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If one knew soft grunge, if in any instance were they even remotely hipster, they’d know how beautiful bruises can be. Type in ‘soft grunge bruises’ in any internet browser and one would get a large (worrying) number of photos of people displaying bruises all over their forearms, galaxies of reds, violets, blues and yellows over thighs and legs, embers playing on knobby knees, discolorations kissing across abused knuckles; all ruddy and fading at the edges painting translucent, pale skin.
Bruises that bloom across the expanse of delicate, soft skin; from pink to purple to blue, spreading like droplets of ink in water. Bruises that arise from passion, from drinking too much alcohol past two in the morning, from late nights in practice studios, from nimble fingers wanting nothing more but to hold something (someone) close, from knees scraping wood, legs running and stumbling.
Bruises that, in some twisted world, end up being the indicators of who your soul mate is.
Perhaps an author might say that bruises are the ways your soul lets you know when it’s too much, when you’ve pushed yourself well over your limit – that it’s time to take care of yourself, to start being gentler, being softer with your own skin and body.
Or how one theory in Soul Studies states that bruising is the way your soul gets excited when your other half is near, when they’re finally ready for you, when you’re finally ready for them, that it can’t contain itself inside your body so it shows on your skin instead; dousing your body with warm, saturated colors; skin and bones.
Perhaps maybe then, yes, it is beautiful.
But when Min Yoongi, eighteen and fresh out of high school (and maybe a little too sleep deprived from staying up until five in the morning beating levels after levels in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, for three days in a row), wakes up one summer afternoon feeling like he’s been ultimately beaten to the ground by a gang of burly, tattoo-laden street fighters twenty-eight times (twenty-nine if he counts the first five seconds that actually fucking hurt when he tried to stand up from his bed), it is anything but romantic or poetic.
He finally manages to push himself over the edge of his bed after struggling with the sheets tangled around his legs for a good minute or two. He trudges to his bathroom, all the while garbling curses, tongue still heavy with sleep in his mouth, and inspects the damage in front of the mirror.
Teachers in Soul Studies have always reminded them of the most important thing to do once they’ve started to show, and that is: Do Not Panic.
Which, Min Yoongi’s confident he holds a Guinness record for – not panicking for the longest hour, that is; he’s got the best poker face player around, and he’s only ever been called apathetic one too many times before he finally became it, anyway. Or it became him. Whichever.
So here he stands before his bathroom sink, feet cold against the even colder white tiles of his bathroom, as calm as one can be after receiving affirmation that yes, he has a soul mate and yes, said soul mate is alive. Lifting his shirt up gingerly, Yoongi promptly scowls when he discovers a long stripe of red blooming across the span of his hips. It’s an angry red, more purplish actually, and if anything, looks like a piece of beef jerky. (How the fuck does a bruise look like a piece of beef jerky, he doesn’t know but apparently, it can.)
He turns to his side and sees a few (a lot) more bruises lining the skin on the small of his back. These are more circular and less prominent, some yellowish and most don’t hurt under pressure. He finds more littering the outside of his thighs. One or two on both knees and palms. There’re some that hurt like a motherfucker, the red ones, fuck those; the pink ones and the yellow ones don’t hurt as much, but still. Still.
Yoongi’s pretty sure all he did yesterday was cram an unhealthy amount of greasy chips down his throat, ignore his best friend’s plethora of messages, and play COD until his eyes turned red at the whites, didn’t do enough (any) physical activity to warrant this much bruising (didn’t do anything even remotely physically straining for the past two weeks of summer break, actually, but, tiny details). So yeah. This only means one thing.
He’s definitely started The Bruising.
Maybe that title makes it sound more dramatic than it actually is. The Bruising is just the moment when bruises on your soul mate start to become evident on your own skin, tender and pink under careful, experimenting fingertips. It’s when you’re finally given the opportunity to either actively look for your soul mate (via bruises and marks and everything) or just, you know, be reminded that you do have a soul mate.
Min Yoongi’s pretty sure he could’ve lived the rest of his life not going through The Bruising, he’s never been very keen on meeting his soul mate anyways.
And he looks like a fucking sweet potato, for fuck’s sake.
Honestly, if his soul mate weren’t so beaten up already, he’d travel across the globe and beat them himself.
(Except that doesn’t happen because Yoongi just curls onto his couch and sleeps for the rest of the day until his best friend finally calls him instead of bombing his inbox with sad emojis. Yoongi turns his phone on silent and continues ignoring it anyway.
He may or may not have had felt his heart ache for the quickest second at the idea of his soul mate actually getting beaten up, and dreams of a faceless person peppered with bruises. Yoongi also dreams of kissing them away).
To: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 03:21PM
I’m showing and it’s tiring the fuck out of me and shut the fuck up will you
From: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 03:22PM
omg!! im so sorry!!! dont be tired!!!! (シ_ _)シ
From: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 03:22PM
but youre showing already???!? ☆ ～('▽^人)
From: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 03:22PM
omg!!! can i see!!! ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ
From: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 03:22PM
plz!!! omg!!!!!! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆
To: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 04:31PM
No
From: Jung Hoseok
05/11/2013 04:33PM
aw ok maybe next time then??? (｡╯3╰｡)
Two days after the bruises show, Jung Hoseok, the infamous best friend, shows up on his doorstep, dimples deep on his cheeks and a plastic bag hanging around his wrist.
“I brought ice cream,” And, like magic words, Yoongi lets him in.
“Wanna let me see the bruises?” Hoseok calls from the kitchen where he takes out two pints of vanilla ice cream from the bag and rummages around the drawers for spoons.
“No,” Yoongi deadpans as he leans against the counter, wincing a bit as the hard edge of the counter digs into his back – his bruise-littered back. He plucks a spoon out of Hoseok’s grip the moment he finds them, grabs one of the pints from the kitchen island, and scoops into the treat.
“But I showed you mine when I started a year ago!” Hoseok whines through his nose, reaching for the ice cream as well, licking the lid after he opens it up.
