Chapter Text
You first see him when you’re ten. It’s dusk and you’re playing in the purple tint of the disappearing sun. You know your mother is seconds away from calling you in to wash up before dinner, but you’re determined to step on every brilliant orange leaf in the yard pretending to stomp out flames with a crunch. You’re busy doing so when you see the old woman who lives across the street being ushered out by a very pale young man. You notice because his clothes are dark as the night and his skin almost glows in contrast.
He stands to the side as she shuts the door and he offers his elbow. They make their way down the path and onto the sidewalk. You can see that the old woman is talking and the young man nods every once in a while, hunched down slightly probably in order to hear her better. You don’t realize that you’re staring until the young man’s head snaps up and his eyes meet yours from across the street. He halts the both of them and the old woman’s eyes find you standing in the yard as well. They both stare. You stare back until you remember that your mom said that friendly neighbors greet each other. You wave.
The old woman lifts her hand, but the young man just continues staring. The strange interaction ends when they continue on their way and your mother yells for you from the open door. She doesn’t greet the neighbors from the door and ambulance lights pierce through the night just after your family has had dinner. All the neighbors close by trickle out of their homes to watch the commotion. You peek from behind your parents though they try to keep you inside. Later on, you learn that the old woman across the street had passed.
If you think hard enough, you’d realize that that wasn’t the first time you had seen the pale boy. You had first met him when you were five. You’d been traipsing around the perimeter of the woods by the local park when you stumbled upon an injured bird on the ground. You crouched down, little hands fluttering above the tiny creature as it struggled. Unsure of what to do, all you could do was fret. Soon enough, it stopped moving and even at that age, you were almost entirely sure of the poor thing’s death.
The tremble of your lip threatened tears, but before they could fall, leaves crunched under soft steps. Thinking it was your mother, you had exclaimed your distress.
“Mom! The birdie isn’t moving! What do I do?”
The voice that answered wasn’t your mother’s, but that of a young man’s.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
Your head snapped up and you stood, apprehensive as he approached. He spared you a small smile before crouching down in a position similar to one that you were in earlier. His limbs were much longer and crouching down made him curl in on himself making the boy look scared and much younger than you knew he was. You watched fascinated as he reached out and stroked the feathery blue of the bird’s head with a finger.
A gasp left you as the bird began moving as if waking gently. The boy whispers a hello to the little bird and stands back up with a gummy smile. The bird is in flight in moments and the boy turns to leave. It follows and flies after him as you gape at the departing pair.
“Wait!” Your curiosity was getting the best of you. “Who are you?”
The boy looks over his shoulder and tilts his head. You take it for confusion.
“What’s your name?”
His voice is soft as he answers.
“Yoongi.”
~~~
At fifteen, you sit in the living room in a crisply pressed black dress and stockings. Your family was supposed to be on the way to your grandmother’s calling hours ten minutes ago. You don’t have to ask to know that your father had gone after your mother to go soothe her. Even from the living room you hear the soft sobs coming from a couple rooms away. You feel bad that you don’t feel worse. Your grandmother lived quite a distance away, so you don’t have the basis of a deep relationship to wreck you upon her death.
That’s what your sadness is based on. The missed opportunities. You suppose that all sadness is based on the death of a choice - the choice to get to know someone better while they were alive or the choice not to. You’re sat contemplating the nature of grief when you hear the front door open and close. A figure swathed in dark clothing comes into view and you recognize him almost immediately.
“Hello,” you say.
Like the first time you saw him, his head snaps up at his sudden awareness of your presence. It takes a beat for him to reply.
“Hello,” he says. “You can still see me.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
He was initially headed towards the room your parents were in, but he turns his body to face you completely.
“Yoongi, right?”
He nods. His posture is just as bad as you remember.
“What are you doing here?” you ask.
Yoongi ventures further into the living room and perches himself on the piano bench off to your left. He has his back to the keys to face where you’re seated on the couch.
“I’m just here to visit and pay my respects.”
A lot of people had been coming to the house to pay their respects recently.
“Oh. Well, thank you for coming by.”
~~~
Very few people ever thanked him for appearing. He almost laughed. It truly was a testament to her because Yoongi couldn’t remember the last time he had done so. Yoongi wasn’t sure what it would even sound like coming out of him after years of disuse.
“You’re welcome,” he says instead. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Yoongi looks at her closely. The girl couldn’t be younger than sixteen yet she could still see him. It’s less of a surprise when young children and animals are aware of him, but the children usually grow out of it. This was a first and he was more than a little intrigued.
“Thank you,” she says. “It’s alright though. I think grandma will be fine.”
Yoongi’s head tilts of its own accord. He couldn’t feel the same grief coming from her that was emanating strongly from the other room. She was at peace and she had already accepted this death. She had accepted him.
Yoongi doesn’t have to visit her again until five years later. She is older, wiser and more beautiful than he thought possible. He wishes he could see her for reasons other than to be the bearer of bad news, but to never see her at all would be worse. He thought so anyway until she greets him with a potent mix of hostility and fear.
“What are you doing here?” she asks in mimicry of her exact words years ago. Her tone is harsher. “Go. Leave. There’s no reason for you to be here.”
She gets up from her bed all tense limbs and angry lines. Yoongi hangs his head as she snatches her phone from her desk. It doesn’t take long for her to find the message that sends her flying out of the room. She shoves him in the process and Yoongi is too shocked at her touch that he doesn’t process her departure until he hears a crash from the room across the apartment.
He finds her in her flatmate’s room - her best friend’s room. This much he knows. Yoongi feels her mounting grief before he even enters and it hits him like a wall when he crosses the threshold.
She stands in the middle of the room looking around as if she’ll find her friend tucked in bed or at her desk. He sees her hope die in her eyes when he enters.
“I hate you,” she says on a broken whisper.
Yoongi has been who he is for a long time. He’d long ago accepted his duties, but he couldn’t remember ever feeling as terrible as he does now.
“I’m sorry,” he replies just as quietly.
Her eyes are red rimmed and her hands shake.
“I hate you,” she says more broken than before.
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
She crumples in on herself at that and Yoongi is stepping forward, grabbing her arms before he can even think about what he’s doing. The two of them fall to the floor in a heap and she beats and thrashes on his chest sobbing all the while. Yoongi lets her.
~~~
You come to in a bed that isn’t yours and you’re still in the same clothes you had on last night. It all comes comes back to you when you feel how swollen your eyes are and see the tear stains on the pillow. You get up with an ache that has settled soul deep and leave your best friend’s room for your own. Halfway down the hall and you see him sitting in the living room looking every bit a shadow in the sunlight.
Yoongi looks up when he notices you standing in the hall.
“You’re up,” he says sitting up a little straighter.
Looking at him makes the ache sting a little more. He winces. You don’t spare him a thought as you turn to leave.
“Leave.”
You’re about to close the door to your room when you hear him speak again.
“I can’t.”