Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hi Soulmate!

My name is Park Jimin, (soon to be 18) from Busan. I sure hope you can read Korean! If not, then Taehyungie is staying the night to help you out, and he’s pretty good at Japanese. Maybe you’d get some English out of him if you tried hard enough… well, I suppose if you can’t read Korean you’d have no idea what this is saying anyway. Sorry! Oh man, I hope this all works out… I don’t want there to be any trouble.

My phone is on the bedside table. The passcode is 8120. Please call me as soon as you can! I can’t wait to meet you!

(I hope Taehyungie behaves)

Lots of love xxx

Jimin wiped his hands down his face, finger tips pulling at his lips, cheeks, lower eyelids. He was ready for this. He was ready.

His breaths were evenly spaced, but ragged as he glanced around his room for what he told himself would be the last time. His aimless pacing had finally stopped, but his heartbeat was still hopelessly erratic, pounding in time with the tinny BTS track playing on his phone’s speaker. Jimin’s eyes darted frantically to every corner of the room – was it presentable enough? clean enough? Was it too clean?  

Taehyung occupied his bed, limbs haphazardly spread across the duvet. Jimin’s teddy bear sat on his lower chest as he fiddled and fussed over its paws.

“Jimin, you need to calm down,” his friend’s low voice sounded, almost at deadpan level, above the chorus of Satoori Rap.

“You can’t say things like that!” Jimin groaned, “you have literal weeks until your eighteenth. I’ve barely got my own life together and when I wake up tomorrow I’ve got to share it with someone else.”

“You don’t know that, Jiminie. They might be younger.”

“It’s a fifty-fifty chance, Tae!”

The older of the two watched helplessly as his friend did nothing in reply but give a shrug. It was alright, he knew he was tired – he himself maybe even more so. The stress was eating him from the inside out; what had started out when he’d woke up as a buzzing rush of warmth on his skin had descended into outright dread. How was he supposed to get to sleep like this? What if he never slept again….? Dying in slow agony from sleep deprivation while his soulmate spent the rest of their lives alone… the thought as much as lanced him through the heart and he forced himself to sit down on his bed, narrowly missing Taehyung’s foot.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Taehyung said, sitting up and grabbing Jimin by the shoulders. His voice was solid. “And I promise that you’re going to get to sleep tonight. With all this stress you’ll probably just end up worrying yourself to bed. And then magic might – might happen, and you’ll wake up in the body of your soulmate, wherever they are, and you’re going to be nice to their friends or family, and then wait for them to call you, or message you. I’ll help them, and then before you know it you’d have met up, done the kissy-kissy, returned to your own bodies and have got ready to start the rest of your life. Okay?”

“Why do you have to make it sound so simple?” Jimin murmured.

Taehyung gave him a smile, “because it is simple, you idiot. It’s human nature.  It happens to practically one hundred percent of the population!”

“…holy fucking shit Taehyung why did you say that now I’m going to start thinking they’re already dead or-“

A hand practically buried itself in his mouth, and Jimin moaned helplessly.

“This is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.”

Jimin’s arms flew up in the air when his friend pulled away, “what, having perfectly plausible second thoughts?”

“Exactly. Look at yourself. Stop it.”

They stared at each other for a while, enough time for the music track to switch to Intro: the most beautiful moment in life. Jimin reached to turn it off, pushing himself up off of his bed.

“Don’t start pacing around on me agai-“

“I wonder if I should take this down,” Jimin whispered. He was picking at the corner of his Suga poster, exposing a lump of sticky tack that had now partly worked into his finger nails.

“Oh my God, you can’t be serio- Jimin, they’re your soulmate. They’ll love you regardless. They’re not going to care about your Min Yoongi obsession. I promise.”

Usually, Taehyung was just not like this. He wasn’t supposed to be the sensible one. Jimin was supposed to have this whole thing under control.

Tomorrow he might be meeting his life partner, and his only thought was whether or not he’d be able to move on from his stupid idol rapper crush?

Okay. He mentally corrected himself. Not stupid. Suga – Min Yoongi – was the most beautiful, talented man he’d ever have the pleasure of not-meeting-beyond-the-veil-of-the-BTS-YouTube-channel. The songs he produced, the feeling in his voice, the expressions he made in their music videos… it made him feel so… happy. He didn’t need anything complicated to describe what he felt.

Jimin’s posture slumped, and he picked his way over Taehyung’s air bed to reach his desk. His fingers came to rest on the note he’d written for his soulmate to read when they woke up, eyes tracing over his handwriting for the hundredth time. He wished he was as confident as this letter was making him seem. He’d even stuck some stickers around the edge to act as some sort of pseudo-border, and signed his name with stars floating around it.

“I’m too tired for this,” he sighed.

Taehyung laughed quietly, “now that is what I’ve been waiting to hear all evening. Come and sleep; it’s almost midnight.”

Jimin knew that the bed he was lying in was not his.

The way he had been woken up was beyond surreal. It felt like being slowly coaxed into the morning reality by songbirds. Except the songbirds were in the process of pouring cold water over his body at the same time.

He let out a strangled gasp, and he was awake all at once. Drowsiness was practically non-existent.

He forced himself to keep his eyes closed for the moment, thoughts temporarily lighting up in a quiet wonder that outshined his anxiety.

This was his soulmate’s body. His soulmate, who was older than him, and alive, and really… real.

Jimin could hear other voices breathing in the room.

He tensed instantly, jaw clenching. He felt his heart – no, his soulmate’s heart rapidly begin to pick up speed.

This was really happening. My soulmate even has friends that can help me. I’ll call them with their phone… damn, it’s going to be weird as hell hearing my own voice answer- and my voice isn’t going to be mine either. God, what does my soulmate sound like? If I tried I might end up waking these people… maybe-

He curled his fingers into the sheets, letting out open-mouth breaths into the room. So many thoughts whipped circles in his mind. It was hastily becoming almost too much to process.

Before he could push himself into a panic attack, he forced himself to calm down. Start from the beginning.

Male was the first thing that came to the top of his “things-about-the-one-I’m-gonna-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-with-list”. That was pretty much confirmed. Of course he knew what a male body felt like, and it came as no surprise that his soulmate and he were the same sex, especially since he’d been so attracted to Suga.

Ah, that’s right, he swallowed and wiggled his exposed toes. The draft coming from the door tickled them with cold. Suga’s not really someone I can dwell on anymore.

The thought did cause his anxious mood to sober slightly, as the situation slowly began to settle around him. There was so much to do, and he knew as well that today was his birthday rather than his soulmate’s, so there would be almost no chance he’d left Jimin any post-it notes with phone passcodes or email addresses, unless these people could help out. It would all be on him. Whoever he was.

And finally, Jimin gained the nerve to sit up. He did so slowly, the muscles of this body shuddering as the uncanny feeling he was well-warned of truly settled in. It was so strange. His soulmate was the same with his hands and his legs and knees and fingers, but his mind just knew it was off. It was a cold sensation just below his ribs.

(As curious as he was, Jimin really was desperate to return to being himself as soon as possible).

(He couldn’t wait for that first kiss).

The duvet pooled at his waist, and Jimin saw in the hazy dawn light the simple black tank top and boxers his soulmate had dressed himself for bed in. No Taehyung-style duck feet-print shorts.

So, he glanced at the layout of the room, this has to be a hotel right? No one actually has their bedroom like this… there was a pile of clothes under the table, and a suitcase peeking out from under the neighbouring bed. Jimin’s desire to know where he was was growing almost as rapidly as his desire to know who his soulmate was. But he had to take it slow. That was how all health professionals talked about the Switch. Take it slow. Keep as relaxed as possible.

“Hey,” a sleepy voice said across from him, far too startling, and Jimin’s pulse spiked because beneath the sluggish tone, it rang familiar, “what are you doing awake? Couldn’t sleep again?” the figure shuffled off of his bed with a sigh and rested a limp but warm hand on Jimin’s soulmate’s knee. His skin bristled.

Jimin honestly had no idea how to reply. He sat, hands buried under his thighs, trying his best to make out the face of the man in the semi-darkness.

“Are you okay?” he eventually said, and Jimin swallowed, shaking his head. Come on, out with it, you’re just making things harder for yourself. They won’t think you’re weird. This is human nature.

“Sorry,” he replied. “I’m not…” he motioned to himself, “I’m not… I’m his soulmate.” This voice, too… it definitely didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth. He could tell straight away that his soulmate didn’t use this pitch as he talked.

The man retreated his arm back instantly with a sharp breath. It was almost a whistle.

“Wow…” he breathed out after a brief pause. Jimin could see the whites of his teeth, “that’s two out of three. We’ve definitely been waiting for you... what’s your name?”

“Park Jimin,” he whispered, trying to avoid the squeak.

“Ahhh,” the man offered his hand again, but this time for Jimin to shake, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, uh-“

“Trust me,” he thought he could distinguish the man’s smile from the shadows, “I’ve already met my soulmate. I know what this is like. It’s weird, I know, but we’ll fix this problem.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t really call it a prob-“

“You really did keep Yoongi-hyung waiting. How long has it been? Four years?” he turned his head away “…more?” the man wondered, “and just before our comeback, of all the days of the year.”

The bed creaked as he got up, and Jimin’s eyes widened with every step he took towards the light switch. That voice… he listened to it on a daily basis. Verses on buses to school. Shared in lunch hours with Taehyung. Playing as he studied for exams. He knew it.

The room was illuminated, and standing before him, hair mussed from sleep but taking nothing away from the friendly, calm and dimple-filled smile, was Kim Namjoon. The Rap Monster.

Jimin’s mouth fell open. His eyes barely had time to focus before they darted to the figure that had been woken up by the fidgeting.  He watched wordlessly as the second man sat up, and within seconds he was able to recognise him as none other than fucking J-Hope, rubbing his eyes, yawning and blinking and glancing over at him with a curious expression.

Blood thundered through Jimin’s ears, a scolding pool of water filling his lungs.

“No…no way ” he could barely get the words out, and this time, this time, he’d spoken low enough. It was undeniable.

He stood up fast –too fast. All health and safety shit about adjusting to his soulmate’s body forgotten as he hurried into the bathroom. The force of him turning the light on in there almost yanked the pull-switch off of the ceiling, but there was absolutely nothing at this moment that could bring him to care.

No, he was far too busy gripping the cool porcelain of the sink, pale knuckles becoming even whiter with the force. Maybe he would end up snapping a bit off.

He knew what was coming before he looked, which was why he took the moment to brace himself, to inhale deeply and trying to breathe away the utterly overwhelming sense of everything. All he had to do was look.

Swallowing again, Jimin slowly lifted his head.

And he locked eyes with the Min Yoongi in the mirror.

Chapter Text

Yoongi woke up feeling far warmer than what he had felt before he went to bed.

It didn’t take him long to work out why – he was finding himself in a long-sleeved pyjama shirt, reaching almost halfway down his fingers. His legs were bare but –oh, were those socks?

Unfamiliar smells bombarded his nostrils as he forced himself awake, groaning and hoping quietly that he hadn’t begun a sleepwalking career. Especially since, to his knowledge, he most definitely hadn’t brought any long-sleeved-pyjama-shirts away to Thailand with him.

No – no, but the smell. It wasn’t unpleasant; just… it smelt like the smell of a stranger’s house, laundry detergent and dinner leftovers infused with lived-in walls. The pillow and duvet too, full of it.

He sat up cursing at the almost complete darkness of his surroundings (did Hoseok forget to leave the bathroom light on?), and immediately his stomach rolled with nausea. His limbs wouldn’t respond correctly – they felt an inch too short, too tight in some places.

His breaths couldn’t keep up with themselves. His nostrils flared and he fumbled around for the light by the side of the bed. Yoongi’s fingers felt numb, too small, like he’d been frozen and then defrosted, boiled and hung out to dry. This body was not his. It was alien. His face was too long. His hair was too thin. The nose he could see hidden in the centre of his vision was too flat. It was just not right.

The light came on.

“Oh my God.”

This was not his hotel room.

The wallpaper was an intense ultramarine, but the colour was barely visible. It was suffocating under what had to have been upwards of fifty posters, all sizes.

Next to him sat an unoccupied blown-up bed that was a poor fit between his own and the desk. Blankets were crumpled up at its corner and a teddy was half on the floor, face down and shielding a sock with its left arm. The wardrobe door wasn’t closed properly due to a sleeve that stuck out. The bottom of the curtains were bundled with yet more blankets to stop the sun from getting in unwanted.

Yoongi was honestly trying his best not to freak out. But it was hard.

The door opened, and he watched a man come in, toothbrush in his mouth.

“Oh!” he heard the exclamation through litres of bubbly saliva, “you’re awake!” He dribbled, but caught it with his hand “ah- shit- give me a sec” and he disappeared again.

The door creaked where he hadn’t closed it properly. Yoongi couldn’t bring himself to move. He was upright, sat on his knees, arms limp and cold beside him.

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting…” he re-appeared and said just as Yoongi was beginning to make his own thoughts cohesive, stepping closer, looking him up and down. Yoongi tried to shuffle back, but his legs (Jesus Christ on a bicycle, what had happened to his thighs?) weren’t cooperating in quite the way he wanted them to. “You’re Jimin’s soulmate, right?”

There was barely any space between them. With the guy standing up, he towered directly above him, smile all teeth.

Oh. So that’s what it was.

The realisation didn’t do much to make Yoongi feel any better.

“It seems that way,” he replied, unable to resist retreating back into his shoulders a little. The sound of his voice caught him even more by surprise, and it was impossible to prevent the strangled choking sound he spluttered next, which the other only glossed over with a laugh.

“I’m Kim Taehyung,” God, his smile was huge.

Yoongi wouldn’t say their faces were close, but when Taehyung took the liberty of seating himself next to him, he became very aware of the other’s overly- minty breath. Something about his posture was beyond overbearing, and he’d barely known him for over a minute. He wrinkled his nose.

“What’s your name, then?” Taehyung asked as Yoongi chose that moment to search for his soulmate’s phone, remembering he’d seen it out the corner of his eye when he’d turned the lamp on. There was a low shuffling sound as he twisted towards the bedside table and reached for the small black object.

“Oh, yeah,” Taehyung leaned over, “you found Jimin’s pho-“

“What the fuck,” came out of Yoongi’s mouth like he’d dropped it. It barely sounded like a question.

“…sorry? Hey look, I’m only trying to help? Poor Jiminie’s been worrying about meeting you for days and with that attitude you’re gonna break his heart and he really doesn’t deserve someone like that, okay? So you shouldn’t be so ru-“

Yoongi made an angry noise, waving his free hand about, “forget about whatever just a second, just… just,” (said hand landed on Taehyung’s mouth), “stop talking for a second and tell me one thing, Taehyung."

Frowning, he pushed away Yoongi’s arm, tone halfway somewhere between annoyed and cautious.

“What?”

Yoongi took a slow inhale and held up the phone, which was displaying a lock screen.

“Is my soulmate a BTS fan?”

Taehyung looked like someone had taken a picture of him with the flash on in the dark. He blinked once, twice, lips pressing together and then gradually pulling apart. Some hesitant half-sounds came out, and his brows furrowed.

“Uh, yeah. He is. Why?”

Yoongi stiffened, reacting so fast Taehyung barely saw the transition of movement from when they were sitting a metre apart to being suddenly grabbed around his shoulders so hard by Jimin’s soulmate that he thought his skin was on the way to being pierced.

“How much of a fan?” his voice had taken on a squeak.

“Woah, fuck man, chill,” for the second time Taehyung had to withdraw himself, peeling his limbs from the vice grip and then pointed to the Suga poster behind them. “This is seriously the most important thing to you right now? But, since you asked… Jimin, like, really loves BTS, especially Suga. He really looks up to him, like so much, so if you even think about making fun of him for that when that guy brought so much happiness to his life I swear I’m going to actually throttle you… or something- wait… are you okay?”

Yoongi was just staring owl-eyed at the Suga poster above the bed. It was from last year’s era, back when he’d had his hair dyed a platinum blonde. He remembered posing for the photo, face utterly caked in make-up that he’d almost sweated through under the pounding lights, pining after the greasy scent of the takeaway pizza Namjoon had brought into the photography studio.

“What about you?” he asked slowly to Taehyung. Never once did his eyes move away.

“Oh… of course me too,” the confusion was evident, but there was something about the way he spoke that seemed like the topic had sparked something inside him, his voice light and full of jitters, “I don’t think I can hope to reach Jimin’s level of love, but I have all their albums, DVDs and photobooks… we had an argument once because my album was mispacked and like I got two Suga photocards and he wanted to trade one to me for his J-Hope, but I joked like I wanted to sell it and he thought I was serious and started crying and gave me like this huge speech about how much Suga meant to him and oh my God Mr Soulmate, you have no idea how long it took me to calm him down, Jesus Christmas.”

He was still met with silence.

Taehyung inclined his head. He leaned forward and said, “are you a BTS fan, too?”

Yoongi sighed heavily and ran his hands back through his hair, vaguely finding comfort in the softness between his fingers, “I suppose I am,” and then he added almost incoherently, “if you count ‘being a member of BTS’ the same as ‘being a fan of BTS’.”

Now it was Taehyung’s turn to have a similar realisation. A smile grew on his lips, grew and grew until Yoongi didn’t think that it could have possibly grown anymore, but it did, extremely cheeky and mischievous and taking up half his face.

“You’re Min Yoongi, aren’t you?”

Yoongi felt his soulmate’s skin heat up, flushing red, “don’t fucking say it like… that.”

“Oh my God, this is actually insane!” Taehyung sprung upwards, catapulting himself in a tangle of arms and legs onto his airbed, landing heavily on his back. “Jimin’s soulmate is Suga! You’re serious? You’re serious, right?”

“Well, until you show me how to get into Jimin’s phone and you hear him use my voice…”

“Ah shit yeah,” Taehyung’s eyes grew distant, and then came full circle has his pupils grew to the size of saucers, making a strange scoffing noise as he made a dash for Jimin’s desk, “how is Jimin going to react when he gets up and looks in the mirror and sees suga’s body? Oh, I hope he doesn’t faint. He did that once, it wasn’t so hot… look, look, he wrote a note for you!” he exclaimed, holding it up like a trophy. Yoongi watched with a dull feeling of dread when one of the stickers began to peel off. He saw as the tiny Chihuahua floated to the floor, settling on Taehyung’s big toe.

The paper was brought down right in front of his face, close enough it made him go cross-eyed.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Taehyung stage-whispered, “take it! Read it!”

The letter might have been a little shorter than what Yoongi had expected, and it wasn’t long before his eyes locked in on the four-digit number. He stared at it for a while, finding himself re-reading it twice, an odd emotion spreading outwards from his chest. He felt dizzy, and put down the note to press the heels of his palms to his forehead, feeling how the smooth skin had at some point broken out in sweat. He closed his eyes and crossed his lower legs.

Yoongi had received plenty of idol training from BigHit. How to rap (singing was a lost cause), how to dance, how to take good selcas, how to build a personality for himself on camera, how to behave in front of fans at fansigns… but never, ever what to do if one of those said fans turned out to be his soulmate.

He could remember the night before his eighteenth, just a little under five years ago. That was a given, though – it was one of the biggest days of a person’s life. He’d gone to bed literally shaking, still an idol trainee, still stressed about when they were going to debut. He was worried that getting into a relationship would have hurt that, and pushed them back even more. It had got to the point where he’d almost cried in front of Namjoon from the stress. Hoseok had sat him down quietly over a coffee, blushing and saying that, since he was a little younger it was hard for him to understand exactly what Yoongi was going through, but the support that came from sips of a latte and a tiny bite of biscuit that he struggled to keep down was what had finally got his body to shut down. He’d woken up slowly, late in the morning with his fellow then-trainees hovering over him with unsure smiles, and when he’d smiled back and said that no, he was still himself, the relief was almost too much.

The thought of his soulmate had retreated into the back of his mind after only a few weeks. It was hard considering their schedule; he’d spent almost every day of the year with people that had already found theirs. And after Hoseok woke up in his own body on his eighteenth birthday, the whole concept was practically forgotten…

Or so he thought.

No, there had always been a sort of… nag. A nag he’d felt while he watched Namjoon and his soulmate Seokjin interact. Of course, seeing them together was rare; even without the risk in the equation, Seokjin was tied down by his work and stayed in Seoul no matter where BTS went. And even if Namjoon did always go on about how the ‘distance brought them closer together’, it made Yoongi more aware of the distance between himself and his own soulmate, wherever and whoever they were. As the weeks and months drew on there would come moments in the lows after concerts, or after too many late nights in the studio, where his brain seemed to blur every other thought out, just thinking for a second about the mysterious other soul that was joined to his… what were they like? Would they be put off by his fame? Or his personality in general?

Taehyung really had struck a nerve with what he said about Jimin, and his throat seized up when he’d put down the note. There was a mirror in the corner of the room – he kept seeing flashes of himself, of his soulmate, of dark hair and large lips- but there was no way he could bring himself to look at it. He didn’t want that reality for himself. He didn’t know how.

 “You should call him,” Taehyung said, and Yoongi quietly put the passcode in. And in what was rapidly becoming not a surprise anymore, but made his brain fire more and more siren sounds: Park Jimin’s wallpaper was, of course, one of Yoongi’s selcas.

But he didn’t dwell on it. He kept his face painfully neutral and opened up the keypad, thumb trembling with each touch, the little vibrations irritating his palm. He’d inputted the number soon enough, and brought the device to his (Jimin’s?) ear. The international ringing sound played, and he cringed inward, because this call was going to cost a lot of money, and he was going to have to owe it.

“I wonder if Jimin is awake yet,” Taehyung sat next to him, far too close, yet again. Yoongi looked away.

The ringing stopped, there was a momentary silence, and then a voice spoke.

“Hello, who is this?”

“Namjoon?” Yoongi rasped.

He didn’t see Taehyung’s face fall, but he heard it.

“Nam...joon?” he echoed.

Chapter Text

“Is he okay?” Hoseok was blearily trying to keep a hushed voice, but the sound didn’t need to travel very far for Jimin to hear.

“Yoongi’s switched with his soulmate,” Namjoon replied, low and steady.

“Oh… wow.” Footsteps drew closer to the bathroom, and the hotel room was only occupied by the sound of three bodies breathing, the door creaking open as Namjoon was unable to keep himself away. Outside, the city was pulling itself into a morning routine. A heavy truck whined as it reversed into a supermarket’s supply entrance across the street.

Jimin barely registered the presence of the two men when they had appeared at the door. His eyes wouldn’t move – they were glued in place at the mirror, minutes seeming to pass by between each blink. He just couldn’t stop staring. At one part. At the whole deal, all at once.

Greasy, honey-blonde hair sat unstyled on his head, bangs reaching down in some places to come near touching his eyes. They were sleep-heavy and dark, devoid of make-up. His lips were pink and parted just enough for teeth to show, breaths beginning to cloud the mirror in spite of the distance. Jimin’s jaw experimentally shifted slightly side to side, and he brought his hand to slide upwards and cup his cheek. His fingers pressed against skin and explored the tension as they moved around. Completely in control, down to the last tendon in his thumb.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit,” he whispered, unable to stop himself. His entire existence jumped at the sound of the voice. That couldn’t ever be something he could get used to. To hear the sound created off his own thought, to see his movements born of his own will when he was so used to being a passive observer, sat hunched over a laptop in the middle of the night with the light dyeing his sleep-deprived but infatuated face blue and headphones bleeding fuzzy audio into his ears from low-quality videos.

There weren’t many pictures of Suga without make-up on online – certainly not any of him only just out of sleep at a time of the morning that would keep any sane human being in bed - and Jimin knew that that was only fair for keeping up with their image… but the resemblance was uncanny. It was no less then undeniable.

He was in Min Yoongi’s body. He was Min Yoongi’s soulmate.

What had the universe done?

It was like the force in charge of the whole system had delved into the centremost corners of his mind with searching fingers, prying out the secret and stupid wishes he’d made more than once while looking at his posters. The wishes where he’d stare intently at the eyes of his idol in an unprompted moment of silence, maybe when thinking of the next sentence of his essay or after he’d plugged his phone into the wall. He’d wonder what it would be like at those moments to know the real Suga. To be able to sit down and eat dinner with him or spin around on chairs in the recording studio. To watch movies or cook or go to the cinema in the middle of the day after finding a discount voucher. This force had mocked him for his pitiful but genuine wonder if, just maybe, his soulmate might turn out to be Suga, and then it had taken something with the odds of seven billion to one and flung it out into reality.

No one knew how soulmates were chosen or assigned, but this couldn’t have been anything but written in the stars.

And the worst thing was that Jimin was utterly terrified.

He wretched over the sink, heat flushing down Yoongi’s body as he panicked towards the toilet with flailing limbs, bare feet squeaking an echo on the linoleum. Awful gagging sounds pushed their way out of his throat and his pulse slipped into overdrive, far too overcome to focus properly on where he was trying to aim.

They must have realised what was going on because the bathroom door slammed open. It made the pull-light swing and the toilet roll holder shake. Namjoon and Hoseok were introduced to the paralysed figure crowding over the toilet like it was a small shrine.

“Jimin, breathe,” The solid presence of Namjoon’s hand pressed against his back and massaged slowly, “you really need to calm down. It’s not doing you any good, and it’s certainly not good on Yoongi’s body either.”

Thought of causing harm to his soulmate’s body only threatened panic more, and Jimin grit his teeth through the acidic burn of rising vomit, inhaling and exhaling purely through his nose. His gaze attached itself to the company logo printed on the porcelain as he attempted to fill his mind with distractions.

Water from the tap rushed out as Hoseok filled a cup. It was gently encouraged into Jimin’s hands as he transferred his blanket from around his shoulders to him. Jimin could only take tiny sips as he did everything he could in his power to forget that this was Yoongi’s body he was inhabiting.

All three of them stayed there for a long time.

It was when Namjoon spoke again that the scene was quietly brought to life.

“You can’t be comfortable kneeling down here – it’s better if we took you to lay down. Do you think you can stand, Jimin?”

Jimin slowly nodded and set the glass down with a quiet thud on the floor, taking both men’s wrists in his hands. He silently marvelled at the difference in skin tone, hoping that the pale colour of Yoongi’s was natural and that he hadn’t made him irreversibly sick. Blood rushed to his head as he stood up but they got him walking before he could slide into a fainting spell. He tried his best, one step at a time, Brain throbbing with each even basic command he was sending.

Left foot. (Yoongi’s left foot). Right foot (Yoongi’s right foot).

His skin was engulfed by the soft plush of the duvet again.

“Jimi-“

“I…” Jimin cleared his throat, barely aware that he was interrupting, trying not to shudder at the very familiar sound. The sound he’d been listening to since their debut three years ago. Since he was fifteen, “My soulmate is Suga.”

“So,” Namjoon took a seat on the adjacent bed, sinking down slowly with his fingers interlocking on his lap, “you’re a fan, Jimin.”

“I- there’s no denying it,” he was hardly able to form his reply, and there was no way he was going to meet his eyes, so he focused on the chipped corner of the bedside table. “I really am… a huge fan… you guys, you- the way you all just-“

“It’s okay,” he stopped him softly, “I understand how this must be affecting you. I mean – jeez”, he slid his hands up and down his thighs, “just waking up in Jin’s body was a shock in itself. I can barely image what it would have been like to have all that preknowledge on top, not to mention the social pressure…”

“So, N-Namjoon, you have a soulmate, then? It’s not that I don’t remember you mentioning it, but…”

“I get that too,” he confirmed with a small nod, “so like I said, on that superficial level, I can relate completely. So I’m not going to go into detail right now, because I know the best thing for you is to relax and work yourself back into a healthier state of mind. Otherwise, we can’t move forward, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“The time is, uh…” he craned his neck round to check the clock, “almost seven in the morning. How about I go and tell the managers what’s gone down, and you try and lie there for a while and clear up that headspace? Then we can all get ready in an hour or so for the day.”

“Alright. I’ll do that.”

“We’re completely here for you, Jimin,” Hoseok smiled, “we can answer anything you need to know, anytime, so don’t hesitate.”

Jimin nodded, but his mind refused to be anything over than a repeated recording of I’m in Yoongi’s body and then I really need to calm the fuck down. It was frightening and he had absolutely no approach to working through it. This whole situation had flown past beyond one that could be dealt with regular methods. It was a physical effort to ignore, because there were so many layers going beyond just him lying there, switched with his idol. It was all becoming about the future, teetering on the precipice of the existential concept that his soul was literally made for Suga, for Yoongi. He was destined to fall in love with him in a way that he yet hadn’t, a way that couldn’t be achieved through merely listening to music and watching videos. He was going to move in with this man, maybe start a family with this man, grow old with this man. And Jimin was barely eighteen.

What’s more, it would mean so much time telling Yoongi about his own life. Jimin knew – or, at least, he thought he knew – plenty about his soulmate's already, but at this point he was still just a fan in a crowd of millions of them, just another figure added onto album sales and music video views. Yoongi was going to have to experience his development into more than that, and accept it, and like it. He was going to have to meet his parents, see his baby photos, learn about his hobbies, get introduced to Taehy-

“Oh my god. Taehyung.”

Namjoom’s gaze shot up from the floor, eyebrow raised as he repeated, “Taehyung?”

“My friend…” Jimin pushed his body up onto one shoulder, “Suga is going to wake up and have to deal with Taehyung. Forget all those posters and albums and the stupid throw pillow – Rap Mo- Namjoon, I’m so sorry for him. I’m so worried.”

“What’s wrong with Taehyung?” Hoseok questioned while Namjoon just blinked, “he’s not going to… do anything harmful, is he?”

“No no, oh God no,” Jimin reassured them, “and anyway his bias is uh – you, Hoseok, so… no – but he’s just literally going to be so bad at dealing with this, he’s far too unpredictable. Damn, I thought that having him stay round might have helped my soulmate out a bit, but this… I would have much preferred Suga to be alone than have to wake up to Taehyung.”

“You don’t have much faith in your friend,” for some reason, Namjoon was smiling a little, a faint chuckle in his voice.

“This isn’t funny!” Jimin exclaimed desperately, and he grabbed his hair, but the pain was a marker to make him remember to stop hurting Yoongi’s body, and he quickly dropped them to the mattress.

“Yoongi-hyung will be able to handle it, I’m sur-“

Namjoon’s phone started vibrating on the desk, the sound thrumming around the whole room due to the wood. He rushed over to it, leaving Jimin and Hoseok to look at each other. Hoseok was definitely still in the process of waking up, but he offered his best sleepy smile, arm appearing to pat his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered, “please. You’ll be fine. You’ll both be fine.”

“Who is this?” Namjoon accepted the call. His lips pressed into a tight line, “Yoongi-hyung?”

Jimin’s heart stopped.

“Oh, thank fuck,” it wasn’t a bad line, but they still had to put the phone on speaker to hear him properly. Hoseok and Jimin had come to sit on either side of him, the latter constantly changing between hopelessly staring at the wall, and then helplessly staring at the phone in Namjoon’s hand, muttering ‘holy shit’ under his breath on repeat. This was Suga, in his body – using his voice.

“Are you alright?” Namjoon asked, gaze falling on Jimin as he spoke.

“I’m in my soulmate’s body -I woke up in his bed and there’s some weird guy calling himself Taehyung-“

“-Hey! I’m not weir-“

“-and he’s so weird and my face is on the wall everywhere- I need help getting out of here, like, right now ‘Joonie before I fucking lose my mi-”

“Hyung, chill out, okay? We guessed as much,” Namjoon said, “just try not to freak. Remember what it was like with Jin and I. Jimin’s here, right next to me. He’s just as… on edge as you are.“

A deep, ragged breath came through the line. Jimin bit his lip and wound his hands together. The whole situation had suddenly gained another layer – one of a sudden closeness his mental state was really not allowing for in the presence of his soulmate. The strangest sensation occurred, a sort of numb and distant buzzing on his skin, nothing uncomfortable, but new and odd all the same. This was, after all, his first time hearing his soulmate speak ever since (he assumed) the connection between them was made. Science yet had a lot to explain in terms of how soulmates work beyond basic biological theories, but the ‘connection’ was one such area that was being delved into with vigour in the industry, hypotheses sparked around an experience felt between two soulmates that all soulmates could understand between them, but then became at a loss to explain it to anyone else. Jimin could tell already that when they met up what he was feeling now would be utterly amplified – this ‘tingle’, as it was, he guessed, was barely a fraction of the real thing. He wondered if Suga could feel it too. If he was wondering the same.