“I didn’t ask for that, though,” Yoongi points his spoon at Hoseok, giving him a sharp look.
“But I’m your best friend!” He cries some more, shoves a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth, and talks with his mouth full like an uncivilized caveman, “Yoongi!”
Which is how Yoongi ends up stripping his shirt off in his kitchen as his best friend circles him like a predator in the wild. (Which is both creepy and embarrassing and it makes Yoongi feel a lot smaller than how he really is, but he doesn’t say that out loud).
“Wow,” Hoseok breathes once he’s done inspecting Yoongi’s bruises, and Yoongi throws his shirt back on and huffs, taking a mouthful of ice cream just so he doesn’t have to say anything. The shine in Hoseok’s eyes is long gone and is instead replaced with profound worry, shown in the knit between his eyebrows, “this is…”
Yoongi scoffs at that, doesn’t miss the flash of alarm in Hoseok’s eyes. He drops his used spoon into the sink once he’s eaten the rest of his ice cream, throwing the cup into the trashcan, stalling for the inevitable. “Yeah, I know.”
“Yeah, but, that’s a lot more than what I’ve had when I started, and everyone knows how clumsy Tae is,” Hoseok mumbles, digs his spoon into his ice cream anxiously, lip caught between his teeth, “you don’t think…?”
Snippets from a clip flood Yoongi’s mind, something they’ve been made to watch in a Soul Studies class a couple years back, of people finding their soul mates having been abused through the bruises that cover their bodies, how it both saved and killed people, both the soul mates themselves and those who had to witness what their soul mates have been experiencing through the bruises – those who couldn’t take the effects of it. (Yoongi’s heart thuds in his chest at the images that come along with the memory.)
He shakes his head, runs his fingers up the side of his neck, and presses down gently. Doesn’t wince at the pain that never comes. “No, I don’t. The bruises aren’t everywhere. They’re mostly concentrated on the thighs – legs, and a couple on the back. But I don’t have any on my chest or neck, or face.”
Hoseok looks unconvinced, but he nods nonetheless, gulps down the rest of his vanilla ice cream, wipes his mouth with the back of his throat, and offers, “COD?”
They spend the rest of the afternoon shouting at the TV screen and hammering their thumbs against buttons.
They both ignore whenever Yoongi grimaces when he gets too worked up into the game and bumps into something.
Yoongi holds onto the fact that he doesn’t get a bruise on his neck for the following days that his soul mate isn’t being mistreated somewhere, and is probably just an extreme sports person (a very clumsy, extreme sports person).
Yoongi thinks it’s unfair, how his soul mate gets all these bruises he has to suffer with when Yoongi himself has never gotten a bruise on his own – even when his skin’s as sensitive as a baby’s ass (mostly because he kinda never moves and does anything anyway, but that’s beside the point). It’s kinda funny, in a way that both amuses and pisses Yoongi off, because maybe it’s the world’s way of balancing things.
(Maybe his soul mate knows they’ve started sharing bruises, because for the rest of summer break, Yoongi doesn’t get any sporadic bruises showing up in the middle of the night. Like he’s sorry.
Or maybe dead.
Yoongi settles for the former. Wishes for it.)
Yoongi’s finally starting his third year in college and everything’s going smoothly; he still gets bruises, and if anything, it’s a much needed reminder of how his soul mate’s still alive and out there, and not dead and six feet underground (because no matter how disinterested he’d first been, who’d ever want to feel, to see their soul mate die?). He’s adjusted well to the lifestyle of having no less than five bruises on his body on a daily basis. He gets a considerably less amount of bruises during the two years that had passed after the Bruising, mostly only getting them on his legs; mainly on his knees, sometimes he has one or two on his palms, but that’s about it. And it’s good; it’s a compromise between the two of them, if Yoongi lets himself to think. Yoongi doesn’t bruise; his soul mate does the job pretty well for him.
Except maybe he’s spoken too soon.
When Yoongi wakes up and his body’s aching like fuck, he knows somebody’s fucked up (or rather, has been fucked, maybe, yeah?).
He groans, slumps into his seat, and pushes a palm against his face in exasperation, “Ugh, please don’t tell me my soul mate’s getting more action that I am.”
Seokjin pushes a cup of coffee towards Yoongi as an offering, a small, sympathetic smile curving his lips just the slightest, “Bruises?”
Yoongi merely looks up, glances at the drink, and cradles it between his cold hands, groaning into the table once more.
“I have a bruise,” he starts, drawling his words out that gets muffled by the wood, and lifts his head up, glaring at the innocent cup of coffee, black liquid rippling as he pulls it towards him, “on my ass. A bruise. On my ass. My fucking ass.”
He appreciates the effort Seokjin puts into stifling his laughter, though he really couldn’t get mad when he finally erupts into squeaks (something that distinctly sounds like wind wipers against dry windows), “Well, you weren’t the one getting fucked in the ass for it, that’s for sure.”
Yoongi lets out another moan of displeasure, missing Seokjin’s leg as he kicks blindly under the table.
“What are we laughing at?” Hoseok bounds to their table, easily sliding next to Yoongi, throwing an arm around his shoulder for good measure, and looks at Seokjin’s reddening face expectantly.
“Yoongi!” Seokjin squeals and Yoongi wishes for the ground to swallow him now, before he does it himself, “Yoongi – he, he has a bruise on his ass!”
Yoongi wishes he could say he didn’t go nearly deaf at the loudness of Hoseok’s scream, but he’s convinced he stops hearing for a full second and a half when it goes straight into his ear – Hoseok’s flailing, laughing, exclaiming about The Bruise On His Ass in his announcer voice. Honestly, nobody in the coffee shop wanted, needed to hear about that at, God help them all, nine in the morning. But they do, and Yoongi’s only one-fourth sorry because he’s still not over The Bruise On His Ass. And does it fucking hurt, shit.
