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Namjoon surveyed his newly arranged closet with a satisfied smile. The bamboo hangers were evenly spaced, and the clothes were arranged by color, type, and season. In the hanging garments, he could see himself hiking up a stone path on a sweltering day or ambling by the river on a snow-dotted evening. He’d be wearing the newly tailored suit to a promotional event in the next week, and the stack of large t-shirts would be stained with sweat after a few good workouts. There was some piece of clothing here for every season, every version of himself.
“Namjoon, come eat!” Yoongi called. “Food’s here!”
Namjoon shook his head but couldn’t stop the grin from catching his lips. His place was too small to be shouting like that. But Yoongi was used to calling members from all corners of a place to the dinner table, and the habit had stuck.
“Where are your tumblers?” He asked when Namjoon rounded the corner to the kitchen. “I can’t find anything in this place since you moved it all around.”
Yoongi pulled out another drawer to find a neatly folded stack of napkins and dish clothes. The one next to it clanged with extra silverware when he shut it next, despite the soft close feature. Namjoon had paid extra for that and the quartz countertop Yoongi had piled high with takeout containers.
“I’ll get them. You set the table.”
Namjoon busied himself with the glasses and the alcohol. It wasn’t the good, homemade stuff from Seokjin, but it was the kind they had drank when they had less money and different problems. The TV murmured in the background while they settled in at the table, a drama that Jungkook liked but Namjoon hadn’t tuned into. Yoongi tucked in and the pale apples of his cheeks bulged from the food.
A familiar warmth pulsed in Namjoon’s chest while he watched him chew, and Yoongi gave him a calculated look over a mouthful of noodles.
“Eat,” he said, nodding to Namjoon’s bowl.
Namjoon realized his hand had been hovering, and he busied himself with stirring up the noodles and the rich sauce. His first bite of the jajangmyun was huge. He couldn’t help but moan at the burst of flavors.
“They don’t make it like that at camp,” he said after swallowing. “That shit tastes like dishwater.”
“I bet,” Yoongi said. Then after a moment. “How are you?”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah, good. And Hoseok’s concert was amazing. I’m glad you got to go, too. Watching him up there it was like, it was like seeing something from a dream. He worked so hard, and I know he’s having a bit of a hard time coming down from it all, you know? Jimin’s been there and I’m trying to be there, too. But it’s not easy going from that to,” he gestured around to his apartment, “this again.”
Yoongi took a slow breath that told Namjoon he was thinking a little too hard about how to respond.
“That’s good to hear about Hobah, but I was asking about you.”
“Right.”
Namjoon squirmed. He shoveled more food in his mouth to give himself a moment to think. Yoongi wouldn’t push him, he knew. His hyung was always patient with him, and sometimes that felt like a punishment when he just wanted Yoongi to snap back at him or force him to do something. But Yoongi’s style was always patience. Space. Waiting. Slack on the line that always made Namjoon pull himself back toward Yoongi with a little less bravado and a little more vulnerability. So, he wouldn’t demand an answer, but he would wait for one, and he would know if it was fake.
In the last week, Namjoon had done more parading around with fake answers than he did on press tours. He had expected it, prepared for it even, but he couldn’t quite get over how unfair it felt that he had to distill the last 18 months of his life into a couple of sentences that would make others feel good. Venting a bit on the weverse live had been nice, but even that felt like it came up short, like he was still lying—maybe even to himself—about how hard his service had been.
“Uh, I’m doing better, I think,” he started tentatively, after some thought. “My doctor said I might not need the meds much longer. I’m weaning off now, so I should be back to normal soon.”
“And that’s what you want?” Yoongi asked. No eye contact, of course. He was studying someplace just above Namjoon’s shoulder. “To be off the meds? Because you know you can keep using them, even for a transitional period. You don’t have to stop just because you got out.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Namjoon cracked his knuckles and then shook them out. “It’s what I want. I want to be able to sleep again. Normally, without them, I mean. So yeah.”
“And you have what you need to get the kind of sleep you need? Do you need anything from me? From us?”
“No, of course-”
“Stop,” Yoongi interrupted. “Before you answer just to answer, think about it. Is there anything you need from me?”
Namjoon forced himself to take inventory, which he did aloud.