But something else was caught in his mind simultaneously, almost like he’d unwillingly left a net out and a stray creature had got stuck in its ropes, struggling free in such an effort the whole thing threatened to be dragged back out to sea with it. It was the realisation that, on top of this whole soulmate business, on top of the fact that he’d tripped and fallen into the living dream of any BTS and Suga fan, it hadn’t been Yoongi’s phone that had rung for him, and it hadn’t been he that answered, ready to guide them into a plan for meeting up and kissing and getting their bodies back. It was not like that at all.

Suga had called Namjoon first.

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe Jimin’s soulmate is Suga.” The boy set down the tray of drinks in the middle of them.

“It’s nice to meet you too, kid.” Yoongi raised his eyebrows.

He flailed a little as he sat down, face a whole bunch of expressions at once. “I’m sorry, sorry. It’s just like Jimin comes here for breakfast almost every morning and I knew today was his eighteenth and everything, so of course I was excited to see if his soulmate would show up instead, and now he turns out to literally be a member of one of our favourite groups on the entire planet. That’s just… insane.”

“Exactly what I said,” Taehyung ripped into the packaging of his muffin.

“I mean like, what are the chances? Oh!” his hand was shoved under Yoongi’s nose, “I completely forgot to say – my name’s Jungkook. I’m a big fan.”

Yoongi laughed a little, but the pure energy radiating off of the two others was quickly drawing his patience thin, and he’d only been in the café for two minutes at best. Inside, his brain felt as fried and as strained as ever, but the phone call with Namjoon had taken the edge off of the stress for the time being, enough so that Taehyung had deemed it safe enough to quietly offer to take him to breakfast. They’d made a plan of action in which the next step was enough money arriving in Jimin’s paypal account for a flight ticket to Thailand. It wasn’t perfect – it would still definitely be pushing it for the evening concert, but part of Yoongi’s reality was that it wasn’t even eight o-clock in the morning, and even though the body he was in was not his, it still desperately needed feeding.

He bit into an apple and accepted the boy’s handshake, nodding his reply with a hum.

“It’s so weird though, too,” Jungkook could barely take his gaze off of him; it looked like he was scrutinising his every move, but the weight of his gaze was nothing Yoongi had never felt from a fan before. Even if this whole situation was more than a bit unorthodox, Jungkook was still his fan, and Yoongi believed you’d have to be a considerable asshole to let that sort of compliment pass by.

“What’s weird?” Taehyung asked.

“That it’s like I’m talking to Jimin but it’s actually someone else? Tae, are you not feeling that?”

Both of them blinked at Yoongi. The synchronicity was unnerving.

“Now that you think about it, I suppose it is a bit,” Taehyung scratched his chin, “although I’d been prepared to meet Jimin’s soulmate regardless, so…”

“What is weird is that it won’t get in your heads that it’s exceedingly important for no one to find out.”   

“Right, right, but! Did you know,” Jungkook leaned forward across the table, voice dropping in volume, “that some really scary things can happen to soulmates.”

Yoongi leaned back in his chair, “like what?”

“This one couple switched, but before they could reunite, one of them died. And the other was stuck in their soulmate’s body. Forever.”

He swallowed, and the whole room became hazy. Taehyung had slapped the boy playfully on the arm with a giggle and lips covered in latte foam that moved to form stop it, there’s no need to scare him like that. The sound seemed to echo off the walls and for the second time that day panic rose up in his throat and grabbed it.

Yoongi tried his best to ground himself, telling himself to grow up and forget odds that were next to impossible. Thoughts of Jimin getting caught in all sorts of accidents made him grip the handle of his coffee harder, and suddenly he became hyper-aware of the body he was borrowing, catching the glimpses of its reflection everywhere – a translucent silhouette he could barely make out in the window, a distorted mess of dark hair, sunglasses and red lips against the jug of water in the middle of the table. The sun had barely risen in the sky and he felt tired enough to go and get another night’s sleep.

Jungkook’s face centimetres away from his seemed to wake him up.

“I’m really sorry,” he titled his head to the side, “did I actually scare you?”

“Nah, kid,” Yoongi hid his face behind his mug and swallowed the biggest mouthful of coffee he could without choking. He hoped no one could hear how loud his heart was pounding. “You’re alright.”

“I just really, really love soulmate science,” he blushed a little, “and I sorta want to study it when I get older, like, answer the Big Questions that we still don’t know. I’ve got like, this whole plan of things to look out for when it’s finally my turn and-“

He stopped.

Taehyung waved his hand in front of him while Yoongi leaned back in his seat.

“What is it, Jungkookie?”

“Argh!” the boy jumped back in his chair, the legs making an awful screech on the tile. A disapproving cry went up from his mother behind the counter and some of the few half-asleep customers that had wondered in before work looked up from their newspapers. Seeing this, his voice fell to a whisper again, “Yoongi, you can tell me all about your experience this morning!” his hands flew to delve into his schoolbag, and the sounds of paper crinkling and shuffling filled Yoongi’s ears until they reappeared clutching a dog-eared notebook and a pen. “I get there’s a lot of memory loss involved, but if you could please just tell me what you remember.”

“What I remember from what?”

“Like… the Switch in general,” Jungkook tried to motion with his hands, “like how you felt waking up, whether you felt any sort of dysphoria or dizziness… how do you feel now? What’s it like?”

“I’m pretty sure there are plenty of accounts on the internet of what the Switch is like, kid. Mine’s been pretty run-of-the-mill as far as I’m concerned.” A strange flare of something not unlike irritation had kindled in Yoongi’s chest, and he caught sight of an expressionless Taehyung out of the corner of his eye, fiddling with the stirrer in between his fingers.

“Yes, but… no one in my close family is my age, and my parents switched such a long time ago, Mum said she can barely remember it all. And Jimin’s, like, one of my best friends…” he shrugged, “sorry, you know, if-“

“No. Wait,” Yoongi surprised himself when he stopped him, finger floating in front of his lips and everything, “if this is for Jimin’s sake, then maybe I could answer a few questions for you.”

Jungkook’s eyes grew wide, smile opening to reveal a row of bunny teeth temporarily stained a little with coffee residue. “Oh my God, thank you so much, Yoongi!”

“Shhh,” he hushed him quickly, “not that loud, though, okay? I don’t really want this going public, remember?”

A vigorous nod in response, but that didn’t stop the boy from adding “I still can’t believe Jimin’s soulmate turned out to be you, Yoongi. He loves you so much already. You guys really will be perfect together.”

There was that odd feeling in his chest again, and it pressed a hard line into Yoongi’s lips.

“Yeah well, let’s just not think of that… do you have the questions with you, or-“

Jungkook’s mother’s voice sounded from across the shop, something he could vaguely make out as being about the time because Yoongi’s ability to focus was utterly all over the place. He wondered, just for a quick second, if this was a trait of Jimin’s, if he was picking things up already. Part of him was desperately wishing he hadn’t made his whole life so void of thoughts about soulmates for the past few years. This should have all been common knowledge.

“Ah shit, yeah. School,” Jungkook ran a hand through his hair and blew out through his teeth, “this sucks so bad. BTS are on tour right now, right?”

“For a while, yeah.”

“Damn…” the boy sucked on his lip, standing up and gathering his things, “could you like - if it’s okay, of course- give me your email or something? I can just send you the questions and you could just reply with the answers when you’re not busy?” he laughed a little, “between being and idol and being with Jimin, I mean.”

Taehyung looked over at Yoongi, who was taking far too long to reply to that. He nudged him with his elbow.

“Yeah, I mean, it might take me a while to get back to you, but I’ll definitely do it.”

“Thank you so much!” he grinned, and slid his pad and pen towards him, “just write the details in there.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Yoongi decided to add “actually, it’s better if you message me in the fancafe. Just like… I don’t like giving out my personal email and stuff. It’s not like I don’t trust you, or anything, but…”

“No, it’s okay. I totally understand.”

“If you want, though, I’ll still sign this for you-“

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I don’t mind.”

Yoongi’s arms shot out in front of him and grabbed the handle first.

“Dude, what?” Taehyung blinked. He’d bought another coffee, and the speed in which his action was interrupted had almost made him spill it before they’d even left the shop.

“I don’t think you realise how serious this is,” he grit his teeth, “Taehyung, you need to listen to me. It’s not just my career that’s going to come under fire if we don’t treat this carefully – it’s about Jimin too. You can’t just go around telling people we’re soulmates like that, especially fans.”

“But Jungkookie is our-“

“It’s bad enough that you’ve got involved in this,” Yoongi muttered. He pushed open the door and strode out onto the street.

“Yoongi, honestly he’s not going to tell anyone. You met him, you were so nice to him. You made his entire year, most likely. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Are you an idiot? Of course it does! But I prefer to do my fansigns and meet my fans when I’m in my own body, for fuck’s sake. Jesus, that thing he said about soulmates dying- what do I have to do just to make my day as stress free as possible?”

Taehyung’s chest heaved from the speed he had been pursuing him, and when he took Yoongi’s hands he could feel the other trying to resist, but he was just too tired. Not used to his soulmate’s body, far too stressed and exhausted, was taking a toll on him, and in the end he just submitted.

He lowered his voice when he spoke, “I promise you that he won’t expose the whole soulmate thing."

“Yeah, well, it’s done now. Can’t do anything about it.”

A bus rushed past as Taehyung took themselves further away from the road. It was cold for this time in September, and besides the thick coat of Jimin’s he’d been borrowing, the wind was still being aggressively persistent.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung swung their arms, “I… just don’t understand why you guys need to hide something as beautiful and meaningful as this, like… my eighteenth’s only a couple of months away and I’m getting more and more excited by the day. To have someone out there literally made to be with me - I don’t get why you abhor that so much.”

“It’s not so much that I don’t want to be with Jimin…” Yoongi’s eyes trailed to look at the pigeons gathering around. They were restless.

“So you do like him?”

“No! No- I mean ye- ugh!” his clicked his tongue and freed his hands from Taehyungs’, running them down the sides of his jeans, “that’s not what I mean. I don’t even know him. What I do mean, like I said, is that it’s not so much that I don’t want to be with Jimin, but with me being in BTS that sort of thing makes impossible.”

“But everyone gets a soulmate,” Taehyung insisted, “you won’t get in trouble for something you can’t avoid.”

“Shit. You’re right - you really don’t understand.”

“Then tell me, Yoongi, because for God’s sake Jimin fucking adores  you and it sounds like you’re making vague excuses to try and throw him away before you even properly meet.”

“I’m not! I just really don’t want this going public-“

“Let’s just go home,” Taehyung’s fists clenched, “let’s go home, and you can stand in front of the mirror and look into your soulmate’s eyes and I want you to do it because you’ll see just how beautiful and how honest he is and how much he deserves to have you. Jimin’s been through some real shit in his life, yeah? And you couldn’t even make the effort to speak to him – your fucking soulmate – again, how many times have I got to say that? Yoongi, you’re really not how I pictured you to be.”

“Idols don’t act like idols in real life, Taehyung.”

“Well? Get this, okay? Jimin’s parents weren’t soulmates,” Taehyung said quietly, and Yoongi started at that, “I’m not sure what happened to their actual ones, like if they died or anything, because even after all this time of being his best friend I’m still too scared to get the full story out of him. But either way, their relationship wasn’t stable. Jimin was kicked out. He moved here. Jungkook’s parents set him up and helped him pay it back by giving him a job in their coffee shop. He’s been managing, but barely. I can’t even fully comprehend how far the whole thing hit him – he’s still providing statements to court and shit because his mother is missing. You’re one of the people that’s stopped him from doing things he shouldn’t, Yoongi.”

The wind picked up and Taehyung took a step back. His eyes watered as he sat down, but it was impossible to tell if they’d just been irritated. At least, until his voice cracked.

“You changed his life,” his tone had become so soft and gentle, but behind its innocence there was still something strikingly accusatory, a hint of venom that stung Yoongi as it caught him off guard. “I can remember us as high school kids a bit before it all happened. We saw in the news that you’d debuted, and we watched your video. I remember how his eyes literally lit up when he heard you rap for the first time. Do you know what he said? Do you know what he said, Yoongi?”

“Oh, wouldn’t I like to know?” it was time for his own poison; he couldn’t help it, “what did he fucking say?”

“He said,” Taehyung took a deep breath, but he got up from his haunches and chewed his lip, eyes falling away from between them, “he said that he could tell straight away that that guy has his dream sorted out. And he was jealous, because he had no dream, no clear path. If you can’t see that then what the hell did you guys write ‘No More Dream’ for? Didn’t it have a purpose?”

“Of course it had a purpose! Everything I write has a purpose!”

But it fell flat because Taehyung deliberately didn’t take the bait. He stood there, adjusting his hands to settle in his pockets as the morning continued to grow busy around them. Someone hit Yoongi’s shoulder in their rush. The flock of pigeons that had been beside them took off with the last of their crumbs shoved greedily in between their beaks. Some still squabbled.

“It’s clearly a selfish purpose then,” Taehyung remarked, but it was like all the anger had vanished from him. It had left behind an emotion far too complicated for Yoongi to read, but it resonated with the most heartbreaking care for another person he’d ever encountered. Maybe even more than what he felt for Namjoon and Hoseok. Maybe more than he’d ever feel for his soulmate, if his conscious took him the way he was dreading. And deeper, maybe even his own sadness, curled and buried inside something a lot more empty and a lot more missing. It was possible that Yoongi wasn’t able to understand, but he knew it called out to be requited.

It’s okay, he thought, his birthday is soon, and that means he’ll be on his way to finding his soulmate. They’ll be able to fix it.

But like he’d done anything to fix his own.

Yoongi let Taehyung lead him back to Jimin’s apartment with a sour taste in his mouth.

Chapter Text

"On edge is very much an understatement," Yoongi's voice bordered a growl, but it was much more tired in part than aggressive. "A flight to you guys is what? Five and a half hours?"

"It's not even half seven in the morning," Namjoon said, "you've got plenty of time to get over here. Look, Yoongi, take a deep breath, because stressing yourself out during the Switch can do lasting damage, and none of us would want that because this is such an easy fix. We'll send you some money, and you can get on a flight and you can get here just fine, okay?"

"Right." a pause, "How're you planning on sending it?"

"Jimin," Namjoon’s sudden address of him made Jimin panic, and his garbled "y-yes?" had both rappers looking at him with an awful combination of confusion and concern. He felt his face heat up.

"You're eighteen today so we can set you up a PayPal. And then Yoongi can use it to get the money he needs to come here."

"Uh, right- of course," Jimin straightened himself, the simultaneous silence coming through the phoneline bordering on agonising. "But, I mean, not that I don't want to meet Y-Yoongi or anything-" (was he supposed to address him as part of the conversation when he was on the phone like this? Holy shit) "-but what's the rush, exactly?"

"We're releasing our comeback today, as like a sort of surprise thing we've never tried before. We're planning on live broadcasting tonight's concert-"

"C-concert?" Jimin's entire body turned to stone, "so, like-"

"Yes, that's why Yoongi needs to switch back with you as soon as he can."

"Right, PayPal... yeah, okay let's... do that."

"You hear that Yoongi?" Namjoon raised the phone closer to his mouth, we'll make the account and text you the details. Once you've got it, go ahead and get the ticket. I'll let the managers know about everything. Just keep us updated through text."

"Alright. I guess I can deal with that," Yoongi said, "I'll talk to you soon."

"Yeah, talk soo-"

"Wait!" Jimin said, arms flying forward just as Namjoon was about to hang up, "-wait."

Namjoon looked across, frowning. 

"I... can Taehyung get a ticket, too? I'll... pay."

Both of them stared at each other for quite a while, a barely audible yelp of happiness followed by a quiet, irritated tusk making it through the receiver.

"You know what," Namjoon worked his tongue over his lips, "I'll pay for that, too. Yoongi, you hear?"

"What?"

"Buy a ticket for Taehyung as well."

"...Fine."

"...ng on a plane ride with Suga..." faded in and out in a sing-song fashion, too.

"I can definitely say I've never seen Yoongi move like that," Hoseok chuckled and handed him an opened bottle of water, "do you get lessons?"

"Used to," Jimin panted. He felt his t-shirt cling to his back with sweat as he took a seat next to Hoseok, shoulders pressing against the mirror. Hair had glued itself to his forehead and his muscles cried for mercy in a way that oddly satisfied him. Suga hadn't one-upped him on everything, it seemed.

"Used to?" Hoseok echoed, "but you're seriously really good, Jimin, even in a body you're not used to! It's insane talent, that. I'd definitely take it up again, if I were you."

"Trust me," he said between heavy breaths, "if I could, I would. I carried on after all the shit happened in my family, but only for a little while. You know cause of like, money and stuff."

"That's a shame," Hoseok turned to look at the floor, thumb ringing round the lid of his bottle. Jimin was painfully aware of the hesitancy in his tone. It was always like that when he brought it up in a vague way - people get that it's a subject that he didn't want to be touched upon, but the burning curiosity was still there. For a moment the realisation that it would all be something that he'd need to describe to Yoongi in detail was at the forefront of his mind, conjuring up all sorts of worries on top of everything else. It made his face go blank, and Hoseok must have took that to mean he'd offended him and he rushed to splutter an apology.

Jimin gave a small smile and shook his head, "Don't worry about it. I'm not in the place I was a few years ago. And, well..." he reached to scratch the back of his neck, "I definitely can give you guys part of the thanks for that."

"I didn't exactly have the best time predebut either," Hoseok admitted, but when Jimin raised his eyebrows he spluttered again and put his drink down to hastily wave his arms, "not that I'm trying to make your problems inferior or anything, I was just trying to-"

"No, no really, I- that’s okay, Hoseok. I'm just..." Jimin's brows furrowed as he searched for the right word.

"Just what?"

He leaned back, pressed his head to the mirror. It felt cool against his skin even with his hair in the way. "I guess I'm just - surprised? I think."

"Oh."

"No, like - well, when Tae and I watch your guys' behind the scenes stuff, it's always you out there being so positive all the time. I couldn't have labelled you as something else. There wasn't even a hint of it anywhere, so that's... well," he shrugged and took a long drink, "well I know now that I shouldn't be so gullible about how you guys behave."

Hoseok's expression grew pained and he shuffled his feet on the floor, bringing his knees further into his chest, "I can tell you're upset about Yoongi," he told him, "and to be honest, I think Namjoon and I are a little bit, too. Sure, I'm not going to lie to you when I say he's a bit more of a downer off-camera, but there's no way we expected him to do this."

"Yeah, I get that."

"I mean-" Hoseok cut himself off with a sigh, and he wiped his hand across his forehead, "please don't think bad of him, Jimin. He's a really nice guy underneath that weird layer he puts on. I think he's just bad at expressing himself when he's got to make his own decisions; in music videos and photoshoots we're pretty much posed like manikins, so he can follow instructions to the letter, but... when he's left on his own..."

Jimin nodded, but remained silent. They both did, for a while, and it was strange to him, because it was funny how they were lost in thought about the same person. And it was even funnier how, technically, that person was right here with them. Jimin looked down at his hands. He curled them into fists and then spread his fingers wide. These were the hands that had written and produced the songs he fell asleep to at night, that he'd made attempts at dance routines for. It was these ears that had painstakingly listened to each track hundreds, if not thousands of times until they were perfect. The eyes he was seeing through had looked into countless cameras, lips twisting and jaw shifting in just the right way to get the photos that lined his walls at home. Jimin was in the very centre of it all, and he'd long since turned to face the mirror, so busy staring at Yoongi's reflection he'd forgotten about Hoseok's presence almost entirely.

He watched, transfixed, as he swallowed, eyes trained on his adam's apple and the way his chest rose and fell under the semi-tight confines of his tank top. His mouth was parted so slightly, expression frozen, all his wonders collecting like a cluster of thousand year old stars into something brighter, something hopeful that did not understand why his soulmate hadn't yet extinguished it. It was clear, he knew, that Suga didn't want him. It was obvious in the way he called Namjoon, in the way he didn't even bother to get his band mate to pass the phone over. And because of this there was certainly a hellish fire of anger buried somewhere deep in his heart, but at this moment, as he started right into the core of Min Yoongi, it was almost unimportant.

Of course he'd done plenty of prior reading about the Switch, but no one had ever described a feeling as exhilarating as this. 

"It does make me sad, though, sometimes," and Hoseok completely slammed him out of his reverie.

Jimin blinked and echoed, "sad?" like he'd just woken up.

"I mean," the word strained as the rapper struggled to express himself, " look at you Jimin. Look at you."

"What about me?"

"All what happened this morning on the side... you're just so in love with him. I'm selfish. I want that." He stood up and stretched an arm out for Jimin to take, but something about the way he spoke had made him hesitate to grip it, and he made the contact slowly. He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, blood rushing straight to his head and vision filling with bright colours.

"I've been waiting almost as long as Yoongi for my soulmate to come," he said, "and Jimin, let me tell you how lucky you are, because you've just turned eighteen and everything's happened straight away. And I don't know about Yoongi, but going to sleep every night for months, years, wondering if tomorrow will be the day because any day literally could, only to wake up again, alone... there's no word for it. Like, what if my soulmate's dead? Will I just go my whole life not knowing?"

"They're talking about going further into the genetic analysis of soulmate pairs..." Jimin carefully encouraged, "they're trying to find ways to track people and put them together, yeah? So don't... don't let me see you this upset, Hoseok, please. I know about how much I... love- Yoongi, but you and Namjoon mean so much to me as well. And Tae, too. Tae loves you so much."

"He's your friend isn't he? Taehyung?"

"Yeah," Jimin tried to show his most encouraging smile, but he wasn't sure how well it came across using Yoongi's mouth, "yeah he is."

"Hoseok? Jimin?" Namjoon’s head appeared round the door, his hand beckoning and voice echoing around the dance hall, "we're leaving soon, so we should all probably shower or something. Did you practice the new song?"

"Yeah!" Hoseok called back, and he sounded so normal that Jimin almost fell over. He watched the rapper grab his bottle off the floor and switch off the stereo with nothing but a content smile on his face, practically skipping over to Namjoon as he said, "we got a little sidetracked, but Jimin picked up the lipsync good enough, I think."

"Well at least there's a back-up plan if something goes disastrous. Are you guys hungry, too?"

"Damn, am I ever," Hoseok grinned, and turned back to Jimin. "let's go and get ready."

"I've talked to the managers, too," Namjoon said as they approached the door.

"Oh? So what did they say?"

"They freaked out more than a little bit, and I think there's a much bigger conversation to come, but for now I think it's all good. And Jimin?"

Jimin made a questioning noise, "Is everything okay?"

"No one is going to blame you for anything that might go wrong tonight. Got me?"

He groaned, "then please don't say it like it's definitely going to happen..."

Namjoon chuckled (how can he be laughing at a time like this?) and just led the way out of the room.

Chapter Text

“I need to use the bathroom,” Taehyung hummed and dropped his bag from his shoulder. He blinked at Yoongi, “do you have any change?”

“What?”

“What?”

“-notification for all boarding flights QF655, HG879, CN210, LK219. Please check the notice board for further information on the delay of your flight. We are sorry for any inconve-“

“Great,” Taehyung ran his hands through his hair.

Yoongi threw his head back and peeled the collar of his t-shirt away from his neck, using the fabric to fan his chest. He was standing against a signpost for lack of a better space; the whole terminal was uncomfortably packed with tired and moody holidaymakers. People were strewn all around them – some asleep or getting there, some drowsily making their way through soggy sandwiches. A baby cried nearby and the atmosphere was putting them both on a level that made them too exhausted to even grumble at eachother. Taehyung had long since calmed down from their heated conversation outside Jungkook’s mum’s café, but Yoongi could see in the way that he failed to meet his eyes when they spoke that he hadn’t entirely wormed his way out of this.

“I’ll come with you.”

“Where to?”

“The bathroom, Taehyung.”

“Right, yeah, let’s go.”

This hadn’t been their longest conversation, but it had been more than they’d said to each other in quite a while. He thought back to when they’d first arrived with a solid frown on his face.

(Yoongi: “My manager has always done this shit for me.”

Taehyung: “Well, I’ve never been to the airport before, so how am I supposed to know how to check in?”

Yoongi: “How can you have never been to an airport before?”

Taehyung: “I’m seventeen and broke.”

Yoongi: “Right.”)

Yoongi sighed, and bent down to pick up his carry-on. It was the only luggage he had with him, purely due to the fact that he was honestly clueless about what would happen after he and Jimin would switch back. On the bus on the way to the airport his mind had strayed there – probably prompted by the sudden but not unexpected appearance of one of his songs during a shuffle of Jimin’s iPad. There had been flashes in his mind of possible conversations and a sobering thought of what his soulmate’s personality actually was because, in all fairness, he had himself resisted talking to him. For whatever reason. And that reason was also the one that made him swallow hard, skip the song with a shaky tap of his thumb and focus on reading all of the road signs until the bus had pulled into the unloading bay and he had to take the responsibility of waking a sleeping Taehyung.

He was entirely aware of what he was doing, but any thought of Jimin immediately made his throat seize up. And that was how he decided ignorance was bliss; after all, disconnecting himself from loving fans was no different or harder because that was exactly what Jimin was. A big fan that probably behaved like a big fan that just happened to be his soulmate because the universe said so.

“This is Jimin’s money, you know, don’t go taking advantage of it,” Yoongi pulled the wallet out of the back of his jeans. The best he could come up with was a paper note, so he shoved it in the change machine they found at the bottom of the stairs.

“That’s Jimin’s body, you know,” Taehyung had crouched down to be level with the coin tray, and that was what he was focusing on when he replied. Not looking at Yoongi at all. “Don’t go taking advantage of him.”

“Taehyung, this isn’t a time to get shady.”

“Yeah, well,” he grabbed the money as it rattled down to land in his hands, “you’ve made me rethink a lot about BTS this morning, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve got every right to be shady.” Yoongi watched him drop a coin into the turnstile slot and push through, chucking one behind him for him to catch.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yoongi stumbled through the barrier in an effort to catch up, muscles protesting as he dragged his bag through the metal bars when it got caught.

“It means that I think you’re being a bit of an ass,” they rounded the corner into the men’s bathroom and Taehyung had taken the first stall and locked himself in before he barely had a chance to think of a reply.

So Yoongi just stood there, back pressed against the grubby tiles, not too sure why he had offered to come in the first place. Was it because of Taehyung? He was a fan of BTS, and Yoongi knew he should have treated him better as a fan, but Jimin-

Jimin.

The bathroom was full of mirrors, and it was like he was everywhere.

His appearance was forceful enough to almost physically knock him over, and Yoongi could have sworn that at that moment time itself had stopped – not just his heart- when he looked at his soulmate for the first time.

Jimin was – and there was no other way to describe it – beautiful. Even through Yoongi’s poor attempt at showering and failing to wash his hair, or put on any face creams, it still showed. He approached the closest mirror, arms reaching to tuck some loose strands of dark hair behind his ears. He watched his lips part and his eyes close and open slowly, and he knew he was utterly absorbed.

“Wow. Okay,” he cocked his head as he watched himself say it. Almost as if he couldn’t believe it was him.

“I knew that would be your reaction,” Taehyung appeared almost like a ghost would behind him, gently tapping him on the shoulder, sporting a shit-eating grin. Yoongi’s desire to wipe if off of him was dulled, though, by (still) his soulmate’s face.

“Yeah, well…” was his best reply, “I just… wasn’t expecting this.”

“So you expected to see someone you wouldn’t be attracted to? Yoongi, that doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m not… attracted… to him.”

Taehyung snorted. “Sure. Look, I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, “and go and see what’s up with the flight.”

Yoongi watched him disappear using the mirror, but as soon as he was gone his focus was right back on Jimin. It was accompanied by a vague nudge of guilt, and he quickly got to work on fixing his hair, trying his best to make himself more presentable.

Jimin’s parents hadn’t been soulmates, he remembered. It seemed to change the way he looked at his reflection completely. Of course, Yoongi’s parents were soulmates. But it wasn’t a thing that had ever come up in much detail around the house as he grew up. Because, after all, why would it? Having a soulmate was as natural as getting hungry in the afternoon. His parents were much more interested (read, concerned) about his choice in career path. Admittedly there had been a long and encouraging text from the both of them together the evening before his eighteenth, but Yoongi had only skim-read it before squeezing his eyes shut and deleting it. Far too stressful. So, when he did look at Jimin, at every angle in his jawline and his cheeks, there was something that stirred a little, just enough to pause his train of thought. It was nothing like he thought it would be, as an emotion; a sort of sad curiosity, to see a human born outside of a bond that was so integral to society. Did it make Jimin different? Yoongi couldn’t recall meeting anyone who had been born to non-soulmated parents. But, then again, it wasn’t the sort of thing one would ask. It was nigh completely safe to assume.

So that was what it was that made him return to his thoughts that had been left on the bus. Amplified now that he had a lot more of the full picture – being his soulmate’s appearance itself. He was second-guessing himself and his actions and it made him extremely uncomfortable; part of him wanted to remain stubborn, to refuse the life his eighteen-year-old self had dreaded hundreds of nights ago, but this new part had become fuelled by an unknown force, almost making his body move against his will – like Jimin could have been encouraging him to start doing what he was doing now. And that was settling his bag on the counter away from the puddles caused by the sink, reaching into the front pocket

“Hi… is this Park Jimin?” the words barely made it out of his mouth. He cringed. He sounded like he was trying to swallow something sharp at the same time.

“Suga? Is that… really you…?” the voice – oh God, again, his voice, Jesus Christ. Yoongi’s whole body shuddered at the sound, words full of a million emotions at once. Some were buried too deep, but a wave of nervous relief was emitted from the phone’s speaker, and subconsciously he looked around, scanning what he knew was the empty bathroom out of nothing if not trepidation.

“I mean… the number was my own caller ID, so I assumed...” That took him by surprise, and his panic only grew further when he realised that the last part of what Jimin said was prompted by his own silence, and now Yoongi was starting to regret everything again. He rubbed his shoulder and turned to lean on the counter, excruciatingly aware of the fact that even still he couldn’t think of a reply, and each second was probably only more damaging to Jimin. It was probably worse than him not calling at all.

“Are… are you still there, Suga?” it made him jump. The voice was tantalising, like Jimin knew he was struggling and his question was only confirming his inadequacies as a human being. Yes, of course he was still there. He was still there and currently trying to think of something to say to the man who already knew (and loved) everything there was to know about what he wanted people to know about him. The feeling was more than a little unsettling, and he didn’t like the strange sensation that bubbled under his skin that appeared whenever the voice sounded. It felt like something that would in time become addictive.

“…Suga?”

“Yes.” Fuck, “I’m still here. Sorry. I was, uh… yeah.”

“I’m really sorry,” Jimin said, “I didn’t mean to- for it to go that way. Taehyung should have behaved better, he’s just like that. He’s embarrassing. I hope you’re not freaked out or anything.” Yoongi honestly thought that the conversation outside the café was anything but embarrassing – and of course Jimin must have been texting Taehyung about what they’d said to each other.

“It’s okay,” he replied, praying that was sufficient. Silence fell, apart from the international static the line held.

“Ah, that’s… a relief.”

Yoongi could hear the sound of a door open and close suddenly, and the low sound of street traffic came into earshot.

“Yeah.”

He could hear Jimin breathing.

“Uh,” Jimin said, voice starting too fast, “are you-“

Yoongi hung up.

He. Hung. Up.

And then stared at the red filling the screen of the smartphone, thumb shaking in mid-air.

“Jesus fuck.” He couldn’t do this. And he’d just done that.

Why did he do that? He knew why. He didn’t like that he knew that he knew why. He wanted to punch himself in the fucking face, but at the same time his mind rejoiced in being free of the strange atmosphere speaking to Jimin had put him in.

It was okay, it was fine, and he told himself this. Jimin was back to being a theoretical figure, his body back to simply being Yoongi’s temporary home before everything got back to normal, and he could work on calmly promoting his comeback with his fellow members. Jimin would remain intangible. And he could deal with intangible. His mind had managed to successfully battle those thoughts on the bus, and the strange mood that had made him call his phone in the first place.

