Work Text:
There wasn’t a moment of realisation. It was something that slowly built. Barely present at first, maybe he felt a little more tired, a little more restless. But it was nothing out of the ordinary. He was an idol, dealing well with tiredness should be part of the job description.
But slowly it started to become more than just tiredness. He would be tired to the point of almost collapsing in dance practice, but at night he would lie staring at the ceiling willing himself to sleep as he listened to the boys’ steady breathing around him. Every time he went to the studio he would spend longer and longer just staring at the screen, willing the words to appear and the melody to grow in his head like it usually did. It really fucking annoyed him at first but soon he would just feel nothing.
When his manager was yelling at him, “You’ve spent weeks in that fucking studio Yoongi! What the hell have you been doing in there?” He just felt a cold empty feeling in the bottom of his stomach as he stared at his feet.
When he walked out of the office, hood pulled up he barely even noticed the six boys standing outside until Jimin called softly, “Hyung!”
“Hmm?” Yoongi had hummed bringing his eyes up slowly to meet the younger’s boys worried ones. “Are you okay??” The orange haired boy furrowed in brow in confusion at the elder’s oddly calm expression.
“Yeah I’m okay. Manager’s just a bit pissed I haven’t come up with any new music yet.”
“You still haven’t got anything yet?” Namjoon earned a hit over the head by their older member and whined as Seokjin glared at the leader before turning to Yoongi.
“I think what Namjoon means to say is there anything we can help you with?”
It was a few seconds before Yoongi realised he had just been staring blankly at the elder. Come on Yoongi, think how a normal person would act in this situation. He stretched his lips into what he hoped was a reassuring smile and replied, “Nah it’s cool. Just a bit of writers block, I’ll come up with something.”
“Okay… if your sure…” Namjoon shrugged not looking entirely convinced. Truthfully, Yoongi knew he wouldn’t come up with anything. But asking the younger for help would just make him feel even more shit and guilty then he already did. He walked past the boys, patting Taehyung on the back as he went past. “Come on!” He called over his shoulder “Our break is nearly over, and it’s your balls he’s gonna bust if were late Namjoonie!” When he heard the kids giggle and their leader bark out a laugh, he breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was back as it was.
***
It wasn’t obvious. Apart from the occasional worried look from Seokjin, or when Yoongi had to be poked for spacing out for too long, none of the members realised there was anything different about the rapper. But everything was different. It was even an effort for Yoongi to portray normal human emotions when messing around with the members. He wasn’t sad though, not at first anyway.
It was just a long, boring, alien existence. It wasn’t until a few weeks before their Music Bank performance that Yoongi broke down. It was only 10 in the morning but they had already been practicing for three hours. They were performing Dope, which although was a difficult dance they’d had performed it many times before so Yoongi knew it like the back of his hand. However this was a remixed version their producer Pdogg had put together. It was heavier, with more dubstep and longer breaks for dance. Their choreographer had put together a complicated but impressive routine. Normally Yoongi would have found it hard but would have kept focussed and persevered. But today was one of those days when everything felt foggy and dreamlike and he would rather be in bed. Actually, there wasn’t ever a moment were Yoongi wouldn’t rather be in bed these days.
Their choreographer started the music and the members went through the normal routine as usual. Then the bass dropped and it was time for the dance break. Yoongi danced sloppily as he struggled to keep up with the other members. At one moment he didn’t move in time and Jungkook went crashing into him and they both ended up on the floor, groaning.
“Yoongi!” He heard their choregrapher hiss and he walked over to the speakers and basically ripped the phone from the USB port. Jungkook scrambled off of Yoongi and stood up straight. All the members adopted his position, looking ahead eyes wide with fear for the rapper. Yoongi stood up as the choreographer made his way over to him.
“What the hell was that?” He shouted “Not only are you bringing yourself down, but you’re dragging your team mates down as well! Not only could you have hurt yourself, but you could have also hurt Jungkook as well! We can do the routine without your lazy ass, but if Jungkook got hurt we’d be fucked.”
Yoongi couldn’t say that didn’t hurt. He stared back blankly as the choreographer yelled at him to get his act together.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” “I’m sorry I’ll try harder!” He shouted bowing deeply, but even that felt half-assed and sluggish.
“For the love of…” The man muttered under his breath. “Have a 15 minute break! I’ll be back in 10.” He yelled as he grabbed his water bottle and phone and stalked out of the door slamming the door of the practice room behind him.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for Yoongi to shout, cry, do something. But Yoongi just breathed out heavily, running his hand through his mint coloured fringe before dragging a chair from the side of the room and collapsing onto it closing his eyes.
