and heavy. Jimin has never seen Yoongi cry. Even when they were kids. “Get lost, Jimin.”
So he does. He removes the glass from his foot and puts on his shoes even though he’s bloody and hurting and he limps out of the apartment and it’s only when he’s out in the parking lot that he realizes he’s crying, too.
---
Sometime during the day, a piece of loose leaf paper is slipped under Jimin’s door. When he returns from class and unfolds it, he sees I’m sorry. Heart in his throat, he dials Yoongi’s number and is answered with a cool automated voice.
“We’re sorry. This number is no longer in service. Please hang up or dial again.”
It is exactly a quarter of a mile from one side of the park to the other, but to Jimin it seems an impossible distance. He runs faster than he has ever run in his life, skidding past pedestrians and tripping up the stairs to Namjoon and Yoongi’s building. His frantic knocking does not cease until Namjoon pulls open the door, a weary expression on his face, like he has been expecting this.
“Where did he go?”
Namjoon sighs, leaning against the doorjamb and passing a hand over his face. “I don’t know, Jimin.”
“Don’t lie to me. Tell me where he went.” His tries to sound intimidating but his voice breaks and he sounds desperate.
“Let him go.”
“Stop meddling. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t be naïve. Yoongi has problems and they aren’t a joke. Don’t get involved.”
“I don’t care. I can help him. He needs me. I need him.”
“No, you don’t. Give it a month. Six months. You’ll get over him, and it’ll be better for you. Sometimes you can’t fix people, Jimin, sometimes you have to let them go.”
“I can’t.” He chokes on the words, grabbing Namjoon’s collar, but his grip is weak and he leans forward, resting his head on Namjoon’s shoulder. “I can’t do that.”
Namjoon strokes Jimin’s hair, his words surprisingly gentle. “Jiminie, he can’t fight off his issues enough to be good to you like he wants. And that hurts him. Don’t get caught up in him. You’ll both end up hurt.”
“Please.” His legs can’t hold him up anymore and he’s sinking to the ground and his eyes are wet and burning and everything inside him hurts. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Please just let me say goodbye.”
“Jimin-”
“Please, Namjoon.” And then he gasps out the words he hasn’t dared to say aloud yet, the words he’s only just come to accept. “I love him.”
In the long silence that follows, Jimin nearly gives up hope. But then, quietly, Namjoon says, “He went to the train station. Said he was going to catch the first train out of the city, wherever it went. He’s probably gone by now-”
But Jimin is already running.
It takes ten minutes for the bus to come, and he bounces in his seat so much the lady next to him moves. He’s wondering who will be there to patch up Yoongi after a fight and call him at two in the morning to convince him to leave the studio and ask him if he’s eaten lunch and make him laugh when he can’t, and who will be there to tell Jimin he’s being stupid when he’s convinced he can never do anything right and tell him he’s cute and buy him good coffee and soothe him when he’s anxious and never tell him to stop even when he texts twenty times a day?
He was eleven years old the first time he lost Yoongi. He had sat in Yoongi’s empty driveway for an hour and cried until his mother forced him back inside, and for a week after he looked out his window expecting Yoongi to be standing in the window next door, waving. But they’d grown up and lost touch and he had been all right after a while. Now he is twenty years old and he might lose him for the second time, and he doesn’t think he can ever be all right again.
He catapults out of the bus and down the street, entering the train station. He flies past every bench and counter, searching the faces for a familiar one. Four times he circles around the station before it finally hits him.
Yoongi is gone.
Being around you scares me. Jimin stands there, shaking, until the station empties out and he’s left alone.
---
Yoongi slumps against the studio wall, a cigarette perched between fingers that clutch a beer can. He takes a drag, blinking slowly. His hair is blackening at the roots, and the dye is fading from the ends of his hair, leaving it a pale pink. Dark bruises stand out beneath his eyes. His skin is drawn tight, wrists bony, lips dry.
Jimin has searched through every recording studio Yoongi has had connections with, thanks to Namjoon’s grudging help. He’s searched for nearly a month but now that Yoongi stands before him he doesn’t know what to do. His chest hurts. His stomach clenches. If Yoongi were to look up he would see Jimin standing across the street, arms curled around himself as if in protection. Jimin is torn between running to fling his arms around Yoongi and running to slam his fist into Yoongi’s face.
With difficulty, he summons up the courage to walk, though on unsteady feet. It’s been an impossibly long month. As he crosses the street, Yoongi finally sees him. The can slips from his hand, clattering to the ground, followed by his cigarette.
“Jimin,” he says. His voice cracks. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He tries to sound angry, but he sounds lost.
Jimin surges forward, heating rushing to his face, and fists his hands in Yoongi’s shirt. “Asshole,” he says. “Why’d you leave me like that?”
He only manages a second of anger before he slumps against him, grip loosening. Yoongi threads his fingers through Jimin’s hair. Jimin feels Yoongi’s body tremble as he lets out a breath.
“Jimin,” he murmurs into his hair. They stay like that, perhaps for longer than they should, until Yoongi pushes him away. “Go home.”
“Stop trying to push me away.”
“Maybe I’m pushing you away because I don’t like you.”