“Are you done yet?” Taehyung called from somewhere outside, “I don’t think we can board yet, but they’re calling to move us to somewhere else. We’ve gotta go.”

Yoongi let the arm hold the phone fall limp to his side. He grabbed his bag with a blank stare at the bathroom tiles and made his way out the door and through the turnstile. It bleeped and showed a green, happy face on the little LED screen that cause an after image to burn in for the time it took him to re-climb the stairs. Taehyung was in front of him, whistling softly, and with a cloudy brain Yoongi wondered how many times Jimin had followed behind Taehyung, or vice versa. How good they worked as friends. How Taehyung cared so deeply for Yoongi’s soulmate. A little bit of his brain echoed something like Jimin really deserves someone who would treat him with the love Taehyung does, but then it was gone in an instant, because he was being silly. No, Jimin wasn’t even supposed to be existing at this point in time. Jimin was a small bump along his life’s road that needed to be flattened safely in order for him to move on how he wanted. Jimin was a small problem that only demanded a small fix, not these hours at a packed airport spent philosophising and dwelling on something that needed no answer.

He wasn’t making any sense, so he took one quick look at the sign Taehyung had been reading and carried on walking with him. It was better that way.

Chapter Text

Breakfast as Min Yoongi was, to Jimin, an utter ordeal.

Of course, with Namjoon having spoken to the managers while he and Hoseok had discovered the gym to use for their practise, it only made sense that the news Yoongi had switched with his soulmate had begun to trickle through the on-tour staff. But, because everyone had different jobs to do and all came down for breakfast at slightly differing times, it seemed that not everyone had quite found out just yet. And, naturally, Jimin could tell the difference between those two types of people with little more than a passing glance.

It came to him as no surprise that BTS as a group were generally given a wide berth during meal times. When they stepped up to the table of food that had been laid out and grabbed bowls ready to be filled, the staff all smiled politely and took steps back with tiny bows and courteous remarks of “good morning” (even though it might as well have been midday already). Jimin squirmed in it; it was like a reverse form of suffocation. Everyone awkwardly going out of their way for him – some almost robotically, but others with a curious expression set on their brows. And they were the ones that knew he had possession of Suga’s body. It did, also, grow to a level of frustration that caused him to almost bark out a “what?” at a particularly unsubtle man who was leaning over to get some rice porridge.

No, instead, Hoseok appeared to sense it, and he offered his free arm as a clingy but comfortable pseudo-scarf for Jimin’s neck, not letting go until they’d successfully sat down and begun to make their way through their food. The room was silent save for the occasional murmurings among tables, and Jimin began to wonder if this was really what is was like on every tour. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly an unfriendly one, but there was something about the way that almost everyone minded their own business that was just… sad. Subdued. Nothing like the backstage idol life he’d seen on YouTube or imagined in his head.

Well, the other option was being subject to prickly questions about switching with Yoongi, so maybe, he decided, it was for the best.

Jimin had suddenly realised Namjoon had asked him a question; he was busy trying to avoid locking eyes with the woman across the room who just would not stop staring. He had no idea how hard something like that was. He’d finally built up the confidence to raise his right eyebrow just a little bit, in like a “yeah, so what, I’m Park Jimin and not Min Yoongi? Is that a problem?” sort of way, but a semi-quiet “Jimin, did you hear me?” eliminated the opportunity.

He quickly turned to face Namjoon, leg shaking up and down under the table. He was still on edge.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was asking if you liked the new song.”

Jimin couldn’t help but smile. His hand shot up to timorously play with his lips as he nodded into his fingers. The session where he’d heard it for the first time and been hurried into practicing it – just in case – had been dulled by the end with his and Hoseok’s conversation, but as he’d made his way down to the hotel’s restaurant the beat had forced its way into his head and refused to leave. And Yoongi had such a good part that he was almost tempted to try and use his voice to rap along with the recording, but no, there was no way he could have done it justice.

“I – yeah. It’s really fantastic, Namjoon. You guys did such a good job.”

“Well,” Hoseok commented as Namjoon beamed, with a mouth half full of food, “it’s always good to know that it’s going to get along with one of our fans at least. I like this. It’s encouraging.”

He wanted to keep his grin going, but again, there was a group of three staff clearly showing a both surprised and adverse reaction to his expression. Jimin dropped his hand to his lap, and the thought settled in a strange place in his chest. He’d built up far too big a list of questions tied to worries for his soulmate.

“Yeah, we’ve never had the opportunity to give fans a listen to one of our songs before it’s released, like - it’s such a fresh perspective,” Namjoon slowly refilled his glass using a jug of water, “dare I say it, but I’m glad that it’s you that’s switched with Yoongi. You’re such a nice person, and I really like how… well, you did freak out at the start, but, you’re not… crazy.”

“Like I said earlier,” Jimin swallowed, “if you want crazy, I’d introduce you to Taehyung any time.”

“Well then, I’m glad he’s coming over later.”

“You won’t be saying that after you’ve spent more than a minute breathing the same air as him, trust me.”

“Jesus,” Hoseok whistled, “looks like we’re going to see the two ends of the ARMY spectrum here, Namjoon.”

Jimin’s phone (or Yoongi’s temporarily borrowed phone, depending on how one looked at it) vibrated in his jeans pocket, and he pulled it out with a low hum, nose crinkling as he saw who the message was from.

“And like they say,” he padded in the number passcode, “speak of the devil, and he shall appear.”

Hoseok blinked and took a quick sip of his drink. “Taehyung texted you?”

[Taehyung] received 11:17am: Jimin please dont make this harder for urself

[Taehyung] received 11:17am I mean think about how lucky u are to see his junk first hand

“Oh yeah,” Jimin tried his best to draw the phone closer to his face (and further out of sight from any living human being ever) inconspicuously, “he’s texted me alright.”

(Jimin also hoped that, by practically shielding himself in this fashion, the blush creeping up his cheeks would be less obvious).

Sent 11:18am: TAEHYUNG  

[Taehyung] received 11:19am: Idk maybe you should give it a try

Sent 11:19am: Taehyung NO

[Taehyung] received 11:20am: I mean in the future you’ll be able to do the do when you guys try dating but hey why not a test run first to learn all his most

[Taehyung] received 11:20am: Sensitive

[Taehyung] received 11:20am: Places

Sent 11:22am: I’m not texting you anymore and I’m defintely going to have to delete all these messages from Suga’s phone this is so embarrassing Tae

[Taehyung] received 11:22am: lol well I can always show him on my phone…

Sent 11:23am: Don’t you fucking dare.

“Jimin? Is everything okay?” Namjoon asked, “you look a little…?”

“I’m fine,” his voice came out more like a sob, and he thanked every higher power that, even though it was obvious Namjoon knew something was up, he didn’t push it further, “I’m fine, honestly. It’s just basically – oh. Oh?”

“Oh?”

Jimin scanned the message one more time, tongue working through pushing against the back of his teeth, “I just got another text. Taehyung’s telling me their flight’s delayed.”

“Shit. How long for?” Hoseok looked up.

“I don’t think he knows,” Jimin let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. He hesitated at the top of his scalp, slightly thrown off by how coarse it seemed to feel. “He says he’s going to text me back when he’s found out more. He and Suga are going to the information desk or something.”

“I better go and tell the managers,” Namjoon got up out of his seat a little quickly, earning looks which were previously trained on ‘Min Yoongi’ for a few moments until all that could be seen of him was a door swinging closed.

The silence between he and Hoseok that followed was a tense one, and not because there was any weirdness between them. There was just no doubt that the entire room had probably now been filled in on this conversation (there were a few people apparently just learning, now, that he was not actually Min Yoongi) and were collectively also feeling the pressure. Jimin bit his lip and stared at his hands.

Everyone was thinking the same thing. He knew.

If it happened, he couldn’t let anyone down.

Minutes stretched on, differently now, as breakfast continued. Jimin began to eat again, but when his phone vibrated next he felt a lump in his throat that was definitely not food. Yes, another text from Taehyung , but he paled when he saw it was actually a reply to a text sent before the announcement of the delay – one he’d assumed he’d just not responded to because that was just a thing that Taehyung did sometimes. He had sent something in the rush of the moment, an afterthought to bring their jokes back down to earth, to remind not only Taehyung, but he himself, of what they both secretly knew was the truth.

Sent 11:24am: I don’t think he’d want to date me anyway, Taehyung.

[Taehyung] received 11:32am: its still in its early stages Jimin give him time. he might just have some stuff he needs to work out first or something

Sent 11:33am: I’ve never even spoken to him directly. You’ve said more words to him than I have.

[Taehyung] received 11:35am: all the more reason why he hasn’t made up his mind yet!!!! He hasn’t seen your flirty skills dude

There were an infinite amount of replies that Jimin could have typed, and he did desperately want to mimic his friend’s tone, but the best he could come up with was a simple ‘yeah’, before sliding his phone back into his pocket, body sinking further into the chair.

And it was Yoongi’s ringtone, loud and beat-heavy and just so perfectly Suga that caused Jimin to perform each one of these actions in reverse, eyes widening at the sight of his own caller ID flashing up on the screen. He stared. Surely, Taehyung would use his own phone to call him? Using Jimin’s made no sense when he’d literally just texted him. And as far as he knew, he and Yoongi were alone together in the airport, which could only have meant…

“Hi… is this Park Jimin?”

Oh God. It was.

It sounded awfully forced, and if Jimin wasn’t trying to calm his heart that was beating a thousand times a minute, he might have reflected upon it more, but all that came out was a breathless and hesitant “Suga? Is that… really you…?”

Hoseok was brought to attention at this, and his face twisted into a strange look that a lot of people around the room were sporting. Jimin ignored it all and instead waited for a reply. He got none.

“I mean… the number was my own caller ID, so I assumed...” he trailed off, palm pressed against the side of his leg. Maybe the line was bad? He checked quickly, in the space of an intake of a single breath. Full signal.

“Are… are you still there, Suga?”

Hoseok got up and inched closer. Jimin vaguely recalled fanning him away.

The voice on the other end had been clear, and so he let out one more shaky little “Suga?” before almost giving in. His whole body jumped in the air, he swore, when his soulmate finally replied.

“Yes. I’m still here. Sorry. I was, uh… yeah.” Forget about it being his, the voice, the personality behind the voice, was so full of something Jimin did not yet understand. That strange feeling had washed over him again, and he stood up, shuffling around on his feet and banging his knees absently on the side of the table.

And then. He remembered.

“…I mean in the future you’ll be able to do the do when you guys try dating…”

Holy shit. Suga had seen. That had to have been why he sounded so… awkward. Off. Nothing like the breezy, confident rapper he’d stayed up until after 2am with in the form of radio interview and variety show viewings.

“I’m really sorry,” the words little more than stumbled out of his mouth, “I didn’t mean to- for it to go that way. Taehyung should have behaved better, he’s just like that. He’s embarrassing. I hope you’re not freaked out or anything,” as he spoke, he nodded to Hoseok and made his way to the restaurant exit and into the corridor. The onlookers had grown too much for him to stand their presence anymore. He made a right towards reception.

“It’s okay,” Yoongi answered softly, and Jimin’s hand almost melted and fused with the next door handle, he felt so weak in the knees.

“Ah, that’s a relief,” he breathed out as he nodded to the receptionist and stepped out into the street. A car drove by.

“Yeah.”

Jimin could barely believe that he was having an actual, real conversation like this. It was almost like he was a kid playing video games that had been surprised with an extra snack – his mind was buzzing. A thousand bees, happy bees, singing “Suga is talking to me, holy shit,” over and over in his head.

And so he took a deep breath, so very very ready to carry things on. His heart pounded a drumbeat as he formed his next sentences, perfectly and lovingly crafting in and for the moment - or at least it sounded that way to him – a rapid “Uh, are you-“

But the line went dead.

Jimin yanked the phone away from his ear, confusion dominating everything when his eyes met the red screen, quite clearly displaying a “call ended” in a thin font.

“There you are,” Namjoon appeared out of the door, too, a little breathless. A couple of older men were gathered behind him but they were easily to ignore when the rapper drew closer. “Jimin… are you okay…? You don’t look too…”

“Suga called,” his reply was almost swallowed, “and I think… I think he hung up on me.”

Chapter Text

“Naver says it takes five hours and thirty minutes to fly from here to Thailand,” Taehyung settled down in his seat and rolled up the sleeves on his jacket. A small, irritated frown was formed on his lips from his and Yoongi’s very recent squabble over winning the luxury of the window seat, and when the latter didn’t reply he shrugged and leaned his body to the left, head sticking out into the aisle as he watched the last few passengers find their seats. Air hosts and hostesses were busy shuffling around them, helping people with their carry-ons and beginning to take food orders. The pilot’s voice came over the intercom, followed by a translation in Thai which Taehyung tried his best to copy; when he turned back round to see the view outside he saw Yoongi facing him, a mildly confused expression on his face.

“Just practising my Thai,” he said as he switched his phone to flight mode, “in case there’s a problem.”

“Well there won’t be,” Yoongi murmured, “based on what you said, we’ll land an hour before the concert starts, so we’ll be there in plenty of time. And stop shaking your leg – that’s… what are you doing?”

“Don’t you remember? This is the first time I’ve been on a plane.”

“Right.”

“I’m excited. This is what happens when I’m excited.”

“Well,” Yoongi murmured, “speaking as one who flies on a plane fifty times a year, I can promise you that it gets old fast.”

“Not for me it won’t.”

“You’ll be bored soon, trust me,” Yoongi took the on-flight magazine and began to flip through it.

“I won’t. It’s too cool here to be bored.”

“...I’m so bored.”

“I thought being on a plane was exciting?”

“Yeah but now we’re in the air there’s nothing to do but stare at the clouds.”

“Then stare at them,” the bait was there for Yoongi, hung out on a fishing line right in front of his nose, and he knew that if he took it there’d be partly a wave of satisfaction waiting for him, but the amount of effort needed to pull it off and not get frustrated would have been truly titanic.

He turned his body more towards the wall, but within seconds something big and very Taehyung-like had pressed itself against him.

“Ow- what are you doing?”

“Trying to get a better look? I want to see the land.”

“Your elbow is digging into my ribs, Taehyu-oh.”

“What?”

There he was again. Jimin’s reflection in the window, much fainter this time and with the addition of an equally-ghost like Taehyung right next to him. Yoongi swallowed and struggled to avert his eyes without being too obvious, doing anything he could in the tight, cramped space to relieve himself of what was hovering out of the corner of his eye, occasionally brightened by a change of colour in the view. And it didn’t help that Taehyung was on his other side, breathing heavily, pressed against his shoulder as he craned his neck to take in as much of the sights as possible. Yoongi wondered if he should have perhaps just let him take the window seat, because right now if Taehyung was the rock then Jimin was certainly the hard place, and he felt his skin heat up in something that wasn’t quite frustration but certainly felt like it.

He regretted keeping his coat on, but because of the situation he just found himself sinking into it, the outside world losing his face to the soft fur of the hood. When he found his sunglasses and slid them on, the process of hiding was complete. It was good, he decided, staying buried like this. Heat or not.

But then he made possibly the biggest mistake of his life.

He breathed in.

And suddenly, his senses collapsed into overdrive.

Jimin, everywhere. He hadn’t even considered the fact that this was his fucking coat, let alone that his smell would be clinging to literally every fibre, every stitch.

It was far too familiar even though it was new – it was petrifying how his mind welcomed it, how it seemed to know, despite never being contact with the real deal, that this was… him.

For a second he froze, but like a slap to the face he shot upwards, exposing his head to fresh air again, yanking off his sunglasses and running a hand through his hair. His chest was heaving and he gasped in a way that was more like a wheeze, not loud enough for people around him to hear but apparently enough for Taehyung, because he was all over him in an instant.

“Jimin?”

Yoongi watched, dreamily horrified with red tinting his ears as Taehyung gritted his teeth. He was gripping his shoulders – not crushingly so, but rapid concern fuelled his gaze and it was only natural that he struggled under it. But that only prompted Taehyung to try harder, a soft, “it’s okay, you don’t need to panic-“

But Yoongi was far too busy almost trapped by his own senses, hyper-aware of how everything around him down to his bones was Jimin. He couldn't escape, trapped here thousands of feet in the air.

“Taehyung,” it almost didn’t come out, “what- what are you doing?”

“Is everything okay over here?” an air hostess whispered, a manicured hand gently settling on the back of Taehyung’s seat.

“Yeah, sorry,” Yoongi looked up, vision spinning. He was able to focus on Taehyung for a second.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he said quietly, completely failing to explain himself.

Yoongi watched him wordlessly as he got up on slightly unsteady legs, reaching out for the support of his chair as he turned down the aisle. The aeroplane’s low hum absorbed the last of the sound of his footsteps until he reached the back of the plane and walked inside the cubicle. The sound of the door clicking shut was nothing to everyone else, but Yoongi heard it as a dreadful sort of finality, and it was a good few seconds before he looked away, only prompted by a strange stare from a man a few rows back who must have seen what was visible of his dishevelled appearance.

His attempt to get comfortable again was difficult enough because literally nothing had changed – he was still Jimin, after all – but as he sat down his phone pressed awkwardly against his leg. He let out a vague displeased sound, still a little breathy as he tried to return to a placid state and pulled it out to keep it in the net in front. But fate wouldn’t let him have his way again, of course, and his thumb of course pushed too hard on the lock button, and of course the screen came to life. His own face stared at him, that picture again, mocking him as he glared at it.

It wasn’t much of a glare, though, other people would probably think; it was a much wearier gaze, and for a few moments his hands fell slack and he just looked at the image from the now-distorted angle, pulse slowly beginning to retreat from the surface of his skin. Jimin’s scent drifted around him in a way that he wanted desperately to reject, wondering urgently why this was only really happening now. Because with it, he was driven to slide his thumb across the screen, tapping in his passcode with very little effort from his actual memory – no, this was Jimin’s muscle memory, and it was like he was following it when he brought the phone closer to his face, cupping it in both hands and letting out a long breath. The little flight mode symbol was stuck in the corner and he looked over the apps with an interest that he fruitlessly wanted to deny.

Gallery.

And there it was, the little Polaroid of a yellow flower with the one word neatly placed under it.

Such a bright colour.

Gently, he tapped it.

An array of photos filled the screen and Yoongi struggled to take them all in at once. Judging by the size of the scroll bar, there must have been close to hundreds. So he tapped the most recent – it was a blurry shot of the pavement and someone’s feet. Its predecessor was a hastily-taken mugshot of what Yoongi had to assume was Jungkook, and he scrolled through the album silently, watching the story develop in reverse.  Eventually the scene changed to shots of Jimin’s bedroom, followed by a string of BTS photos in varying quality. He didn’t even remember posing for some of them, and the realisation set him a little on edge.

After that was a very grainy photo of what was mostly the night sky, but the shadow of a large building loomed below it. Lampposts made the picture even more indistinguishable, but the caption Best night of my life!!! followed by the date stirred something inside him, and he exited the slideshow with a strange expression, changing to look at the first photo of that day.

It was a self-taken photo of Jimin and Taehyung, shoulders pressed tightly together, grins as wide as they could go. The caption Seeing BTS today!!! was stuck across the bottom of the image, and, oh - Jimin must have saved his whole snapchat story for that day.

Yoongi couldn’t help but be transfixed by it. His first look at Jimin in Jimin’s own body, at how he usually held himself, how he could see the sparkle in his eyes that just wasn’t there when it was Yoongi. He locked the phone and stared at the faint reflection of himself in the blackness. Jimin. There he was.

His soulmate.

As low as he could, very aware of the people sitting nearby as he did so, he parted his lips millimetres and let out a quiet “Suga,” imagining it just like Jimin would say when they met. Such a delicate, bright voice.

“Yoongi,” he said to himself, and for a second he was floating above, watching it like a conversation. A cold pulse ran through his body as he tentatively tugged at the ends of his hair, adjusting the angle of his face experimentally, long since switching from the dark glass to the front-facing camera screen. He became braver with trying various expressions, and it gradually became just Yoongi trying to reinvent himself. Like a new him, this Jimin. He raised the phone and looked into the lens, taking a number of photos, even if they were basically all the same.

This impulsiveness was definitely sitting strange with him, and when he opened up the gallery to look at what he’d done a hasty deleting session soon followed, only too conscious of the very likely idea that Taehyung would be back any minute, and Jesus, if he was caught doing this…

He ended up again with the slideshow of Jimin’s saved snapchat story from a few months ago as he was reminded of it, because the knowledge that Jimin had been to one of his concerts was a thought that wouldn’t slide away neatly into his mind.

The last one that he hadn’t seen yet was another self-taken one – it featured Taehyung (unsurprisingly) alongside a very flushed and tired but happy-looking Jimin, lightstick in his hand as he tried to do a peace sign while holding it. He was probably more drenched in sweat than Yoongi had been, hair sticking to the beanie on his head. A huge white SUGA was embroidered into it, and it was slipping just a little to the side.

Yoongi locked the phone - again. He could barely remember that concert – they just did so many. Fansigns for him went by so fast they all just blurred into one mile-long line of fan after fan, but he found himself desperately searching his memory for any sign of Jimin. God, he must have been somewhere for him to remember, they were soulmates.

“He didn’t have enough to buy a meet and greet ticket.”

“Shi- Taehyung?” Yoongi was almost blown off of his seat, only remaining grounded by the force of the other’s hand pressed on his lower thigh.

“Yoongi – are you…?”

“What?” he shoved his phone back in his pocket so fast he thought the fabric would tear.

Taehyung shrugged and pulled his hand away. “I was just saying how Jimin couldn’t afford the meet and greet, or the hi-touch. I mean, he’d been saving for so long already, and he was thinking about waiting until the next time you guys went out on tour, but I think he was just so desperate at that point to finally see BTS live, so…”

“Oh,” was all he could think of to reply.

“Concert prices aren’t your fault, I guess,” Taehyung sighed, “but I guess now… now Jimin was given the chance to be able to meet you like this, and you just went and acted all… that’s why I acted how I did, Yoongi.”

“Is this really the conversation you want to have, Taehyung?”

“Look, I’m sorry if I’ve pissed you off, Yoongi. I just care about Jimin so much… he’s my best friend, and seeing you sort of… disregard him in such a way – it’s gotten me really riled up, you know? I don’t… want to get on the bad side of BTS for my own reasons, too. Don’t think I’m a dick okay - please?”

“I don’t. I barely know you. Look – Taehyung. I’ve got to spell it out for you. Fans don’t like it when their idols get soulmates. As natural as the whole thing is… that’s just not how fans work. They get jealous, angry. It can put both soulmates in serious danger, and, well… I just…”

“Well?”

“Forget that last bit. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen bad things happen to idols and their partners after they connect as soulmates?”

Taehyung fiddled with his sleeve, “yeah, but, Jimin loves you, Yoongi.”

“That’s the part I’m afraid of.”

“What?”

Yoongi refused to meet his eyes. Silence drew between them, and he took a sip of water.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Taehyung eventually said, pressing his head against his seat, “but you’re Jimin’s soulmate. I know I keep saying that, and it’s annoying me too, but you’re part of our little family now. And I don’t want things to be shit between us. I’ve been doing this all morning and it’s exhausting. I just want to be happy. I want Jimin to be happy.”

“I do, too.”

“You- okay, so – make it happen, then.”

Yoongi ran his thumb over the fur in his coat.

If he could.

Chapter Text

A sore throat: that was what BTS’ mangers had told the concert venue. There was to be no empty backing track on Suga’s parts, and he was to rest as much as possible before the concert started, only sitting down in rehearsals. A tough act for Jimin to have kept up, as he spent most of his time backstage (he didn’t realise everything took so long, Jesus) looking like a deer in the headlights rather than a sick, overworked rapper. His pulse was up all the time, tiringly alert with the knowledge that not everyone around him was BTS’ personal staff. People who worked at the venue were buzzing around, too, weaving in between rooms and calling out things down corridors. At one point a man had come up to him and just asked him if he needed anything, and Jimin was so stressed about how he was supposed to act that he just nodded and walked away.

(Thankfully, Namjoon had noticed and was quick to approach the man afterwards and explained that ‘Yoongi’ was just ‘tired’. Jimin had then yawned melodramatically and sought the nearest sofa to try and sleep on).

It didn’t help that the hectic atmosphere was failing to completely bury his and Yoongi’s phone conversation that morning. Namjoon had found him in the street staring with glass eyes at his phone, legs locked in place with shock, and when Jimin had shakily explained what had happened, Namjoon struggled to hide his angry disappointment. It manifested as a clenched fist as he guided him back into the hotel and made his promise to ‘talk things through with Yoongi when they were reunited’ perhaps a bit more aggressive than it should have been.

Hoseok was equally as frustrated, although it appeared easier for him not to show. He spent the early afternoon before they headed to the venue showing Jimin unreleased and unfinished tracks saved on the group’s laptop, and Jimin wished hard that he was able to fully enjoy himself, but it just didn’t work. Especially since what had set him most on edge was the reason Namjoon had come to find him in the first place – because, of course, no one could have missed someone who had only been gone from sight for just over a few minutes. He’d found out after he’d managed to calm himself down what had rapidly become the ultimate source of his worries for the day, and that was, now that Yoongi’s flight was delayed, Jimin would have to take his place at the fanmeet before the concert. The manager had tried his best to tell him calmly and assure him that they would do everything they could to make it easier for him, but here he was now, sitting in a chair in front of the mirror, having his hair fussed over by a cheerful woman with a pixie cut. Almost ready, that was. Soon to go out and pretend to be Suga.

“You’ll be surprised how similar you’re acting like Yoongi right now,” the woman said quietly, fiddling with the settings on the hairdryer. He’d been introduced quite nicely to her a good few hours ago, but her name had been lost in a sea of schedules and pretending.

“What do you mean?” Jimin looked up at her through the mirror, and she smiled knowingly.

“He gets surprisingly quiet just before he’s about to go on stage,” she replied, “he can be quite talkative in the mornings once he’s ready for the day, but as we get closer and closer to stage time he just… quietens down. Like he’s getting into his own little zone.”

“Well, trust me,” Jimin let out a half-laugh, “the only zone I’m in is a state of extreme anxiety.”

“Of course,” she said, “but I’m sure you’ll be fine. You make a great Yoongi, and I’m sure you’ll be an even better Suga.”

“I hope so.” But the sound of his voice was lost to the noise of the dryer, and he stared at the face of the man who had disconnected their call as hands ran through his hair.

Beside him, Namjoon and Hoseok were broadcasting on V App, having chosen this moment in particular so it would be easy to say to the fans that “Suga is busy getting his hair done, but look – he says hello!” And there was his cue; he saw the phone turn to face him and he forced himself not to look at the number of viewers displayed on the top of the screen. Channelling his inner Suga – if that was even a thing, it sounded so weird – he put on his best sleepy smile and waved for a few seconds before turning to face the phone in his lap.

It had been hours since Taehyung had texted, and he knew that they were well on their way, but it just wasn’t enough. Someone had called “twenty minutes” earlier and it definitely sounded like the V Live was being wrapped up.

“I’m just going to do your make up, okay, Jimin? Keep still for me.”

“Sure.”

Having his faced prodded and covered like this… perhaps in another lifetime it would have registered more, or even the way Yoongi’s skin seemed to be used to piles of chemicals. Undergoing the transformation so regularly that is, but inside, Jimin was far too busy to be paying attention to anything outside of his mental bubble, an awful soup of fear coming from all sources, from the situation, from the management, from Yoongi himself. How did Suga behave at fansigns? He’d never got into one. The best he could do for his knowledge was run through the clips he’d seen online and combine them with the advice he’d got from Namjoon, Hoseok and the producers. Down to its most basic form, its elements were a constant smile, fulfilling a fan’s wishes until they got creepy and a nice, confident signature.

That wasn’t even that hard part, that last one; on the edge of the table in front of him a sheet of paper was filled to the brim with the results of his practice, and perhaps the one thing that had calmed him the most was that fact that, okay, he can at least get this part right. This part that the fans took home and treasured forever, remembering the day that they got the closest they ever would to their idol, sitting in their memory for a mere seconds but maybe it was enough.

But he… and Yoongi.

They were to be more than just seconds.

He grit his teeth and cast his eyes down from the mirror, away from it all.

“Five minutes!” someone called.

“Ah, that’s good,” the woman doing his make-up said, patting Jimin on the shoulder, “I’ve just finished. Best of luck okay?”

“I was just thinking it was time to head out,” Namjoon grunted as he pulled himself off of the sofa, closely followed by Hoseok. They walked over to Jimin and just… carried on talking, like everyone around him was. He felt sick, too out of place. People patted him on the back as he left the room and made his way down the corridor.

I’m not Suga. I’m not Yoongi.

It was surreal; he was a passenger here, taking footsteps familiar to his feet but not his mind. As they drew closer to the stage the walls blurred and the cheering grew louder, time passing in a way that was impossible to register. Yoongi’s body was drawn to it, to the familiar echo of adoring shouts and screams that Jimin’s brain was fruitlessly trying to drown out. If it was like this now, just a few hundred of them… he couldn’t bear to imagine what the concert would be like. Maybe he would have to perform. Maybe he would actually have to be the one to go out and rap in front of an entire arena.

Reaching the wings meant struggling to breathe in such a tight space. The skin on his palms was becoming sleek with sweat and he clenched and unclenched his fists as he did his teeth, the painfully intoxicating scent of Yoongi’s body practically setting the world on fire. It was so potent that he had no idea how he hadn’t fully noticed it before, not even when he was taking a shower or getting dressed or sitting curled into a ball in the minivan. It was a drug. He wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t stop wanting more of it. Addicting, and impossible to escape.

Hoseok stuck his arm out and made it visible to the crowd. They screamed.

Why couldn’t the universe have made someone out there Yoongi’s soulmate?

“You can go out when you’re ready,” a nameless manager said quietly, and Jimin thought he was trying to meet his eyes but he was too busy working out how to take his next breath evenly, running through everything he had to say, everything he had to remember.

“Just treat them… how you’d have wanted Suga to treat you, back when you were just a fan.”

Just a fan. Namjoon’s words, spoken what felt like lifetimes ago, made his mind throb.

Why couldn’t he go back to being ‘just a fan’? The pathetic, lonely, pining Jimin, chasing helplessly after an idol he’d never met in the hopes that, one day they’d… be something. That it would miraculously work out and they’d go on beautiful romantic dates and make love and get married and start a family and grow old together. He wanted his fantasies to be real, so desperately, that now they were here, looming in the impending future, he had no idea how to even think straight.

But this chasing, this desperation… surely he was still doing that now?

Jimin’s eyes widened in the semi-darkness of the tiny room, earning a confused and concerned look from Namjoon.

Suga didn’t love him, did he? There was no… at no point had he actually said anything like that, or expressed a desire to do anything apart from switch back and… move on?

“He hates me,” Jimin’s mouth could only open as he realised, “he really, actually hates me.”

“Who hates you, Jimin?”

“He wants nothing to do with me.”

“He…? I’m sure he does…” it was Namjoon there, stepping closer and closing the final gap between them.

“He doesn’t even want to talk to me.”

“Jimin, I know this probably something you really don’t want to hear right now, and I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t care, or that I’m not helping,” Namjoon squeezed him, face half-buried in his shoulder, “but I need you to focus, just for a little bit. Just get through this, and remember what I told you. We can cross Yoongi-hyung's little bridge later, okay? Now is now.”

“Now is now?”

“Say it with me.”

He found himself saying it more than once, uttering it like a mantra under his breath, Namjoon’s little sedative charm. Jimin’s chest still burned and threatened to cave in, Yoongi’s scent still filled his nostrils, adrenaline shooting round his body at a ridiculous speed. He saw the crowd, too, so close to him.

Instinct kicked in. He smiled, and waved, approached centre stage, bowed. His body guided him through the group introduction, and he watched Hoseok keep the microphone near his mouth, and there was his signature line that always made Taehyung fall backwards on the bed and squeal like a prepubescent girl. Namjoon next, and now it was his time to speak, and he did it. An echo of every time he’d heard it before with his headphones at midnight, except this time the sound vibrated through and out his mouth. It was a reassurance now. Suga was with him. He could do this. All he had to do was not think about how those stage lights, above him, up there, might be switched on later with him below them. No. Yoongi would get here in time. No doubt.