“I have everything I think. I got these new sateen sheets ordered from Italy. And an eiderdown comforter from Iceland. It’s really nice and actually pretty breathable. The pillow spray smells good, and my new sleep mask is cooling, too. I’ve been taking a bath before bed to wind down, which is nice. I’m still journaling a little bit, but I’ve missed a few days…” He took a swig of a drink and looked toward his room as if he’d forgotten something. “I mean, I think that’s it. My sound machine is basic, but it works. I should be getting the best sleep of my life now.”
“That all sounds nice,” Yoongi said. “But it all sounds physical. Like you think you can make this apartment and your bed make you sleep.”
“Well, yeah, the idea is to make it as dissimilar to the base as possible.”
“That might not be all you need though. You need support from humans. Not just ₩ 2 million sheets,” Yoongi said with a small smile. “What about a call from one of us? Or some check-ins in the evening or the morning? What if someone stays with you until you fall asleep?”
Namjoon’s cheeks heated. “I’m not—I’m not asking for a babysitter, hyung. It’s not that seri-” he choked back the words. “It’s not like that. It isn’t like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
Namjoon deflated. “I invited you over here to give you my old clothes and this is what you want to talk about?”
“You invited me over to literally give me a part of your old self and you didn’t think we’d talk about who you’ve become?”
Namjoon left the table before he could stop himself. He was on his feet and Yoongi was still here, not quite looking at him but studying him nonetheless. And here he was in his apartment, a place that should feel like home but felt brand new. Because he had made it that way. Gotten rid of everything. Ordered new furniture before he had even arrived. Paid the people to set it up and make it look pretty, to make it look not like his house .
He paced for a few steps and then found his way into the bedroom, sparing a glance at the ridiculously expensive comforter. His diary was open on the side table, the new one he’d started after discharge to get some space between him and the words he’d been scrawling at night in the barracks. But his military diary was there, tucked inside the nightstand, stained and a little beat up, but full of everything he had once said that he now couldn’t even articulate.
“I want you to read this,” Namjoon said when he found his voice and made his way back over to the table. “Not all of it just maybe this page. It’s like, I want to talk, but I-” His throat felt tight, as if it were constricting itself just to stop him from admitting something he shouldn’t. “It’s hard to,” he swallowed. “Get out and I want-”
“Okay, okay.” Yoongi’s hand closed on top of Namjoon’s. The soft pads of his fingers brushed against the contour of Namjoon’s knuckles. His hand was still much smaller and paler in comparison. But it felt familiar and warm, more like home than Namjoon’s own apartment felt.
“I’ll read this page. You eat.”
Ayo diary what’s up it’s me again. Namjoon.
Food was shit today and my back is aching and it feels like my body WON’T FUCKING WORK the way I want it to, but yeah I guess it's probably just tired. I'm really tired. In a way that makes my head feel fuzzy, like I'm thinking through a pile of mud. Fuck the mud. We ran through mud yesterday and I still don’t feel clean.
I met someone today from Berkeley who studies physics and he said something to me about the difference between classical physics and quantum physics over dinner. (It was shit. The dinner not him.)
Classical physics is all about calculations. The idea is you can calculate any damn thing you want because the laws and the equations are always true. I drop a heavy boot on my foot and it hurts. Gravity did that shit and it'll always do it that way. You drop it from that height above that object. You calculate how it will fall. It falls like that every time.
Quantum physics isn't like that. Maybe it'll fall at that speed and on that path onto my foot and maybe it won't. Maybe it’s falling and not falling at the same time. There are many possibilities all at once. That shit might hurt and it might not. Maybe my foot’s there. Maybe it's gone.
What if i just lost a foot. What would happen?
I guess I couldn’t ride my bike anymore. Unless I got a robot foot.
What was I saying? I was saying sleep feels more quantum these days. Like maybe a version of me is already asleep. Or a version of me isn’t even here. I hope he’s having sweet dreams. I hope he’s having a better time than me. But i’m stuck in this fucked up possibility and I can’t do anything about it. I’m just existing here, man. And it feels like nothing and everything all at once.
I hope everyone is okay. They tell me they’re okay for the most part, so I think it’s fine. But I also tell everyone I’m okay
and I’m probably not.I thought I knew what it was like to not be able to sleep, but I guess I was wrong. This is the trouble with thinking you know anything. The universe will always teach you how little you know.
Despite the fact that he was wearing Namjoon’s old clothes, Yoongi looked a bit swamped in the t-shirt he tossed on after they finished drinking. It was solid white and even still, Yoongi looked ghostly. Hours upon hours inside under fluorescent lighting had made him impossibly paler.
“You don’t have to stay,” Namjoon said, probably for the fifth time.
