Chapter Text
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Yoongi is a dreamer.
Or, more specifically, he is Kim Seokjin’s dreamer.
Being a dreamer meant seeing the future. It could be a world-changing, life-saving power, technically, but it was usually just boring. Because the only future he could see was Seokjin’s--and only in a one-day span ahead of actual time. And only while Yoongi was asleep. Which makes it a pretty limited scope.
He has never met the other man; he only knows what he could gather from the short dream sequences while he slept. Seokjin’s 25--a year older than Yoongi--which meant that he had been seeing Yoongi’s life a year longer than Yoongi had his; the dreams only start when the dreamer is around twenty years old, regardless of the age of their partner. Seokjin is at school somewhere, but so far Yoongi hadn’t been able to tell where. He has a dog (pictures everywhere) and a brother (weekly visits).
He could meet up with Seokjin, if he wanted to. If he tried hard enough to find him, it wouldn’t be that hard, but honestly Seokjin hasn’t given him a reason to. And until Seokjin starts to look for him, he probably won’t move either.
Yoongi likes his job. He works for a smallish entertainment company that puts out idol groups. The company is new to the industry and is only recently finding widespread success. Their latest group had debuted two years ago, a trio of three boys dubbed BTS. He and Namjoon worked on a lot of their music, and although the pair weren’t close friends with the idols they were sometimes privy to their personal lives. The group was preparing for a comeback, which made work hectic for both the idols themselves and the production crew.
“So, how’s that whole dreamer thing going?” Namjoon asks, out of the blue, as they’re walking back from a strawberry lemonade and candy bar run at the convenience store near the studio. Whenever they get too frustrated, they go and get junk food to refuel.
“Fine, I guess. Why?” Yoongi doesn’t know what interest Namjoon could possibly have in being a dreamer, considering that through all the years they’d been friends he had neither brought it up nor seemed to care about it.
“No big reason, hyung. I just met this guy, and he said he was, so I--”
“Please don’t tell me you’re gonna try to fake it,” Yoongi says, eyes darkening, “because that is literally one of the sh--”
“No! No, I just wanted to be able to talk with him about it. I’m not that stupid,” Namjoon defends, nose scrunching up and eyes crinkling at the corners.
“I dunno, I think that one’s up in the air.”
Namjoon lightly punches Yoongi’s shoulder. “Shut up. We need to get back to work.”
Sometimes Yoongi feels bad for Seokjin.
Mostly because he is just so goddamned awkward.
A majority of the future interactions of Seokjin’s Yoongi sees are uncomfortable. Not because of any sensitive topics, just because Seokjin was single-handedly the most awkward man Yoongi had ever met. Or… dreamed about. Either way, he’d probably been awkward since he was born.
It’s not like people set out to make Seokjin embarrass himself; he manages to do it all on his own. First, because he could make literally any topic or situation uncomfortable, and because he found basically everything embarrassing. The secondhand-embarrassment physically hurt. Even if Yoongi would take his secret to the grave, he knows deep down that Seokjin was the reason he had had so many stinted conversations lately.
Also because Seokjin gets asked out a lot. At least from what Yoongi can see. He doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend (Yoongi knows he’s gay; found out through rather… unfortunate circumstances, but nonetheless), but he also doesn’t really seem to want to go out with anyone. The only awkwardness Seokjin can actually seem to field comfortably is politely turning people down--something for which Yoongi is eternally grateful.
Even with the awkwardness, the elder man seems sure of himself. He’s confident in his looks and inside really sassy, although it doesn’t come out too often due to his overarching sweet nature. Yoongi can appreciate that.
He can also disregard the slight dusting of pink that covers his cheeks whenever he thinks about Seokjin.
Seokjin walks into the cafe, greeting the owner. He comes here a lot, staying for an hour or two and making use of the wifi. There’s a bench along the far wall where Seokjin usually sits, and he doesn’t break the pattern today. Even in his only semi-lucid state, Yoongi dully thinks that tomorrow is going to be a boring day.