Some confidence was definitely there, but never enough to speak first, or really outside of when spoken to. He replied as he imagined Suga would and tried his best not to make it obvious that they’d switched at all. So far it seemed like no one could tell – they were still all laughing and chanting and smiling with him, but the worst was to come, and his mounting dread only escalated when Namjoon gently took his arm and guided him to his seat. Security took their positions ushering the fans into a queue, and Jimin, in between the other two rappers, felt an encouraging squeeze on his knee as the first girl approached Namjoon. She clutched an album tightly in her hands and he watched their conversation with nothing less than bug eyes. Were people noticing?

And then she was here.

“Hi, Suga,” she shuffled along the edge of the table.

“Hey,” he tried to let his voice out with just the right combination of rough and smooth. Chilled. Suave, “how are you doing?”

“It’s been a long day,” she admitted, and he tried to show signs of sympathy.

(You think you’ve had a long day? Yeah right, try waking up like this and see how long your day gets).

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he frowned and looked up at her and he tried so hard to ignore the utter admiration building in her eyes, how she bit her lip. Her hand was shaking.

This was probably the only chance she’d ever get to meet Suga. He had to make this work.

“But I hope you enjoy yourself tonight, yeah?” he leaned forward and smiled, “we’ve got a couple of surprises lined up to show you guys that we’ve been working on, so…”

“Really?”

“Yeah! They’re cool, so please enjoy them. Uh…” he nodded a little towards the album “you want me to sign that?”

“Please,” it was like she was struggling more than he was.

This is going to be the closest she’ll ever get to Min Yoongi. He knew it.

“Eunseo,” she added quickly when he picked up and shook his pen, “I’m Eunseo, by the way.”

Jimin hummed and wondered how she couldn’t see through this whole thing, “that’s a pretty name,” he commented softly and thrived in the way she blushed and covered her mouth. “Do you want me to make it out to you?”

“If that’s okay.”

“Of course. Here, I’ll do it just above where my head is… next to Namjoon’s…” Suga’s signature flowed out with ease, a combination of muscle memory and practice. He grinned at her, feeling the gummy smile he’d fallen for hundreds of times over take hold of his mouth, “all finished. See you at the concert, Eunseo.”

“Yeah!” she breathed, “I’ll see you.”

Hoseok elbowed Jimin and winked at him as she moved along. He just shrugged with a small grin and blinked up at the next fan waiting, adjusting the sleeve of his jacket.

“How did you find that?” Hoseok pounced on him straight away, as soon as they were out of sight and heading back to the dressing room.

“Hell.”

Chapter Text

“It’s no use,” Yoongi looked about ready to fall to his knees.

“I’m sure we’ll be through in no time,” Taehyung frowned his response, adjusting the position of the rucksack slung over his shoulder, “these guys are good at their job, aren’t they?”

“Taehyung we literally have fifty seven minutes until the concert starts-“

“Well even if we had two hundred minutes we’d still be in this passport queue, so there really isn’t anything we can do about it.”

Yoongi grit his teeth, running his thumb up and down Jimin’s passport. His shoes squeaked as he shuffled on the floor and stared bleakly at the sheer amount of people in front of him, all sorts of ages and sizes, huddled up close like some twisted flock of penguins, all of them waiting to get through border control. And the speed with which it was happening was agonising.

Of course, the stress was evident in Taehyung, but it was slightly more subtle. Perhaps, Yoongi considered, it could have been due to their conversation on the plane, but no – the way he stood there completely devoid of a witty comment told him all that he needed to know. Taehyung was nervous as fuck, too. And he wasn’t even the one that had to perform in the concert.

Each second ticked by painfully. He couldn’t help the constant checking of his phone, outwardly cringing with each minute that passed. The queue had barely moved a few feet after five, and by ten pressure had built up so weighty in his mind he could have all but exploded. But he knew he could have done nothing, and by the time their waiting count had hit an awful seventeen minutes, the sigh in defeat he gave was so heavy and resigned it was enough for Taehyung to pat him on the shoulder.

“I’ll call Namjoon,” Yoongi struggled, unlocking Jimin’s phone and dialling his number.

“No, don’t-“

“Taehyung why are you taking my phone from me-“

“I’ll call. You’ll make it sound worse than it is.”

“I’m pretty sure standing in a mile-long queue with only forty minutes until we go live on air is a very good cause to make it sound worse than it is.”

But all he did as a reply was make a shushing noise and plant his index finger over Yoongi’s lips. He used the other hand to put his phone to his ear.

“Hello?” Taehyung said after a few seconds of silence, “-yeah this is Taehyung. No, no, he’s here… just- yeah, stressed. Oh boy- oh it’s nice to meet you, too, I’m a big fan it’s like-“

“Taehyung. At least, if you’re going to speak to him, actually tell him what’s wrong?”

“Right. Uh- Listen, Namjoon… I don’t think we’ll be there for the start of the concert. Yeah, no, we’re in the queue for border control, and it’s so fucking long. Still gotta call a taxi and stuff, too, so… -no I don’t think so? Wait is he there? Can I speak to him? …Yeah, okay, call me back when you’ve done that. Okay. Okay well… yeah we’ll try. Bye.”

The call ended and his arms swung to rest at his sides, phone loose in his palm. Yoongi raised his eyebrows when Taehyung didn’t go to say anything.

Taehyung grinned, “I just spoke to Rap Monster.”

Wait.

“You wanted to take the call just so you could get the chance to speak to Namjoon?”

His smile didn’t stop, “is that a problem?”

Yoongi ran his fingers down his face, “Jesus Christ. Take me now.”

“Hey, I told him we were having trouble-“

“I’d rather perform for twenty four hours straight than be stuck here with you.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?” Taehyung’s hand flew to his cheek in mock-offense.

Yoongi breathed heavily through his nose and turned around, choosing to just not respond. They both stood still, but he couldn’t tell for the life of him if Taehyung was matching his stress levels now. He watched him let out a low sigh and lean against his carry-on.

The clock on his phone went up another minute, and although nothing around him had changed physically, he knew what this meant. It was now impossible to get to the venue on time. There just weren’t enough minutes left.

His heart was racing, pulse throbbing all the way up his back. His feet ached and his shoulder was protesting with the weight of his bag hanging off of it. He stared blearily at the woman who was currently taking her passport back, nodding a thank you to the man behind the glass before walking around the booth. Someone else took her place, then another, then another. Time raced along with his mind and he bundled his sleeves in to his fists, Taehyung becoming a mere presence at his side. Jimin’s body felt hot and his cheeks and neck burned. Quietly outside but screaming within, he took a sip from his bottle of water but it felt like he was swallowing dry. It barely went down without him choking.

He needed to calm down, before he had a heart attack. Before he hurt Jimin.

So he did the only thing he could think of doing.

He tried talking to Taehyung.

“So…”

“So?”

Yoongi swallowed again and stepped ever so slightly closer, but the gap had suddenly become so narrow that he could hear his breathing, and Jimin’s breathing, and there was a moment of small wonder as to whether these bodies had been like that before. Close, he wonders for sure, maybe when watching tv or playing video games. Friends.

“So your parents were cool with you just… leaving the country like this?”

“They actually live in Daegu,” Taehyung replied with a shrug, “they sent me up here because there are better schools, I guess, so there’s no way they’d miss me because I’m away anyway? I just called in sick.”

“Makes sense.”

Taehyung hummed in agreement.

Well, that worked.

If he had to guess, Yoongi could see about twenty people left to go in front of them. Noises of the busy airport leaked in from the outside and he found himself urging them to get louder, focusing on that to keep himself sane – they became his crowd, the one that Jimin would command today. Part of him was utterly thankful to whatever higher power was responsible for pairing soulmates because at least, damn, they’d had the sense to give him one that apparently knew the words to his music. Yoongi wasn’t sure if he’d still be conscious if he didn’t have that reassuring him.

“What about your parents?” Taehyung abruptly turned to him.

“Huh?” Yoongi blinked, shuffling forward in the queue.

“Your parents,” Taehyung said again, “what are they like with you being a rapper? And stuff...” He finished off with a shrug as his voice began to trail, eyes falling away down to the floor.

Yoongi bit his lip, and was beginning to regret trying to distract himself like this. It wasn’t going the way he predicted.

“They weren’t… over the moon about it,” he answered over some time, “especially my dad. He was worried about how much I’d earn and shit. My mum tried to show a bit more faith but I could tell she wasn’t all for it. Even now after all that’s happened we don’t talk much?”

“You don’t?” Taehyung’s voice raised an octave, “even after you’ve proved your success?”

Yoongi made a noncommittal gesture with his hands, “I just think it would be awkward, that’s all. I haven’t been home for months.”

“That’s weird. I can’t imagine going more than a few days without speaking to my family. It’s hard being so far away from them.”

“I bet Jimin keeps you company, though?”

Taehyung looked right at him, silent, blinking. His lips parted a hair’s width.

“…Taehyung?”

“No… it’s just, now I understand what Kookie was talking about. How it’s weird knowing I’m talking to you, Yoongi, but I’m looking at Jimin.”

“How is it… weird?”

“Well…” Taehyung tried to motion something with his hands in the hopes it would help, but when Yoongi gave him nothing but furrowed brows he gave up and worried his lip, running a hand through his hair. “It’s sort of like… ‘cause sometimes you’ll make expressions he does and I’ll forget that you’re… not…”

“Like on the plane?”

“…Yeah.”

And then something inside Yoongi understood. Why Taehyung had acted the way he did, why his response to his panic was how it was. Jimin had been like that before.

But… why?

“Well,” he swallowed the thought. It wasn’t the time. He was already feeling himself falling over the edge as it was, “hopefully if we can get to the concert, then you won’t feel weird for much longer.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re not going to make it,” Namjoon put the phone down on the dressing table. Jimin knew he was trying to avoid meeting his gaze, so he did, too, and took a step back as he rested his hands on his hips.

“We’ll put a short break before the new song,” one of the managers said after a careful pause, turning to Jimin, “I’m sure Yoongi will be here by then, so all you have to do is work on making sure you keep up with the rest of the track list, which I’m assuming you know?”

Jimin nodded, but the decision provided little comfort. Sure, he knew all of BTS’ songs, but did that even matter when you had to pretend to perform them in front of thousands of people? He felt utterly giddy.

“Good,” he grasped his arm firmly for a few seconds, even if the accompanying smile failed to do anything, “thank you so much for helping us out, Jimin. I’m sorry you’ve ended up in this situa-“

“Ten minutes!” god, that awful voice was back again, piercing through the low bustle of the dressing room.

The manager gave a final nod and excused himself, “I’d better go and check the final arrangements are clear. Good luck, Jimin.”

“Remember how well you did earlier,” Hoseok found his way towards him and smiled as bright as he could, “we’ll take the lead for this one. Yoongi is a bit distant sometimes – as long as you play along with the audience no one is going to suspect a thing.”

“You think so?”

“Well,” Hoseok rolled back his shoulders, “you were great when we practised this morning, so I can’t have anything but complete faith in you. All you’ve gotta do is mouth the rap and do some adlib.”

“I guess that is an accurate portrayal of how I’ve spent some of my nights indoors…” Jimin watched the rapper’s lips tug upwards even further at the little joke, and he earned a playful slap on the knee.

“See?” Hoseok exclaimed, his voice growing loud enough to draw Namjoon’s attention, “that’s the spirit! When you go out there, smile! Enjoy it!”

“I don’t know… that might be taking it a bit too far.”

“You’ll be fantastic. Better than the actual Yoongi, I bet.”

“Okay, that’s definitely too far.”

Hoseok just laughed, and Jimin was thankful for the temporary change in mood, but as soon as he left with a passing comment of getting his eye makeup fixed, the cold reality merely pressed down again, a pile of leaves settling down after being tossed up by the wind.

Jimin slumped back in his chair. He felt small despite all the words of encouragement the crew had gone out of their way to give him, and he had, a few minutes earlier, even toyed with the idea of asking them to cancel the concert, comeback or otherwise. But memories rapidly surfaced of a night spent in Taehyung’s supportive arms after reading a particularly heartfelt fancafe post Suga had written after he was too ill for a concert to take place, and Jimin just felt sick towards his own mind for even suggesting the idea.

It was going to be so hard to pull off, Jimin knew. He wondered if a situation like his had ever occurred before, whether some hyper-obsessed fans were ever actually on the lookout with owl’s eyes for subtle differences in their idols, waiting to see the soulmate mess up and expose themselves. Waiting.

Just like he was now.

“Three minutes!” someone called, and that was it, he couldn’t stay still. He began to head over to Namjoon and Hoseok, heart in his throat, but suddenly their presence just began to make him more stressed and he turned on his heels to drink a drink from the water dispenser. He couldn’t afford to sweat through his shirt.

Time passed too quickly. Time passed not quickly enough. He downed the whole cup within seconds, barely breathing, coughing, clammy, empty fingers curling inwards and tugging at the hem of his jeans. He gasped when someone behind him gave a quick “I’m just going to check your ear monitor is secure, Yoongi,” and he felt fingers tap something down on the back of his neck, buds being pushed harder into his ears.

I’m not Yoongi.

This time, Namjoon approached him, phone unlocked in hand. It was clear he hadn’t given up hope either.

“You don’t have to try and rap at all, remember?” he whispered, “we’ve prerecorded the songs, like always. Just try your best to lip sync well, and make some Suga-sounding… noises. You must have seen Yoongi perform before? You’re a big enough fan to be aware of how he behaves onstage.”

Jimin nodded, and Namjoon copied him, grabbing his upper arms, “I’ve got every faith in you, Jimin.”

“Me too,” Hoseok appeared behind him, “you’ll be fantastic. Like I said.”

“We’d better go,” Namjoon said, and took him gently by the wrist. The contact on his skin felt nothing but numb.

Chapter Text

At the time of the start of the concert, Jimin had been in his soulmate’s body for over thirteen hours.

He’d like to have thought that the day he woke up to and moved through as Min Yoongi had stretched above and beyond deserving the term ‘eventful’. The tiny little window of time that had given him a glimpse into the life of Suga so far was a world saturated in camera flashes and a perpetual state of semi-tiredness, one he’d not even been able to give his full attention to with the addition of all the worry and stress that had been sourced from his soulmate’s end. By the time he’d reached the stage he couldn’t describe himself as anything less than exhausted. Dog-tired, physically and emotionally drained – he wanted to sleep. But the heavy thrumming of the beat outside to please the waiting crowd triggered a dose of adrenalin through his punching-bag of a body, and gradually, despite his almost audible protest he – Suga – began to wake up.

His pulse grew faster and his limbs became restless, looking for any entertainment, grabbing Namjoon’s shoulders, waving to the camera that had appeared an unknown time ago. Hoseok was playfully rapping his verse in their new song, something that was causing Jimin to again project out his final prayer of please, just let Yoongi get here in time to perform the comeback. I can’t do that myself, I just can’t. Outwardly, he forced himself not to show it. He kept smiling and bopping his head to the music.

“When everything goes dark outside they’ll push us on,” Namjoon said with a firm nod, and Jimin was surprised to see the signs of nerves on his body too, and a shot of sad sympathy flashed through him at the fact that, damn, he’d been performing for three years, and it was still like this when he was about to go on stage. Hoseok, too, he noticed, had his jaw set too firm, and his shoulders were just too tense.

“How dark does it get?” Jimin leaned forward to ask him, wondering helplessly how anyone was able to communicate above this level of noise, but the sudden blindness that bombarded him was answer enough.

“This dark,” he heard him reply, just before the roar of the audience grew impossibly louder, and he saw glow sticks light up out of the corner of his eye, and someone was pressing on his shoulders and he was moving, sandwiched in between Namjoon and Hoseok as the backstage team thrust them forward with a hasty “go, go, go!” Jimin felt powerlessly cramped, just for a second or two, and then suddenly the entire stage was before him as a free space, open and dark and cavernous. The fans’ lights did nothing to penetrate it, but a firm hand on his guided him to his spot and then left him standing there, metres away from anybody. The three of them were due to start the concert standing a considerable distance away from each other, with Namjoon centre stage and he and Hoseok stage left and right.

There was a strange silence behind the cheers, and he tried to wrap it round himself, let him breathe for just a second in his bubble until the lights went up. Jimin closed his eyes and adjusted his footing, bringing the microphone to his mouth with both hands.

The moment dragged itself and he felt the time stretch painfully, ears filling with the sound of his own breathing. He could feel his pulse beat up his neck.

Just when he thought something had gone wrong, the lights bloomed onto his face.

He panicked for only a moment, blinded, screaming inside, but the music kicked in, and he felt how a single beat thudded through his entire body in one pulse. He opened his mouth and yelled his greeting to the crowd, falling silent as Namjoon kicked off the first song with his rap.

It was like Suga took over, when he joined in. His body knew what to do, what to say, how to say it. He closed his eyes when he rapped with the voice he adored and he felt the crowd there with him. Namjoon and Hoseok weaved around him as they moved down the catwalk towards the stage in the middle of the crowd, and instinct made him run to the sides as Hoseok’s verse played. Fans screamed out their lungs for him, desperately reaching up to take him by the hand, and he satisfied as many as he could before his back began to protest. Red recording lights mingling with glowsticks dominated his vision when he sat on his haunches and haphazardly threw a peace sign in front of him, smirking and tilting his head to the side. His shoulders moved to the beat as he stood up to join the others, voice feeding steadily into the microphone with only a trace of breathlessness.

By the end of the song he’d sweated enough for his fringe to take a wet hold of his forehead, clammy and sticky with a layer of makeup acting as glue. Namjoon looked over at him and winked when the lights went down again in preparation for the next song, and Jimin found that it was impossible not to smile back.

“Holy crap, Jimin,” Hoseok exclaimed, “you actually rapped your parts?”

“I barely realised,” jimin replied, gratefully accepting a towel passed to him by a stage hand, letting himself be undressed and changed by another, “I guess I’m a bigger fan than I thought.”

“It’s the Suga in you – seeing you now, you’re practically identical,” he winked and spluttered a tired laugh at his own joke, but then his voice levelled out, “really, though, you were fantastic. You did us proud.”

“Is Yoongi-hyung back?” Namjoon headed into the dressing room after them, scanning the area frantically, and Jimin’s face fell as he properly began to remember.

“I got a text from him two minutes ago,” someone behind him said, “Seijin’s gone outside to make sure he gets in backstage. He should be here any second.”

“-Are you allowed to be back here?” a more feminine voice suddenly exclaimed and Jimin’s stomach tightened. It was happening, he was here- if he just turned round.-

“Jimin?”

Oh.

He turned, throat remarkably raw.

“Taehyung…”

It honestly felt like he hadn’t seen him in days. The sight of his best friend on the threshold was completely sobering and he was so wholly passive when Taehyung entered the room without a second thought to embrace him, pupils blown wide, pushing past people like they were merely stuffed animals.

“Fuck,” he shook his head, “look at you, you’re really…”

“Yeah.”

“I mean I’ve… spent the whole day with him but I didn’t-? It obviously mustn’t have sunk in properly because – holy shit- look at you.”

Something that probably should have been a laugh came out, “I know… it’s – crazy.”

“We really need to talk,” Taehyung said, and it almost didn’t register to either of them that the room was entirely silent. Jimin caught sight of Namjoon and Hoseok, who were steadily getting closer to him, footing unsure. Hoseok’s lips were pressed in a tight line and he looked at Taehyung from behind with his tongue visibly pressing against the inside of his cheek, arms folded and posture stiff – strange even for the circumstance.

“We do,” all Jimin could do was agree, and he did so with a small nod, fingers curling into loose fists as he decided he might as well ask the question they were all thinking.

“Taehyung,” his voice cracked, “where is Yoongi?”

A small smile tugged at Taehyung’s lips and he blinked slowly.

“If you remember, Jimin, since forever, you know I’ve always been able to out-run you.”

“What-?”

“Park Jimin?”

Yoongi was panting hard, chest moving out and in like someone was pulling it. Jimin’s jacket hung off of one of his shoulders and a bag was barely contained in a weak grip by his right hand. His face was red but not quite rosy enough to glow, still recovering from the short but vital sprint from the taxi to the dressing room.

“Oh my God,” Jimin stood up by reflex, freezing to ice that seemed to melt as soon as it came. If he wasn’t feeling hot from performing before, he certainly was now; a low hum, emitted from an unknown source out there in the universe had whirred into existence and his gaze could only focus on him, right there, on the other side of the room.

“Park Jimin?” Again. Their eyes met and he swore that something shifted to life in between them, and Jimin knew that even though it sounded like it was his voice, there was a lilt to it that really, really wasn’t. It was rough and worlds away, so much emotion at once, impossible to place in feeling. The novelty of staring at himself hung over his vision, still, as he took a small step forward and nodded, trying to remember how to say “yes, that’s me,” while learning how to be in the presence of his soulmate without opening his throat and screaming.

“Kiss me,” Yoongi rasped, “quick.”

Jimin let himself be pulled out from between Hoseok and Namjoon, hearing a barely audible sound not unlike a growl before a pair of lips pressed hard onto his, teeth and all with it, in a way that would have been stunningly passionate if Yoongi wasn’t so desperate. He whined and tried to readjust the position of his neck as he was pushed towards the dressing table, cowering under Yoongi as he grabbed hold of his shoulders, barely stopping for breath. A sharp why isn’t this working that didn’t belong to him cut through his brain and there were stars that lit up behind Jimin’s eyes.

It didn’t honestly feel like him kissing himself, or at least that was what he thought. He’d never kissed anyone before – he had no idea that different lips might have different textures, but this time the moment seemed like it barely lasted and after Yoongi had released his shoulders from his grip, Jimin barely had time to even think holy shit before his world spun dark. He stumbled, choking, the echo of Namjoon’s cries fading as his vision did, all the way to black. What was upright wasn’t clear anymore and he lost his footing, banging his knee on something sharp and twisting his ankle as he staggered forward from a strange weight on his shoulders.

“Jimin?” a familiar deep tone rung through his ears, repeating like an echo but sounding closer each time. The best he could respond with was a low moan, strangled and fatigued, pouring out his throat. A pair of hands hooked under his armpits, catching him before he relaxed completely, the warmth of them even managing to seep through whole layers of clothing.

Vision clearing, he looked up into the unreadable gaze of Min Yoongi.

His eyes were searching, that was for sure. Trained on his face, Jimin watched as his soulmate panted, face flushed because, holy shit, Jimin had made it flushed before they’d switched back. He watched him swallow and straighten up, bringing Jimin all the way to his feet with him, hands moving to run down under his arms until they reached his palms, squeezing them for barely a second before retreating to his sides. The expression on his face was something subtle, something almost not there yet so strong, but Jimin couldn’t place it. He was too busy having his own internal crisis as well.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours, stock still, half a metre away from each other, hearts probably beating in time, until Yoongi cleared his throat so loud that Jimin physically jumped.

“I, uh…” he began, and Jimin leaned closer without realising, “Jimin… listen, I’ve got-“

“Yoongi!” one of the managers, name completely forgotten, called loudly from the other side of the room, “have you switched back? I really need to go over this quick, you’re due to be back on stage in three minutes.”

Sorry.

Jimin blinked, and by the time he was finished they were no longer close at all. Despite all the people around him the world all of a sudden felt very empty. He tensed again in all the places where he had just started to relax, feeling Taehyung coming closer again but it wasn’t the same.

“What a day, eh?” he whistled, but Jimin could think of nothing. There was a dull ache through a spot inside him that was impossible to place, and he knew it must have been his soul.

His soul, which Yoongi shared with him.

His soulmate.

Right over there.

They’d done it all, switched with each other and found each other again after an efficient time spent searching. They’d switched back how other soulmates usually did, but now they were on the other side of Jimin’s eighteenth birthday, the side that sat hunched, looming in darkness and steeped in uncertainty. Where were they supposed to go from here?

A short distance in front of him, Yoongi stretched while nodding to a stream of words coming out of one of the manager’s mouths, interrupted occasionally by Namjoon and Hoseok. He looked so steady and so relaxed Jimin felt sick – although that could have been the rough switch back as much as anything.

Something cold and wet with condensation nudged its way into his hand and Jimin’s vision focused on the stylist that had been with him for the day.

“You should drink up, Jimin,” she said with a smile, “you’ve had a rough day, but you’ve done so well. Get some rest now.”

“But- Yoongi-“ he found himself saying, loud enough to accidently draw his soulmate’s attention from across the room, and he turned crimson. “He- we-“

“Out boys, out!” but whatever was left faltered before it left his tongue because someone was yet again giving orders that loved to stop fate in its tracks. Jimin watched Yoongi leave without seeing him turn back. He was like some sort of meteorite, fierce and shining but before he could be studied he just… disappeared. Fizzled out.  And Jimin’s heart hurt at the growing distance between him, so much so he began to trail afterwards, something about the screams of the crowd making his chest stir again, but it didn’t work, because Taehyung and a hundred other people were over him, seating him down, cooling him with a fan, asking if he was hungry. The on-site doctor even took his temperature and asked questions Jimin immediately forgot.

And if there was anything he’d ever regret more than this, more than succumbing to the sheer exhaustion Yoongi had somehow filled his body with before he gave it back, more than letting Taehyung push two sofas together and prop up cushions as a makeshift bed, more than allowing himself to lie on it and close his eyes for just a second too long which left him ultimately a victim of sleep, it would have to be the regret that he’d ever started listening to Yoongi’s music in the first place.

Chapter Text

It was a draft that woke Jimin up – what it was at that exact moment was unclear, but all the same a shudder of cold coiled up his body from his exposed toes. He yawned and stretched, trying to curl himself into a ball to keep warm, but as he turned to lay on his side he suddenly became a great deal more cramped, moaning and complaining in his head about whatever was pressed into his side and confining his sleeping space.

It was alright; he could deal with it, wherever he was anyway. Lazily, he smacked his lips together and buried his cheek further into the pillow and tried to settle again.

Until he realised the thing he was pressed against was warm. And breathing.

Jimin jerked, earning a tiny groan from whoever was lying next to him. It was low and rough and for a while he did nothing, because it was just Taehyung probably, having got sick of the heartless cruelty of a sleep only an airbed can give, he must have crawled into his bed to take advantage of the softer mattress. It was remotely comforting in a way, to have him there, a best friend offering support like this, the night before he was supposed to switch with his –

“Oh.” Jimin caught an eyeful of blonde as he rolled over, arms about to reach out for… that definitely wasn’t Taehyung-

-soulmate.

“What the fuck,” he whispered to himself, heart immediately pounding into overdrive despite just coming out of its break of sleep.

No sudden movements, he thought desperately to himself, despite the liquid fire that was bubbling under his skin at every point of their contact. As long as he doesn’t wake up, this is fine. This is totally fine. I can deal with-

A soft moan, louder and definitely a lot more awake than before, came straight from Yoongi’s mouth. He tensed as Jimin did – Jimin watched his back muscles pull tight on the creases of his t-shirt in the steadily brightening light of the dawn, daring himself not to breathe, completely at a loss as to what to say or do.

He watched, helpless, as Yoongi’s arm reached behind himself, feeling around for what was sharing the bed with him. His fingertips found the inside of Jimin’s elbow, and holy shit, if it was liquid fire before, this skin-on-skin contact was damn near the core of the sun. Both of them shot away by reflex, Jimin having to cling for dear life on the edge of the mattress until he regained his balance. The sound of his fingernails scrabbling for purchase on the bedsheets must have alerted him fully, because that was what it finally took for Yoongi to roll over, face a contorted mixture of tired, flushed and confused, blinking from suddenly facing the sun.

“Jimin…” he barely caught it, it was so quiet. The slightest movement of his lips, showing the very edges of his teeth.

“H…hi,” he swallowed and shuffled on the spot, unsure as to move closer or further away.

“How… are you feeling?” Yoongi’s voice was breathy, and he felt the warm air (were they that close? Holy shit) just manage to reach his face.

“I’m tired,” Jimin admitted, not really feeling at liberty to say anything else. Taking it all in, all at once like this was threatening to overwhelm him. Here he was, seemingly blessed by whatever higher deity made this world, waking up in bed with Suga. Yoongi’s eyes were only half open and full of sleep, but he saw how intensely they were focused on his – definitely not in the aggressive sort of way, no – but, searching. Like he’d done the night before, drenched in sweat and breaths exploding out of his chest. Without glass, this close, no hindrances, how soft his skin was was clear – paler than most, certainly paler than jimin. Dark, almost vulpine eyes, eyelashes catching strands of damaged but soft blonde hair. The thought that he could keep staring – maybe even forever – had made itself known and he cleared his throat when Yoongi raised his eyebrows. His soulmate had clearly just snapped out of some sort of reverie as well, but he’d been so busy just… being absorbed in his presence that it had gone mostly unnoticed, although it was impossible to miss how Yoongi licked around his lips and caught the bottom one in his teeth.

The last time he saw his face this close up was when he was looking at it in the mirror, and the feeling of now seeing it separately, as a spectator, caught him strangely off guard. He wondered if every experience of meeting one’s soulmate was like this, because no amount of pre-education had warned him of the sheer intensity of the whole experience. He felt like he’d emotionally been wrung though a dryer.

“I’m tired, too,” his voice was rough, scratching at the throat. He sounded a little like he did when he rapped, Jimin thought.

Yoongi cast his eyes downward for a moment, “listen, Jimin… I wanted to thank you for covering for me like that. You know, at the concert. I wouldn’t have expected that from anyone – I… heard that you were really good.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, “…it was mostly you anyway. You have a lot… of muscle memory around that.”

“I do?” one of them shifted in the bed, and Jimin was suddenly alerted to the faint presence of stubble on Yoongi’s chin.

“Yeah.”

Silence fell between them again. Each second ticked by, and with it a sense of frustration really built inside him. Not geared towards Yoongi, but much more himself. There was nothing tense there - if anything it was the opposite; Jimin felt so naturally relaxed lying next to him that it could have been that they’d known each other from birth. It was like he already knew the sound of his breathing, and maybe Yoongi knew his, too, and the smell he remembered being surrounded by ever since he’d woken up yesterday – that had also been there for forever, somewhere in the background. Waiting. He knew his own thoughts weren’t exactly processed correctly – at some moments ideas would appear at random, key words, phrases (how long had they been staring at each other now? What time was it? Where were they, even?), and it couldn’t have been anything other than because being here, like this, his soul was now complete, not like it ever wasn’t really – because Yoongi had always existed – but his other half was literally here, so, so close, just a little gap between them, one that only needed to be closed by the tiniest movement of lips-

“So…” Yoongi flared his nostrils and shoved his shoulder deeper into the pillow, and just for a second rejection flooded him because that was not what his body wanted, but then Yoongi’s fingers were raised gently to touch just the very ends of the outermost strands of his hair, and he must have felt it, too, what Jimin was feeling. So many feelings. “…we’re soulmates, huh? It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Jimin couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the very edges of his lips, like someone had tied a tiny piece of thread there, and was pulling, gently encouraging. Make a good impression.

“And I already know you’re a fan,” Yoongi said quietly, his voice not a level above a whisper “I mean… I woke up in your room and everything, and used your phone…”

“Oh, God,” Jimin felt his ears burn, and it grew more concentrated when the reaction made him drop his hand away. He saw it there, on the bed under his nose, and tried not to focus on wanting it back, desiring contact that he hadn’t even been able to feel, “I’m really sorry if that freaked you out- I mean… I heard you on the phone the first time when you were talking to Na-Namjoon…”

“It’s alright. I was just… I wasn’t in the calmest of places,” he admitted. Their legs shifted under the duvet, filling the gap with the soft noise as Jimin watched Yoongi try to arrange his thoughts before he spoke, and as he did so he realised how he could tell he was doing that. Perhaps spending a day as him had opened up a secret entrance into his mind; he remembered using his face, making expressions with it, wondering how his own emotions translated. There was still an uncomfortable layer of pasted on the surface that was hard to read, though, and he found he had to watch hard and closely for the subtle shifts and twinges, brain rapidly trying to commit to memory everything about such an now-important person in his life, everything he didn’t see before on the screen. There was so much of that, and a weird sadness scraped at the bottom of his heart somewhere that, really, if Yoongi hadn’t have been his soulmate he’d never have got this opportunity.