Yoongi didn’t bother with an answer. He connected his phone to the bluetooth and music spilled from the carefully placed speakers around the house. It was an eclectic playlist Taehyung had made of jazz funk and jazz fusion, stuff Namjoon didn’t seek out for himself but he appreciated.
Yoongi brushed his teeth and washed his face while Namjoon showered. And then he loitered around the bed, while Namjoon finished up at his bathroom sink with a towel cinched around his waist. Yoongi openly studied him, the way his hair fell around his ears, the length of his neck, the way his muscles made his back broader and his waist appear smaller. They all knew service would change them, so it wasn’t a surprise. But it did feel unfamiliar. Yoongi would have to relearn what his body was like.
“You like what you see?” Namjoon asked when he caught him staring.
Yoongi scowled. “I was just wondering if I need to perform an elaborate cleaning ritual before sitting on these sheets that cost more than my house.”
“Hah, very funny, hyung.”
They shuffled into bed on their respective sides. Yoongi was always on the left and Namjoon on the right. They had decided that sometime when Namjoon was still a knobby semi-adult with a wide grin and oversized sunglasses.
Yoongi didn’t even have to squirm to get comfortable. He just laid down and stayed there. The sheets and blanket were, unfortunately, the softest things he had ever felt.
“Where did you get these ridiculous blankets?” Yoongi muttered.
“I told you. Iceland. Italy.”
Namjoon wrapped his arm around him, pushing one of his legs between Yoongi’s own. He sighed deeply and the release of air ruffled Yoongi’s hair.
“I might have to try them.” Then, “You feeling okay?”
Namjoon nodded and Yoongi felt, rather than saw it.
“You’ll tell me if you’re not?”
“I’ll tell you. I promise I won’t lie.”
“You can’t lie to me Kim Namjoon.”
“Never.”
“And if something-”
Namjoon’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He had most of his notifications off, so if something was alerting him it was likely from someone important, his parents maybe or his manager. He released Yoongi to reach for his phone and was greeted with the bobbing, smiling faces of Jimin and Jungkook on his screen.
He answered the video call with the push of a button. And with another, he shifted the lights back on in the room to a dim setting. He rearranged himself back around Yoongi while Jungkook and Jimin seemed to have a conversation that didn’t involve them. The background noise made it difficult to hear what they were saying but they were both animated and seemed to be moving to some music that sounded disjointed from their end.
“Hyung! What are you doing?” Jimin called after a moment. The night air was stirring the wispy bangs he’d managed to grow out in the last few weeks. They were outside and by the looks of the lights around them, somewhere busy even late at night.
“Oh, they’re sleeping! Are you guys sleeping already? We thought you’d be up!” Jungkook said. He pointed at something to his right and made an indistinguishable comment.
“We just got in bed,” Namjoon said, his voice too loud for their setting.
“What?” Jungkook called.
“He said they just got in bed,” Hoseok said from somewhere off screen. “Let them rest.”
“Oh okay, well we love you!” Jimin called. “Call us in the morning!”
“All right, be safe,” Yoongi said.
“What?” Jungkook said.
“He said-” Hoseok’s voice started.
The call ended.
Yoongi chuckled. “Those guys.”
Namjoon quickly put his phone away and reset the lights. He pulled Yoongi closer to him, like the slight disruption needed to be countered with an extra firm grip. His chin sat on the top of Yoongi’s head and he stayed there for a long while, breathing in the comfort. Service had been weird because there was no space but he was somehow never close to anyone, not like this.
“Did you tell them to call?” he asked after turning over the question in his head.
“No.”
“Okay. Do you want my old blow dryer?” Namjoon asked. His lips were pressed to the side of Yoongi’s head.
“I don’t have any hair.”
“You will though.”
“Sure.”
They were silent for some time, and it was actually silent besides their slow breaths. The barracks were never that way. There was always some noise—snoring, coughing, distant rustling, a door opening or closing as people came out and in for inspections or bathroom trips or something else.
The pure darkness and the silence here were welcome but still unfamiliar, just like the sheets and his clothes and the new cut of his abs. Only Yoongi felt the same. He was still a soft presence that Namjoon could coil himself around when the world felt too big, too dangerous, too much.
“Hyung, I don’t think I’m doing okay,” Namjoon whispered. His voice was swallowed in the dark room.
“I know, Namjoon.” Yoongi slipped a hand over his arm, giving him a short squeeze. “I know.”