Seokjin had only been seated for around fifteen minutes when another customer came into the cafe. The man looks to the counter, and upon not seeing the owner, starts over to Seokjin.
The man walks over and sits a few feet away from Seokjin. For a few minutes, nothing happens. The man eventually leans in to talk to Seokjin.
“Hey sugar,” the man says, “how are you?” Seokjin immediately tenses, scooting down a little.
“Um, hi. Was there something you wanted?” Seokjin’s on edge. Yoongi tenses.
“Yeah, of course” the man says. He wraps an arm around Seokjin’s shoulders, leans in further and whispers, “you.”
Seokjin shudders, and the man seems to take this as a good sign. His other hand slyly reaches around to Seokjin’s tea and uncaps it, dropping what looks like a prescription pill into it. Yoongi gets the feeling that his eyes widened, even though they’re still closed. It has to be a drug. That means tomorrow, Seokjin…
“Ah, I’m not interested,” Seokijn trails off, and the man squeezing his shoulders harder. “Sorry, I’m just not really interested in dating right now, I’ve uh,” the man’s other hand moves down to Seokjin’s thigh, “um, I just…” He glances over to the counter, but the owner is nowhere in sight, and it’s a slow hour.
Seokjin reaches down and pushes his hand away. He jolts away and moves to run. Yoongi hadn’t seen him grab his laptop off the table, but he’d put it into his bag while the man was talking.
Wait,” the man says, grabbing his wrist. Seokjin’s shaking like a leaf, lightly tugging his wrist away. “Don’t forget your drink.” Yoongi holds his breath. Anger flares up in the pit of his stomach.
“Th-thank you,” Seokjin says, grabbing the drink, and making his escape. Yoongi wants to yell. He wants to, needs to tell Seokjin to drop the drink and run. But he can’t.
Seokjin walks swiftly, avoiding foot traffic and putting as much distance between himself and the cafe as he can. He gets the distinct feeling that someone is following him, even though he’s always had good intuition. He is following you! Yoongi thinks. If only he could say it out loud.
Seokjin gets to the crosswalk, waiting for traffic. The man slowly starts to catch up. He must think that Seokjin already drank the tea.
The man walks up, wrapping a casual arm around Seokjin’s waist. “Fast-working, huh?” Yoongi can’t literally read Seokjin’s thoughts, but his emotions have become easy to read. Seokjin wants to cry and Yoongi kind of does, too.
Seokjin looks confused, not having actually drank the tea, but settles on scared anyway. “Please leave me alone,” Seokjin pleads in a whisper, “I don’t know why you’re doing this to me.”
“Because you’re beautiful,” the man breathes into his face, “maybe you should’ve been born ugly if you didn’t want the attention.”
“It’s not my fault, I--please let me go,” Seokjin says. He tries to turn away, but doesn’t want to cause a scene. The man won’t give up so easily, though.
“With me, now.” The man’s voice has none of the false warmness he’d been employing before. It’s cold and calculating, freezing Seokjin from head to toe.
“No!” Seokjin says pulling away. The man seems surprised by the outburst and lets go quickly. It’s just enough for Seokjin to lose his balance, tumbling into the street and--
“NO!” Yoongi screams, waking up in a cold sweat. He stares up at his ceiling, panting.
The dreams aren’t false. If Yoongi doesn’t somehow interfere, the dream will be Seokjin’s reality.
Yoongi knows he has to find Seokjin. And fast.
He doesn’t know how to go about this, because most stories he heard are of pair of dreamers finally finding each other after years of work. He has the next twenty four hours to find Seokjin--and not even that, because technically the clock starts ticking when Yoongi falls asleep. He’d already slept through the night--which took ten hours off his time frame. Seokjin’s death was going to happen at some point in the next fourteen hours.