“I really am sorry,” Jimin insisted, and dared himself to reach out for his chance to touch him, and before he knew it his thumb was pressing the weight of a feather on his left cheek, “I was preparing for how my eighteenth would go for literally weeks – it took me so long to write that letter… and then I found out it was you and I honestly didn’t know what to-“

And Yoongi went to take his hand slowly, fingers curling over his palm and Jimin came to an abrupt stop, like he might as well as reached down his throat to steal the air from his lungs, attention on nothing else even as his soulmate drew backwards on him, creating space for some reason-

“Look, kid…” Yoongi rotated a little more back to face him. There was a tentative edging of his fingers along his skin, his hand not quite fully grasping his.

Regret coiled in his chest and filled him like a flood when he heard the tone. Memories of the night before had suddenly become so much stronger, so much more vivid. He pictured himself as he was, barely clinging onto the last few threads of consciousness, regret pricking at the corners of his eyes. That was right, he’d… told himself that he wished he’d never learnt about BTS in the first place, and even felt a vague resentment to Taehyung for encouraging him to get into them. But no, it wasn’t because he hated Yoongi. He could never do that. He didn’t know if hating someone so genuine was even possible for the human mind to be able to generate. It was just a weird internal pressure that gave him the strong impression that he wouldn’t understand it until someone explained. And with Yoongi now moving to sit upright before him, shirt riding up gently around his hips, that explanation seemed worlds away. But even so, it was clinging on, subtly relentless, and he tried very hard to push it away, because the downcast expression and heavy intake of breath on his soulmate’s behalf was clearly telling him that he’d need to be a good listener now. Something was coming. He didn’t like how he’d come to sound.

“I don’t know what I want to do about…” he made a motion with his hand, “us.”

Us. Sparks shot up his spine, I sort of get to be part of his life now.

“What do you mean?” Jimin blinked, and Yoongi sighed, scratching the bridge of his nose.

“Jimin, the thing is, and, like – I don’t want you taking this bad or anything, like Jesus, this is so hard to say, but… us? I don’t think… I don’t see how… I don’t see how we can work. After five years of being like this, I’ve sort of got used to not having a soulmate, do you get me? And now here I am, supposed to be with a guy that was a kid two days ago?” he ran a hand through his hair, “it’s rough, I know, and I probably really sound like a dick… but – not to mention the fans.”

So many arguments. There were so many things he could say to him, to assure him that it would easily work out. He could lean forward and complete that last little bit of distance again, take hold of his shoulders and set him straight because if there was one thing he’s always dreamt of doing and that’s kissing Min Yoongi but he’s already done that and now he’s actually here, and Yoongi’s actually sitting on a bed they’d spent the night in together after making out in his concert dressing room (albeit unconventionally) and there was just… no way he could let that go, was there?

But the mere idea of having to leave him after everything that happened; if felt like he was teetering over a precipice – if he said the wrong thing, the relationship that had only just started (had it started?), built out of tiny, fragile, glass-like things, would collapse and shatter.

He didn’t want Yoongi to leave him alone.

“Yoongi…”

So that was all he said. He tried to say it deeply, with feeling, with enough emotion in spite of his exhausted body. He watched Yoongi cringe at the sound and his heart screamed.

“Jimin,” Yoongi’s voice developed into something much sturdier, not colder, but definitely harsher, “we barely know each other…”

“Isn’t that the idea? Isn’t the chance of knowing your soulmate literally almost zero?”

“I guess, but…” he crossed his legs, “with us it’s – dfferent.”

“It’s not because we’re both guys, is it?”

“…What?”

“-Because that’s a really old-fashioned outlook to have on soulmates-”

“God – God, no, I was not thinking that at all. Don’t put words in my mouth-“

He blushed – no, that was taking it far too far, and Jimin mentally slapped himself for ever suggesting something as low as that. He wanted the duvet to wash over him like a wave and drown him in fabric. “-Sorry-“ he croaked, “I shouldn’t have suggested that – that’s… yeah.”

Jimin watched the faint action of Yoongi shaking his head, just a little, from side to side.

He had to know.

“So… you’re just telling me you… don’t feel anything? I thought soulmates were supposed to… you know…”

“Oh my God, Jimin,” Yoongi wiped his hands down his face, turning his head to the ceiling, “don’t put me into a corner like that.”

“So you do?”

“Jimin, please. I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. I woke up yesterday morning in a bedroom full of my own face and a guy who couldn’t brush his teeth without getting saliva on the floor. That’s not something I wanted.”

Oh no. No. He was losing him, slipping over that precipice, maybe by just his fingers now. His tone was losing that newly-soulmated love people talked about, the infatuation, holy shit, he might as well as reached into him and pulled it all out of him himself. Asking such shitty questions when Yoongi – Suga – was probably going through the same motions as he was .

“I’m sorry.”

Yoongi let out a long breath, muffled by the palms pressed against his lips, “don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. And as for who put us like this, well… I need to talk to them, as well.”

“Yoongi…”

“Just- I need to be alone. I’m going to the bathroom. I’ve got to process some shit.”

Nodding back was the best thing to do, and as Yoongi got up Jimin didn’t make any move to follow him (why would he need to? Was that a thing soulmates did?), fingers tracing wrinkles in the sheets. He was only vaguely aware of where they were – a hotel room, for sure, and by the wallpaper it was probably the same one Yoongi had been staying in for the concert, just a different room. Other than that he was oblivious, even to the time of day apart from how it must have been some time during the morning. The window had to have been open, too, because a draft needed to come from somewhere, and suddenly it was making the room grow cold.

The breeze wasn’t welcome, and Jimin buried his bare arms under the duvet as he retreated further underneath, wondering if the drop in temperature might have actually been Yoongi’s absence.

Chapter Text

Some amount of time must have passed since Yoongi went into the bathroom, because even though Jimin did nothing, he still watched as the light creeped slowly further up the wall. The faint floral pattern had caught the morning sun and its glossy layer was reflecting it right back, filling the dim room a little more with light from the late sunrise. Silence was everywhere, though – a dominating figure that loomed between every particulate in the air, and he helplessly gripped the duvet, not entirely realising that the fear might be coming from the absence of noise from his soulmate.

Should he give in to his indecisiveness and actually get up and out? Over to knock on the door? Just a little bit of convincing; surely that was all Yoongi needed? Reassurance? The bed felt surprisingly empty as he lay there, and his eyes traced over the dents Yoongi had left in the pillow as he burrowed the duvet closer with a low and frustrated whine, catching his soulmate’s scent as he did so. His mind immediately flew back to the day before, when he’d been surrounded in it constantly, and he found his chest ache a little.

But as bad as it sounded – even to himself – he had to admit he understood. Yoongi must have got a good look at his life, after all. The posters everywhere, and his phone. The couple of prized BTS shirts in his wardrobe, a birthday gift from Taehyung. He wondered what his thoughts were when he opened it to look for something to wear. Honestly, and with his family the way it was, who in their right mind would willingly accept that into their life?

The sound of keys filling a lock startled him upright, and his head turned rapidly to face the door, not sure why he was getting so worked up. In a few seconds the lock had clicked and the door had swung open.

“Oh, Jimin, you’re awake? Hi,” it was Namjoon, fully dressed in skinny jeans and a black shirt. A small bag was slung over one shoulder, which he quickly removed over his head and settled down as the door closed.

“H-hi,” Jimin struggled to be coherent, sitting up, running a hand through his bed-mussed hair. He hadn’t realised how out of it he was.

“Are you feeling better?”

“…I think so.”

“That’s good,” Namjoon let out a long sigh and scratched the back of his head as he came forward, eyes fixed on the empty space next to Jimin on the bed, “-where’s…?”

“He’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh-“ a frown spread across his face and he looked down at Jimin with furrowed brows.

“He’s been in there… a while,” Jimin tried not to meet his eyes, unsure whether he should speak loudly or not, “I don’t think he’s happy, Namjoon. He swore and told me he doesn’t want… us… to be a thing.”

“…I was afraid you’d say that.” He winced.

“I’m so sorry,” he rubbed his arm, catching on the hem of his shirt with each movement. The more time he spent away from the duvet, without Yoongi’s body heat – which had somehow suddenly become so vital, the colder his skin grew. He felt goosebumps prickle and hairs raise on his forearm.

“What for?” Namjoon’s voice was soft but strained as he made his way over to the bed.

“All this… I’ve messed this all up…” he looked away and ran his tongue over his lips, “Yoongi… he – doesn’t like me. I mean, I knew before that he wouldn’t like I said to you before we went on stage but… and I know you said it wasn’t a good time or anything, but… now we were here… and we woke up like this, I’ve realised-“

“Oh, Jimin,“ he didn’t sit down on the bed, but instead made to crouch down beside him, eye level, elbows loosely planted on his knees. Namjoon watched him react to the pained sympathy in his voice with a face that only reflected it, and he held his gaze softly, calmly. “Jimin, listen to me – you’ve got to listen for a second before you start blaming yourself for something completely natural, okay? Listen?”

Jimin swallowed.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Namjoon rubbed his forehead, and it made Jimin’s heart leap, because for a second it seemed like no one started a sentence like that if it wasn’t going to finish with bad news, but then he continued. “I… we – meaning Hoseok, and I – even the managers – we don’t like where this is headed. I know it can’t be anything close to what you’re feeling, but I want you to know that we’re on your side here.”

“B-but – Yoongi is your-“

“All the more reason for me to know him well, isn’t it?” he tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, “and I can tell you now that this isn’t regular behaviour from him. He’s acting up, and I sort of guessed that he was going to, so I came here as soon as I could this morning to help smooth out the wrinkles but…” he trailed off and bit his lip, “it seems I’m a little late.”

“Namjoon, really, I’m sorry.”

“Jimin, really, don’t apologise. You have nothing to be sorry for, and I’m only going to be accepting those sorts of words from-“ and he cleared his throat, raising his voice just a little, “-certain people who can’t adm-“

“-Joon…” a softer voice entered earshot, cutting him off despite the much lower volume. Both Jimin and Namjoon whipped round, hearing the door creaking as a silhouette drew into the room. The shadows fell away quickly with his pace, and Jimin watched the outline of the oversized jumper and skinny jeans gather colour until a whole man was standing there, at the foot of his bed with a phone in his hand.

“Ah…” Namjoon let out a long breath and his muscles visibly relaxed as he stood up, pulling the slightly smaller man close to him, burying his face in the pink fabric of his top. Jimin wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but the hotel door had long since pulled itself closed with a low click, and some amount of cars passed on the road outside before the they lifted their heads to look at each other properly.

“I came as soon as I heard,” the stranger said, and made a gesture to his phone which gained a little distance between them.

“But, the restaurant… Jin… you know I don’t expect you to…”

“This is a big deal, Joon- they can manage without me for a little while.”

“You- you didn’t tell them what was going on, did you?”

“Not a word,” he replied, and Jimin, thoroughly absorbed in watching them interact, hooked on the soft, intimate atmosphere, flinched when the stranger turned his way with a little smile, “you’re Park Jimin?”

Perhaps when a question was asked with that phrasing by other people it might have come off as too questioning, or suspicious, but his tone was unmistakably warm in a way that was far from patronising, and something about his aura made him want to relax instantly. But not in this situation, of course, things were far too… strained. Even his inquisitiveness as to who this was (which, admittedly, was making itself apparent enough already) was smothered by the faint sounds of the shower being turned on in the bathroom. Yoongi.

“Yeah, I’m Jimin,” he answered, wondering exactly how many times he’d had to do something similar over the last twenty for hours.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jimin took his extended hand, feeling equally warm, long fingers encase his own for a while, not failing to notice how Namjoon watched the action with a passive sort of intensity. It surely had answered it for itself.

“I hope he’s mentioned me in one way or another,” the stranger chuckled, “but my name’s Seokjin. I’m Namjoon’s soulmate.”

The statement made Jimin’s eyes automatically glide to focus on Namjoon, whose face was a little flushed, a tiny grin spreading at the very edges of his lips. For an instant the atmosphere hung like that, until Jimin blinked something away from his eyes, perhaps encouraged a little by how one of their smiles might have faltered unsurely, and the realisation hit him.

Namjoon had found his soulmate. Rap Monster, of BTS, had found his soulmate, since god knows how long. And he – no one- had had a clue at all.

Really, what had the universe condemned him to? The same question he’d kept asking himself, now a vague hope dawning inside because here, in the flesh, there was someone sailing in the same boat. The boat out at sea, miles away from nothing, anchored in water that seemed still but could be angered by a storm at any moment. The information did more than just surprise him – it had done more than terrified and worried him like it should have done. This was a much more… practical sort of dread, a breathing example that an idol could have a secret relationship for years and still be happy (were they happy? By the way that they greeted each other, they appeared to be happy). He was a goal that Jimin would be feeling the pressure to live up to, if Yoongi wasn’t so… the way he was. It made him tense and drive his fists patiently into the mattress.

“Yoongi’s yours, right?” Seokjin confirmed.

Jimin nodded, “yeah, but I’m sure Namjoon’s told you… well…”

“You don’t have to say anymore,” Namjoon said, “I think this is easy enough to understand.” And with that his soulmate and Jimin followed his gesture to the far wall, the low hum and rumble of the hotel shower passing through it.

Jimin supposed that it was a lot of teenager’s dreams to end up with someone famous as their soulmate. It was the best and easiest market, after all; the only demographic that could accept romance and dating as part of a singer’s branding, because what was the point of catering in that way to an older audience that was set for life with their own soulmate? The industry thrived on keeping idols free and available – bargaining on that the fans would hold on to the notion that one day, the performer they see up there on the stage might actually be theirs, because all they could see was a single man or woman, unclaimed by fate and belonging to everyone. And perhaps Jimin had fallen victim to it as well. He couldn’t deny, all the events from the last day aside, that he’d entertained the idea of Yoongi just possibly being his soulmate more than a few times in the past.

But now he’d come out on the other side of that. Albeit just barely, but here he was all the same. Park Jimin, soulmate of Min Yoongi.

What a title.

If only Yoongi actually wanted to share it.

“Jimin?” it was the second time that day that Seokjin had interrupted something in such a quiet way, even if this time it was just his thoughts, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and unpack some stuff… but I think it’s a good idea if we talked later.”

“Talked?” he echoed, failing by just a little to process it completely.

“Yes, about – you know – soulmate business.”

Questions gathered weight in Jimin’s mind and he felt an aching relief that there was now something else in his heart other than worry over Yoongi – a small, kindling flame of curiosity about Seokjin and Namjoon’s experience together as soulmates, all this time, hidden so simply from the world. He wanted to ask them how it had all happened and how it had been kept out of the public eye so long, and as long as the shower was thrumming he felt he could do that, because at this point in time Yoongi was somewhere else, far away like he said he wanted to be, and maybe that was okay – because who wouldn’t give their soulmate exactly what they wanted? Who would deny them anything?

And Jimin thought sadly that that was maybe what he needed to do.

Maybe that was what his regret was – the regret he was feeling about knowing BTS. The regret that he couldn’t be good enough.

Chapter Text

Watching Namjoon and Seokjin leave made Jimin swallow dry. The door closed with a soft thud, and with it had brought a heavy atmosphere that had quickly begun to settle on the furniture. He’d known Namjoon’s soulmate for all of five minutes, but his absence caused his stomach to sink and his lips change from what had been just a straight line into a frown. Having BTS members as soulmates – a spark had ignited inside him from the excitement of the commonality he and Seokjin shared. It was quickly becoming impossible to deny. He wanted very badly to get to know him better.

The sound of the shower stopped not long after, and rather than panicking over what that meant, Jimin took the signal to hastily get dressed. He’d spotted his suitcase propped up next to the TV cabinet, and it only served to remind him that someone had a lot of explaining to do. He didn’t even know what time it was; if Namjoon had mentioned it, it had been forgotten. And actually, he began to realise as he fumbled through his small collection of clothes, how little he could remember from the day before. Strange flashes of hot chocolate and vast expanses of clouds were fading in and out in the corners of his vision, and with a swallow he shook his head. Of course, the answer was simple. Despite the sleep there was no way he could not be tired – after all, his mind had been relocated twice over the past few days. It would be concerning if something like that didn’t do a number on him.

Sighing a little through his nose, Jimin eventually decided on a basic combination of acid wash jeans and an old t-shirt (not that there was much of a selection on offer in the first place – but Yoongi hadn’t packed anything awful, which he was grudgingly thankful for). He pulled a pair of socks on and slumped down on the bed again. It felt uncomfortable now that he’d changed clothes, but he shuffled to face the mirror on the wall anyway, fingers in his hair, slowly starting the process of arranging as best he could out of its current bird’s nest state.

“I’m sorry about your hair.”

Jimin nearly screamed.

Yoongi was in the middle of the room, a few feet away. A towel was slung around his neck and his bleached hair was dripping onto it at irregular intervals, slowly on its way to drying. His face was a little rosy from the heat and humidity of the shower and it took Jimin a while for his pulse to settle before he responded.

“My… hair?” he blinked, nervously glancing back and forth between him and the mirror.

“Yeah, I sort of didn’t do anything with it yesterday, so I’m sorry. I hope it’s not messed up.”

“It’s… okay,” he wasn’t quite sure what Yoongi meant by his apology anyway, so he replied slowly, careful about his tone.

His soulmate gave a firm nod, inhaling deeply before walking back into the bathroom again. This time, he didn’t close the door, and Jimin could hear him cluttering around, picking up and putting down bottles, brushing his teeth, turning the tap on and off. He sat and listened for a while – half out of sheer apprehension because he really had no idea what they were supposed to be doing with themselves – and half because there was an extreme lack of things to do in the first place. Apart from brush his own teeth, but there’s no way he was emotionally stable enough to enter such a cramped space at the same time as Yoongi. He’d have to wait.

And what a waiting game it was.

After a while, everything coming from the room fell silent again, and Jimin began to wonder what Yoongi was doing in there. He remained still on the bed, far too uncertain to think about moving, although it did get to the point where he craned his neck to see if the mirror would give him any access to the view inside. But to no avail; eventually he just lay back, ignoring the mild pain as the metal buttons on his jeans pressed into his skin.

Jimin had to pull himself off of the bed to respond to the sound of his phone, the sound coming from the pocket of his jacket. Someone had hung it up on a hanger near the door, directly opposite the bathroom, and he felt eyes on his back when he fumbled around in the pockets to find the source of the ringing. Perhaps what made it worse (although considering his own soulmate had practically denied any attempts at starting a relationship…) was that it was a BTS song.

God damn – for once in his life-

“Ah- Tae,” he answered after reading the caller ID, outwardly cringing even though his friend wouldn’t have been able to see, “did you have to call?”

“What do you mean?” was the instant reply, innocently confused until a much more sultry tone transformed his voice, and Jimin could hear the smile creeping up his face, “oh, no no – don’t tell me – I’m interrupting a special moment, right?” low, sleepy laughter crackled through the line, followed by a hum, “Jimin, I guess I was going to invite you down to breakfast, but if you’re busy then I guess-“

“No – no. That’s not it…” Jimin interrupted with a force that quickly dwindled, and after hearing Taehyung’s questioning grunt he just bit his lip, still very aware of the open bathroom door behind him. He could just glance over his shoulder if he wanted- “it’s… nothing’s happened between us, Tae.”

Perhaps he said that a little louder than he needed to, but he couldn’t take it back now.

His friend’s silence mingled through the static, and Jimin listened, wordless, as he waited for Taehyung to process what he just said. He knew him – he knew it wouldn’t be hard for him to work it out. They’d known each other for so long now, they could read every bit of the other’s face, voice, actions. Only a few seconds ticked by, but it was still enough time for Jimin to gather enough courage to actually move from the spot he’d planted himself in, back towards the bed with a hand in his pocket. Yoongi still hadn’t made any sign of appearing.

“Jimin, I’m – I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay...”

“Do you wanna still come down for breakfast? I mean, Hoseok and I only just got here, really, we- we haven’t eaten much, so we can sit and wait a bit longer... They even have these like little pancakes if you feel like trying them?”

Jimin swallowed, “yeah… I’m hungry.”

“Will you come down now?”

“I’ll make my way down soon. I’ve just got to get ready and stuff.”

“Cool.” 

Jimin realised that, eerily, it looked like breakfast was going to play out a similar way to the day before. When he entered the hotel’s restaurant, the familiar sight of the breakfast buffet lined up on a long table at the back, he became aware of half of the room’s attention being turned his way. He tried to hold some of their gazes as he looked around for Taehyung, but his nerves were fried enough already.

He didn’t know why he didn’t spot them quicker – Taehyung’s table was by far the loudest out of all of them, and it was just him and Hoseok. Short, bubbly bursts of laughter were being exchanged between both of them, but neither saw him enter the room. It must have been a combination between their chairs angling slightly away from the door and the fact that they were utterly absorbed in each other’s presences. It certainly made him hesitate to interrupt whatever it was they were talking about, and he became torn between standing in the doorway under the eyes of BTS’ tour staff, looking completely like an idiot, and breaking up a conversation between a fan and his idol.

Edging closer, he could see how Taehyung was effortlessly leading the conversation (of course, being the social butterfly he was, he wasn’t expecting to see even a hint of nerves), but also he observed how Hoseok was fully engaged in listening to him. The rapper had his hands firmly planted on his chin and his elbows firmly planted on the table, nodding and smiling at frequent intervals. And every now and then (how long had he been watching them now?) both of their lips pulled open to release huge smiles and giggles, which was how they’d definitely earned the title of loudest table.

Jimin was halfway towards them when Taehyung noticed him approach, and immediately – so immediately it made him almost uncomfortable – he sobered up. Back straightening, he nodded towards Hoseok and gently waved Jimin over, licking his lips with a brush of uncertainty. Jimin saw Hoseok twist round in his seat, craning his neck too to face him, a similar expression appearing on his face.

“Morning,” Taehyung was the first to speak when Jimin pulled out a chair to sit down on, “how are you feeling?”

Jimin just shook his head and reached for the jug in the middle of the table to fill up his glass. His arms strained with the weight of the water.

“Namjoon and Seokjin came and filled us in before they left to sort stuff out,” Hoseok made an attempt at an explanation, “so we know what’s up.”

He glanced over to him at this, hand curling around his glass.

“I’m so sorry for you – really. I mean… I haven’t met my soulmate yet, so I can’t completely relate, but – Yoongi… he’s completely out of line. You’re not in the wrong Jimin, please know this.”

How many times had any one of them said that to him now?

“Thanks, Hoseok,” it felt like he was pushing too hard on himself to say it, “I really appreciate what you guys have done for me… you have no idea.”

“No- no – if anything, we need to be thanking you.”

He blinked.

“I mean, come on! You saved our comeback!” it was a forced attempt at positivity, but Jimin appreciated the sentiment, “we posted the MV when the concert was done, and it’s already got to almost five million views!”

“I can guarantee that I was almost every one of those,” Taehyung said, and Hoseok turned to grin at him.

“Yeah! But Jimin… really though… you saved that concert. Saved it. We can’t thank you enough.”

The flush that filled his face couldn’t be avoided, and whatever Hoseok was trying to do to distract him was shamefully working, because before he knew it his plate was being filled up with the promised pile of pancakes. He didn’t realise how starving he was until he took the first bite, and the staff were easy to ignore while he was eating. Content – but only temporarily, and this was something he consciously knew –Jimin watched Hoseok and Taehyung continue the conversation they were having before he arrived. It seemed to be something about food, which didn’t surprise him all that much.

Soon afterwards the three were joined by equally hungry Seokjin and Namjoon. Jimin caught himself looking at the former on a number of occasions, but he seemed far too engrossed in the combination of Taehyung’s story about the stray cat they’d found the year before and swapping loving glances with his soulmate to do the same.

That didn’t surprise him all that much, either. To have a soulmate that actually wanted you back…

“Oh, you’ve got to come and visit,” Taehyung was urging him, the conversation having become about Jungkook’s mum’s cafe “Jimin eats there for breakfast like every day, and I usually join him. They have these amazing bread baskets…”

Hoseok nodded his head, “when we get the time,” he promised, “I’ll come and say hi to you guys.”

“Oh-“ Namjoon suddenly sat up, the squeak of his chair legs on the floor catching everyone’s attention, “it’s Seijin… Jimin, he’s texted that he’s booked your flight home for two.”

“You’re going?” Seokjin exclaimed through a mouthful of food, eyes darting straight towards Jimin, “already?”

Taehyung and Hoseok exchanged glances.

“This is news to me, too…” Namjoon half went for a shrug, “I don’t think this was a planned thing. I think they wanted Jimin to stay with Yoongi-hyung a little longer, but I guess they decided that one night’s sleep was enough,” he put down his chopsticks and scratched back of his neck, “Jin… I suppose this means I owe you an apology for dragging you all the way out to Thailand…”

“It can’t be helped,” Seokjin patted his soulmate’s back, and Jimin found himself pining for something again, fixated on watching the way the pads of his fingers brushed gently along Namjoon’s shoulder before falling back onto his lap. “Just think of it as a special visit for me to see you,” he suggested with a small smile, and once Namjoon returned it (guilt still filling in the lines of his face), Seokjin moved his attention to Jimin. “I still think we need to talk, though… do you mind if we exchange numbers, or…?”

“Oh, oh!” Hoseok followed him in suit to reach for his own phone, “Jimin, take mine, too. I already gave it to Taehyung just in case, but it can’t hurt giving it to you as well-”

Jimin quickly found himself cradling a pile of mobile phones, and he cursed his small hands as he desperately looked for a spot on the table unoccupied by food to settle them all down. Taehyung helped once he realised what was going on, and also read out the numbers one by one as Jimin filled out the new contact pages.

It was more like he heard himself repeat each digit back to his friend for confirmation – his mind was a little hazy as he typed. Just how lucky was he to now be in possession of the phone numbers of all three members of BTS? He had no idea if it was something that people actually put a value on, but his little Samsung must now have been worth thousands.

He wondered.

Was this all because they felt bad?

Or maybe, the question he should be asking – will he ever actually see Yoongi again?

The sudden finality dawned on him with an awful surge of ice in his gut.

Someone cried out when his phone slipped out of his hands, landing on a spoon that catapulted a small pile of rice porridge onto the floor. Jimin felt eyes on him (so many eyes on him today – it was like the whole world was watching), but more importantly he felt his own eyes burning because now – now the truth was settling in, and he felt all kinds of sick as his heartrate skyrocketed and nausea bubbled in his stomach.

He pushed his way out of his chair, and the squeaking was echoing and screeching and just all round awful.

His head was throbbing. He made a b-line for the door, miraculously finding his way between people with glazed vision, thoughts a terrifying loop of I’ll never see my soulmate again and perhaps the most heavy, the most existential I’m going to spend my entire life alone. They seemed to be the only ounces of his existence that would respond or work properly now – he had no idea how he managed to successfully navigate himself up two flights of stairs and remained dextrous enough with his entire body shaking to pull his key-card out of his pocket and use it to open the door to his room.

He locked eyes with his suitcase and did nothing but head to it, swallowing the bile in his throat down as he got to his knees. He needed to… go. Somewhere, at least. He could picture remaining here now, hanging around, only letting that terrifying concept in further. No – he had to distract himself, and he found his distraction in folding and re-folding his tiny collection of clothes on the floor beside the case. He kneeled awkwardly, shoes still on and pressing his toes at a half-painful angle to the floor.

It was when he had begun to search for his phone charger that Yoongi appeared, out of the bathroom again (did he live in there now or something?), and stared for a while as Jimin worked on packing what little he had. The room was uncomfortably silent – the only true sounds were Jimin’s harsh panting and the hurried thuds of his footsteps that were bound to be annoying to whoever was staying in the room below.

“Where are you going?” Yoongi eventually asked. It sounded dry.

Jimin tensed up, hand freezing onto clutching the corner of one of the bedsheets “…home?”

“Already?”

“What’s it to you?” he asked. Yoongi’s brows furrowed, and a spike of anxiety ran though Jimin. Shit, he hadn’t exactly meant it to sound as rude as it came out.

“I just…. We haven’t…”

“…we haven’t what?”

Yoongi ran his tongue over his bottom lip and shook his head.

“Let me… help,” he offered, and made his way towards him. Jimin felt his skin heat up as Yoongi took each step closer and he cursed his stupid body’s natural reaction to his soulmate’s presence because it just served as a shitty reminder that any promise of staying in touch would play out completely different in reality. Texts will become excuses after schedules, and then even they would fade into ‘seen’s and ‘read’s, slowly getting further and further apart until it was like they were vanished, lost at sea.

But Jimin felt like he was drowning anyway.

“I hope I chose an outfit you liked,” Yoongi offered the conversation to him. Hell, even he sounded choked up with the way his sentence started.

“It’s a nice change,” Jimin wasn’t sure if he was being too blunt, but when he added “I hadn’t worn these jeans in a while, so yeah it’s a… nice change.”

“I have a similar pair.”

“…You do?”

Yoongi nodded, “…that’s why I picked them. They were sort of familiar, you know?”

Maybe later Jimin would remember that the reason he owned the stupid acid wash jeans in the first place was because he had seen Yoongi perform live on TV with a pair that looked absolutely flattering on him, and he couldn’t resist taking home ones more in his price range to wear for himself.

“Congratulations on all the views on the MV, by the way,” Jimin said when the silence between them began to draw out for too long, because apparently he had a masochistic side that still believed he even had a chance here.

“Thanks.”

Jimin watched him straighten up where he was kneeling by the side of the bed, “oh- I’ve found your charger.”

“Ah- uh… yeah – thanks.”

The white plastic was pushed into his hands, but it was impossible to ignore the electric brush of skin on skin that came with it, and he swore that it was utter reflex – soulmate or not – that encouraged him to look up, right at him.

Yoongi was staring right back, and Jimin wondered if their expressions were the same. He watched him blink and swallow, bite his lip, look away and back again. He watched his chest rise and fall gently under the semi-loose fabric of his tank top, cut low enough to allow an easy view of Yoongi’s collarbones. They guided his line of sight up back to his face again and why did they keep having to lock eyes like this, it wasn’t fair.

Jimin had to turn away at that point; it was just too much. He sensed that Yoongi did the same, but the afterimage of bleached hair was burned into his retinas too heavily to push away. It was like he was only allowed to look when he wasn’t actually looking, whether it was the Jimin of the past – the Jimin without his soulmate – looking through a computer screen, or the Jimin of the present, who only had the courage to stare at memories of what was in front of him out of fear of something.

Yoongi’s eyes, nose, mouth. The whole structure of his face was nothing less than stunning, and that was what was just on the surface. He stared at the afterimage again, drinking it in against his will because his body wanted nothing more than Yoongi anyway – his gummy smile, his legs that he had every ounce of confidence in, his pale skin –

He had to look again. Jimin snuck it, did because he couldn’t resist seeing the subject of three years of affection. Yoongi had drawn away from him, arranging the pillows with an almost tight-lipped expression. The shadows, he thought, were being cast strangely on his face – or was it the light? Because the skin under his eyes and patches of his cheeks looked a little too red.

But – no – it couldn’t have been. The truth couldn’t have been further away from some insignificant trick of the light. Because when Yoongi moved – when Jimin saw him move – his skin glinted. Only barely, just in two places for now. And it didn’t take a genius to understand what was going on. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t making any noise that made him feel the most awful about it – or the way it was clear how he was trying very hard to stick to the corner of the room, even though he’d definitely finished the simple task of organising a couple of pillows onto a bed. Whatever was worse, maybe it didn’t matter.

What did matter was that Jimin’s heart simultaneously froze to the core and boiled over at the sight.

Min Yoongi was crying.

And maybe he was crying, too.

Chapter Text

Jimin had seen Suga cry once before, and he could remember the evening vividly.

It wasn’t too long ago, maybe just half a year, but he didn’t think seeing something of such gravity would ever leave him. Well, now the situation had changed, there were countless things in the last twenty four hours that could top it ten times over – but still, soulmates aside, nothing compared to seeing someone you looked up to, admired and loved so much for their confidence, break down.

He’d been late back from school because his dance club had overrun, but despite being exhausted from the heavy practice he’d got home pretty fast - because he’d forgotten his phone that morning and Jesus knew that things only happened when he wasn’t looking.

Taehyung was sat on his sofa, but Jimin didn’t bat an eyelid; he knew how much his friend hated the dorm at his school. In fact, he’d be more concerned if he came home and there wasn’t someone crouching in front of the fridge, mouth stuffed with chocolate and halfway through a packet of Haribos.