This time Jimin isn’t buying it. “Liar.” His tone is harsh. Yoongi bows his head, staring at the ground. He leans all his weight on the building behind him as if he can’t hold himself up. Jimin closes the gap between them, clutching the hem of Yoongi’s shirt gently. “What are you so afraid of?”
“You. Myself.” It’s so quiet Jimin leans in to hear. “Hurting you.”
“I’m not that fragile. I won’t break so easily.”
“You deserve better.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
Yoongi glances up, eyes tender and sad. “Look at you, Jimin. You’re beautiful. Happy. Full of life. I’ll only ruin that. Just go home. It’s better this way.”
“Quit trying to make my fucking decisions for me. Who are you to decide what’s best for me? I’m the only one who can do that.”
“Jimin.” He seems taken aback by the force in Jimin’s words.
“If you were so afraid, you shouldn’t have gotten close in the first place. But you did and now it’s too late. You say you don’t want to hurt me, but that’s what you’ve been doing this whole time. It’s your fear that’s hurting me. I’m sick of this push and pull. Sometimes it’s so fucking obvious how much you care and then you turn around and try to pretend you don’t. I’m perfectly capable of deciding what’s good for me without your meddling, because it’s only making things worse.”
“I’m not good for you, Jiminie, that’s a fact.” He sounds desperate, now.
“If that’s true then I’ll come to that conclusion myself. And I’ll deal with the consequences myself, too. I’m a big boy. I’ve been hurt before.”
“I don’t want to be the one hurting you. I won’t be.”
“You already are.”
He hesitates. This time, when he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper, acknowledging something neither of them have yet. “It would never work out between us.”
“You won’t even try!” Jimin ends in a shout. He can’t even revel in the fact that Yoongi has admitted he likes him because he is too angry. He turns away, running his hands through his hair, breathing hard.
He’s just beginning to calm down when loose arms wrap around his waist. Yoongi’s warm back presses against his own, his lips in his hair.
“I’m sorry, Jimin. I’m sorry I can’t be better for you.”
Jimin sighs. Leans back. Wishes he could stay in Yoongi’s arms forever. He wants to say it, tell Yoongi what he told Namjoon, but he realizes with a pang that he’s afraid, too. Of admitting it, of saying those words again. I love him.
A part of him understands that Yoongi is right. It will never work out between them. Yoongi is lost, broken. He is swimming in ghosts and nobody can pull him out but himself. The image of Yoongi throwing the bottle at his feet is seared in Jimin’s mind. He shivers a little thinking of it. It doesn’t matter that seconds later Yoongi had run to him looking his entire world had fallen down with Jimin, or that the guilt cut him so deeply he had packed up and left to prevent it from happening again. What matters is that, caught in the darkness gripping him, Yoongi had thrown the bottle in the first place.
Jimin knows this. And he knows he has his own issues to overcome, too. He’s too trusting, too forgiving. He doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. He lets people walk all over him, he hates confrontation, and most of all, he’s too dependent. That he’s even here arguing with Yoongi is a big step for him, but just because he’s doing it now doesn’t mean he can do it again.
They won’t be good for each other. Jimin may be able to ease Yoongi’s pain for a time, but he’ll destroy himself in the process, and in the end it is still Yoongi who has to fix himself.
It’s no good. They’re no good.
But Jimin can’t just let him go. He’s sick of getting left behind. He’s sick of having no say in things, of letting people make the decisions they want without any care for what he wants. He can’t just let him go, the little boy who used to stand in his window waving, the little boy who gave him his own ice cream cone when he dropped his and pushed a middle schooler because he called Jimin ugly. It has been a long time since the days they ran home from school together and told ghost stories under the covers and dreamt about being all grown up. Yoongi is not the little boy who would follow Jimin anywhere, a careful hand on his elbow for the times when Jimin’s ideas turned too wild. That little boy is gone, replaced by a man whose heart is scarred and aching and Jimin can’t fix it with a kiss like he used to kiss Yoongi’s skinned knees but he can’t just let him go.
“I know,” he whispers. “I know it can’t work out. But we can’t just cut things off like this, no contact, nothing. We can be friends, at least.”
Yoongi laughs a little. Tiredly. He turns Jimin around in his arms. His soft eyes pass over Jimin’s face like a gentle touch. “Oh, Jimin. I can’t just be friends with you.”
“I know that, too, Min Yoongi. But more than anything I know that we can’t give up. You can’t run away and I can’t let you.”
“It’s a bad idea. It’s a fucking bad idea but damn, do I want to say yes.”
“Then say it.”
He rests his forehead against Jimin’s, eyes fluttering shut. Jimin can count his long lashes and see clearly the tired circles under them and the self-loathing quirk of his mouth. He wants to kiss it away but that’s the worst idea of all so he doesn’t. “Jiminie.”
“Just promise you won’t leave me again.”
“I won’t. I won’t leave you, Park Jimin.”
And they’re a long way from pinky promises and melted popsicles and rooftop nights spent counting stars but in his arms Jimin has late night food runs and low laughter and warm embraces that smell of cigarettes and coffee, and that might just be enough.