Yoongi gets out of bed faster than he ever had in his life. And earlier, too, because it was only seven o’clock. He was out of the house before seven-thirty, and began walking downtown even before he realized that he actually had no idea where to start.
He tries to keep tally of the things he did know about finding Seokjin. He knows that the elder lives in Seoul, but he’s never caught the street. He also knows that he is attending university, but he doesn’t know where. Great .
Yoongi’s panicking. If he didn’t get to Seokjin in time, he would… He doesn’t even know Seokjin, technically, but he still feels at fault. If the reality carried out in the dream actually comes true, Yoongi’s dreams will stop altogether. Even the ones that aren’t of Seokjin’s life. Yoongi’s stomach churns, recalling his sleepless nights prior to his twentieth birthday. The out-of-place feeling of aloneness that seemed to incessantly envelope him, especially at night.
Yoongi realizes that he’s running and slows down. He pauses in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to reign in his thoughts.
There has to be some information he can get from the dream.
He doesn’t think Seokjin checked his phone at all throughout, and he hadn’t seen any clocks, so he doesn’t know the exact time. It was light out, not too early or late. The sun starts setting around six, and it had still been high in the dream. The sun was fully risen as the real time was approaching eight, so that meant that Seokjin was still alive for now. The time frame was cut down to about ten hours, and Yoongi didn’t know if that was better or worse. Suddenly, it hits him how fucked up his current situation is.
Seriously, who has to deal with this? Yoongi’s just trying to make a living as a small-time producer. The only things that make him special are his musical talents and his dreams. The dreams are apparently a curse, though, because no average person should actually have to try to save someone they’ve never even met. This is the kind of shit out of ‘edgy’ rom-coms that try to hard and poorly-written fanfiction.
No matter the unfairness of it all, though, Yoongi has to try. For how much of an unknown Seokjin remains to him, Yoongi’s stomach still runs cold at the thought of losing him.
It’s a Sunday. Does Seokjin have any classes on Sunday? Yoongi wishes he’d paid more attention.
But the tea did give away something.
Seokjin is somewhat systematic, from what Yoongi’s seen. It’s not necessarily a bad or hindering thing, or even a thing Seokjin would notice generally, but he does seem to like having similarities between his days. One such similarity is his choice of beverage.
He drinks coffee in the mornings before classes or work, because even though he prefers tea, coffee wakes him up quicker. If he was drinking tea, it was either right after a class, or sometime in the afternoon. He had been working on his laptop before being interrupted by that scumbag-- just wait until I get ahold of him , Yoongi thinks--but that didn’t necessarily mean that he had just come from class. Still, Seokjin’s usually not the type to procrastinate. He tries to get work done soon after it’s assigned. Even though it’s not surefire that he had been coming back from class, Yoongi doesn’t really have any other leads.
Assuming that Seokjin does have a class on Sundays, how long does it run? His classes seem to last way longer than two hours dream-time, but from the times Yoongi’d seen clocks, he’d watched them just like he would in his own classes. And they’re usually two hours, or two and half on the really long days.
Yoongi’s been leaning against the same wall for upward of half an hour. The owner of the store inside is giving him an odd look, so Yoongi decides to keep walking.
Even with all the information he has, there’s no way to find Seokjin in Seoul. How can he find one man among ten million? How can he find anything in such a sprawling city? Even if he starts looking for Seokjin’s university, there are way too many to find his school and still have time to figure out where he is. It’s impossible.
He pulls out his phone, checking the time. It’s already nine.
Before he can put his phone away, Namjoon calls him. He answers before he can decide against it.
“Uh…hyung? Were you planning on coming into work today? I mean, I know we’ve been busy--”
“Can you meet me somewhere?” It was probably the uncharacteristically nervous, rushed tone of Yoongi’s voice that made Namjoon agree, but Yoongi didn’t care.
Yoongi, usually so outwardly calm and cool, is flustered. He’s twiddling his thumbs, sitting tensely on the hard plastic chair outside the restaurant. He’d only ordered a water and had no intent of actually getting anything to eat, and he’s pretty sure the waitstaff thinks that he’s been stood up on a breakfast date.