But this time, rather than the sweetly guilty, puppy-dog look that only someone like Taehyung could pull off, Jimin saw a very different expression on his best friend’s face. His mouth was a low, thin line, and it made him tense as soon as he closed the front door, dropping his schoolbag and tucking his shoes next to the mat.

“Tae? What’s wrong?”

Silence for a short while, but then the sofa creaked as he pushed himself up and walked over to Jimin. His phone was balanced in his right hand, and without a word he held it up for him to see.

A short video on loop, a little blurry and shaky, but still a clear shot of a small figure on a stage. Jimin could recognise him as Suga even with the lower definition, and he watched the video repeat itself, brows furrowed but mouth slowly opening in realisation.

“Oh… my goodness.”

It was only fifteen seconds long at most, but what was happening was undeniable. Each time, Suga would take three steps, appear to look behind him for a second, swing his arm to his side and then curl up onto the floor completely, back shaking. Fans’ hands in the front row tried to reach out to him, and the clip cut off when J Hope and Namjoon found him, halfway through them bending down, probably trying to console him.

The initial panic of Suga’s wellbeing died down after he and Taehyung dug through tweets and fancafe posts – he’d just got unusually overwhelmed on stage. He even posted a reassuring paragraph to fans explaining he’d just cried over how thankful he was for everyone’s support, and that performing in such a large venue in front of so many people just got to him a little bit. If anything, his little statement made Jimin fall in love with him even more, impossibly. But that still didn’t make him forget the tiny, vulnerable form, seemingly helpless in a screaming, flashing black hole. And now he’d been on a stage like that, experienced that adrenaline rush as Suga did. It had added another dimension of realism, creating a new perspective he was still trying to understand now, in his mind.

But perhaps the most important thing of all, right now, was that he was seeing that shaking form again, except this time it was just the two of them; it was far more intimate, and he really couldn’t move from the spot, unable to do anything but stare as Yoongi tried equally as hard to avoid locking gazes. He sniffed quietly, and used the edge of his sleeve to wipe at his face.

Jimin felt so powerless. Every instinct inside him was screaming, through his own tears even, to break through the sharp wall of air between them and bundle his soulmate right into his arms and just breathe him in. Reassure him. Finally get to say the things he wanted to say all that half a year ago, when he’d watched him cry over and over again in his tiny living room. Now was his chance. Why couldn’t he take it?

The knock at the door startled them both, and out of the corner of his eye as Jimin turned to look at it he saw Yoongi react just the same, but nothing changed. Both of them stood there, across the room from each other. The wire of his phone charger was wrapped loosely around his wrist.

“Jimin?” Taehyung’s muffled, frantic voice was followed by another round of equally as frantic knocking, “Jimin, are you okay?”

Jimin opened his mouth, but every word he tried to say got trapped and caught in his throat, sharp and piercing like wire. Blood surged through his ears, washing a heavy feeling of shame down his skin as it pitched. There was no doubt in hell Taehyung was worried for him – best friend or not, who wouldn’t be after seeing someone pull of an episode like that? But there was just something stopping him. Perhaps it was Yoongi’s presence, holding him rooted like this to the floor. Maybe it was something intensely private, a moment like this between people like them. Part of him wanted to barricade the door until Yoongi had cleaned up and calmed down, no matter if anything was returned or not, and the desire to protect him like that was very new and very alien. He still had so much he needed to learn.

“Jimin?” he winced as he heard it repeated.

More knocking.

Yoongi pulled at the edges of sleeves again.

“Please- please, Jimin. I need to know if you’re okay in there, buddy.”

“I’m alright, Tae,” he couldn’t help calling out, feeling chills at the sound of his own voice.

Other footsteps were approaching the door now, and voices he recognised all too well came into existence.

“Oh? Ye- yeah, thanks-” there was some short bursts of shuffling, and then the very recognisable sound of a keycard being put into the door. Jimin wondered how he could hear it above the drumbeats his heart was pumping out, eyes darting away from the wood to look at Yoongi. His face was like a void.

“Jimin?” Taehyung pressed into the room without hesitation, so fast it was like he’d teleported to stand beside him. His arms came up to gently grasp his shoulders, and he was vaguely aware of someone else entering the room, too – Namjoon or Hoseok, most likely – and approaching Yoongi in a similar way.

Taehyung let out a deep sigh through his nose, head falling towards his chest. “You two, really… this…”

“Taehyung I-“ Jimin’s throat closed up, and his body shook with a cough. He felt his friend’s hands on his back before he straightened himself out again. “I want to go home I- I- don’t want to be here.”

“But Jimin… Yoongi is-“

“Taehyung,” (since when was able able to press so much gravity into his voice? He could barely breathe) “Tae he… Yoongi doesn’t want to be with me, okay? We know this. We all do. So what’s the point in staying?”

“-But-“

“-It will cause the staff trouble, so we’ve got to go. I don’t know who’s paying for this room, but I don’t want to rack up the price even more.”

“-Jimin-“

“And,” he tried to add, but there it was again, his voice catching – he felt his cheeks fill with colour as heat trickled its way across his face. His eyes burned, “and, you know, they’ve got a comeback to promote now. They’re too busy to have a couple of guys like us hanging around for no reason. I worked it out. If we want to be at the airport on time we have to leave by half past, so we should go and pack your stuff.”

“Jimin is right,” Yoongi’s voice stopped them both dead in their tracks.

If he and Taehyung’s conversation had been a song – a slow, quiet rhythm that glided back and forth as they argued in a way that wasn’t meant to upset – if that had been the case, then Yoongi had sounded like a scratch in the disc. Grating and jarring, not in how he said it but what he said.

Maybe there was a place at the back of Jimin’s mind that had, beforehand, silently hoped that Yoongi would break out of that strange, emotionally unattached shell of his and spring forward into his hands, burying his head into his neck and peppering chaste kisses over his skin like soulmates were supposed to do. The faith that it could have still happened, that Yoongi would pull Taehyung away and stumble out an apology for ‘being an ass’ like his members said he was… gone now. It’d vanished completely with those three words.

And how it stung him right in the centre of the chest that one of them was, just, by itself, his own name.

Endless months spent daring to imagine hearing Suga saying his name in endless ways, all full of love and affection and happiness – people did that, didn’t they? Other fans? It had been awkward to even ask Taehyung about it, but he liked to think that his friend must have done the same for J Hope.

But it was like that Jimin was a Jimin that belonged in another world, a world where, sure, he’d spend his whole like just wishing and imagining, but at least he’d be happy.

This Jimin, the Jimin he was now – he must have shattered off the timeline somewhere, crashing down into a world where his own soulmate willingly wanted to see him go.

So he might have brought it up himself, sure. Yoongi might have only been agreeing to what he wanted, but he couldn’t sense anything from what he said that was remotely related to hesitance. In other words, Jimin only wanted to leave because he felt he had to; he couldn’t cope with the idea of chasing after a soulmate that wouldn’t reciprocate anything, living in the shadow of a band like Jin, only getting to see his lover once in a blue moon. Yoongi, on the other hand, just seemed to want him gone.

He felt his body shaking. He heard the sound of his own breaths, thin and unsteady, rattle out of his lips like some twisted, dying machine.

Taehyung clung hard to him, sensing this. He must have said something, but Jimin’s brain was only functioning intermittently. It didn’t take it in.

What it did take in was that Taehyung was doing everything he’d wanted his soulmate to do, like this.

Jimin tried to meet his eyes – they were perhaps the only pair in the room to which he felt safe, but looking up and trying desperately to focus his vision, he saw them locked on Yoongi, both of them staring hard at each other, for what had to be well over a minute.

And for the first time ever, Jimin felt that his best friend was unreadable.

He patted his left shoulder and pulled gently. “Come on, Jimin,” he whispered, “let’s go home.”

 “I can’t believe this,” Jungkook ran his hands through his hair, “so you just- you just up and left? You separated yourself from your soulmate?”

“…Yeah.”

“Christ…” he pulled his fingers over his eyes and began to pace. Not too far, but enough to pick up momentum for his footsteps to mean something, “Jimin, how long did you actually get to spend with him? In the end?”

He shrugged, trying to find the escaping thread on the cushion next to him more interesting. Being lectured like this (well, it felt like a lecture, anyway). He felt all kinds of guilt, and sitting back in his own apartment in the dying daylight, surrounded by his two best friends whose faces held an awful combination of anger, frustration, concern and disappointment – Jimin couldn’t be any more desperate for the floorboards to curl around his ankles and pull him under.

“They slept in the same bed,” Taehyung leant forward, inputting after the long, stretched out silence, “so I guess they had a night.”

“Okay.” Jungkook stopped, arms swinging to cross themselves, “at least someone knew what they were doing, putting them together like that. Look – Jimin, I know you’re upset, but just help me out here? Tell me how you feel?”

A small laugh escaped him, but it fell flat, “I feel…” he tilted his head to the side, Taehyung’s face slipping into the corner of his vision, “empty.”

Jungkook knelt down in from of him, falling to eye level, “this… ‘empty’ feeling. Has it been developing ever since you and Suga separated?”

Jimin was silent.

“Jimin please. You said you didn’t want to go and see a doctor because you were afraid of what would happen if they found out Suga was your soulmate – I’m the next best thing here.”

Silence filled the room, all background noise pulled into the walls or kept trapped outside by the windows. It was like the flow of time only resumed, like the sound of their collective breathing and the distant radio playing only began again when Jimin finally worked out his reply.

“…It sort of started… after he said that he didn’t want us to be together. I didn’t notice it at first because, well… the shock of him saying that and everything…”

“I understand.”

“But now… yeah. My stomach hurts, but not in a way I can really describe. And my head… there’s this headache, like… it doesn’t hurt, but it’s…” he trailed off, biting his lip. Jungkook was looking at him intensely, searching for something in his eyes.

Jimin stood up, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic.

“Look, Jimin, I know you know all this shit, but we don’t understand much about soulmates. We haven’t needed to, because doesn’t it all just usually work out? That’s what’s so fascinating… we don’t question it, fate works it out for us so perfectly. But –“ he sat down on the empty armchair beside him, pulling him back down, “let’s not go into detail right now. That’s not what we need. Yoongi must be taking quite the beating, too, Jimin. Don’t think you’re alone, here.”

 “-If that’s the way you want to comfort yourself about this, of course,” Taehyung added pointedly.

“So what exactly are you suggesting we do, Kookie?”

The youngest of the three slumped back with a sigh, carding a hand through his hair, “we can easily work out why they tried to get rid of him so quickly. They didn’t want the bond to settle in. Soulmates need to spend as much time together as possible at first to stabilise their relationship.”

Taehyung nodded as Jungkook continued, “so, I’m guessing their theory that just… letting them have a night to get over all the switching but then cutting them off was their way of trying to keep Suga open as a member of BTS – there was no way they could be sure he’d want to continue once he’d found his soulmate, so by reducing the chance of a strong emotional connection before they became properly bonded… it’s awfully pragmatic, but clever. I can see why they did it. I don’t doubt that other labels have done the same thing.”

Jimin blinked and wiped the edge of his lips with his thumb, “do you think it was like that for Namjoon and Seokjin?”

The question was mostly aimed at Taehyung, but it still had Jungkook leaning forward, “Seokjin?” he echoed.

“Namjoon’s soulmate.”

“Namjoon’s soulmate?”

Taehyung nodded, “now that I think of it, I get it. I mean, we could all tell they were soulmates, but it was like they were missing… something.”

“Woah, woah, stop – Rap Monster has a soulmate?” Jungkook flapped his arms around, “since when?”

“-Like Big Hit were purposely keeping them apart so that they couldn’t develop their bond properly…”

“Tae, just, stop- for a second…”

“…Guys,” Jimin ran his foot up and down his leg, “I’m not sure I like where this conversation is going-“

“Yeah, he has a soulmate. I think they’ve been together since predebut…”

“Predebut, huh…” Jungkook echoed, face wiping off blank as he sunk into thought. Jimin chewed on his lip as he watched the process, “and you say that they don’t seem particularly well… connected? Bonded? Not like other soulmates?”

“Well,” Taehyung shrugged, “they did cute little couple things, but – I don’t know, it just seemed different, somehow.”

Jungkook nodded, “there has been a theory going around for a while about that. But it’s so rare for soulmates to voluntarily separate that no one’s looked into it properly. I guess if your soulmate died you’d get a similar feeling, but then how can you distinguish between the grief and the bond itself? I mean, hey, who’d want to sign up for an experiment where they’re forced to weaken their connection with their only life partner? That would hurt.”

“Or leave you feeling empty,” Jimin said quietly.

Jungkook froze, “Oh my God – Jimin – I’m so sorry.”

“No… no. I think you’re right. It’s just… a little hard to accept. I suppose it’s easier for Yoongi, because he never wanted this in the first place.”

Taehyung’s fists clenched at that, and Jimin was about to open his mouth again to continue, but he stopped him.

“I think that’s enough for today. I’m so fucking tired, and I’m sure Jimin is, too. Aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe it is a better idea to do this another day,” Jungkook said, “…maybe some sleep will help you a little.”

“Trust me on that,” Taehyung had begun helping Jimin across to the bedroom, “the flight was awful when we were trying to get some sleep. He cried a lot.”

“Jimin, you cried?”

“Tae… please don’t tell him. Leave it.”

“Sorry.”

“Goodnight Jungkook…”

“Jungkook, can you show yourself out? I honestly think that when I drop him on his bed I’ll end up falling asleep just as fast…”

“Yeah, I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

Later that night, when Taehyung lay beside him, barely snoring in the darkness, Jimin was awake.

Chapter Text

Jimin’s eyes might have been dry, but all the same the void of a future that stretched out in front of him sucked any residual desire to sleep from his body. He felt like a ragdoll, and all the emptiness built up in his heart had given him plenty of room to wonder what his soulmate was doing. But if he pushed any further – if the image of Yoongi in his mind formed beyond a blurred mar of pale shapes – the fingers around his heart would just squeeze tighter.

Into the darkness of the room he unwittingly let out a small whimper, and rolled onto his side, away from facing Taehyung. The curtained window was before him, and the relief of its plain blue, cheap nylon fabric was like a God-send. As dull as it looked in the low light from the lamppost outside, it wasn’t a Suga poster.

He had no idea what to do about those.

Sucking on the inside of his cheeks, he curled his hands into fists and tried to bury himself further into the pillow, toes seeking cover under the duvet after decided they no longer desired the cold of the outside. He was still half-wearing the clothes he’d flown back from Thailand in – just minus the jeans and socks. His hoodie still had a vague smell of the breakfast room at the hotel, albeit piled underneath the grease of airport fast food and sweat.

It took him a good few moments to realise that the sudden illumination in the room was due to his phone. He squinted when he rolled over to the edge of his bed, looking down at the green light it was casting. Its vibrations were muffled by the thick rug, but the sound grew sharper when he reached to pick it up, and even in this mood Jimin thanked whatever god that Taehyung slept like a fully-grown tree rather than just a log.

Jin, the contact information read, accompanied by a cheeky-looking selfie he’d not seen taken.

Jimin tiptoed out of his bedroom and into the living room, closing the door with a soft click and a tap before he pressed ‘answer’.

“Hello?” he whispered, “Seokjin? Is that you?”

“Hey Jimin,” a newly-familiar voice was slightly crackling through the line, and he was surprised at the warmth, “I know it’s really early there, did I wake you? We’re two hours ahead and Joonie wanted to get up early to practice for promotions…”

“No-no- I was… already awake, I guess,” he didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but his voice squeaked at the end, thin in too many places.

“Ah…” Seokjin hummed, “listen, Jimin – I can’t call for too long, but like I said earlier I really need to talk to you.”

“About the soul-“

“-Soulmate business, yes,” he confirmed, and Jimin waited awkwardly for him to start again, “I doubt you know much about my own situation, but after what happened today… I think it’s best if I told you everything I knew.”

“Okay.”

Jin chuckled softly (sadly? He definitely caught something there) before he carried on, “I hope what I have to say doesn’t… shock you in anyway. I really think it’s important; I can’t withhold this from you...”

“It’s not like I haven’t had a rough day already,” Jimin replied quietly, “I don’t think you can do much to make it worse.”

“Jimin…”

“..I-I mean-“

“It’s okay. I totally understand.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be, honestly. Now, where was I? Right… soulmates. Look, Jimin, like I said I don’t want to shock you, but Big Hit sent you home early today to stop your bond with Yoongi developing properly. It’s… not really heard of generally, but that’s only because no one ever really leaves their soulmate after they meet up, at least for a while. They’re playing on using an underdeveloped theory in soulmate science to keep BTS free from any sort of scandal, and trust me, I know it probably sounds disgusting, but it’s the truth.”

“Jungkook actually mentioned that earlier,” Jimin raised his eyebrows, “but I was really tired at that point, I don’t…  I didn’t really understand what he was saying.”

“Jungkook?”

“Ah, he’s, uh- my friend.”

“Right. Just- don’t tell too many people who your soulmate is, okay? I don’t know what Big Hit will do if this all went public… And I’m only speaking from personal experience when I tell you this, remember. Because I’ve only even had one soulmate, so I only know one way, but- I just know there’s something wrong in Namjoon and I’s bond. I can feel it. And since you’re awake, well… I think that’s answer enough to tell me that you’re going through the same side effects.”

“Side effects?”

“No major ones, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Seokjin quickly said, and Jimin’s shoulders slumped, “I can’t really describe it, but for me, whenever I’m away from Joonie for too long I feel a sort of… loss? Or emptiness. Like I can’t sleep. I mean, he and I try to see each other as often as we can, so it’s always salvageable, but we still struggle because we don’t want to get caught. You’re lucky with Yoongi, though. They gave you a night- I… barely got five minutes with him at first. So I want to make sure I can get Yoongi and yourself to meet up as soon as possible and just spend time together.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t…” Jimin had waited for Seokjin to stop, a little out of breath over the line, before he made the light suggestion. All he received in reply was a confused grunt, so he added, “I think it might be better if we didn’t meet up, I mean.”

“Why?”

“Well, he said- earlier…. When I was with him in the bedroom, he talked about how he couldn’t really see us together anyway. So, maybe… it’s a good thing that it’s worked out like this.”

“He really said that?” Seokjin raised his voice a little, but the anger wasn’t aimed at him, “Jesus- he… look, I don’t think he meant that, really-“

“Seokjin, it’s okay, honestly. I don’t mind. He can carry on his career this way, too. I wouldn’t want to hinder him…”

“But he’s your soulmate.”

“So? My parents aren’t soulmates.”

“They- they aren’t?”

He shook his head, but then remembered that he’d have to actually make himself heard, “no, so… so… well – I suppose it hasn’t ended well for them, but it still shows me that a soulmate isn’t everything. I’m sure I’ll do fine without him – it’s what he wanted, and if there’s one thing that I want, after all this time being his fan and a BTS fan and supporting them… it’s for him to be happy. Having me there would worry him, Seokjin, I know it. He wouldn’t like it.”

“Jimin…”

Jimin swallowed, feeling uneasily like he’d had a similar conversation before. His mind reeled back to Taehyung, still asleep in his bedroom, and he curled a fist around the sleeve of his shirt. “I appreciate all your help, but I’ll be okay. I won’t say a word to anyone. Please tell Namjoon and Hoseok that I said hi, okay?”

“If this is really what you want, Jimin-“

“-It is-“

“-Then I really hope you don’t change your mind when it’s too late.”

A few people at school, after remembering that Jimin had turned eighteen, did ask him about his soulmate, but the faraway look that glazed over his eyes was always misinterpreted as him just being the older of a future pair. He didn’t mind that. He had no idea what would have happened if he’d taken it upon himself to go around and start telling people he was soulmates with Suga. The company had given him specific instructions to only reveal the information to his closest family member even if he disregarded what Seokjin had said.

Of course Taehyung knew as well – after all, he’d been there and taken Yoongi personally to reunite with him. Jimin got the impression that, being in on such a secret, he was expectant for him to talk about it once in a while, but he never did. The only time they did was on an unnamed day where Jimin had called him, quietly offering him all the BTS merchandise he had.

It had broken Taehyung’s heart to arrive at his house, wrapped up in a scarf to protect from the autumnal cold snap, and see Jimin open the door with a box already in his hand. It was taped over, with a sharpied-on Tae on one side. His friend gave a small smile and handed it over gently, letting it linger in both their arms for a while, a silent are you sure? sent between them.

“Probably best if I forgot about him,” was all Jimin said.

(When he’d got home, toes a little cold in his socks, Taehyung wiped his eyes, put the box in his closet and left it there).

It was really amazing how rapidly the time passed as it did. On the outside, Jimin was no different. He went to work, handed in assignments on time, bathed properly, went to the gym and ate three meals a day. Some of this time he shared with Taehyung, except now the latter had to be careful in the casual conversations he’d bring up. It had been so easy before, to just jump in about a new selca on BTS’ twitter, or a new Bangtan Bomb and laugh for a while (or for hours), but now for him it honestly felt like he was walking on ice. And – the ice was Jimin, indistinguishably thin and cracked in some places.

But in some places, completely reflective.

He knew Jimin was hurting, and that’s why he kept up what he did. It was like Taehyung was living two lives each day: the time alone spent just as they had before, glued to Twitter, Naver, the fancafe, searching for signs of anything to show itself. Hoseok hadn’t even texted him, and even though he understood why, that was his own little bit of hurt.

The second life was, he’d like to think, utterly devoted to keeping Jimin happy and healthy. Sure, he might have kept his routine, but only the parts that weren’t too fun to fade. They went bowling together each week, and numerous times to the cinema. Video games were always a hit to lighten his mood, although the atmosphere did become strange whenever a notification for V-app went off and Taehyung would pause their level suddenly, making rapid-fire excuses about needing to use the bathroom before darting off and unwinding his headphones to watch the live broadcast on the toilet.

(He had a feeling Jimin knew what he was doing, but neither said anything).

BTS’ comeback had been a massive success. They’d sold more albums than ever before (Taehyung looked at his two copies with a warm, bittersweet kind of pride) and won a lot of wins. The thank you videos never ceased to make him emotional, even now, even now that he was watching for two people instead of just one.

And with his own birthday drawing ever nearer – only slightly less than a month away, Taehyung’s life gradually melted into a strange sort of rhythm. Between taking care of Jimin and retaining his fanboy lifestyle, there had hardly even been time to count down the days. The thought of the chance of meeting his own soulmate sat uncomfortably in his stomach, half out of worry he’d end up in a situation like Jimin and Yoongi, and half because he just knew that he’d fall in love instantly, because that was how it was supposed to go. And how, exactly, was he supposed to fairly add time spent with his soulmate into his very Jimin-filled schedule? How would Jimin feel as he watched Taehyung and the currently faceless soulmate steal kisses on the back of heads and hands?

But he’d been dutifully crossing off the days on his calendar with a red marker.

On the third of December Jimin stayed round for the night, and he’d watched him draw those two lines. They were both reminded at the exactly the same moment. The sound of him putting the marker back down on the desk by the door made a strange echo in their shared silence, but neither of them acknowledged it.

Instead, Taehyung had (almost desperately) filled the evening with bowls full of popcorn, electric blankets and soda. But he hated the way Jimin watched the movie mindlessly, staring at the screen with a reflective film over his eyes that weren’t tears by a long shot – those had been dry for weeks - - but might as well have been, because there was no way Yoongi wasn’t always on his mind. He could see it in the way Jimin paused before opening something to eat, or pulling on a jacket. He was thinking about him.

He must have been tired because he fell asleep before the movie finished, face pillowed on the arm of the sofa but otherwise completely buried under the blanket. Taehyung watched the fabric rise and fall with each slow breath, looking for any signs of uneasy dreams.

The vibration of his phone in his pocket distracted him, and he took it out to look – a message from one of his mutual followers on twitter, a link.

Eyes widening, he sat up straight, taking half the blanket with him and exposing Jimin’s bare shoulder to the cold air. He grunted, waking up slowly, head turning to press further into the sofa before he too sat up, a little uneasy at the way his best friend seemed to be frozen solid around his phone.

“Tae,” he said, voice thick with sleep, “what’s going on?”

Taehyung just shook his head, open mouthed for a time, stunned into silence until Jimin took it upon himself to wrap his fingers over his shoulder, nails digging softly into the UFOs printed on his pyjama shirt.

“Suga,” was the only noise that escaped his mouth, and it all but caused Jimin to freeze himself, too.

Until, of course, he was standing, trying to untangle his legs from everything. Stray popcorn fell around him and he could barely navigate his way out of the small area, but Taehyung’s arm flew out by instinct, gripping his wrist, a shock of cold against cold.

“Jimin, please, I want you to see this. I know what you’re thinking, trust me. But I’m your best friend and I’m telling you that there is no way you can’t see this.”

“Tae, I can’t-“

Steadily, he settled the phone in Jimin’s hands.

The brightness was low, but the thick contrast of the black lettering on white was enough to catch his attention regardless. Not including what it said, because really, what it said made his heart fall out of his stomach.

“Suga announces indeterminate hiatus from BTS.”

Chapter Text

“Hyung. This needs to stop.”

Namjoon stood at the doorway, his shadow absorbed into the darkness of the room he’d just entered. The silence that met him led to the fumbling for the light switch, a low string of curse words tumbling out of his mouth until he’d found it.

Yoongi’s figure was lit up by the low-energy bulb, dim and flickering around his small form. He was curled up, asleep, on his desk. His arms were pressed loosely under his chin, his legs awkwardly tangled around the bottom of the studio chair – the closer Namjoon looked, the more uncomfortable the position seemed to be. He didn’t miss how his cheek was hard pressed against the wooden surface of the desk, and knew that it was going to leave a bruise.

As he drew nearer, the reality of the room settled in. The smell was rapidly rising in his nose – an awful mix of coffee and fast food, whose source didn’t take that long to make itself known. A pile of empty, crushed takeout boxes and insulated paper cups loomed over his friend’s sleeping figure, and the bin beside him was utterly overflowing. Not just with trash, he realised with a little dread. Dozens of scrunched up paper balls were bunched up between burger wrappers, Yoongi’s familiar chicken scratch visibly peeking from torn corners.

Another “Hyung,” burst sharply out of his mouth, and Namjoon hurried over to grip his shoulder, shaking him awake.

Yoongi’s head rose accompanied by a tiny stream of dribble, startling the computer screen to life as he sat up slowly in his chair. The white light shone harshly to reveal the heavy bags under his eyes. Each blink took an age to complete.

“…Namjoon…” he came to the realisation slowly.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Namjoon was struggling to find a tone that settled comfortably between worried, caring and scolding, so he tried to emphasise it all by crossing his arms, “why are you still here?”

“4am?” he slurred back, “Namjoon, you should be in bed, Christ.”

“And you shouldn’t? Hyung, you’ve been cooped up in this room for almost thirty six hours now. I’m worried for you. Hoseok’s driving himself sick because you didn’t come home.”

“Hoseok knows where I am,” Yoongi turned away with sharp shriek of the office chair, hand sliding over the computer mouse, “if he was so worried he’d text me or something. What’s the big deal?”

“Have you even looked at your phone, hyung?”

Both of their gazes trailed to the other side of the room, where a silver iPhone was shoved between two cushions on the sofa.

“Well, he could have come and found me. Like you – you’re here. If he really wanted me he’d come see me.”

“I don’t think you realise,” Namjoon grabbed the back of the chair, and he saw Yoongi’s shoulders tense, “we’ve been dealing with your scandal since you woke up three days ago, gone from the house, leaving just a note saying ‘I’m out’! He’s exhausted, hyung. He was dead on his feet when he got home. There was no way he could have made it down here to talk to you.”

“He doesn’t need to talk to me. I’m fine.”

“Judging by the state of this studio, I really don’t think you are.”

“Namjoon. You don’t have any right to tell me how I’m feeling. That’s my job.”

“Hyung, just, please. I don’t want to argue with you. You’ve done some out of character stuff before, but this is so beyond you. Wake up.”

Yoongi’s fingers crawled over his face, jaw twisting, “don’t you think that if it was that easy to do then I’d be out of this already? What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time? Write music?”

“…I-I assumed so?” Namjoon opened and shut his mouth a couple of times before speaking, “I mean… all these screwed up bits of paper, and how you always used to write lyrics when you were having a hard time…”

He shook his head, “none of those are lyrics, Namjoon.”

“What are they, then?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Don’t play games with me,” Namjoon reached for the nearest scrunched up piece of paper, rapidly unfolding it. The ground complained again as the office chair scraped over it, Yoongi stumbling to his feet to try and grab it, but he wasn’t tall enough. Namjoon held the paper closer to the light and out of his reach, arm locked in position even as Yoongi tried to grab his shoulder and yank it down.

It was hard to read with his friend hanging off his elbow, yelling and cursing, but after some struggling and almost falling over, he managed to decipher Yoongi’s familiar lazy scrawl.

And after he did, he stopped.

He let the paper drop to the floor. It barely touched the ground before Yoongi scooped it up, chest heaving, to read it himself. His face flushed red.

“You’re… writing letters,” Namjoon threw into the silence, quietly, “…to Jimin.”

“…Yeah.”

Yoongi watched him sit down on the worn sofa, creaking as it protested under his weight. He watched him as he stared at his hands, and worked his lips along his top row of teeth. He didn’t move himself, though – he stayed where he was, still sort of out of breath, arms heavy by his sides, waiting.

A phone vibrated somewhere behind him. And with the door slightly open, the room’s soundproofing had been lost, so the sound of cars in the street slipping past leaked in through the gaps.

“It’s been two months,” Namjoon finally muttered.

“I know.”

“I thought you said that you didn’t want him.”

“I do now.”

“Does he know?”

“…Know what?”

“Does he know that you want him?”

“…No.”

“Hyung.”

Yoongi clenched his fists, “if you’re going to lecture me, Namjoon, I-“

“After all this time, I still can’t believe that you did what you did.”

“…What?”

Namjoon curled the fingers of his right hand round the arm of the chair, picking at its fraying seams. His foot tapped oddly on the wooden floor as he worked his lip in the process of forming an answer. His body roared with protest when he leaned a little forward, because it was still nowhere near dawn time and he’d had less sleep than Hoseok. Whether that was information that he was planning to share as part of a guilt trip – that was still undecided, but he took a deep breath in anyway, and rub at the skin under his eyes with a sniff.

“We just don’t understand why you behaved like that. Towards someone the universe chose for you-“

“’-That’s a sappy cliché and you know it-“

“Jimin was probably everything you needed and you’ve gone and done the equivalent of… throwing him away.”

“Oh, so you’re taking it upon yourself to make me feel like shit now? Nice job, Namjoon, because that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling for eight fucking weeks.”

Namjoon felt the heat in his voice at a far higher temperature than that in his words. Shaking, he swallowed his reply back down, trying to breathe evenly. He reminded himself the reason why he came was to help and he let out a long breath through his noise, clearing his throat.

“I remember when he first woke up in your body- he was so in awe and overwhelmed he almost fainted when he learnt that he was soulmated to you. And then you went and just…”

“I had my reasons,” Yoongi still managed to grunt, “and just because I feel like shit about everything now doesn’t stop me from thinking they were justified at the time,”

“So what’s so vital for you that you literally turned away Jimin? What part of your moral standard holds itself above your soulmate?”

“…That’s private.”

Namjoon’s voice flattened, and he rolled his shoulders to stand up straight with an even breath, “now is not the time for privacy, hyung.”

“You seemed quite content with my personal soulmate status since this all started. You let me get on with it all. So what’s with all this ‘now’ all of a sudden? You’ve had some sort of magical epiphany?”

“If I’d have known that the planned separation was going to affect you that badly, I would have spoken to the managers,” he replied quietly, “I wouldn’t have- I wouldn’t have let you break yourself off entirely. You’re strong, so I didn’t try to stop you- I- I thought that because I can handle it, you’d be fine…”

“Oh no, no – no – Namjoon, don’t dump a load on me by making me feel bad for you now. I feel like shit enough as it is... God, I keep saying that-”

He coughed, “sorry… look- I… want to help you. That’s all I came here to do. I want to get you out of this state and back to BTS and maybe even Jimin or whatever you want because we all hate seeing you like this, okay?”

Yoongi’s fingers moved to pinch the bridge of his nose, “I appreciate it, then. I do. I just want for myself to sort it out alone.”