“Not funny. What if they’re getting ass fucked, and like, I’m here with,” Yoongi mutters under his breath and leans back against the chair, stuffing his hands into his hoodie’s pocket, and tries his best to sink as much as he can into the seat – his ass can only take so much, “with you guys, not getting ass fucked by hot people.”
“Welp,” Seokjin offers not-so-helpfully, lifting both his shoulders to shrug, and turns to his book to continue reading where he left off before Yoongi had arrived, all composed and unlike how he was just a minute ago (Yoongi suspects it’s probably because of a particular tall blond who’s just entered the vicinity, someone Seokjin’s been eyeing for the past week now).
“Let’s hope he’s not getting ass fucked then,” Hoseok mumbles around his straw, sipping on his cold drink, a telltale smile on his lips, as he scrolls through his phone, “at least not by anybody hot.”
Yoongi lets his head drop onto the table with a loud thud, spitefully hoping that it bruises so his soul mate grows one on their forehead too maybe, and it’ll repel all the hot people wanting to give them the ass fuck. Maybe. Hopefully.
(It doesn’t.)
Two weeks later and Yoongi’s walking down the hall fresh out from Hell (or: Architecture History 201), when his phone rings.
“Yoongz! Did you bring the –” Hoseok’s voice crackles from the speaker, loud and squeaky. Yoongi could hear faint murmuring in the background. He rounds the corner of his building and walks his way to the Performing Arts building, one fist curled around a USB inside his pants’ pocket.
“Yeah, yeah. I have it with me, you’re in the studio, right?”
“Yep! Thanks a bunch, Yoongz, really saved me this time.”
Yoongi snorts (Hoseok’s told him the same line about five times this week now, and it’s only Tuesday) as he hangs up after telling Hoseok he’ll be there in five. He enters the warm hallways of Hoseok’s department, body moving with muscle memory (because he’s been in the same building a few too many times, courtesy of Hoseok), and soon finds himself before the studio a couple of minutes later.
Cool air washes over him as soon as he opens the door to the studio, the room vaguely smelling of lemonade and sweat. He finds Hoseok quite easily, as said person is currently standing proudly in the middle of the room, right in front of a small crowd. When some people turn their heads to his direction, Hoseok follows suit – lips curving into a ridiculously wide grin when he spots Yoongi hovering by the door, and glances back to face the crowd, clapping his hands once in dismissal, “Let’s take ten, guys. We’ll be learning a new choreo today, so gear up!”
Once the small group dissipates (some going to where bags lined the walls, grabbing water bottles and chugging them down in large gulps, some heading in front of the mirrors, going over past choreo’s steps, most just gathering into small circles and chatting), Hoseok heads toward him, arms spread wide teasingly. Yoongi pulls his fist out of his pocket and dangles the USB in front of Hoseok, lips a grimace.
“Don’t you dare give me a hug with your armpits sweating like your ass crack, Jung Hoseok,” Yoongi all but growls, eyes turning into slits as Hoseok nears. Hoseok throws an arm around Yoongi’s shoulder anyway, extracting the USB from between his fingers. Yoongi complains, jabbing his elbow into Hoseok’s side, and huffs in satisfaction when he elicits a cry from Hoseok. ‘Good, let him feel pain.’
Hoseok lets him go with a playful scoff before walking off to the studio’s tech booth, where an impressive pair of speakers loom over one corner of the studio, along with a computer that accommodates their music. He plugs the USB in while Yoongi scans the studio lazily, arms folded across his chest. The studio seems fuller now than it had last year – more people with unfamiliar faces and a lot of energy bouncing off the walls.
“New auditions,” Hoseok supplies once he’s done moving the files from the USB to the computer, nudging Yoongi’s side with a hopeful grin, and nods his head as he lets his eyes flit across the lively room. “Mostly freshmen, but they’re nice. A lot of them are nice. One kid had this really elaborate audition number – basically flew across the room, had to get him on my team.”
Yoongi lets out a disinterested hum in response; nothing but an unusual head of orange hair catching his eye for a moment before he finally turns to Hoseok, who drops the USB back into his palm. “Good luck to them, you’re one hell of a nagger.”
Hoseok rolls his eyes good naturedly, playfully patting Yoongi’s ass before heading back to the center of the room where the people had already assembled before he’s even called onto them. Yoongi waves a silent goodbye at Hoseok through the mirror and walks out the room.
(A second too early to witness somebody lifting their shirt up to wipe against their damp forehead, exposing an identical bruise adorning their hip.)
The sweet days are over, Yoongi finally decides, when the bruises do not, in fact, cease for the rest of the week.
Yoongi’s almost half convinced he’s back to three summers ago where he woke up feeling like a wrecked punching bag, and his friends can only attempt to comfort him through bribes of hot coffee and burger coupons (of which Taehyung, Hoseok’s dutiful soul mate, manages to mooch of off him anyway). He spends his days lazing away in the library, playing with his pen absentmindedly as he stares off the distance distractedly like a man in a sad music video, except he’s only really thinking of excruciating ways to murder his soul mate – because, how the fuck do you get a bruise that looks exactly like a hidden Mickey Mouse?
On days when he’s feeling less murdered and more human, he wastes away his afternoons with Seokjin at their usual coffee shop – Hoseok a little less present with all the preparations he’s doing for his upcoming competition. Sometimes Taehyung sits with them; all frizzled hair and stained fingers like the art student that he is.
Hoseok met Taehyung before they had started college, and Yoongi and Seokjin (and everyone else around them) had been quick to warm up to the kid, who even in the stormiest days, manages to put on his signature boxy grin and cheer everyone up. (Yes, that does include Yoongi; he’s not that heartless. Besides, who could ever resist Kim Taehyung, Defender of Soft, Warm Puppies and Everything That is Good?)