“Hey, hyung,” Namjoon says, sliding into the seat across from him.
Yoongi doesn’t respond, watching Namjoon sit down.
“So did you actually want to explain why you, the biggest and also somehow laziest workaholic I know, decided to skip work right before BTS’ comeback and drag me with you?” Namjoon’s tone is joking, but he seems to sense Yoongi’s melancholy and adjusts. “What’s wrong?”
“You know I’m a dreamer,” Yoongi says. Namjoon nods, waiting for Yoongi to continue. “I kind of… I saw something bad last night,” he pauses. “I need to find my partner before it happens. I’ve never met him before, but I know he lives in Seoul.”
Namjoon processes the information with a frown. “Hyung, there are so many people who live here. I’m not trying to discourage you, but how will you find him in time?”
“I don’t know.” Yoongi realizes that somewhere in the back of his mind he had been hoping that Namjoon would already know what to do.
“Where was he in your dream?”
“At a cafe, but I don’t know what it’s called. He was coming back from class, I think, but I don’t know where he goes.”
“What do you know?”
Yoongi lets the conversation lull for a second while he thinks. “He likes tea more than coffee. His favorite color’s pink, and he’s really, really pretty, and he’s awkward around like everyone . He wants to be an actor but his parents won’t let him.” Namjoon’s frown deepens slightly, but by the end of Yoongi’s spiel his eyes have widened almost comically.
“This is going to sound really weird, hyung, but do you think there’s any way that he knows Jungkook?”
“What?”
“Well, it’s a slim chance, and I really hope I’m not getting your hopes up for nothing, but Jungkook introduced me to a friend of his the other day who sounds similar. I don’t have any way to contact him, but if it is the same guy you should talk to Jungkook.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t remember his name. Kim something, I think.”
“Well, thanks Namjoon. You’ve just described like half of Korea.” Yoongi gripes. “His name is Seokjin. Ring any bells?”
“It sounds familiar but… I’ve been meeting with a lot of execs lately. The names start to bleed together.” Yoongi sighs, obviously disgruntled, and runs a hand through his hair.
Namjoon shrugs. “I know you’re thanking me on the inside. Anyway, talk to Jungkook. It’s a small world, y’know.”
Yoongi lets that comment slide. “Should I call?”
“He can’t answer. BTS is finishing recording today for the album, so his phone will be shut off. I think your best bet would be going to the studio yourself to talk to him, although I don’t know how you’ll get back out with all the work we have.” Yoongi stands, making to go to the door. Namjoon stops him, hesitating slightly before smiling sadly. “Hyung, I hope this all works out.”
“I do, too,” Yoongi says, rushing out the door.
When Yoongi opens the door to the production booth (which took heavy persuasion, thank you), the three kids look confused to see him.
“Hyung? Namjoon-hyung said you were out sick today,” Jimin says. He takes in the look on his elder’s face before continuing. “What’s wrong?”
“Jungkook, can I talk to you outside for a second?” Worry flashes across Jungkook’s face, eyes narrowing and frowning. Jimin and Taehyung share an uncertain glance.
“It wasn’t me. Taehyung is the one who keeps putting spider toys in the--” Taehyung starts protesting in the background.
“Not that--it’s important.” Jungkook’s mouth shifts to the side, but he still stands up and follows Yoongi out into the hall.
“Am I in trouble?” He asks as soon as the door clicks shut behind him.
“Do you know Kim Seokjin?” Jungkook’s face clouds, looking slightly defensive.
“Why?”
“Namjoon said that you introduced them the other day. He’s a dreamer, isn’t he?”
“Yeah…” Jungkook says, trailing off. “What’s it to you?” He drops his usual politeness for straight defensiveness.
“He could be in trouble, and I need to find him.”
“Wait, are you his partner?” Jungkook looks confused. “Why didn’t you say anything? What’s going to happen to him?”