“You do?”

“I was the one that got me into this mess. Why should I drag anyone down?”

“Hyung,” Namjoon’s tone fell softer, almost a little desperate, “you know that part of our job as friends is to help you.”

“-I guess I must just be really, really, stubborn, then.”

“I can’t disagree with that, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah.”

“Now…”he patted the empty space next to him, “tell me everything. Tell me about Park Jimin.”

Namjoon shuffled his feet and twisted to the side when Yoongi finally finished hesitating and sat down. He pulled a soft, zebra-striped cushion over his lap before he did anything else, but Namjoon was determinedly expanding his patience, even if he was tempted to prompt at every hitch of breath.

“…You know how I felt about soulmates before my eighteenth.”

“I think we all did with the way you went on about it,” Namjoon half-joked, but the sharpness in Yoongi’s eyes caused his to falter, and he flashed him a sheepish grin that wordlessly asked too soon? And the whole thing just grew to amaze him more, because it was only with a pair that shared a similar relationship to them could such a situation be found. Trying to make a joke in the middle of an argument was a trait that their bond held unique.

“I’m sorry, hyung. Carry on.”

“Not getting together with my soulmate…” Yoongi folded his body until the sides of his shoulders touched his knees and he could make out every detail in the floorboards, “it’s what I thought I wanted,” he choked, “but once I realised how much of a fucking idiot I was, I just… it got too late for words. There’s just so much distance between us now that I don’t know how I can fix, and the longer I leave it the harder it gets to say something so I thought if I just rested and took some time out from Bangtan and just sat down and tried to fucking write something to Jimin -then – I don’t know? Maybe miracles would happen?”

“To make the miracle happen, you actually need to get a letter to him first.”

“I know, I know.”

“What sort of things are you wanting to say to him? I mean, well… I saw what was in that letter, but looking around… you’ve tried so many times.”

“It’s not so much the content,” he replied roughly, “it’s more… the feel. Jimin wrote me a letter for when I woke up in his body, and even though it was really basic, it had this energy to it- like his feelings were literally jumping out of the words. I’ve never been able to create that outside of my raps before. It’s hard.”

“It sounds like he was just being genuine.”

“That’s a good way of putting it.”

“Then all you need to do is be genuine back, right?”

“Quite hard when you’re not sure exactly how you feel, though.”

“Well, do you want him or not?”

“I do. I already told you that I do.”

“How much do you want him?”

“…Really fucking bad, Namjoon.”

Namjoon raised an eyebrow.

“Really bad?”

“Literally so bad that I don’t know how I’ve made it this long without him.”

Yoongi saw a smile spread across his friend’s face, and watched with chewed lips as he leaned to grab a notepad and pen off of the desk. He held it out to him.

“Well then, just don’t make it any longer.”

Chapter Text

Something on the television crashed, and a character in the movie screamed.

It was the only sound that dared enter the room in that second; nothing else could stand the tension. Taehyung was entirely still, his next breath held tightly in his lungs. He didn’t want to move. He couldn’t.

His friend stood half crouched, half standing, but all frozen like he was. Frozen expect maybe for his hands, which shook, just a little, as they gripped the smartphone. Taehyung saw his eyes scan the article headline, and his heart pushed up into his mouth when the pad of his thumb gently pressed against the screen, scrolling down to read more.

It was the first sign of something in Taehyung’s own private agenda, at least. He hadn’t given the phone back straight away. In other words, that was all but clear to him. The news they’d been given was a little horrifying, but it still served to answer the question: Jimin had not given up hope completely. He was curious. He cared.

Something that, maybe, he could work with.

If only Suga’s hiatus wasn’t bothering him so much as well.

“Taehyung…” Jimin stared at the phone in his hands, “why are you showing this… to me?”

“I thought… you’d want to know?” he tried, stepping forward, head throbbing with a sudden rush of blood.

“I… I don’t…I don’t know? I guess that I did?” he stared, swallowing after he finished pushing out the words, and then settled the phone down on the coffee table. Taehyung watched his hands swing to rest by his sides, fingers slowly curling into the blanket that was gathering at his hips “W-what? I mean…” his voice trailed away, and he looked down.

“Aren’t you curious as to why he’s decided to take a hiatus?” Taehyung’s voice might have been a little too highly pitched, “aren’t you worried?”

A pair of intensely tired but wide brown eyes shot into his vision, “you want to know if I’m worried about him? Tae, I literally gave my stuff away… I’ve- are you okay? Did you think something about me had just… changed overnight? I told you weeks ago, it’s best if I don’t think about him anymore, and here you are all trying to show me…” his voice cracked, “trying to show me stuff I don’t want to see.”

“Jimin-“

“-Maybe I should just go home.” His back straightened, and he ran a hurried hand through his hair, “I thought you understood me better than this, Taehyung.”

“No- shit-“ Taehyung’s hand flew out to grab Jimin’s wrist, but the action was far too sharp, and he stumbled to keep his balance. With a yelp they both fell, Jimin struggling under his weight as he was pushed back on the sofa. His arms flailed to get a hold on his shoulders as he tried to push him off. “Taehyung, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to help you, you idiot!” he panted, shoulders shaking, “Jimin, it hurts me to see you like this.”

“Like this? Like what? I’ve told you so many times I’m fine-“

“You’re not,” he insisted, as the pained growl in his voice faded into a whisper, “I see you every day and I know that you didn’t come out of that whole ordeal okay.”

“I haven’t changed as a person just because I decided not to be with my soulmate, Tae.”

“No. Listen to me. You didn’t decide that- you… you fucking let him win. You let him walk all over you with his shitty attitude. He manipulated you into thinking that it was okay to just break it off like that… it’s awful. It makes me scared, Jimin. I don’t want to get a soulmate like that. But at the same time, I don’t want my soulmate and me to end up perfectly. I don’t want you to see that and be reminded of what happened just because Suga up and left-“

“So you’re trying to get us back together just to satisfy your own conscience? Even though you literally just said how bad he treated me? I mean,” Jimin choked, “he’s not bad… it’s not fair to ever called Suga bad… he’s just… just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t know, okay? I’ve barely spoken to him. But I trust him.”

“You trust him? What are we even talking about anymore, Jimin? Do you want him in your life or not?”

Jimin finally managed to untangle himself. His hair was a mess from the scramble, and his voice was shaky now with exhaustion on top of everything he’d felt before.

“Suga…” he tried, “means so much to me, Tae. You know this. I just want what he wants. That’s it. If he doesn’t want me, then that’s fine. It doesn’t matter how I feel- what’s wrong?”

“Don’t you dare say that again, Park Jimin.”

“W-what?” he stuttered.

Taehyung put his palm to his forehead, his fingers slacking to cover his eyes. He breathed a sigh, and muttered about how he was far too tired to think straight, then gently took his best friend into his arms.

“Don’t you ever tell me that your feelings don’t matter. Idiot.”

“But-“ Jimin’s voice was muffled against his pyjama shirt.

“Don’t.”

They stood in silence, Taehyung’s grip was eventually returned. He could feel Jimin’s small hands pressed hesitantly against his back, and his uneven, barely-settling breathing against his chest.

“Let’s not go in circles,” he whispered to him, surprised at how he was managing to find the words to say what he wanted, “let me explain it to you… okay?”

“…Okay.”

“You and Suga… need to be together. You two are soulmates and that’s- God, that’s the most important thing about us all, is that we have someone. When I see you by yourself, just staring into space, I know that you’re thinking about him, and I know that you’re hurting.”

“But you said he was all shitty and-“

“I know what I said. And, trust me, I think he deserves the biggest punch the face I could ever give, but I just have this… this feeling. I really hate to say it, but I know that it can be resolved if you two found each other again. And I know I’ve only spent a day with him… but in that day,” Taehyung looked out the window, “I saw so many different sides of him. He’s damaged and a major asshole, but he’s just so fascinating. Maybe you can fix him.”

“You think so?”

Taehyung’s hands moved up to cup his face, and he crouched a little to even their height, “you’re my best friend, Jimin. I know you better than I know myself. Like I said, I’m reluctant to admit it, but I honestly think it will be worse if you two remained apart for the rest of your lives. Soulmates are chosen for a reason, and I think… I think that that reason the universe chose him for you is because it knew you’d be able to… help him.”

“Tae…” Jimin licked his lips, “I… wow… you’ve really figured this out, huh? Just by watching me…”

He nodded, a little grin blooming on his face “I’ve been watching Suga, too.”

“What?”

The utter force and desperation that came out with it made Taehyung feel like he was being punched in the chest. Their embrace fell apart. He felt like keeling backwards – his torso even curled slightly – but he steadied himself and wiped at the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. As he replied, as slowly and calmly as he could, he didn’t fail to notice how Jimin’s eyes glinted as well.

“I’ve just been doing what we used to do,” Taehyung said, startled, eyes wide, panicking all over again, and he held his hands up, “nothing more. I haven’t spoken to him at all. Hell, I haven’t spoken to any of them-”

“Did they try to contact you?”

“…No?”

“So they don’t even want to talk to us? That’s - see, then, it’s clear that they want nothing to do with us! Tae, please, you’re making me upset… I-I was doing a good job at getting over him and then you went and made me feel like I could do something and actually made me hope for just a second and now you admit to this-“

“That was only because I could see that you were both-“

“You’re not either of us, Tae, you can’t read our minds or even come close, so shut up!” Jimin’s hands had balled into fists, and his chest heaved. His tears had started to flow freely, running lines down his red cheeks and quivering lips.

“Jimin…”

“I was doing just fine. Now look at me. Look what you’ve done Tae. I didn’t need this. They haven’t even spoken to you. He doesn’t want to try. There’s no point in me just disappointing myself again.”

“I-I...”

“I’m- I’m going to go home now.”

“I’m sorry-“

“Please don’t bring him up again.”

When he’d locked the front door shut, Taehyung leaned against it in silence and stared. The regret was palpable in his chest – a heavy rock pressing on his lungs that was lined with a stinging, hopeless confusion.

He eventually picked his way over the mess and reached for his phone, which was still unlocked at the article. With a heavy sigh through his nose, he read it through again.

…Big Hit Entertainment released a statement this morning…

…Unclear reasoning, but we are taking a guess at mental health, based on recent remarks from netizens about his low-energy behaviour on stage at the MAMA awards on Monday…

…BTS had recently released a record-breaking comeback, surpassing their last album sales by 56%...

…Suga is unavailable for comment at this time…

Fragments floated in his mind.

With a dry swallow, he opened his contacts list and scrolled down to the entry named “Hoseok”.

Jimin arrived home to a cold house.

He robotically turned the heater on after flooding the living room with light, shivering to the sound of the boiler behind the wall. His brain felt like it had been fried, and his head throbbed with each pound of his heart, which felt unexplainably weak for the sheer number it was doing on his temples.

Thoughts were flying everywhere following his argument with Taehyung, and each one made him want to cry, scream and punch something at the same time. It was nauseating, and he’d barely been in his own apartment for more than thirty seconds before he could no longer escape the desire to go to bed. He was desperate to slip away into the blankness, just for a while. Just to let time pass.

His carpet was wiry and thin – Jimin felt it as he stepped out of his boots and onto the floor as he’d left his socks at Taehyung’s in the heat of the moment (in fact, he was embarrassed to admit that he’d left quite a variety of things at Taehyung’s in the heat of the moment). He shuffled into his bedroom and collapsed boneless onto his bed, not bothering to pull the blankets over him despite the cold.

There was no doubt that he was desperately tired, but the longer he waited, lying there, searching for something in his frazzled mind that would make his eyes droop, the further he drew away from sleep. Jimin heard the clock ticking the time away, counting down to the morning when there was no doubt that Taehyung would come knocking –because that’s just a thing that best friends did- unless, of course, he’d tried to send him a text, or maybe even called him. It wasn’t like they lived far away from each other- Jimin had just taken an age to walk home, cold and in his pyjamas like an idiot because he was too stubborn to take the time to change before leaving.

Yawning, and because there was nothing else to do, he reached into his back pocket and took out his phone. There were, as he expected really, texts and missed calls from Taehyung. But the thought of going near them, the thought of confronting something and making himself sad on purpose when he’d literally yelled at his best friend for doing so… he wasn’t ready to deal with that sort of hypocrisy. So he cleared his throat and typed in his passcode, searching for the gallery on his phone.

All he needed was something happy. A nice memory to remind him that things weren’t always like this. He hadn’t always been at the rejected end of a soulmated relationship and he certainly hadn’t always been suffering from the temporary loss of a friend, so the only reasoning his exhausted mind could give as an idea to help him feel remotely better was to simply try and dwell on the good times.

He opened the photos up to the day that he’d seen BTS.

Jimin looked at himself, at the one grinning back at him, and tried his hardest to get that feeling back. He looked at Taehyung, too, pressed close to his side. He could remember the warmth of his body and the soft buzz of the evening. The smoke drifting hazily before the concert started. Suga on stage – the one he loved then. He remembered how Taehyung had screamed for Hoseok and waved his lightstick like his life depended on it. Maybe he screamed like that, too- his memory wasn’t perfect.

God, he’d taken so many photos. He couldn’t count. Scrolling through them, one by one, he grew more and more desperate to relive that day. To just going back to being the Jimin that wasn’t the soulmate of Min Yoongi – at least not yet, because who knew when they were chosen? Living with that weird, hopeful obviousness sounded much better than what he was feeling now. What he was feeling now was awful.

The photos of the day did come to an end, even though it seemed like impossibility. He got to some photos of his room after he tidied it to show Taehyung, and then on to a quick picture record of the time they’d teamed up to steal Jungkook’s school bag. And that should have been it, because he’d really had no reason at all to be getting his camera out since his birthday, but it wasn’t.

There was one more photo.

He leaned closer to the phone, elbows digging into his mattress.

A self-taken photo, it looked like, except he couldn’t remember taking it – he couldn’t remember shifting his lips into that small smile and posing like that. Not at all. He blinked. Where even was he when he took that? His face filled too much of the screen to discern a proper background, but he could make out the fabric of a grey seat and the very edge of a window. It wasn’t much to go on, so he was curious when he tapped the screen again and opened up the window that took him to see the time stamp.

The screen flashed and changed, text filling the display.

13^th October.

The answer might as well have reached into his chest and pull his heart out – it would have had the same effect.

Chapter Text

The photo was taken at 2:23pm on the 13^th October.

When the clock had struck 2:23pm on the 13^th October, Jimin had been in a semi-dark studio with a freshly printed pile of paper, each one with song lyrics that he needed to give a once-over so he could be ready to lip-sync to the best of his ability.

There were no windows in that studio. Nor were there any grey chairs.

But even then that didn’t matter – anyone could easily say that maybe he’d popped out for a second to take a breather from the stress, or that his phone was clocked in at the wrong time and that he’d taken it earlier in the day or later. But they were no excuse.

He didn’t have possession on his phone on the 13^th October.

He wasn’t even in his own body on the 13^th October.

Jimin cradled the device in his hands. His room was dark and even on the lowest brightness the light it emitted still screamed at his eyes. He watched as his vision suddenly grew very watery and very blurred, heat building in his sockets and a short gasp for breath tugging at his throat. When had he cried last? He thought he was numbed by now.

Wet warmth slid down his cheeks and some drops landed on his phone screen before he gathered the sense to move it out the way, still utterly unable to draw his gaze away from the picture of himself – of Yoongi – that sat in front of him. He tried not to make a noise but that stupid smirk choked a whimper out of him eventually, mind flooding full to bursting with memories from his birthday, memories from every single day before that when he’d checked BTS’ Twitter or YouTube channel. He knew how much he loved him, and of course, he knew why now.

Yoongi was the other half of his soul. And his soul was crying for him.

It had been waiting since the day they’d first ‘met’, when he’d seen ‘No More Dream’ and felt that there was something special in the eyes of the rapper who went by Suga but only did sweet things because he loved his fans.

Not many people got to see their soulmate through some other medium before they met them, or in real life at all, but from whispers he’d heard it always sounded like one’s emotions would grab onto them like a pair of starved hands, reaching out for something familiar, desperately, even though they weren’t sure. Maybe Jimin had felt something like that. Maybe he’d mistaken his soul’s yearning for just infatuation. After all, Taehyung talked about Hoseok in the same way.

And now that his soul had had a little taster, its fingers barely padding the surface of its other half, that half that it ached for without rest; it was desperate to get it back.

Jimin groaned to himself. The existential bullshit aside, he still hurt. Something in him had been repressed too tightly, for far too long, and this picture sent him over the edge. He felt his tears flow freely, and it wasn’t long before his face was pressed, snarling, into the pillow, right fist balled to break the skin and left first balled to almost break the phone. He screamed and yelled, agonies muffled by the fabric, seeing no other escape beyond forcing every noise out that he had left in his body.

Time passed in that way, unnoticed by himself.

He didn’t know how long it took him to process the screeching and vibrating of his phone under his hand, lights all flashing green as the caller ID yelled Namjoon through the bright lights hitting his face. Jimin breathed out and gasped all at once, gagging, feeling his stomach churn.

“No-no…” he said out loud, a desperate whine, holding back another sob as his fist curled tightly against the ringing, green light still knifing far too harshly deep into his vision, “Namjoon… no, I can’t-“

He had to.

A shaky thumb pressed its pad on the tiny phone icon, and the ringing ceased to then give way to a soft burst, a hum of static, drowned out almost by the thudding of Jimin’s heart deep inside his bones. He parted his lips to speak, bringing the phone to his ear before his body forgot he had the strength to.

“H-hello?”

“Jimin,” came Namjoon’s familiar, husky tone.

He had no idea how tense he was until his elbows clicked and gave way from under him, exhausted from just leaning up. He let out a soft “oomf” as his chin hit the pillow, sniffing, trying to draw out the time he needed until he had to give his reply.

“Hi Namjoo-”

“Joon,” Seokjin suddenly crackled through the line, sharp and urgent “did you get the- oh? You got hold of him, thank God.”

“Yeah, I almost forgot I had his number. I feel so fucking stupid, Jinnie I- shit,” a pause, “Jimin. Look-“ his taut voice caused Jimin to jump, “I know yourself and Yoongi aren’t on very good terms, but we need you here. It’s an emergency.”

“An- emergency? I don’t know, I’m… what’s wrong?”

“It will take too long to explain, and if they catch you talking to me then I’ll be in deep water, but just… you know where the Big Hit building is, don’t you?”

“O-of course, I mean, I-“

“-Good. Okay, when you get inside… do you remember the lady who did your make up before the fansign? Misun?”

“…I remember her.”

“She’ll be waiting for you in reception, and she’ll get you through the barriers and bring you up to us, alright?”

“Um- okay… Do I need to bring anything, or-?”

“No, just get here quickl-“

“Bring Taehyung.” He heard Hoseok cut in and beg, appearing from nowhere just like Seokjin had seconds ago. A crackle followed, and Jimin was stunted by the way the conversation was halted so quickly. Somehow, he could picture Namjoon holding his gaze, steady, calm desperation looking into unadulterated terror. “Please,” he added, a little more softly, “I… I can feel something. Something’s going to happen. I… fuck.”

“Hoseok, I don’t think that’s a good idea…” the frown was evident in Namjoon’s voice, and then another pause, but a sharp intake of breath, “forget that, Jimin, please- just get here. You need to hurry. It’s a matter of life and death, Jimin.”

The line cut off, leaving him staring at a field of red.

He dropped his head to his chest, heart beating a million times a minute but still he felt strangely tranquil. His limbs were loose as he got out of bed and fumbled into a striped longsleeve and jeans, brain on autopilot when he reached for a scarf slung by his pile of shoes at the door. Something about his mind was oddly disconnected, like someone had reached into his thoughts and turned them off with a soft click, and he was an old machine, shutting down slowly-

Again, his phone vibrated, felt deep in the thick pocket of his coat. He unlocked it as he locked the door behind him, face buffeted by a wind of snow.

Jimin blinked back the flakes to read the text.

Please bring Taehyung. I’m begging you. I can’t do this without him.

“Hoseok…?” he wondered out loud, voice pulled away by the wind.

Taehyung’s house wasn’t far.

It was dark already when Jimin had stormed out of his friend’s house earlier, but now the night felt even more dyed in black, heavily hung with fresh snowclouds. The temperature had dropped significantly, and his primary thought as he entered Taehyung’s apartment block lobby was working out how he’d made it home just a few hours ago in nothing but his pyjamas.

“Well…” he whispered to himself as he pressed the button he needed in the lift, “I hope this isn’t awkward.”

As bad as it sounded, Jimin was going to let himself in. He couldn’t take the low “who is it?” and then the succession of trying to muster a supply and then being rejected. He didn’t know what for, but Hoseok needed Taehyung. Jimin had to explain that first, and he couldn’t risk being cut off.

He was lucky he remembered to grab Taehyung’s spare apartment key before he left, and with a still shaking hand, maybe only from the cold but one could never be sure, he pushed it slowly into the lock, cringing as it turned, remembering the way the clock had struck midnight the last time he checked. He had no idea how he was supposed to wake him up.

Maybe it was better to put actions before thoughts this time.

All the lights were on when Jimin opened the door, and the easy, soft glow surprised him so much he almost ran back.

A figure shifted instantly, and his eyes darted towards the living room, a name falling out of his mouth in surprise.

“Jungkookie?” said person shot up off the sofa.

“It’s not what it looks like, I promise!” the younger boy insisted, “Taehyung’s really ill, and he didn’t want to call you, and he told me you guys had a fight but he says that there’s something wrong with his soul Jimin-hyung and I really-“

“Wait, wait- stop Taehyung’s ill?”

Jungkook’s fists clenched as he looked down, “he- yeah…”

Jimin’s gaze followed, landing on Taehyung, who was planted firmly on the sofa, groaning deeply.

“Jimin..?” his voice slurred.  Bloodshot, puffy eyes tried to focus but when he whined from the effort, Jungkook pushed him down gently, shushing him and trying to get his head to rest on the pillow beneath.

“Try not to move,” Jimin heard him say softly, “we’ll figure this out.”

Taking some steps closer towards the two, he hesitantly set his bag down. Seeing Taehyung up close was worse than he expected, and Jimin tried his best not to recoil at the sight of the blood-drained, dazed face that was craning around to see him.

“Jimin-“ Taehyung’s voice sounded bad enough that he was almost desperate to beg him not to speak. Jungkook seemed to be searching through something vigorously on his phone.

“Jimin, I’m so sorry….”

Jimin swallowed something that felt far too big for his throat, struggling between the last few dregs of anger and a building sense of worry.

“…I didn’t…mean to upset you. I just wanted you to-“ he coughed, “I wanted you to feel better… I- I couldn’t stand seeing the way Yoongi left you…”

“No, no- it’s okay, Tae, really.” Jimin forced himself to say and bent down beside him, originally wanting to take his temperature, but he could feel the heat coming from his friend’s body just by inching closer. Eyes widening, he looked back up at Jungkook, whispering a soft “what’s wrong with him?” and trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Soul sickness,” Jungkook shifted out putting his phone down, “it’s… rare. I don’t know much about it, but from what I’ve researched in my own time it’s a complicated thing that really needs help to kick off…”

“What do you mean?”

Jungkook rubbed his shoulders, “the research notes I’ve got saved with me say that a number of factors have to come together to even begin the process, much less worsen it as much as this. He called me an hour ago, Jimin. And he barely even sounded ill then. He only wanted me to come over because you guys- uh…” he trailed off, “you know…”

Jimin shook his head, “I guess that’s for the best, then. You’re lucky you got to him. I would have had no idea if-“

“Jimin,” Jungkook caught his attention sharply, and then looked away, biting his lip like he’d been waiting far too long but now was too afraid to get it out. He hesitated, and then- “I hate to say this, but you’re part of the reason this is happening to him.”

Jimin froze.

“What?”

“He must have spent an extended period of time with his soulmate somewhere in the past, and now you sort of put him under extreme stress, and his body is trying to reconnect with a soulmate he hasn’t connected with yet while simultaneously getting ready for the big day as it is. It’s all piled on top of each other, and now he’s just… ill.”

“…But he can get better, right? He can hang on to the thirtieth and… get better? Surely-“

“That’s twenty days away, hyung,” Jungkook stared at him, and he cleared his throat, “I mean, I’ve never heard of someone dying from soul sickness, especially since it’s cured once you swap, but… the lasting damage...”

Jimin’s hands pulled on his hair, panic rising up from his stomach, crawling at his throat, “oh God,” he whispered harshly, hardly quiet at all, “first Namjoon called, and now this- I, just… fuck.”

Jungkook blinked, “N-Namjoon called you?”

“Y-yeah,” Jimin’s voice broke, and he felt sweat break out on his palms, ”he said that there was something wrong with Suga, and Seokjin was there and he gave me these dodgy sounding set of instructions but he won’t tell me what’s going on, and Hoseok wanted me to bring Taehyung like he sent me a text literally begging me and I-“

“This has to be connected,” Jungkook said flatly, “whatever it is.”

“Let me see the text,” Taehyung suddenly rasped, causing both boys to jump feet into the air. Jimin turned to him, floored by the lucidity of his expression. His friend’s colour-drained lips pressed into steady, firm line, shadows falling under his eyes.

“Taehyung…” Jimin trailed.

“I need to be with Hoseok!” the wheeze startled them both, and it was only when Taehyung broke out into a coughing fit that Jimin squeaked, delving for the phone in his jean pocket and rushing to open the message.

He practically snatched the phone from him, fingers curling weakly around it as he stared at the words, breathing in and out heavily.

Silence fell again, and Jimin and Jungkook exchanged glances. The latter shuffled a little on his feet, and when a considerable amount of time had passed, he raised a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Taehyung, is everything okay?”

“We have to go.” Taehyung replied, sounding like stone. It caused Jimin to flinch as he thought back to what Hoseok had sounded like during the call, voice full of the same, otherworldly determination. That in itself stirred something in his mind, something much deeper and more nauseating – something he knew he should have understood, but was far too stressed out to.

“You can barely sit up-“ Jimin wasn’t even sure if it was him or Jungkook that tried, but they both quickly cut to crying out when Taehyung let out a heavy grunt of effort and pushed himself up, first onto his elbows and then onto his hands, arms locked.

They watched him sit there, panting, hair strewn over his eyes, until he caught his breath.

He tried to move again.

“At least let me help you walk, fuck-“ Jungkook cursed and bent down, hooking Taehyung’s arm over his shoulder, muscles visibly straining as he tried to support his friend, basically a deadweight, “Jesus Christ, Jimin, thought you’d help?”

“Sorry, I-“ he blinked, rushing to support him from the other side. The pressure of the weight came instantly, and he stumbled forward, earning a groan from the others.

Taehyung managed to take all of three steps before his knees gave out, forcing him back down on the sofa. He whimpered softly and Jimin could do nothing but bite his lip, shaking.

He exchanged glances with Jungkook wordlessly, again, and saw a mirror of his own helpless reflection. The silence drew on as he was torn between Yoongi and Taehyung, standing there until Jungkook sighed quietly and reached for something on the coffee table.

“Let’s… let’s… I’ll ring a taxi,” he murmured.

Chapter Text

As Jimin had expected, the ride in the taxi was a nothing short of a nightmare. Both he and Jungkook winced as soon as the driver, a man in his late thirties with a thin beard, turned round and gasped at the state Taehyung was in.

“You didn’t set the destination for the hospital…?” his voice was holding mild panic.

“No- no- he’s fine,” Jungkook was quickly working on getting Taehyung’s seatbelt buckled, the latter groaning every time the black strip constricted too tightly across his chest. Jimin had tried to wrap him up as best he could, but with each passing minute he was only getting worse, and something told him that maybe it was better to take him to Hoseok with two layers and his conscience rather than a snuggled, comatose vegetable.

The small inkling of a feeling about Taehyung had indeed been growing, although with his own worry about Yoongi it was being repressed every time it tried to advance too much. He stared blearily out the window as Jungkook confirmed the address, having secured Taehyung, and Jimin slid down into his hood when the engine started.

“It’ll take about twenty five minutes with good traffic,” the driver added unsurely, hands loose on the wheel, “are you sure he can…?”

“I’m fine,” Taehyung rasped, with unnerving force. There was a flickering light of passion in his eyes, and maybe he exchanged glances with the driver, who knew, but either way its strength set the taxi in motion and out to join the light flow of domestic traffic. Within a few minutes they’d set a course on the main road and Jimin forced himself to try and relax. There was nothing he could do now apart from try and calmly recite the instructions Namjoon gave him in his head, watching the snow curl round the side of the car.

When they stopped at the first set of red lights, Jimin felt a hand nudge into his own, and he turned to the middle seat to find its occupant a lot closer than before. Taehyung had been leaning on Jungkook quite heavily since the start, laboured breaths exaggerated, but now he was shifting to press himself onto Jimin’s shoulder.

“Tae-“ he started, throat seizing up. He didn’t want him to move at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said, although Jimin could barely hear it.

“I think that what’s happening to Yoongi is… my fault?”

Jimin tried hard to keep his neutral, caring tone. He raised his eyebrows, “what do you mean?”

“Our… argument-“ Taehyung cut himself off, coughing. Jimin didn’t miss the narrowing of the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “And the stress thing Jungkookie was talking about… I think they’re connected again.”

“Y-you’re telling me that Yoongi has soul sickness too?”

He nodded, barely.

“But we’ve already switched?”

It was then that he noticed Jungkook’s gaze, burning furiously into the back of the seat in front of him, a sign of his common intensive thought process.

“Soul sickness after a switch…” he whispered, “I’ve never heard of it happening, but if Tae’s in this much of a state at the same time, then it could be more than just a coincidence.”

“But- then, why haven’t I got it? Why is it Yoongi and not me?”

“I think you’ve had it for a long time, Jimin.”

“I…”

“Since he rejected you, isn’t it obvious? Haven’t you realised by now?”

“I don’t… he didn’t reject me, Jungkook… he just didn’t think it was a good time to be… together.”

“Jimin, are you being serious? You’ve barely left the house for anything other than school? You don’t come to get breakfast anymore… he’s rejected you, but maybe because you didn’t realise it your body has been… holding on?”

“I think I’d know if I had something as serious as soul sickness!” Jimin insisted, eyes falling to his best friend’s chest, “look at Tae. Don’t you think I’d know if I had something like that? Are you for real? I’m fine without Yoongi. I’ve told you this so many times-”

“I don’t want to argue with you Jimin… look where that got you with Tae. He’s barely conscious.”

Jimin paused, unsettled.

“Yeah? Well, his case is… different.”

“…What?”

Jungkook shook his head “…I don’t think it’s likely Taehyung’s suffering a rejection from his soulmate, is he? Their bond is just really stressed, for some reason. Soulmates are tied to the mind, this untouchable part of us we can’t understand quite yet. Every bond is different and case by case. That’s why it’s so fascinating to me.”

“… I really should know more about this stuff.”

Jungkook shrugged and gave a heavy laugh, “Not that you’d ever learn much. What is there to teach? I mean, we know all these things about how being around your soulmate or touching them produces a ridiculous endorphin count, and pairs have special pheromones, and the body swap is caused by a maturing in the bond, which is completed when the host reunites with its mind. Did you know that soulmates can swap back just by holding hands long enough?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah but society wants to make it all romantic and soppy, so that’s what they told us to do. It just helps that because the lips are a more sexually fuelled part of us that it works faster, almost instantly. But there are some pairs who don’t like kissing… and they go their whole lives just holding hands and cuddling. That’s enough for them.”

“I… Jungkook?” Jimin could sense something in the way his friend spoke, something that pushed him to be compelled to speak.

“What is it?”

“I hope you swap with your soulmate soon.”

Something strange and lost flickered in his eyes, but then it blinked away, “I don’t think I ever will.”

“But-“

“I don’t think I will.”

Only the hum of the engine followed, and suddenly Jimin was aware of the radio, which had suddenly gotten a lot louder. Taehyung wheezing caused him to shoot up and rub his shoulders, murmuring “we’ll be there soon. In no time, don’t worry. Just a little white longer and you’ll be able to see Hoseok and then you’ll be together…”

Jimin still didn’t know what for.

An extra feeling of guilt flushed over Jimin’s face when he recongised the stylist who had been with him on the day he switched with Yoongi, but couldn’t remember her name. There was no time for greetings, though, because the second they’d passed wrinkled banknotes to the driver with a soft “thank you” and a “keep the change” and dragged Taehyung through the doors of the Bighit building, she was ushering them through the barriers and into a nearby lift.