Yoongi still remembers how him and Hoseok had just been coming back from a grocery run when a kid with lilac hair basically barrel rolled into Hoseok’s side. The frenzied kid then went on excitedly about how the bruises on their wrists match “See! They both look like a turtle, and if you tilt it to the side it looks exactly just like a melon bun! We have got to be soul mates!”, and “Hey, do you wanna see an elephant?!”. Yoongi hadn’t expected for Kim Taehyung to just hold out his bicep like he wasn’t straddling Hoseok, who had been conveniently laid out onto the pavement, and pinch his skin, moles aligning to form his own version of an elephant. (In case anyone’s curious, that gave the both of them a hella big bruise on their backs, and Hoseok didn’t stop complaining about it until Taehyung gave in and started giving him kisses whenever he opened his mouth to whine about it.)
“How are you holding up from your slump, Yoongi?” Seokjin starts, bringing his drink up to his lips, looking at Yoongi expectantly.
“Great,” Yoongi mutters, feeling not-so-great as his fingers absentmindedly press the side of his thigh, where a pink bruise lies under his jeans. “Just peachy.” (Literally. He looks like a peach underneath his clothes and he can’t help but snort at his little joke.)
Taehyung bobs his head beside Seokjin, a big frown tugging at his lips as he looks at Yoongi, understanding in his big brown eyes, “I get you, hyung! Hoseok hyung’s been practicing too much and it’s driving me crazy, I have bruises everywhere on my legs.”
Yoongi lets out another snort, arching an eyebrow as he returns Taehyung’s gaze with an amused one, fingers now tracing circles over the fabric of his jeans, “I thought Hoseok had this oath thing going on?”
(He faintly remembers how Hoseok had barged in their shared apartment one night, wailing about how “I swear to Mother Earth and to everything that is good… and puppies! Yeah, Taehyung loves puppies…” He had tripped against his own two feet, “That I, Jung Hoseok, promise not to get any bruises ever, for the benefit of my princess, my sunshine, my angel, my hope, Kim Taehyung!”, and had proceeded to run to their bathroom, throwing up everything he’d consumed in the past 24 hours, falling asleep on the toilet bowl soon after.)
“Yeah, well,” Taehyung collapses in his seat, his frown curling into a pout as he folds his arms across his chest with a harrumph, “He’s too invested with their competition coming up in a week or something, so he’s really practicing a lot and I guess it can’t be helped.”
But his expression softens after a while, the crease between his eyebrows smoothening, “I just… I just wish he took care of himself more. I don’t care about the bruises themselves, I care about how he gets them! He must get hurt a lot…”
“Aw,” Seokjin murmurs softly, brushing his shoulder against Taehyung’s, and gives him a light pat on the head, his smile motherly and encouraging, “That’s why you have to take care of him, Tae-yah!”
Taehyung lightens up considerably at this, nuzzling the side of his head against Seokjin’s shoulder with a grin and Yoongi’s pretty sure he regards Seokjin as his mother at this point, confirms it when Taehyung wraps his long limbs around Seokjin’s shoulders and cheers out a, “Yeah! Thanks mom!”.
The next thing that happens comes in a blur, sort of. Seokjin’s back to sipping on his drink, Taehyung’s leaning back against his chair and Yoongi’s just staring at the green highlights in Seokjin’s brown hair when Taehyung’s phone buzzes on the table. Taehyung jumps up and squeals, grabs his phone and reads his new message with bright eyes, lips stretching into a wide grin, and he’s up and running out of the café before Yoongi can even divert his eyes at the flurry. “Seokie hyung’s done with practice! Gotta dash. See you all soon, hyungs!”
Yoongi looks at Seokjin, who just lifts his shoulders into a shrug, and says, “Young love. Must be nice.”
(Yoongi lets his fingers linger against the side of his thigh for the rest of the day, thinking to himself that yeah, it must be nice.)
From: Jung Hoseok
09/21/2016 09:20PM
yoongz!!
From: Jung Hoseok
09/21/2016 09:20PM
my competition is in 2 days!! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆
From: Jung Hoseok
09/21/2016 09:20PM
u gotta b there ok??!! (´｡• ω •｡`) ♡
From: Jung Hoseok
09/21/2016 09:21PM
love u!! ٩(♡ε♡)۶
Two days later and Yoongi has to climb a steep mountain, swim across a raging river, fight off rotting zombies, and train to be a young Padawan just for Hoseok’s competition.
Okay. Not really.
He only has to climb about four sets of stairs, wade his way across crowds of students and visitors to be able to reach his small group of friends on the other side. Which all feels just like the former.
Yoongi reflects on the possibility that he might be (completely) out of shape when he becomes unsure of whether it’s his sweat or tears that he wipes off the side of his face.
Seokjin greets him with a hug, nonetheless. “Yoongi! You made it!”
“Almost didn’t,” He grunts once Seokjin pulls back, and follows him as he leads the way back to the seats they’ve occupied at one of the front rows, finding Taehyung already sitting with a DIY headband that had felt fabric spelling “Seok-ie Jjang!” in Hangul perched on it, holding a neon banner with the same cheer.
Yoongi raises an amused eyebrow at the sight as Seokjin settles beside the energetic Taehyung, patting the seat next to him.
“Yoongi hyung! Hi!” Taehyung bounces in his seat, giggling as he points to his headband, “I’m Hoseokie hyung’s number one fan, see!”
“I think everybody knows that by now, Tae,” Yoongi laughs as he finally sits down, thanking all the gods for the auditorium’s plush chairs that compensate for the burning feeling his legs are currently suffering from. Soon, it seems like mostly everyone’s settling down, filling in seats as soft murmurs echo inside the room.
Taehyung’s in the middle of explaining his ‘art’ (something that looked like a potato drawn with glitter glue if you ask Yoongi, but Taehyung says it’s a puppy and Yoongi doesn’t dare question the art major) when an MC appears at the spacious stage set up at the front.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!” He addresses them with a smile, following a script as he reminds everyone of the rules and regulations whilst inside the auditorium; things that Yoongi already knew, so he sits himself back comfortably, folding his arms over his chest, and allows the static hum of the stereo fill in the spaces of his mind.
It’s a competition held by the performing arts department. They always go all out every year – and they’re good at what they do – so Yoongi isn’t really all that surprised with the deafening cheering that erupts the moment the first act begins.