Yoongi disregards Jungkook’s questions. “Do you have any pictures of him?”
“Yeah,” Jungkook says, frowning, as he pulls out his phone, scrolling through his pictures. “Is this who you’re talking about?” Yoongi stares at the screen. Seokjin looks just as pretty on a crappy, overly-pixelated selca.
“That’s--that’s him. I need to find him.”
“What did you see? If he’s in trouble, I’m going to help.”
“In my dream, he got hurt, really bad--” not a lie, technically, “--The only way to protect him is if I directly interfere with his actions. All I know for sure is that he would be at a cafe that he goes to often. Do you know what it could be called?”
Jungkook thinks for a moment before responding. “Does it have to be you, specifically, who interferes, or could it be someone else?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“Because there are two cafes he goes to often, and you can’t be at both at the same time to save him. But if I go to one and you go to the other, one of us is bound to catch him.” Jungkook types the directions to one of the cafes into a message and sends it to Yoongi.
“We have to hurry,” Yoongi says, checking that he got the message and the time, “it’s already getting late. Call me if you see him, okay?”
Suddenly, the situation seems to be looking up.
He arrives at the cafe in record speed. He looks around for Seokjin, but doesn’t see him anywhere. He’s not totally sure if this is the same cafe as in the dream, because the details sometimes blur together. Plus, arbitrary choices like choosing a cafe to go to aren’t necessarily the same as in the dream.
He walks up to the counter, and the owner greets him cheerfully. “Hello! My name is Hoseok, and I’ll be serving you today. Your order?” Yoongi recognizes the man from the dream.
“Has Seokjin been here?”
Hoseok’s eyebrows furrow slightly. “Seokjin? You mean the Seokjin who orders tea a lot?”
“Yes.”
“He was, but I’m a little worried about him. He usually finishes his drinks before leaving, but when I came back to the front after ten minutes he was gone. If you’re looking for him, I hope he’s okay.” Yoongi’s eyes widen.
“He’s already been here and left?”
“Yeah. After leaving, he usually goes down the street a bit before getting on the subway a few blocks away.” It’d be just like him to inadvertently lead some creep to his house , Yoongi thinks. “Although, maybe I shouldn’t’ve told you that.” Hoseok laughs nervously. “You could be some kind of creepy guy. If you’re a creepy guy, pretend I didn’t say that.”
Yoongi turns to leave and Hoseok starts to protest. “Wait, you’re not--”
Yoongi walks out the door anyway, mumbling thanks before setting off down the street.
He scans the area, looking for anyone who resembles his partner. There’s so many people that it’s hard to distinguish anyone in the crowd. Yoongi’s short enough that he gets blocked by other pedestrians most of the time.
Finally, he sees it. The slightly off-cadence bob of a man with short, auburn-tinted hair, walking through the crowd. He’s a little too fast and a little too tall, and Yoongi recognizes him instantly.
“Seokjin!” He shouts, but he knows he’s too far away for him to hear. He speeds up a little, trying to catch up to Seokjin. He’s about a block away from him, and if not for all the public’s chatter, it would’ve been easy for him to hear.
He shouts again, trying to get the elder’s attention. With a jolt he realizes that the street Seokjin’s coming up to is the one Yoongi saw in the dream. He breaks into a sprint, dodging people and cracks in the sidewalk alike. He’s gaining, but the man from the cafe is, too.
Yoongi’s still running, but he’s never going to make it in time. He refuses to slow down even as he watches the scene from his dream play out all over again.
“Seokjin!” He yells a final time, just as the elder shoots away from the man. Seokjin glances back, having heard his name, and meets Yoongi’s eyes.
The quick turn of his head makes him stumble backward, tripping over the curb and--
“NO!” Yoongi screams, jolting up in his bed. He gasps, hitting the bedding around him. He jackknifes backward, running into the headboard and smacking it against the wall.
He’s back at home.