After a minute or two the others started to chatter amongst themselves and Yoongi let their words wash over him. He felt like complete shit. A goddamn failure. But the worse part of it all was that Yoongi was too tired to do anything about it.
“As proved on After School, my rendition of Up and Down was obviously the best.” He heard Jungkook say in reference to the girl group dance battle they did on After School just before Christmas.
“Excuse me, but I was crowned dance king on Weekly Idol!” Hoseok yelled back and Yoongi cracked an eye opening, looking at Hoseok and the maknaes sitting on the floor together.
“Hyung, that was for unpretty dancing!” Jimin giggled.
“Doni and Coni loved it.” Hoseok said smugly.
“Did you remember how uncomfortable Jimin and Eric looked?” Jungkook laughed loudly.
“I think you were too much for them Hobi-hyung.” Taehyung grinned, putting a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder.
Hoseok mocked offence as he shoved Taehyung off and stood up dramatically.
“There’s only one way to settle this!” He shouted walking towards the speakers and plug ih his phone. Exid’s Up and Down blasted into the studio. And Hoseok began to dance wildy. The members howled at his weird rendition of the choreography.
“I can’t believe he’s are lead dancer when he gets like this!” Seokjin laughed wiping tears from his eyes.
Suddenly Hoseok kicked his leg up to enthusiastically and lost balance toppling over into a pile of chairs and knocking them all over in the process. He was unhurt but still pouted as the other members took great amusement in his blunder.
Yoongi watched the scene from the other side of the room, at the member’s happiness as they laughed and teased the dancer. And suddenly Yoongi never felt so far away. Where as once he would of been there laughing with his friends, now he was left in the cold a million miles away. He then realised with panic he felt absolutely fucking nothing. Until he felt his chest tighten and tears prick into his eyes. He stood up in panic, the chair scraping loudly causing all the member’s to look at him.
“I don’t feel well.” He spluttered and made his way to the door.
He heard Namjoon start to protest but interrupted him snapping, “I’ll be back later, don’t worry I’m fine.”
He jogged up the stairs until he reached the long corridor where the studios were. He entered the first empty room his saw and locked the door behind him. He sat down in the chair and let himself cry. They were massive heaving sobs. As if everything he had felt the past month was just pouring out of him. He was really fucking grateful that these rooms were sound proof as he sobbed, running his hands through his hair.
“I-I’m fucked.” He wheezed between sobs. “I’m-so-f-fucked up.”
***
It wasn’t a big shock to Yoongi when he realised he didn’t want to be alive. He was walking back from the gym at 3pm on their day off. He wasn’t one for exercising really unless he was playing a team sport. He wasn’t like Jin and Jimin who went off almost every night to pump weights at the gym. But he’d read online that depression stopped your body from producing as much natural endorphins and he wanted to do anything that would make him feel even just a little bit lighter. He had come to terms with the fact he was depressed after the incident in the dance studio. And he was making efforts to make everything how it was before. But the exercise was only a short lived high, then he was crashing back down again, the feeling that he was drowning was even worse them before.
He looked up at the cherry blossoms trees lining the street. And where as once he would have found it beautiful and instantly think of a million lyrics about love and youth, now he just thought “tree with flowers”. It was as if someone had put a grey toned filter over his life. He felt like his life was a long dark tunnel, stretching for a million miles, the end never in sight.
He wanted to be in bed. He wanted to be asleep. When didn’t he want to sleep to be honest? He didn’t even want to escape into his dreams, he wanted to be nothing. He wanted to sleep and never wake up. It wasn’t a shock, but someone in the back of his mind was saying, “Hm, yeah. Maybe this isn’t right.”
He didn’t think he could make it back to the dorm. He just wanted to sink into the pavement and cry. Instead he got out his phone. He opened the BTS group chat on Kakao Talk.
motionless_min: can someone please pick me up?
hobi-hobi: wow are you that lazy that you can’t be bothered to walk 10 minutes.
Normally Yoongi would have come back with some witty comeback but he was too tired. He just wanted to sleep. Instead he opened his private chat with Hoseok.
motionless_min: I just really can’t.
hobi-hobi: are you okay?
Yoongi thought about replying with a “yeah, its fine don’t worry.” Like he does everyday.
motionless_min: no, not really.
hobi-hobi: where r u
motionless_min: outside the bakery
hobi-hobi: I’ll be there in 2 mins.