The show starts five minutes late because it’s college, but as soon as it does, there are strobe lights slicing across the audience, a spotlight hot on the center of the stage, and Yoongi loses count of the people who have went and stepped off the stage in a span of two hours.
The first to go were the vocals. Which may or may not have surprised Yoongi because of a particular blond-haired tall male who performed about inequality and shit – a hybrid of singing and rapping, English and Korean in a whole 4 minute song, and Taehyung’s shaking Seokjin by the shoulders and the latter’s blushing. (Did the man just wink at Yoon –… no… Seokjin… that shit. He has explaining to do later on.)
It continues on like that, from one major to another until the last drama act finishes and the atmosphere changes all of the sudden, into something that is so familiar but yet still manages to make Yoongi’s nerves thrum in anticipation.
A group of boys dressed in all black runs into view and the bass is suddenly thumping in Yoongi’s ears, loud and hyped up. The dance department is undeniably one of the most awaited acts of the night and Yoongi can’t help but be a little more biased, sitting a little straighter, when the dance teams go through their routines.
He’d never say it in front of Hoseok’s face (God knows what he would do to Yoongi if he does), but if anyone else asks him of whether he’s proud or not of his best friend, he’d say “fuck yeah, I am” in a heartbeat.
Hoseok had told them beforehand that they’d be one of the last teams to perform. Second, third to the last maybe? But Yoongi knows it’s them before he’s seen a glimpse of Hoseok and only half because of Taehyung’s sudden aggressive screeching (Yoongi spares a glance in wonder at the banner that miraculously does not rip in his tight grip). It’s mostly because of the familiar drop of the beat that reaches him in half a second. Nostalgia brings him to three months ago when Hoseok had asked him for a song and he’d spent a week on it, barely sleeping until he’d been sure it sounded perfect, up to the last nanosecond of the song.
Taehyung’s already up and jumping to the music when the members of Hoseok’s team assemble on the stage, hoods pulled up and bare arms glistening under the light. Like a sudden thunderstorm in Mid-April, they all drop to their knees, bodies rolling fluidly and it’s all too much, the stage is so busy and the cheering is so loud in Yoongi’s head. Though he finds that he doesn’t mind the noise at all for once and finds himself bouncing to the music as well, yelling cheers as the stage clears for Hoseok’s solo segment.
Yoongi blames it on Taehyung’s contagiousness later on when he does cheer a little louder, riding the high with the crowd as he throws his hands up while Hoseok does the thing he’s best (second best; first is giving Yoongi secondhand embarrassment) on stage.
The crowd goes wilder when two more dancers join Hoseok in the center. Two guys, one with orange-hair and a brunet. Yoongi thinks it’s probably because of the arms on them that the girls in the crowd start squealing, but even he can’t deny the skills they exhibit when they successfully perform a step that looks like it must’ve hurt a lot. The whole audience audibly gasps, Yoongi included, when Hoseok and the orange-head perform a backbend on the opposite sides of each other, hands clasped together as they pull back apart, and the other one jumps over them – stepping on the orange-head’s stomach (fuck, did he just bounce?) and the crowd is still cheering, loud and ringing, when the other members finally join the stage again.
But Yoongi’s mind is buzzing with white noise, drowning the music out, and a hot feeling spreads in his chest, ribs constricting around his lungs. Because Yoongi might’ve just found his soul mate.
His soul mate, who probably knows Hoseok.
His soul mate, who’s probably one of the three dancing on the stage.
His soul mate, who has a very cute face with very nice arms to boot.
Fuck, his soul mate is hot.
Two more dance numbers happen after Hoseok’s team, but Yoongi can’t find it in himself to concentrate, can’t even bring himself to at least pretend to watch. Because ‘it’ keeps on replaying in his head.
‘It’ being a particular orange-head sticking his tongue out playfully (rudely) and flashing his smooth stomach for everyone to see (very rudely) once he pushes himself back up from the floor during their little segment. But he didn’t only flash his cute stomach, he also gave Yoongi a peek of a bruise – The Bruise, One of the Tens of Bruises They Share, and Yoongi’s sure it’s him.
Yoongi doesn’t consider himself observant for nothing.
He’s sure of it. Sure of the pinkish purple bruise peeking from underneath the boy’s sweats, a stripe up his hipbone that Yoongi knows so well because he’s the same bruise on his hips, has had it for about five days.
He’s sure it’s him. Even under the pale light, with his golden skin glimmering under the glare, he’s sure of it. And Yoongi doesn’t know how to feel about it.
The auditorium’s lights are on by the time Yoongi’s come to his senses (only dazedly cheering for Hoseok’s team when they’re announced as the winners from their department; Taehyung and Seokjin going wild to his left muted by the fuzziness going on inside his head). He faintly hears the MC thanking all the visitors for giving them their time before Taehyung and Seokjin are tugging on his wrists and pulling him towards the backstage where Hoseok will be.
When they find Hoseok in one of the backstage rooms, Taehyung immediately launches his arms around the latter’s waist, dipping his nose into the other’s neck, and yells about how proud he is of his boyfriend.
Hoseok laughs, cheeks still pink from the high, and cards his fingers through Taehyung’s hair.
“Thank you, baby,” he grins, looking down at the fluffy mess wrapped around his chest, “I saw your banner. Loved the puppy, by the way.”
“I knew you would!” Taehyung squeals once he removes his face from Hoseok’s chest, giggling softly, and unwraps his arms around Hoseok’s waist to pat the back of his hand against Hoseok’s damp forehead. “So proud of you.”
“Thank you,” he says more solemnly this time (something unspoken and grateful behind plain words), planting a kiss on Taehyung’s forehead, before turning to Yoongi and Seokjin, “Thanks, guys.”
“Aw, no problem, Seokie!” Seokjin smiles teasingly, reaching over to ruffle Hoseok’s hair affectionately, and continues to praise Hoseok and his team but Yoongi’s already looking around the place for a certain orange-head. He almost startles when he finally sees him coming from the back, from a changing room maybe, and looks away embarrassingly fast, his head spinning a little. (He hears him answer to somebody calling out ‘Park Jimin’, and god, if it isn’t most adorable name ever.)