All three of the watched, with various states of consciousness, as she pressed the number for a floor.

Jimin let out a heavy breath as he felt them begin to go up. His shoulder was burning from supporting Taehyung’s weight, and the heat from wearing his coat indoors was becoming more stifling by the second. Awkwardly, he took it off and tied it round his waist.

He glanced over at Jungkook, whose face was unreadable, staring into the wall, barely blinking.

Taehyung’s eyes were closed as he slouched partly against the handrail, a bead of sweat trailing down the side of his cheekbone. Jimin could see his heavy breathing in spite of his padded coat, and, biting his lip, he slowly leaned against him, taking his hand in his for a moment and giving it a squeeze.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said to him softly.

“I know,” he replied, with an odd sort of clarity, “but are you?”

“There isn’t much time for me to explain,” the stylist said after a heavy breath. Jimin caught sight of her drumming her fingers against her leg, “but Yoongi is… very sick. He’s been unconscious for almost two hours now, and senior management haven’t made a move to take him into the hospital. Last time I saw him was about half an hour ago – he was on the sofa in his studio, and he was still breathing okay, but he wouldn’t wake up, I- If I’m honest, I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. Since they told me to bring you up to the studio, though, then I’m guessing it’s something to do with soulmates.”

“We had a similar suspicion,” Jungkook agreed grimly, and the stylist nodded back to him firmly.

“It’s… just down this corridor. I’ll show you,” she said when the lift came to a halt, the doors creaking open to reveal a dimly lit corridor.

They travelled down it slowly, in an awkward formation as they had to support Taehyung in a space that wasn’t wide enough for three people to go side by side.

“Just here,” she said, knocking on the door they eventually approached, and Jimin heard a faint “come in!” calling from the other side. His body tensed. Namjoon.

“Hopefully he’s awake,” she murmured, curling her fingers around the handle and pushing.

Jimin drew in a sharp breath, hands flying to his mouth as he took in the sight of Yoongi. Namjoon was crouched over him, quickly standing up to turn towards them at the door, loosely gripping a damp cloth that dripped once onto the cushion beside him. Jimin could see Yoongi’s chest rise and fall, hands over it emphasising the movement, but it was obviously sporadic and pained. His face was flushed red, and his lips seemed to tremble in his sleep, the sharp sheen of his skin unclear as to whether it was water from the cloth or just a heavy layer of sweat.

“Oh my God,” he breathed, and took a step closer, sliding Taehyung unconsciously into Jungkook’s arms. Hoseok wasn’t here, and Taehyung began looking around with a slow, muted sort of diligence, trying to turn back and peak out into the corridor, voice growing in volume until it was a full-on whine.

Jungkook held him tight, gently shushing him, and Jimin left it at that. He felt his pulse pick up, and as he drew closer to his soulmate’s unconscious body he could have sworn he saw it move, or at least twitch a little in reaction to his presence. Namjoon’s attention had become completely divided, trying to get words out while still paying check to making sure his bandmate was okay.

“I wasn’t in the room when this happened,” was the first thing he said, utterly laced with guilt, “but I recognised the symptoms from the first few weeks after leaving Seokjin for the first time… it’s soul-“

“soul-sickness,” Jungkook confirmed, “we guessed that on the way. It looks pretty fucking bad, and we think Taehyung’s got it, too.”

“I- what?” Namjoon blinked, looking past Jimin’s shoulder at the mangled form of Jungkook, still holding a weakly struggling Taehyung in the doorway.

“Where’s Hoseok…?” Taehyung murmured, eyes drooping and drawing everyone’s attention. His jaw went slack just before the rest of his body did, and Jungkook cried out as his weight suddenly became so much more, knees almost hitting the ground before he had gathered enough strength to pull him up.

Jimin was torn between rushing back to help, and responding to the sound of Yoongi’s meek breathing. It was cold, and childish and pitiful. His soul screamed for him.

“This is… a lot more complicated than I thought,” Namjoon said slowly.

“You’re telling us?” Jungkook laughed flatly, and grunted with the strain, “do you mind giving me a hand? Someone?”

“Fuck, yes- Misun, could you just… help me turn this into a recliner? We can fit them both on that way- fuck, I need still need to call Seokjin and get Hoseok back in here.”

“Don’t-“ Taehyung began to protest when Jungkook tried to move him closer to the sofa, the added weight of his resistance making him near impossible to be moved, “I need- I need to find… Hoseok.”

“You’re hardly in a state to start doing that, Tae!” Jungkook insisted, getting increasingly flustered, “you’re sick, you need to lie down!”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he almost growled, and Jimin watched with a panicked expression as his friend somehow managed to break away from Jungkook’s hold, stumbling towards the door, his words almost incoherent. When he reached the threshold he paused, panting, and turned his head weakly to face everyone.

“Guys, I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know what it is I just need to- I can’t explain it but I have to be with him. And that text… I think he’s feeling the same.”

“I have no idea where he is,” Namjoon said, voice weak, “I called him when I found Yoongi-hyung and he’s been looking for the managers ever since. He could be anywhere.”

“It’s okay,” Taehyung tried to sound as firm as he could, “I’ll find him. You can stay here. When I find him… I think I’ll feel better.”

“Let me go with you-“ Jungkook asserted as best he could, “Just- just in case you fall, or you need someone to support you for a bit. Once I’ve checked over Suga just quickly - you can’t go by yourself, at least.”

“Fine,” Taehyung said, “but let’s hurry up.”

“Right… It-it’s definitely a form of shock,” Jungkook paced up and down, itching between getting his phone out and putting it away, “Mr Rap Monster… what time did you say this happened to him?”

“I mean I found him about ten past nine, but I can’t guarantee how long he’d been out for before that.”

“A sudden sickness caused by a stress fluxuation through a soulmate bond, is how I’m defining it, for now,” Jungkook bit his lip and tapped it out onto his phone, “the same with Taehyung… who started getting pretty sick at around the same time, so they need to be linked, like we were saying in the taxi. Damn… there really are so many things about soulmates that we don’t understand, aren’t there?”

“Ten past nine…” The thought bubbled to the surface clearly enough for Jimin to speak it, and his eyes narrowed for a second, turning to look back at the tense face of his soulmate, “isn’t that a little bit after the time that Taehyungie and I had that… argument?”

Namjoon sat up, office chair squeaking, “you had an argument?”

“I remember walking home feeling really ill, actually,” Jimin mumbled, forcing everyone to lean in to keep themselves in earshot, “I got back indoors to my apartment and I was all shaky. I thought it was just because I was walking home in just my pyjamas in the middle of December, but… maybe it was soul sickness that I was feeling.”

“H-how do you feel now?” Jungkook asked hastily.

“Fine? I suppose,” Jimin said, “just really, really worried.”

A reluctant quiet followed.

“Please,” Taehyung begged gently, “can we go, Jungkook? Jimin’s here now – you know there’s nothing more that you can do. Let me find Hoseok.”

“Okay,” was the breathy response he received, and Jungkook stood still for another few moments, fists clenched, before he moved towards the door, taking his friend’s arm over his shoulder again.

“Let’s find him as fast as we can,” he said, “so we can get back here to resolve this mess properly.”

Taehyung nodded and began to pull on him, but then his body halted, and his head turned.

“Jimin-“

They locked eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Make sure Yoongi gets better. Remember what I was saying.”

“…Okay, Tae.”

With Taehyung and Jungkook gone, the full weight of the situation began to creep back onto Jimin’s shoulders. He turned back to Namjoon, who was again crouching down beside Yoongi’s sleeping form, having quietly whispered to Misun to see if she could find some water, or at least something to help bring down his fever.

“Now that you’re here,” he said to Jimin steadily, “it’ll hopefully help to wake him up.”

“How?” Jimin took a tentative step forward, “do you know what I need to do?”

Namjoon nodded, “not like it’s anything much to go by, but based on my own relationship with Jin… just- for now, come and sit down in front of him here. Maybe hold his hand. Talk to him.”

“Um… okay. I’ll… try,” Jimin replied, approaching slowly and crouching down next to Yoongi as he did so. This close, he could hear his soulmate’s breathing with complete clarity, and some colour drained from his face when he realised just how weak it was.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t take him to the hospital,” he added. He hesitantly lifted his hand to clasp around Yoongi’s, which was resting just about his stomach, and felt his pulse pick up at the warm buzz.

“Think about it logically – what if this all gets out?” Namjoon said, “you know that no one can know that you’re his soulmate. It’s too big a risk.”

Jimin bit his lip and shook his head, still trying to process the fact that he really was actually back here, with Yoongi. His soulmate. Would he ever get over that? “It just all seems so wrong to me.”

“Some may think so, but the point is now that you’re here, you focus on helping him get better. That’s a conversation for another time, I think.”

“…Fine. But I’m going to bring it up again,” Jimin replied, a little shocked at the intensity of his own words.

Namjoon held his gaze for a while, a strange tilt to his eyebrows, and then got up, walking towards the door.

“Misun is taking too long,” he explained when Jimin opened his mouth to question, “I want to see if she’s okay. She might have run into Hoseok, or Taehyung and Jungkook. Or worse, one of the managers…” He sighed heavily, and pulled his hands down his face, “this is one of the most stressful evenings of my life,” to which Jimin could only wince in agreement, finding himself staring at an empty doorway.

Alone, he realised. With Yoongi. Again.

Gradually as not to pull on his soulmate’s arm, he readjusted his body to a more comfortable position, kneeing on the floor with his free hand up around the army of the chair. He awkwardly untied his coat from around his wasit, skin brushing against the very tip of Yoongi’s hair.

“Yoongi,” Jimin whispered, still fascinated by how big and warm his soulmates hand was in his, “please wake up… I need you to wake up now. We’re all worried about you.”

There wasn’t much of a response; Yoongi continued to breathe fitfully, lying still but at the same time animate enough for his fingers to twitch or his expression to darken. As soon as the former happened in the hand Jimin was holding, he squeezed a little harder, hoping to see him react, but still nothing.

“I’ve been worrying about you not just now, not just about this, but for a long time,” Jimin continued quietly, a little hesitantly at first, perhaps. “Even back before I knew we were soulmates, I always worried about you. All the tight schedules and the crazy diets… sometimes my concern about your health was stronger than my excitement for a comeback,” he laughed softly, feeling his eyes get warmer. He was amazed at how much he was managing to say, the source of his words staying muffled in his mind. “But you guys were so famous that I couldn’t even begin to hope that you’d see the messages I posted for you, wishing you a good day or telling you to remember to eat. I felt really powerless to know that I couldn’t get through to you, someone I admired so much. Being with you here… holding your hand like this… there’s no way you could tell the me of last year that something like this would happen. But here I am now, by your side but still powerless to help you. It’s- it’s all my fault, Suga. I’m so sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be sorry.”

“Of course I should be! If I hadn’t hidden myself sulking away like a child we wouldn’t have… had… to- S-Suga?” his eyes widened, “you’re-?”

The body beneath him stirred, and Jimin looked up to see his soulmate’s eyes flutter partly open, a weird combination of a frown and smile spreading across his tired face.

“It’s me that needs to apologise,” his voice was so rough, rougher than Taehyung’s had been, but Jimin could hear the strength coming back behind it, “I’m so fucking sorry, I-“ he coughed as he tried to sit up, and Jimin panicked, torn between pushing his head back against the jacket Namjoon had arranged as a makeshift pillow, or helping him up further.

“M-Maybe now’s not the best time to talk about that,” Yoongi admitted faintly, his grin turning bitter, “when I’m back to myself, I promise-“

“Are you still feeling faint?” Jimin asked quickly, “are you thirsty? Too hot… or, or cold-“

“I’m fine,” Yoongi replied, but then his throat seized up and he began to cough again, much to Jimin’s fright. “I guess a bit of water wouldn’t hurt.”

This whole situation felt barely real.

“Water… okay…” Jimin gently pulled away, trying not to wince at how loose and limp Yoongi’s hand felt when they disconnected. His mind felt so full of thoughts, and he could barely process the sight in front of him as he looked around desperately for a drink, among all the clutter on the desk, or the shelves-

Something crumpled under his feet, and Jimin looked down to see a squashed ball of paper. About to disregard it, he moved to kick it away, but a small flash of ink visible caught his eye, and he couldn’t help but freeze despite the situation.

Was that… his name?

Heart racing, he bent down to pick it up, only to suddenly have a hand clamp over his wrist.

Jumping, Jimin looked up, following the arm, which was shaking with effort.

“No… don’t read that- holy shit… please don’t touch any of them-” it was Yoongi, half off the sofa, body uncomfortably curled over.

And suddenly Jimin realised that they were everywhere.

The clutter on the desk, on the floor… most of it was all crumpled pieces of paper, some still with bits of their inside exposed, full of writing and crossed out lines and much more incoherent scribbles.

“They’re…” Yoongi began, and Jimin looked at him, slowly helping him sit back down, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Are… you okay?” he asked.

His soulmate took another minute to catch his breath, during which time Jimin came to the distressing conclusion that there really was nothing to drink into the room, only vaguely remembering what Namjoon and Misun had left for.

“If you’re gonna read one then read this one. Please,” Yoongi said, pulling a ball of paper out of his pocket.

Jimin took it, but kept hold of his hand, almost thrown off by how steady his gaze was. Yoongi’s face was almost as red as the walls, and he had no idea if that was the apparent fever or something else. Jimin wondered for a worrying few seconds if he was going to faint again.

“They’re all letters I’ve been trying to write to you. Trying to apologise.”

“They… Su-…Yoongi, why?”

“I don’t know, I just- I couldn’t express it. The more time passed the harder the idea of actually talking face to face became, and with that each letter became harder to write… until I was just left with this mess. Living in this studio like a tramp or something with all this fucking rubbish around me. This letter is the best I could do. It’s the last one I wrote. If it doesn’t explain it enough, then I’m sorry, Jimin. I don’t deserve you at all.” He blinked, eyes growing wet too, and looked at the floor “I’m a piece of shit, really,” Yoongi leaned forward, and Jimin felt his hand start to pull away from their shared grasp, but with a squeeze he managed to stop it.

“Yoongi, you’re not-“

“No, I am. Honestly,” he sighed, head hanging low as his elbows pressed on the very edge of his knees, “I’ve just been awful to you, this whole time. Even when I was under just now I could feel all this misery that I couldn’t escape and I..I just can’t imagine what these past few months have been like for you, going it alone. Just thinking about it now feels like there’s something in my chest, eating me. It’s awful.”

Jimin regarded him. He felt that maybe the silence he was giving him was a little too excessive, but he needed to try and arrange the thoughts in his mind.

“I’m not going to lie and say I was fine,” he said after what ended up being a long and uncomfortable pause, taking in his soulmate’s sad expression. He saw Yoongi’s shoulders tense in a wince, “I’ve been sad, I’ve been angry, tired, depressed, all these things. But I trusted you, Yoongi, you’re my soulmate. That’s what soulmates do for each other. They make sure there is someone to be there for them. Jungkook spews all this science crap but deep down we were put together for a reason, and yeah, I guess when you rejected me it hurt. But I knew somehow that things would be okay in the end. Or maybe I was actually kidding myself,” Jimin shrugged, “I have no idea. But that doesn’t matter. We’re here now. You’re sorry - you’ve said you’re sorry, so I’ll forgive you, if you like.”

Yoongi shook his head, “not yet. You have to read the letter first. I need to earn it.”

“Earn it? How?”

“By being a good soulmate,” he squeezed Jimin’s hand back, and a wave of warmth filled his body, mind buzzing. “I’ll be there for you, like you said. A pillar of support that you can rely on and not some shitty guy running away from the best thing that will probably even happen to him.”

“Yoongi…”

“And I’m going to punch Bighit in the face, and call them out on all this obligation of secrecy bullshit. I want to make things right with them, make them feel guilty for convincing me that having a soulmate would ruin my career. And then, fuck, I’m going to tell the whole world who we are, Jimin, that on the thirteenth of October I found my soulmate, like everyone else in the world fucking does, and I’m not going to be brought down because of that. And then, maybe, in time, if you still think I deserve you… then… maybe we can even start working on loving each other, like other soulmates do. I know I fucked up my chance at loving you the first time, but… is it alright if we try? I don’t know how I could carry on just thinking if that wasn’t possible.”

Jimin smiled, having listened in a softening silence, finally speaking through a throat full of tears “of course it is. Of course it is, Yoongi.”

Namjoon arrived back with Misun and three other managers a few minutes later. Jimin, face still red from crying and throat a little sore, was taken aback with the intensity of which Yoongi stared at the staff aside from the stylist. He watched his soulmate’s hands tense around the threadbare blanket, strength not quite yet returned far enough to turn them white, but the glare itself did enough. He was angry, and when he was better, he was going to make them listen to what he had to say.

Something swelled up in Jimin’s chest at that, and he leaned the final few inches to rest against Yoongi’s shoulder to emphasise his silent point, even if the position was a little uncomfortable. He let out a small sigh at the feeling of warmth between their bodies, mind humming as he began to wonder back through the day – it must be getting near midnight now, and suddenly he was like this. Together, with his soulmate. Not in love, no – not quite yet. At least, not in the way he wanted it.

“Got water, finally,” Namjoon bent down to pass it to his bandmate, and gave a small smile, “how do you feel?” he gave a less-than-subtle glance to Jimin after asking, and Jimin flushed, wondering if anything had been said between those two that he’d need to find out about.

“I feel like I need to sleep for a week, honestly,” Yoongi mumbled, rubbing the side of his face with his free hand, squashing his nose and his lips, “I’m so tired.”

Namjoon chuckled, “I’m glad you’re back to normal, in that case.”

For that, he got a dirty glare, which only served to make him laugh harder. Jimin couldn’t resist joining in, and he caught a quiet smirk from Misun out of the corner of his eye as she watched with her arms folded. The strange, shadow-like presence of the managers rung strange alarm bells in his mind, much like, Jimin now realised, that they had done while he was in Yoongi’s body. But this was an important moment, and he refused to turn around to even so much as glance at them.

For now, they’d remain faceless. He’d let his soulmate do what he wanted to them. All that was important to him was that now, at least, they were together. And Yoongi was ready to try. Did he need to ask for anything more?

And that was it, for the next hour or so at least. It hadn’t taken long for the managers to excuse themselves (not until after a few blunt words with their main rapper), and Misun smiled tiredly and admitted that she really needed to get home before her dog starved to death. Leaving just Namjoon, Jimin and Yoongi in the room helped settle a comfortable silence, one full of small, maybe even shy glances between the latter two. Jimin just enjoyed getting used to his soulmate’s presence again.

“Alright, see you in a bit,” Namjoon finished the call he was making, locking the screen and turning to Yoongi (and Jimin, who had joined him tucked under the blanket). Jimin noticed how the rapper couldn’t completely hide his relieved smile at the sight. “…I just got off the phone with Seokjin. He’s going to bring some hot food up here for us all.”

“Great,” Yoongi grumbled, “I’m starving, really,” to which yet more laughter echoed.

“My soulmate probably wants to have a talk with you, Jimin, I’m guessing,” Namjoon added with a firm nod, “it looks like there is a lot of soulmate PR shit to deal with - you and Yoongi-hyung and me and Seokjin.. Damn, I really wonder how the fans are going to react knowing that two members of BTS are already soulmated-“

“Make that three,” a warm voice trailed into the room, and Jimin’s eyes shot up to see Hoseok in the doorway, a broad, heart-shaped smile right across his face. His arm was waving by his side a little, and Jimin followed the trail down to his hand, where he realised that Hoseok’s fingers were, in fact, intertwined with someone else’s.

“T-Taehyung?” he blurted out, eyes going wide as the two rappers either side of him came to the same realisation.

“Not quite,” the person sliding into view admitted. He still looked pale, and the bags under his eyes hadn’t fully retreated, but a different, more relaxed aura came from him now. He gave a small, breathy laugh, and clutched the hand in his tighter. “I’m Hoseok.”

Unsure where to look, Jimin let his eyes dart back and forth between the two in the doorway, both sporting equally warm expressions as they stepped into the studio.

“S-So-“ he tried to begin, mouth opening and closing a few times, “you two are really…”

“That’s right!” Hoseok (who-was-actually-Taehyung) beamed, “Jimin, I’m so happy, it’s so unreal to be like this! Even when I’ve read up people’s accounts and descriptions I had no idea it would feel this great- I mean-“

“Hang on,” Yoongi sat up, a sudden crease in his brow, “so you two have switched… but I thought Taehyung’s birthday was at the end of this month?”

“It’s a complicated one to explain,” Jungkook accepted, taking everyone by surprise as he followed the couple in, “but all this soul sickness that’s been flung around all evening is probably the main cause of it. I’m not surprised by anything anymore,” he shrugged, “it just means I’ve been able to make some notes to add to my research. Who knows, it might be of use someday?”

“But until his birthday-“ Hoseok-in-Taehyung’s-body added, “I’m pretty sure we’re stuck like this.”

“You mean you can’t switch back?” Jimin gasped, “d-didn’t you kiss?”

“Oh, we tried quite hard,” Taehyung winked, “trust me. But it didn’t work. We don’t mind being like this for a while though – it’s just an excuse for us to spend more time together really.”

Yoongi scoffed, “you don’t need to be in each other’s bodies to do that.”

“It’s a good excuse though, huh?” Taehyung teased, and Hoseok snorted.

“Well- I plan to spend a lot of time with my soulmate, switches or not…” Yoongi grunted, a mock-sour expression on his face, to which Jimin curled his head into his soulmate’s chest out of embarrassment.

With everyone settled into the room, Jungkook closed the door and took the last spare seat (to which Namjoon threatened that Seokjin would be complaining about when he arrived), and a livelier chatter soon began to grow. The blanket Jimin was sharing with Yoongi had shifted away from their chests, gathering at their waists. As soon as the rapper realised this, he set down his finished cup and pulled the material up again, right to their chins.

Underneath, to the energetic, rich laughter of the room, he sought to copy Taehyung and Hoseok as he sneaked his hand again into Jimin’s wordlessly, well hidden under the cover of the blanket.

Jimin looked at his soulmate warmly, then closed his eyes and smiled.

Even when the food came, neither of them let go.

Chapter Text

As a star-struck teenager, there had been many times when Jimin would quietly fall asleep at night, staring lovingly at his idol posters, and wonder what life would be like if Min Yoongi was in love with him.

He imagined decadent getaways in hot, exotic places, spending money under the moon, drinking wine with names he couldn’t pronounce. Telling the maitre d’hotel that yes, he was the plus one of world-famous, superstar rapper, Suga. Pulling up to his concerts secretly, backstage in a dark car driven by a refined old man with a well-groomed white moustache. The same man would open the door for him, and he’d step out, shielding his eyes from the paparazzi who found him anyway even though his lover had already ensured he was well-kitted out in thick, black sunglasses and a facemask.

“Park Jimin!” a reporter cried, pushing her way through the cameras and trying her best to get her microphone in his mouth, “Five News! Tell us, how do you feel knowing that your boyfriend’s album has reached number one in 73 countries across the world?”

Of course, Jimin wouldn’t just be known as ‘Suga’s boyfriend’. He’d dance, too. Properly this time. Out of school, realising his dreams with Taehyung still hopefully beside him, the one who he could come back to after a long day’s practice to and play video games on the 70” flat screen Yoongi had given him for his 21^st birthday.

Yoongi and Jimin’s days would be schedules packed full of performances, photoshoots and interviews, but somehow, they, soulmated, would always find time for each other in the end.

That’s the kind of thing a young, sixteen-year-old Jimin would drift off to, if he was lucky, being able to continue the same day-dream in his actual dreams. When it would become more vivid and tangible, when the hot sun was actually hot, and the cool feeling of stepping down into a faraway swimming pool, letting the water around him hug his body, only for Yoongi to pull him further in gently, already dripping himself, to press wet lips against his under the fond gazes of millions-

ALLTHEUNDERDOGSINTHEWORLD

“Jimin, fuck-“ Yoongi half-screeched, letting out a low string of grumbles as he sat up, dazed, searching in the dark for the alarm.

THEDAYMAYCOMEWHENWELOSE

“I’m sorry! I just set it to be a little louder so it would definitely wake us up-!” Jimin cried back, arms flailing.

BUTITISNOTTODAY

He became a tangled mess with his soulmate as they buried themselves underneath the duvet, searching for Jimin’s phone, the alarm set to play Not Today, of all things.

“Today we fight!” Namjoon yelled from the speakers as Yoongi scowled at the offending device. A little alarm clock danced across the bright light of the screen.

“Shut the fuck up, Joonie,” he punched the phone with his knuckle, and the sound stopped.

Now that it had fallen quiet, Jimin’s pulse began to slow again. He shifted on the bed, running his hand up and down his arm as his skin bristled in the cool air of the hotel room.

Yoongi squeezed his eyes shut, nose scrunching as his body obviously tried to get used to being awake again.

“I was having a dream,” he murmured to Jimin, gathering him up in his arms softly and pulling him towards the head of the bed where they could lean.

The pout that came with it made Jimin chuckle, and their hands laced.

“What about?”

“I don’t remember much. You were there, and Taehyung. I think Namjoon had let a dog perform on stage with us and it kept knocking over the speakers.”

Jimin hummed in response, craning his neck to look round at him, “maybe you’re nervous about tonight?”

“When am I not?” Yoongi chuckled, and Jimin felt the warmth of it through his bare back.

“You’ll be fine,” he assured him, “now, time to get up and get ready.”

All this earned was another groan from his soulmate, who wound his arms tighter around him.

“Noooo- I’m not having any of these games-“ Jimin insisted, sitting up but wincing as pain shot through his legs, “ow, fuck-“

“What hurts?” Yoongi leaned forward, sudden concern flooding his voice, “was I too rough las-“

“No, no, it’s not that,” Jimin half-laughed, “I think I’m just overworked. Especially since this whole fiasco of having to rework the formation after Sungwoo got sick. I’ve never danced so much in my life. And now I have to do it all again, today.”

“Well,” Yoongi shrugged, “you set the alarm.”

“Hey!” he elbowed him, “at least I’m looking out for us! You want it to be like that time in Madrid when everyone had gotten halfway through breakfast before Taehyung and Hoseok realised we weren’t even awake yet?”

“If it means getting more sleep,” his soulmate replied, “then yes, I do.”

Jimin turned around and kissed him playfully, once on the cheek and then on the lips.

“Just get up, Suga,” he said, too knowingly, drawing his arms away and swinging his legs over the mattress.

Yoongi felt his throat constrict, and his fists curled in the sheets for a second.

“Rise and shine, baby,” Jimin added, watching him reluctantly make a move towards getting ready for the day. It was a big day, after all.

 “Jesus Christ,” he watched Yoongi moan as he checked the time again, “five am. When will I ever let myself live?”

No, Jimin reflected, watching the half-awake rapper stumble out of bed with his boxers only barely covering his backside, padding reluctantly to the bathroom, life when Min Yoongi was in love with him was nothing like he had imagined.

But that wasn’t a bad thing, not at all.

“They finally did it, you know,” Hoseok raised his eyebrows knowingly, waving his phone a small distance away from Jimin’s face.

“Did what?” he blinked, a croissant half out of his mouth, ankles at war with Taehyung’s feet under the breakfast table.

“An ARMY managed to find out your birthday and track down some albums that you signed when you were switched with Yoongi-hyung.”

He choked on his food, looking at the screen properly now, “oh, shit-“ Hoseok had The Korean Times up on display, and there was a picture of he and Yoongi, arms linked and heading back stage, alongside a snapshot of an open, autographed album on someone’s bed.

Yoongi leaned over as well.

“We’re not gonna get done for fraud or something are we?” the rapper mumbled, worried.

“Well, I dunno,” Hoseok shrugged, “there seem to be a couple of disappointed fans, but I think most people are excited? I mean, they technically got to meet you and your precious Jimin at the same time. And, well…” he blushed, and Jimin noticed his thumb running over Taehyung’s knuckle, “there’s definitely something special about soulmates when they’re switched, isn’t there?”

“You’re only saying that because you got to have Taehyung on stage with you for the first half of our tour that year,” Yoongi added some more rice to his bowl.

“Come on,” Hoseok smiled, “how were we supposed to know that it wasn’t his birthday that was going to switch us back?”

“I bet you two had such a dirty time before Jungkookie solved your crisis.”

“I’d hardly call it a crisis, hyung. Especially since I can tell more than a few stories about the times when we’ve toured and the walls have been a little thin. I mean, you and Jimin are-“

“I think-“ Seokjin put his bowl down on the table, very loudly, “that it’s about time we turn the subject towards Jimin’s plans for back-up dancing tonight.”

And Jimin blushed furiously, trying to hide his face behind a small slice of toast.

“I mean, it can’t be helped, all that excitement around you guys,” Hoseok grinned, and Yoongi audibly groaned because he wouldn’t shut up about it, “especially since you two are the only soulmate couple in BTS that doesn’t post regular selcas together. Jungkookie isn’t even anything to do with the group but he’s featured on our twitter more than you two.”

“Nothing’s wrong with wanting to have a private relationship,” Yoongi’s brow furrowed as they walked backstage after the soundcheck, “I don’t want to be thrusting my soulmate’s face into the public eye every week. We get enough attention as it is. Did you hear how loud it got out there when he came on with the dance troupe? I’m starting to think that having him actually head the team this time around wasn’t a good idea. People are noticing more. I don’t know if he likes it.”

Hoseok shook his head, “our fans care about you, Yoongi, and they care about Jimin, too, so there’s no need to worry. You can see it in the way they all supported you when you revealed that you were soulmated. And now you’ve helped encourage other idols to reveal it as well, with much less backlash than we all thought. The fans just think you two are adorable. I think you two are adorable.”

Yoongi blushed, “sh-shut up-“

The smugness in Hoseok’s expression grew, his smile tired but wide and heart-shaped. “And to think three years ago you hated the idea…”

“…Don’t remind me of that.”

“I won’t, don’t worry,” he assured him, “but I’m just saying!” he skipped through the doorway to the dressing room where their soulmates sat. That is, if one counted Seokjin, long limbs haphazardly over Namjoon’s lap already, trying to make sure he wasn’t too dehydrated from the soundcheck.

“Hoseokie!” Taehyung gleamed from the sofa, arms stretched wide in waiting.

Still waiting for Jimin to come back, Yoongi settled beside the newest couple – if they could even be considered that new anymore – and watched them for a while. Taehyung was a never ending fountain of energy, much like Hoseok really, except he was a lot more unpredictable in a way that was not unexciting. Refreshing, he’d judged at one point, when he reflected on the October day they’d spent together. A good match for Hoseok, at last, he thought to himself.

“Really, though,” Hoseok inclined his head towards Yoongi when Taehyung was distracted by a text from Jungkook, his voice low and steady, “I’m so glad you and I found our soulmates, hyung.”

Yoongi nodded, “me too, Hoseokie.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to do this?” Yoongi asked, and Jimin playfully brushed the worried hands off his shoulders.

“Yes, hyung. I must have reassured you so many times already today. It’s not like we haven’t done this before. And besides, I’m only on for half the show, so shouldn’t this be something I should be asking you, huh?”

“But you were so tired this morning,” he frowned, “at breakfast, remember?”

Jimin huffed, “it doesn’t matter. Really. I’m fine! I love dancing, and I love that I can dance on stage with you! A little tiredness isn’t going to get me down.”

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed, “I know you,” he said, “you always do this, pretending that you’re fine and putting me first.”

The only thing Jimin think of to do to reassure him was grasp his chin gently and press a small kiss to his mouth. Yoongi held on longer than he should have, maybe, because he was being gently elbowed by a coughing Namjoon, who was looking pointedly at the lights dimming on the stage outside.

“Suga,” Jimin whispered, “I’m fine, you’re fine, let’s do this. We haven’t got much time now, so let’s go.”

“I love you,” Yoongi blurted, and it made his soulmate jump.

Even though he’d heard it before, so many times since they’d first met, and even though it was something he simultaneously hoped to hear and never thought he would hear again, it never failed to make Jimin feel warm.

“I love you, too,” he smiled, and tapped his hand gently, “so go out there and do what made me fall in love with you in the first place.”

Yoongi had never rapped better in his life.