Hoseok pulled up by the kerb 10 minutes later but Yoongi was just so fucking greatful that he just collapsed into the passenger seat muttering a “thanks” at the younger.
Hoseok looked around groaning. “Damn where did all that traffic come from?” He smiled apologetically at Yoongi, “Sorry. I’m going to have to take the ridiculously long way back, it would probably be quicker if you had just walked.”
Yoongi waved off his apology, “It’s fine really. Just thanks for picking me up.”
As the two sat in traffic, Hoseok drummed on the steering wheel as Yoongi looked at his clasped hands in his lap.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yoongi sighed. He was tired of keeping quiet about it. If he didn’t tell someone soon he thought he might burst. If Hoseok had turned up a few seconds later, he might have poured his heart out to the Shiba tied up outside the bakery.
“There’s not really a lot to say to be honest. I’m just, not okay. I haven’t been for like… a month now? Maybe longer. I don’t know.” He bit his lip looking up at Hoseok, who just nodded waiting for him to go on.
“It started with me just feeling really tired and having no motivation. But then I started to feel numb and really shit all the time and recently I just want to cry like all the time.” His jaw tightened as he felt a lump in his throat. “And it’s so stupid, because there’s no reason for it.” He hissed. “I’m literally feeling sad for no reason. I have no fucking reason to be crying all the time but I am.” As a tear slipped down his cheek Yoongi just felt angrier and angrier. “It’s so fucking stupid. I’m being so fucking stupid.” He sobbed as he roughly brushed his face with his hands.
Hoseok grabbed his wrist suddenly, bringing his hands down to Yoongi’s lap.
“Your not stupid.” He said softly, looking at Yoongi as he took he took his hand in his.
“It’s fine. It’s fine to feel numb and shit and sad. It’s not very nice. But it’s okay.”
Yoongi felt his thumping heart slow as Hoseok rubbed soothing circles into the back of his hand. Yoongi nodded through his tears, not trusting himself to speak because he’d probably start crying again.
“It’ll be okay. I’m here. We’re all here. Please remember that.”
And Yoongi felt slightly less alone as Hoseok drove him home, not letting go of his hand once.
***
As Yoongi lay in bed that night, he heart was hammering in his chest. Why the fuck did he tell Hoseok? He saw images of him being tested by doctors and fired for being “mentally unfit to work”. He saw his parent’s heartbroken faces as he told them why he wouldn’t be able to be hired by any reputable company ever again. He had heard stories about people going to get help for mental illness and then being turned away from jobs after seeing their medical records. Fuck. He couldn’t not work. Music was his life.
But to Yoongi’s surprise none of that happened. Hoseok made him tell the other members, who were overwhelmingly supportive. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” It didn’t change his mood. But it made it easier that he didn’t have to put on act anymore. That his fellow members knew that sometimes he had to be left alone sometimes. That some nights when he lay awake unable to get to sleep, either from anxiety or that he just couldn’t, Hoseok would sometimes slip into his bed ignoring the elders protests and hold him to his chest. And Yoongi would eventually go to sleep to the comforting beat in Hoseok’s chest.
Eventually Seokjin convinced Yoongi he should tell their manager. He was fucking terrified. But it was okay. Not great, their manager didn’t understand why Yoongi was depressed at first. “I just am. There’s no reason. I’m just not okay.” And he didn’t allow him to participate in the following month’s schedule, but he did get him a hospital appointment so he could get therapy and medication. Yoongi was not thrilled about that at first but after a couple of sessions and when the doctor finally got his meds right, Yoongi realised it was the right thing to have done.
He wasn’t okay. He didn’t think he would be for a long time. But he finally saw a glint of light at the end of the long tunnel. It was one step forward and two steps back. However now he knew he had the support of his therapist, their manager, his family and the members.
He slept a lot better now as well. It may have something to do with the fact that more often than not he fell asleep pressed up against Hoseok’s chest. The fellow rapper’s strong heartbeat like a lullaby that slowly lulled him out of consciousness every night.
At first it confused the other member’s. “Isn’t that a little gay?” Jungkook had asked before being hit by their leader. “And what’s wrong with being gay Kookie?” But eventually they got used to it and it was almost never questioned as Yoongi’s happiness was what was most important to them. And Yoongi felt stupid for questioning his stupid team mates.
It gets easier
It gets easier