“Ah! We’re gonna be heading down to celebrate over barbeque, you guys are coming with.” Hoseok announces over the noise, looking pointedly at Seokjin and Yoongi and giving no space for refusal (though not that they would, because it’s food, duh?).
“As if I’m declining. Yoongi?” Seokjin snorts and turns to nudge Yoongi, who only nods, distracted by the orange that keeps on flashing at the corner of his eyes.
After the competition and fixing up their things, they head downtown to a barbeque house they’ve frequented a lot. The ahjumma coos and ruffles their hair as they enter, Hoseok showing off their trophy with a dopey smile, the rest of them in tow.
“Eomoni – ah, eomoni! We won!” Hoseok cheers as he thrusts the trophy into the air, the surface of the metal glinting under the glare of the light; the rest of his team laugh at their team leader’s enthusiasm (and, in Yoongi’s case, suffering from secondhand embarrassment as patrons turn from their food to send a quizzical look of curiosity towards their lot).
“Aigoo, you did won, didn’t you? Come,” she ushers them to a table big enough to accommodate them all, “This ahjumma will give you meat as service tonight.”
“Ah, that’s okay, eomeoni,” Seokjin counters politely, dipping his head to bow in declination as he gives her the most pleasant smile, “We’ll be robbing you of you’re money if we allow you to, we’re growing men after all.”
(He may or may not have smacked Taehyung at the back of his head when the younger male coughs “Seokjin piggy” under his breath.)
“Ah, nonsense! You say you all eat a lot and yet you’re all so thin!” She chastises, patting Seokjin’s arm before brandishing her notebook out from her apron’s pocket, smiling at them fondly, “Just one order, okay? Let this ahjumma treat you to one order!” She laughs when Seokjin finally agrees begrudgingly, and taps the tip of her pen against the paper, “So what will you be having tonight?”
“We’ll have twice the usual, eomoni!” Taehyung sings from his seat beside Hoseok, flashing his signature grin at the ahjumma.
She leans over to pinch his cheek endearingly, giving it a light pat afterward, before setting off with their order, “All right. You boys have fun and eat a lot, okay?” She hums, walking off with their order and a final, cheerful ‘congratulations!’.
Once she’s gone, the table breaks into incoherent chattering, heads turning to each other and mouths shooting off in excited conversations, and Yoongi’s only noticed how they’re seated. He’s seating at the edge of the table and to his left is Hoseok, and where Hoseok is Taehyung is, too. In front of him sat Seokjin next to the kid named Jeongguk, the other one who were a part of Hoseok’s segment, if Yoongi remembers correctly. And then there’s Jimin beside Jeongguk (and the rest of the dance crew melts into the background because Yoongi can only see Jimin, bright and orange under the lighting; he shines brighter than the rest of them, and Yoongi can’t really be bothered to squint pass him).
And he still doesn’t have any clue what to do.
Should he tell Jimin? Should he tell anyone at all? God, who knew finding your soul mate was this stressful? It sure didn’t look like it was when Hoseok and Taehyung had met (despite of how they met). Yoongi knows he shouldn’t be feeling this perplexed, he knew he had a soul mate since three years ago – and even though the odds weren’t that much, they did have to meet sometime sooner or later, or something. He knew he had someone coming. So why is it so hard to even look at his soul mate (and his soul mate was anything but hard to look at).
Yoongi decides, on a whim, that maybe yeah, maybe it would be better not to tell anyone about it now. Maybe soon he will, when he gets his heart to stop hammering against his chest. When looking at Park Jimin doesn’t make his insides feel warm anymore. Yeah, maybe. And besides, Yoongi’s always been against of just falling in love at first sight – god, he’s such a hypocrite feeling this way for somebody who he’s only seen today.
Even if he is technically supposed to be making Yoongi feel exactly like this, like jell-o on a plate in a fast moving car. Even if he’s Yoongi’s soul mate (heck, Yoongi’s not even 100% sure he is). But if there’s anything Yoongi stands for, it’s that love takes time. It takes a lot more than a simple soul mate bond and a glance to fall in love.
And when has he ever felt this way before? Everything’s so overwhelming and it’s throwing him off his axis, and Yoongi hates that.
So Yoongi says nothing, even when he hears his heart pound in his ears when he thinks Jimin may have looked at him.
He can hear Hoseok yelling above the chaos and talking to the rest of his members, and sees Jimin laugh at something Hoseok says. (What the fuck, is that a – fuck, Park Jimin has a crooked tooth. How, what the fuck, that’s so adorable?).
Yoongi catches himself staring so many times that he resigns to busying himself by flicking a finger at his phone’s screen absentmindedly whilst waiting for their food to arrive, though it remains blank and unlit. (Because he does not stare at people. Even if said people look like Park Jimin. Looks like a literal-Angel-On-Earth-like-Park-Jimin.)
Seokjin, the saint that he is, is trying hard to talk the kid Jeongguk out of his shell, asking him about dancing and all kinds of questions that Yoongi tunes out to.
Yoongi’s never really been much of a social person, so he isn’t offended that nobody talks to him (once, he went a week without engaging in any form of social interaction at all. Good old days, he reminisces.) Though he appreciate Seokjin’s effort to include him in the conversation.
(“Ah, what are your interests, Kookie-yah?”
“Uh… I kind of wanted to try producing songs before I went with dance.”
“Oh! You want to try producing? Yoongi here is an architecture major, but he makes awesome songs sometimes, don’t you, Yoongi-yah?”
“Eh.”)
The ahjumma comes back a couple of minutes after, plates of meat, vegetable, and side dishes balanced precariously on her arms. Yoongi raises a brow when Hoseok requests for a few bottles of soju, who meets his eyes with a mischievous glint in his own.
“It’s okay, Kookie’s our maknae, and he’s already legal, it’s okay,” Hoseok brushes his inquisitive look off with a dismissive hand, turning back to his former conversation with a loud exclamation.
Kookie flushes under the heat of their gazes, but Seokjin messes his hair with a laugh, saying, “But he’s like a baby! I won’t let him drink!”
To which Jeongguk finally speaks, tone unmistakably challenging, “I’m not a baby! And I can hold my alcohol just fine, I’ll show you!”
The table breaks into a collective laughter, and elicits a snort from Yoongi, though it’s amused more than anything else, because the kid is adorable, in a way an annoying younger brother would be, if he had one. (But the fire in those eyes did look kind of scary. Remind Yoongi not to challenge the kid to any games at all.)
They start grilling the meat once the grills heat up. Shoving lettuce wraps into their mouths at the first sight of freshly cooked meat.
Yoongi’s heart picks its pace up when Jimin meets his eyes for a second over the smoke from the grill, the smell of grilling meat suddenly nauseating; the eye contact is long enough for Jimin to flash a megawatt smile to his direction, but short enough to ignite the fire starting at the pit of his stomach, the fire of wanting more than just a smile. He starts shoving more meat into his mouth in hopes of smothering the flame. (God, God he’s already fucking whipped for Park Jimin and he doesn’t – never has believed in love at first sight, or anything like falling in love over a fucking smile but, God.)
Yoongi regrets not seeing the telltale signs of Hoseok’s shittiness earlier, regrets not interpreting his shady look when the soju bottles had arrived, regrets not taking it seriously because he should’ve known. He really should’ve known.
Hoseok is loud, energetic, and nice, and sometimes he gives Yoongi The Talk about shit Yoongi needs to hear. He’s actually a pretty damn good person to go to generally, but he should’ve known because Hoseok has, and always will be, out to get him.
He warily eyes the empty soju bottles in front of Hoseok. He’s pretty sure the idiot has finished a bottle on his own – not exactly the best thing Hoseok could’ve done. Never has been, especially when he’s around Yoongi – especially then.
It catches him off-guard because Hoseok starts his drunken ranting with professing his eternal love for Taehyung, who’s just as red in the face as he is (as they all are, actually) but for all the different reasons.
Hoseok wraps his arm around Taehyung in a grandiose fashion that has them nearly toppling off their chairs. He hugs the poor boy tightly to his side and yells (slurs) on the top of his lungs, raising his shot glass into the air, “Everyone, everyone! I would like to tell you all something. If – if you haven’t known, and I doubt that you do because I talk about him every single biscuit time because I’m so snicker doodles in love,” –Hoseok also has a habit of changing all inappropriate words into names of cookies when drunk (one more to the List of Shitty Things Hoseok Does When Drunk), – “But this is my adorable, honeybun, sugar lump, beautiful boyfriend and – and! Soul mate, Kim Taehyung!”
The crowd is a mixture of aw’s and laughter, and Yoongi supposes he can’t blame Taehyung for literally looking like an overripe tomato because truthfully, Hoseok is one annoying and embarrassing drunk. (He pointedly looks away when Taehyung leans in and presses a kiss against Hoseok’s jaw, to which the halfwit idiot makes a pleased startled noise, turning to nose Taehyung’s temple and they drown in a collective aw once more.)
Hoseok continues going on about how he and Taehyung had met on an eventful summer day three years ago (something he always does whenever the opportunity as much as presents itself), about the Wonders and Adventures of having soul mates, and about how he wishes everyone will find their soul mates soon. Yoongi swirls his straw inside his glass idly. (Silently wishes for the same.)
Then it happens.
Yoongi’s moved on and is picking at the last pieces of meat on the grill when he hears his name garbled out from Hoseok’s mouth, and when he looks up, he almost chokes on his spit when he sees all of their gazes are upon him.
“W-what?”
“Yoongi! Yoongi, my bro, my bromate, brohomie, brohomo!” Hoseok throws his other arm around Yoongi’s shoulder, thrusting a shot into his face as he stands up, dragging Yoongi with him by locking an arm around the latter’s neck (Yoongi almost dies of asphyxiation twice in one night, goddamn it.)
Yoongi stops resisting when Hoseok The Drunken Asshole refuses to let go and only tightens his grip around Yoongi when he as much as tries to writhe out of Hoseok’s vice grip. Yoongi glances at him and sees Hoseok blinking back rapidly to fight back the drowsiness Yoongi’s sure he’s feeling right now (Drunk Hoseok is always a Sleepy Hoseok once he’s done expending his energy).
“What the fuck, Hoseok –” Yoongi starts, digging his elbow into the other’s side, though he supposes the alcohol’s made him numb because Hoseok doesn’t budge, doesn’t even flinch (and he’s always told Yoongi of how lethal his elbow could be). Instead, he knocks back the shot he has in his other hand (Yoongi resists the urge to roll his eyes at how wasteful Hoseok is, the alcohol spilling down his sweatshirt clumsily when he misses his mouth a few good inches).
“Now this guy! I want to see him meet his soul mate,” Hoseok declares through a heavy tongue, looking at Yoongi with hazy eyes and a shit-eating grin, “Man, how I wish he – oh god. Oh god, I almost forgot, guys, when he started to show I was there and let me tell you it was, it was – wow,” Hoseok stops to breathe, a guffaw spilling from his open mouth and Yoongi elbows him again, clawing at Hoseok’s arm because what the fuck is Hoseok, what the fuck – Yoongi glances at Jimin and he’s sitting there with an amused smile on his lips, eyes twinkling in amusement. Fuck. Yoongi looks away as he feels his face heat up. When the fuck had Hoseok become this strong?
“Hoseok!”
“He was like a ragdoll, hah, oh my god, there was a fudging bacon-shaped bruise on his ass last month! Bacon! Bruise! Ass!” Hoseok whoops loudly, and there’s blood rushing to Yoongi’s ears. His eyes widen at Hoseok’s revelation of his (latest) Bruise On The Ass incident, tries to launch his hands to shut Hoseok’s mouth but it’s too late. The table has fallen silent and the bastard Hoseok finally faints from exhaustion, much to his convenience.
Everyone’s heard of His Bruise On The Ass, and the atmosphere’s weird. Yoongi’s pretty sure they all want to laugh, though not in the face of the unfortunate victim. They all pause when Hoseok suddenly sits up from where his head lies in Taehyung’s lap.
He looks at Yoongi with a really stupid grin on his face, “Man, I hope you find your soul mate soon.” Then he falls back down. (Before Yoongi can strangle him to a slow, painful death.)
Yoongi groans and pushes his face into his hands; maybe he could smother himself to death while he’s at it.
(He completely misses the shift of a certain Park Jimin’s face, from amusement to surprise.)
Taehyung has to haul Hoseok’s ass out of the restaurant because he’s piss drunk and still unconscious, and Yoongi almost pities the boy, all thin and frail limbs, Hoseok a useless dead weight in his arms (though he definitely does not pity Hoseok, the little shit, for the impending evil of hangover looming over his future. Yoongi hopes it cracks his skull open.)
Yoongi opts to stay back for a while, thinking of looking under the tables for anything they might have dropped among all the ruckus. Seokjin had offered to stay with him, but Yoongi sends him off with, “You have morning classes tomorrow, don’t you? And you live on the other side,” a pointed stare inclusive.
Seokjin leaves after giving him a snort and a pat on the head (to which he scowls at), and walks out with the rest of the dance crew.
Yoongi finally heads out after he’s found no forgotten scarves or gloves under their chairs, and has thanked and apologized to the ahjumma for the chaos they’ve (Hoseok) made.
Cold wind bites his skin as he pushes his way out of the place, cursing softly as his breath puffs out from his mouth into the air. He tugs his beanie further down on his head and over his ears, his hair flattening against his forehead.
He’s about to turn down the road when his name is softly called.
“Yoongi-ssi?” A voice calls from behind, and Yoongi turns on his feet fast enough to see Jimin flick his tongue out to swipe over his chapped lip (a nervous tick he would soon come to discover), “Hi?”
Yoongi steps to the side and towards Jimin, shoving his hands into his coat’s pockets as he shrugs his shoulders to generate heat, “Hey, Park Jimin, right?”
“A-ah, yes…” Jimin barely nods, and Yoongi can see pink dusting his cheeks as he steps out of the dark and under the dim orange streetlight. There’s a flash of something in his eyes – anxiety? Uncertainty? – but it’s gone the next, replaced with an expression akin to something like determination.
“Yoongi-ssi…”
“Yes?” Yoongi watches as Jimin’s eyelashes flutter against his golden cheeks, skin illuminated pale orange, a softer glow in comparison to his vibrant orange hair.
Jimin takes a deep breath and looks into his eyes, and Yoongi has to bite his tongue to hold back a coo at how adorable he is, “I think, um, I think you’re my… uh, you know?”
The bravado is gone as fast as it has arrived and Yoongi stifles a laugh, lest he scares the kid away.
“I know what? I don’t know though?” Yoongi’s an asshole, he knows.
“You know…” Jimin actually whines and stomps his feet and god, it’s all that’s cute and it’s a shot to Yoongi’s heart, really. His fingers fidget with the frays of his sleeves nervously, “The… the bruise on the ass! Bacon-shaped bruise? That!” He blurts, quickly slapping his hands over his mouth in shock, as he turns red at the tips of his ears when he realizes what he’s just said. “I – I mean, the – the bruise, it’s, you know, this is so embarrassing oh my god – why would you, Park Jimin –”
Yoongi tilts his head as Jimin struggles with his words, this time he doesn’t hold back the curl of his lips, “Jimin?” He cuts him off, gently placing a hand over the boy’s shoulder to calm him down.
“E-eh?”
“Is it okay if I walk you home?”
Yoongi’s never imagined his night ending like this. If you’d ask him a year ago, maybe a month or a week, heck if somebody’s asked him two hours ago on how he’d think his day would end, he wouldn’t have even thought about it ending like this.
But here he is. Here they are.
In the middle of the night, cold air tinting their noses pink, city noises drowning everything out, yellow and orange lights coloring them like stars in the dark.
Yoongi flashes an easy grin at Jimin, the one that shows his gums, and Jimin’s stuttering, adorable and mighty in his furry coat and ridiculously red scarf. He nods slowly, as if only registering Yoongi’s question, and chews on his lip nervously, “O-okay, Yoongi-ssi…”
“Hyung,” Yoongi murmurs, stepping to Jimin’s side, and stirs Jimin to the direction of the bus stop.
“Hyung…?”
“Just call me hyung, Yoongi-hyung.”
“A-ah! Yoongi… hyung,” Jimin whispers after him, falling a step behind him.
His name rolls off Jimin’s tongue so sweetly, so naturally, and as they walk down the almost-empty street of Seoul, moon light softening their features at the edges, Yoongi thinks about all the ways this night could’ve ended.
And thank God it’s ending like this. Thank God it’s ending with Yoongi looking back to see Jimin (his soul mate) so close. Thank God it’s ending with Yoongi sitting beside Jimin on the bus. Thank God it’s ending with Yoongi and Jimin. Thank God it’s Jimin.
Yoongi might not believe in love at first sight, and he will forever remain firm on his stand that love takes time. And Jimin might be his soul mate, might be someone predetermined for him before the world had even began spinning on its own axis.
But for whatever it’s worth, Yoongi decides to fall in love not with his soul mate, but with Park Jimin.
On the ride way home, Jimin falls asleep on Yoongi’s shoulder. Yoongi figures they can always talk about it later. But for now, tonight, right here, right now, he’s found his soul mate. And no matter how many bruises Jimin’s given him the pleasure of dealing with for the last three years, Yoongi can’t find it in himself to look away.
(For all the years Yoongi’s remained indifferent to love, he thinks Park Jimin comes in the right place, at the right time.)